Richard Alvin "Rick" Tonry was a Louisiana politician affiliated with the Democratic Party.
Education
He graduated in 1962 from in Mobile, Alabama. In 1967, he earned a law degree from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. He practiced law in the New Orleans area for almost a decade before being elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in the first-ever nonpartisan blanket primary held at the state level in the fall of 1975.
Career
He served a year (1976) in Louisiana House District 103 and eight months (1977) from Louisiana"s 1st congressional district. Shortly after taking his state House seat, Tonry declared his candidacy for the United States Congress after the 36-year Democratic incumbent, Felix Edward Hébert, announced his retirement. He narrowly defeated Republican Bob Livingston, an assistant state attorney general, in one of the last congressional elections held before Louisiana adopted its nonpartisan blanket primary.
Allegations Tonry, investigated by the United States. Attorney Gerald J. Gallinghouse, was accused of allowing subordinates to steal votes by stuffing ballot boxes in Saint Bernard Parish, a suburb of New Orleans.
He was charged with receiving illegal campaign funds beyond the $1,000 federal limit then imposed per contribution. These allegation ultimately led to his resignation, his guilty pleas of campaign finance irregularities, and a six-months prison sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery, Alabama.
Resignation When Tonry resigned from Congress after four months in the office, a special election was called in August 1977, and Republican Livingston was easily elected to replace him with a relatively easy victory over the Democratic candidate, Ron Faucheux. This seat has remained in Republican hands since that time.
In 1983, Tonry tried to return to the Louisiana House in District 103, but finished in fourth place in the nonpartisan blanket primary with 2,693 votes (178 percent).
Victory went to the Republican Edward Ripoll, who defeated incumbent Edward South. Bopp in a runoff election. In this same election cycle, Edwin Edwards unseated one-term Republican Governor David C. Treen to claim his third nonconsecutive term as governor. Bopp had succeeded Tonry in the state House in 1977.
Tonry died of natural causes in 2012 at the age of seventy-seven and is interred at Saint Bernard Memorial Gardens in Chalmette, Louisiana.