Background
Of Lebanese descent, Haik was born in New Iberia to Theodore Haik, Senior, and the former Margaret Hannie, both deceased.
Of Lebanese descent, Haik was born in New Iberia to Theodore Haik, Senior, and the former Margaret Hannie, both deceased.
He graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and holds the Juris Doctor degree from the Roman Catholic-affiliated Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
He represented House District 49, which includes portions of Iberia, Saint Mary, and Vermilion parishes. He is the older brother of United States. District Judge Richard T. Haik of Lafayette and Suzanne Haik Terrell of New Orleans, the last Louisiana elections commissioner who served from 2000 to 2004 and the unsuccessful Republican candidate in the 2002 United States. Senate race against the incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu. He is a former captain in the Louisiana Army National Guard.
He is a graduate too of the military law course at the University of Virginia.
Haik was first elected in 1975, when Louisiana established the still-used nonpartisan blanket primary. As a legislator, Haik was chairman of the House Insurance and Capital Outlay committees and the Subcommittee on the Environment.
After retiring from the state House, Haik became under Republican Governor Murphy J. Foster, Junior., the first chairman of the Louisiana Property and Casualty Commission, an advisory body consisting of legislators, the Louisiana Department of Insurance, and consumer groups. The current city attorney in New Iberia, Haik is a former president of the Iberia Parish Bar Association.
He won a third term in 1983 over fellow Democrat Kenneth "Kenu" Reeves, 11,107 (622 percent) to 6,760 (378 percent). Haik won his fifth and final term in 1991, when he again handily defeated another Democrat, James "Jimmy" Romero, 10,444 (674 percent) to 5,050 (326 percent). He received eight awards from civic groups for his legislative service.
He was a member of the Judiciary and the Civil Law and Procedure committees.
