Fernández, Joachim Octave, 1896-1978

Joachim Octave Fernández, Sr. (August 14, 1896 – August 8, 1978), was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Louisiana's 1st congressional district from 1931 to 1941.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he completed the elementary grades at public school and a local private school, Cecil Barrois, but did not attend high school or college, working as an expert on shipping fees and storage tariffs after leaving school. Fernández’s political career began in 1921, when he was elected as a delegate to the Louisiana state constitutional convention. He then won election to the Louisiana legislature and served for much of the 1920s. From 1924 to 1928, he represented New Orleans’ Ninth Ward in the eastern portion of the city, where his family resided, in the state house of representatives. From 1928 through 1930, Fernández held a seat in the state senate encompassing the Eighth and Ninth Wards. Initially he was a party regular and was endorsed by the New Orleans Democratic machine but ultimately defected to the faction of the Louisiana Democratic Party run by Huey P. Long, taking over as the group’s leader in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward.

After defeating six-term incumbent James O'Connor in the 1930 Democratic primary and easily dispatching Republican John Murphy, Fernández began the first of his five terms. Fernández’s legislative workload primarily involved bills to assist individuals with issues such as pension adjustments, benefits, or discharge from military service. Throughout the 1930s, he also introduced a series of bills to establish Chalmette National Historical Park—now Chalmette Battlefield and National Cemetery, which is part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, seven miles southeast of the city—to commemorate the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. His House career was often entwined with Long’s bid to cement his statewide power by wresting control of New Orleans’ politics from the Old Regulars. By the fall of 1934, Long ran a slate of victorious candidates in the city, but his tactics drew criticism; Long’s assassination in September 1935 at the state capitol building in Baton Rouge dealt a blow to Fernández’s electoral fortunes. His close ties to the Long faction were a primary reason that Fernández lost the Democratic primary in 1940 to reform candidate Felix Edward Hébert, a former journalist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Fernández was a delegate to the Louisiana state constitutional convention in 1921, which wrote the document to govern his state until 1975. He was an alternate delegate to the 1936 Democratic National Convention, which renominated the Franklin D. Roosevelt-John Nance Garner ticket. In his forties, Fernández served in the United States Navy as a lieutenant commander during World War II. After his congressional service, Fernández was the U.S. collector of internal revenue in New Orleans. In the election of 1946, Fernández briefly served as the reform candidate against Mayor Robert Maestri, but he withdrew from the race at the last minute after Maestri offered to pay his campaign expenses. Maestri was unseated, however, by the reformers' choice, deLesseps Story Morrison.

After retiring from politics, Fernández worked as a tax consultant. In 1951 he was hired by the state of Louisiana as a revenue examiner and as head of the income tax department. Fernández retired in New Orleans, where he passed away shortly before his 82nd birthday. He was interred in Metairie Cemetery.