Mildred Methvin

Named for her maternal grandmother, Mildred Rosalind Hill Cunningham (1901-1982), Methvin is descended from a pioneer political family with roots in Natchitoches, Castor, and her native Alexandria, Louisiana. Her maternal great-great-grandfather, Milton Joseph Cunningham, was a member of both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature and for three terms prior to 1900 the Attorney General of Louisiana.[3] Her great-grandfather, Charles Milton Cunningham, was the editor of The Natchitoches Times and a member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1915 to 1922.[4][5] A great-uncle, William Tharp Cunningham, served one term in the Louisiana House of Representatives from Natchitoches Parish from 1908 to 1912, prior to becoming a judge.[6][7]

Her grandfather, W. Peyton Cunningham, husband of the former Mildred Hill, was a lawyer and a member of the Louisiana House from Natchitoches Parish from 1932 to 1940.[6][8] Her father, DeWitt T. Methvin, Jr., an Alexandria lawyer prominent in both legal and civic circles, served as a member and first Chairman of the Louisiana Board of Ethics for Elected Officials (1972-1981). Her mother, Lallah Hill Cunningham Methvin (1929-2012), was the daughter of W. Peyton Cunningham[9] and the first wife of DeWitt Methvin and the mother of his five children, including Mildred Methvin's four siblings.[10] Her paternal grandmother, Myrtis Methvin, a native of Attala County in central Mississippi, was from 1933 to 1945 the mayor of Castor in Bienville Parish in northwestern Louisiana and the second woman in Louisiana history to serve as a town mayor. Her paternal grandfather, DeWitt Methvin, Sr. (1894-1975), was also a Mississippi native, a timber salesman, and a member of the Bienville Parish Police Jury, the parish governing body.[11]

Methvin was reared in Alexandria and spent her formative period as well on Cane River Lake in Natchitoches with her Cunningham family members. Raised Roman Catholic, Methvin received the American Legion Award upon her graduation in 1970 from Holy Savior Menard Central High School in Alexandria. She then attended H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans for three years before enrolling in Tulane University Law School her senior year. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa upon graduation from Newcomb in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy. The summer before law school, she was an intern in the Washington, D.C. office of U.S. Representative Gillis Long. Methvin later transferred and received her law degree in 1976 from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.[2]

While in law school in the District of Columbia, and for one year after graduation, Methvin worked in the office of Democrat United States Representative Gillis William Long of Louisiana's 8th congressional district, disbanded in 1993. She subsequently worked from 1977 to 1979 as an associate attorney for her father's law office, Gist, Methvin, Hughes & Munsterman in Alexandria, the Gist being Howard B. Gist, Jr. From 1979 to 1981, she was an assistant United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, based in Shreveport. In 1983, Methvin was named United States Magistrate Judge, with jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases, including violations of federal game law, for the United States District Court in Lafayette.[12]

In 1990, Methvin was organizational chair of the American Inns of Court of Acadiana and in 1995 president of that organization.[13] In 1996, she helped found a second Inn, the John M. Duhe, Jr. American Inn of Court. In 1997, William H. Rehnquist, then Chief Justice of the United States, appointed Methvin as one of only three magistrate judges in the country to the select committee which makes national policy governing the activities of federal magistrate judges. Magistrate Judge Methvin presided over numerous civil jury and non-jury trials as well as felony pretrial matters, including arraignment, bail, and detention hearings. She accepted guilty pleas, issued search warrants and arrest warrants, and selected grand jury members. She successfully settled close to a thousand civil cases during her tenure, and sentenced thousands of defendants under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the National Wildlife Refuge Act.

In 2009, after 26 years, Methvin left the bench to open her own conflict resolution office in Lafayette, which she still maintains. She opened a solo law practice in 2012. From 2011 to 2013, Methvin served part-time as a Recall U.S. Magistrate Judge for the federal courts in Pennsylvania and Maryland. In July, 2014, she was appointed by the Louisiana Supreme Court to a nearly six-month tenure as interim judge of the Louisiana 27th Judicial District Court based in Opelousas in St. Landry Parish. She succeeded Judge Donald Hebert, who died in office.[14]

Methvin was one of two attorneys for Patricia E. Powell (born August 1952),[15] a former teacher at Tioga Elementary School in Tioga in Rapides Parish. In 2016, Powell won a judgment of $1,147,732, plus interest and court costs against the Rapides Parish School Board on grounds that her 2001 dismissal was unjust retaliation for published comments that she had made about a former short-term Rapides superintendent, Betty Cox. The award was solely for lost wages and retirement benefits. Judge Thomas Yeager of the Louisiana 9th Judicial District Court said that Powell was not afforded "a hearing at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner" and was "the victim of political retaliation." Powell was fired under former Superintendent Patsy Jenkins. None of the school board members at the time are still serving.[16] In May 2018, the Louisiana Supreme Court in New Orleans upheld Powell's judgment. She could collect some $2 million from the school board including costs and interest.[17]

Methvin was a Democratic candidate in the 2018 nonpartisan blanket primary held on November 6 in Louisiana's 3rd congressional district for the seat held for the past two years by Republican Clay Higgins, who was seeking a second term. When filing her qualification papers, Methvin ridiculed Higgins as "less Cajun John Wayne and more Cajun Barney Fife," a reference to the hapless deputy Barney Fife played by Don Knotts on the classic 1960-1968 situation comedy, The Andy Griffith Show. Methvin argues that Higgins' votes in Congress for the Donald Trump agenda are often cast against the interests of the constituents. Two African-American Democratic candidates, Verone Thomas and Larry Rader, are also in the race, as are another white Democrat, Rob Anderson of DeQuincy, and a second Republican, Lafayette attorney Joshua Slavone "Josh" Guillory (born January 8, 1983), who carries the support of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.[18]

Methvin said that she was seeking the congressional post because of her frustrations over events in the nation's capital: "Just watching what is happening in Washington, D.C., with the attacks on our democracy and observing so many of our representatives who are corporate-owned or too far into party ideology." Methvin supports "Medicare for All", raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and making college education more affordable though costs of higher education skyrocketed with the increase in federal assistance.[19]

Methvin said that the "blue wave" which some had predicted will help Democrats gain control of the House. "This district would do a whole lot better with a member of Congress who is part of the majority party," she said, without acknowledging that Higgins is currently in the majority party. Methvin said that she had more than three hundred volunteers building support.[19]

Methvin was the official choice of the Louisiana Democratic Executive Committee in the race to unseat Higgins.[20]

In 1988, Methvin married James Thomas McManus (born February 1951) of Lafayette, and the couple had two sons, Michael James McManus and Connor Hill McManus. James McManus had three other children from his former marriage to Dianne Hatten: Christine Lynn McManus, Matthew Robert McManus, and John Thomas McManus, who hence became Methvin's stepchildren.[21] The couple divorced in 2006.

Methvin is heavily involved in the study of her family genealogy.[3]