By Staff @ LPR
State Representative Mike Bayham, the Chalmette Republican who represented St. Bernard Parish in House District 103, died Thursday morning, November 12, at a hospital in Metairie, according to his family. He was 52 and had been suffering for several months with liver failure.
Only a day earlier his office had told the public he was "gravely ill and facing a serious health challenge." On Thursday the family released a short statement: "He was a beloved son, brother, cousin and friend to us all. We wish to thank his medical team, his hundreds of friends and especially the people of St. Bernard Parish who prayed for him these last few days." Funeral arrangements have not been announced, and the family has asked for privacy. We will honor that, and we add our prayers to the many that filled St. Bernard this week.
It is hard to think of anyone in Louisiana who loved the work of politics more. Mike was a lifelong Chalmette man, a Holy Cross graduate and an LSU alumnus who studied journalism, political science and history. He brought all of it to the job. At 26 he became the youngest person ever elected to the St. Bernard Parish Council up to that time, serving District B from 2001 to 2004. He lost races for the state House in 2003 and 2011 and kept coming back. In 2023 the voters of District 103 finally sent him to Baton Rouge.
The Republican Party was his home long before the Capitol was. He was first elected to the Republican State Central Committee in 1996 and served on it for 30 years, including a stretch as executive committee secretary from 2008 to 2012. He cast Louisiana's electoral votes as a presidential elector in 2012. He chaired the St. Bernard Parish Republican Party for years, and in 2012 he was the Louisiana director of Rick Santorum's presidential campaign. His conservatism came straight from Ronald Reagan, and he carried it into the Capitol with real skill.
His first term was short and remarkably productive. One of the first laws he passed, in 2024, outlawed nondisclosure agreements used to cover up sexual misconduct in the workplace. In 2025 he authored a law that will require private insurers to pay for home visits for newborns and their parents, beginning in 2027. He filed a bill to outlaw AI deepfake images that exploit children. This year he won approval of a law designating January 8 as Battle of New Orleans Day and allowing the governor or local governments to declare it a holiday. It was a fitting gift from the man who founded the battle's reenactment and served on its bicentennial commission. In the nation's 250th birthday year, he served as chairman of the Louisiana America 250 Commission.
His proudest accomplishment came nine days before he died. Amendment 4, which he authored as House Bill 225, passed with about 56 percent of the vote in unofficial returns on November 3 and sets a lifetime limit of two terms for Louisiana governors. "He considered it his political legacy," his longtime friend Susan East Nelson told the Louisiana Illuminator. He built the two-thirds majority it needed by working with State Representative Mandie Landry, a New Orleans Democrat. From the hospital last Saturday he described their partnership with typical wit: "Representative Mandie Landry is my near complete ideological opposite though we both share a healthy yet severe mutual distrust of power classes and their servile champions." Conservatives have argued for generations that power should never get too comfortable in Baton Rouge. Mike Bayham wrote that conviction into the state constitution. Our guide to this fall's amendments laid out what voters were deciding.
He fought for St. Bernard on the hard local questions too. He stood with his constituents against the Port of New Orleans' plan for a container terminal in Violet, which he said would disrupt the way of life in his district.
He was a writer, too, and a good one. For years his columns ran under the "BAYHAM:" banner at The Hayride, covering campaigns, Saints football, history and the people he admired. His pieces occasionally ran in these pages. When Congressman-elect Luke Letlow died in December 2020, Mike wrote a tribute that closed, "Godspeed my political brother from up river; your time on earth was far too short but will never be forgotten." Those words belong to their author now.
Friends from both parties remember the same man. Jason Redmond, who met him at neighboring party booths at LSU in 1992 and later roomed with him, called him "very feisty, very passionate and very principled." State Representative Brian Glorioso, a friend since middle school, remembered him as a seventh grader who tracked down Rush Limbaugh on a Bacchus float. Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser put it plainly: "His love for St. Bernard is unmatched."
Governor Jeff Landry wrote, "Throughout his health battles, Mike remained joyful and dedicated to his work," adding that Mike had "fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith." House Speaker Phillip DeVillier said, "Mike loved his parish, his state and his country." State Representative Michael Echols, chairman of the House Republican Delegation, said, "Mike loved St. Bernard Parish and served its people with pride, from the parish council to the Louisiana House." Congressman Troy Carter, a Democrat, wrote, "While we sat on opposite sides of the political aisle, no love or devotion to Louisiana was lost."
Mike was a devout Catholic who, friends said, never missed Sunday Mass while traveling, and he was a parishioner of Our Lady of Prompt Succor in Chalmette. He had been to every country in Europe more than once, and he always came home to St. Bernard. The Republican cause in Louisiana has lost one of its truest believers, and Chalmette has lost a son who never wanted to be anywhere else. Rest well, Mike.
Photo: Chalmette Battlefield, Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. National Park Service via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
