Education
An Eagle Scout, Branch graduated from Central High School and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he procured Bachelor of General Studies and Master of Public Administration degrees.
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Mike Branch
Edit Profilepolitician member of the Louisiana State Senate
Career
Branch unseated incumbent Democratic Senator Mike Cross, a former Mayor of Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish. He was a Second Lieutenant in the Louisiana Army National Guard. In 1990, Branch was elected to the District 11 seat on the 12-member East Baton Rouge Parish School Board.
He led in the primary held on October 6, 1990, 4,945 votes (424 percent), and went into the general election with the one-term incumbent Democrat Gordon Herbert Hutchinson, Senior
(born 1921), who received 4,091 votes (351 percent). In the lower-turnout second balloting on November 6, Branch defeated Hutchinson, 4,247 votes (634 percent) to 2,448 (366 percent).
Branch was unopposed for a second four-year school board term in 1994, but he served less than a year thereafter because he resigned from the board to run for the State Senate. In 1994, Branch was among those honored by the Baton Rouge Business Report in the "Forty Under 40" category.
Also cited were future United States. Senator Mary Landrieu and later United States. Representative Cleo Fields.
In the primary election for the state Senate seat, held on October 21, 1995, Branch defeated Cross, 23,002 (535 percent) to 20,002 (465 percent), an exact 3,000-vote margin. Branch did not seek reelection in the nonpartisan blanket primary in 1999 and was succeeded by Heulette Fontenot. In the Senate, Branch served on the Commerce & Consumer Protection, Education, Judiciary B, and Retirement committees.
He was the Vice Chairman of the Education Committee.
Achievements
Membership
Prior to his State Senate term, Branch was a member of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board.
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Born
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Nationality
American -
Political Party
Republican party