Later that year, she pled guilty to wire fraud charges and admitted to spending money from the state party and her campaign fund on gambling expenses.
[6] GoreNet was a group that supported the Al Gore campaign with a focus on grassroots and online organizing as well as hosting small dollar donor events.
[7] In 2010, Peterson won a special election to the Louisiana State Senate from the 5th district after her predecessor, Cheryl Gray Evans, resigned.
[2] Peterson's tenure as chair was marred by controversy when it emerged that she pressured then state representative John Bel Edwards to drop out of the 2015 Louisiana gubernatorial election so Democrats could rally around a moderate Republican to defeat the perceived frontrunner, U.S.
Peterson is a political protégé of Jim Singleton, a former city councilman and the leader of the powerful Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD), which has repeatedly aligned itself in opposition to William J. Jefferson and his Progressive Democrats.
With the help of BOLD, Peterson was elected in 1999 to the Louisiana state legislature as a representative for the 93rd district, which encompasses New Orleans, the upper French Quarter, and parts of Central City and Mid-City.
[16] In July 2022, Peterson accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors in a case involving diversion of state Democratic party funds she used to cover gambling debts.
She centered her campaign around the argument that Jefferson's corruption scandal left New Orleans with a lack of credible and respected representation in Congress.
Jefferson, in turn, accused Peterson of profiting from no-bid "sweetheart" contracts with the New Orleans City Council as their legal advisor for utility regulation.
[17] In November 2020, Representative Cedric Richmond of the 2nd district announced that he would resign from Congress in January 2021, after being appointed by President-elect Joe Biden to be Senior Advisor to the President and director of the Office of Public Liaison.
On March 29, 2021, she was endorsed by Gary Chambers, the third-place finisher in the primary,[21] A Carter campaign ad implied that a 2004 law sponsored by Peterson led to the layoffs of 7,000 teachers and school workers in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Carter's ad featured former teachers and principals, including Eddy Oliver, who linked 2004 law with the post-Katrina layoffs, a persistent issue among those who lost their jobs in the process and which has become a symbol of the decline afterward of the New Orleans Black middle class.
Over a year afterward, weeks after Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans resulting in the closure of its schools, Blanco pushed Act 35, sponsored by Representative Carl Crane from Baton Rouge, through the legislature.
[22] Peterson received the endorsement of New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell on April 7, just three days before the beginning of early voting.
[24] Karen Peterson is a progressive Democrat, advocating Medicare for All, criminal justice, police reform and legislation to combat climate change.
[32] Her 2009 House Bill 889 (Louisiana Healthier Families Act), after heavy lobbying by both sides, failed in the Louisiana House of Representatives; she attributed the loss to "the national ambition of our governor", Bobby Jindal, whom she accurately predicted was interested in the presidency and wanted to seek that office without a tax increase on his record.