Jefferson Rowe Thompson, known as Jeff R. Thompson, is a judge of the Louisiana 26th Judicial District Court for Bossier and Webster parishes, who is a Republican former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 8, a position which he held from January 2012 to January 2015. A resident of Bossier City, Thompson ran without opposition in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on November 4, 2014, to succeed the retiring Division B Judge Ford E. Stinson Jr., a Democrat, on the 26th District Court.
Thompson was elected to the House in 2011, when the term-limited incumbent, fellow Republican Jane H. Smith of Bossier City, ran instead, unsuccessfully, for the Louisiana State Senate. Thompson defeated fellow Republican, Michael Durrell "Duke" Lowrie, 4,991 to 3,803. Smith, meanwhile, was defeated by the Republican businessman Barrow Peacock of Shreveport for the Senate seat vacated by B. L. "Buddy" Shaw. In 2008, Thompson was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives for Louisiana's 4th congressional district. The seat opened when the incumbent Jim McCrery stepped down to become a lobbyist. Thompson finished in third place in the primary. The position went to the Republican physician and businessman John C. Fleming of Minden, who held it until 2017. In the spring of 2012, Representative Thompson amended an anti-bullying bill sponsored by Patricia Smith, a Democrat from Baton Rouge. Conservative opponents of the bill claimed the measure is at odds with freedom of speech rulings by the United States Supreme Court. Thompson offered an amendment, which removed those sections of the bill that specify prohibitions against bullying in regard to only sexual orientation, disabilities, and race. Smith said that the Thompson amendment effectively killed the focus of the legislation, and she withdrew it from further consideration. Thompson opposed bullying in schools for any reason and worked to protect the educational opportunities of all children. Representative Thompson served on the House Education, Homeland Security, Ways and Means, and Military and Veterans Affairs committees. He also sits on the Joint House and Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Thompson was a leader in the Louisiana legislature to address the over 17 million pounds of propellant improperly and illegally stored at Camp Minden near Doyline, Louisiana. Mike Johnson, a Republican lawyer from Benton, was unopposed in the special election held in February 2015 to choose Thompson's successor in the House. Johnson is not the U.S. representative for the 4th congressional district.
Court activities
In 2017, plaintiffs James Wheat and Danny Brinson, after their arrests in Bossier City for violating a state statute forbidding panhandling, filled a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana against Bossier Parish Sheriff Julian Curtis Whittington and all judges of the 26th Judicial District Court, including Chief Judge Parker Self and Judge Thompson. Wheat and Brinson allege that Bossier Parish unjustly jails defendants who cannot pay for bail or the required $40 fee to the office of the public defender. Nor does Bossier Parish permit defendants to seek a lowering of the bail amount, which is instead automatically set by the court. The suit claims that the parish has for years violated a "bedrock principle of our legal system that a person cannot be detained or imprisoned solely for their inability to pay a fee. Such an incarceration violates the substantive due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution."
