Jay Luneau

Wendell Jay Luneau, known as Jay Luneau or W. Jay Luneau (born December 1962),^[1] is a Democratic attorney in Alexandria, Louisiana, who is a member of the Louisiana State Senate for District 29, which encompasses the African-American portions of seven parishes: Bienville, Grant, Jackson, Lincoln, Natchitoches, Rapides, and Winn.

In the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 24, 2015, Luneau, who is white, defeated an African-American Republican candidate, attorney and Baptist minister Joshua Joy Dara, Sr. (born March 1959 in Nigeria). Dara, his wife, and five children reside in Pineville, where he is the pastor of the 3,000-member Zion Hill Church.^[2][3][4] Luneau polled 13,462 votes (59.3 percent) to Dara's 9,225 (40.7 percent).^[5] The position opened when the African-American Democrat lawyer Rick Gallot of Ruston, who previously served as well in the Louisiana House of Representatives, did not seek a second term.

Luneau graduated from Pineville High School, Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in 1986, and the historically black Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge in 1992. He has also taught on an adjunct basis at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.^[6]

Luneau has been a member of the Alexandria Bar Association since 1992. He is a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Alexandria and a former trustee of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in downtown Alexandria. He is a volunteer at the Renaissance Home for Youth. He and his wife, the former Carman St. Amant, they have one daughter, Merritt and one son, Wendell, Jr.^[7]

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