Greg Laughlin

Infobox_Congressman
name = Greg Laughlin


date of birth = birth date and age|1942|1|21
place of birth = Bay City, Texas
state = Texas
district = 14th
term_start = January 3, 1989
term_end = January 3, 1997
preceded = Mac Sweeney
succeeded = Ron Paul
party = Democrat
Republican
spouse =
children =
religion =

Gregory H. "Greg" Laughlin (born January 21, 1942) is a politician from the state of Texas. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives.

Laughlin was born in Bay City, Texas, and he graduated from Texas A&M University. Laughlin served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1970 and later was a reservist. Before election to Congress in 1988, he practiced law in Texas and served as Assistant District Attorney in Houston, Texas, for four years.

A conservative Democrat, Laughlin ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 1986, but was then victorious in 1988 when he defeated conservative Republican Mac Sweeney. Laughlin survived a bitter re-election campaign during the next cycle despite allegations involving favoritism to a firm several years earlier.

Laughlin was the only member of Congress to see active duty during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves.

In 1995, the Republican party, which had recently gained a majority in the House for the first time in decades, offered Laughlin a seat on the Ways and Means committee if he joined the Republican Party. Laughlin did so, claiming that as a Democrat, he had to make some hard votes.

In the subsequent congressional election in 1996, Laughlin was endorsed by the Republican establishment, including then-Governor George W. Bush, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and other members of the party from outside the district and the state. Despite this, Republicans in Laughlin's district still saw him as too moderate, and he faced a primary challenge from former Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul, a former Libertarian presidential candidate, as well as Laughlin's primary opponent from the 1994 election. In a three-way race, Laughlin won the initial primary election with 42% of the vote, but by failing to win a majority he was required to face the second-place Paul in a run-off election. Paul defeated Laughlin by a 56%-44% margin in the run-off election and went on to win the congressional seat.

Laughlin remained in Washington, D.C., practicing law at the Washington, D.C. office of Patton Boggs, in the areas of public policy, energy, international trade, and tax law. He has since moved to the firm of Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman.

Laughlin is one of the observers that declared the 2004 Presidential elections in Cameroon as being fair. According to the BBC, he stated "we have never seen such a transparent way to show who got the vote". [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3738976.stm] . However, according to the US department of state Cameroon "ranks among the most corrupt countries in the world". [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/26431.htm] .

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