Liz Swaine

Elizabeth Swaine, known as Liz Swaine (born May 11, 1960), is an American journalist and former civil servant. Formerly a television anchorwoman with the ABC affiliate KTBS-TV, she ran unsuccessfully in 2006 for the office of mayor of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish and the third largest city in Louisiana.

A Florida native, Swaine holds an associate of arts degree in broadcast journalism from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, which she attended from 1978-1980. Swaine formerly resided in Chipley, the seat of Washington County in the Florida Panhandle. She was employed by WEAR-TV, which covers the Pensacola and Mobile, Alabama, media market. In 1981, she relocated to Shreveport and maintained employment at KTBS until she resigned to become executive assistant to then Mayor Keith Hightower, who was subsequently term limited in 2006 after his consecutive elections in 1998 and 2002.Swaine’s annual salary as executive assistant was $108,526.56, only $1,100 less than Hightower’s $109,623.84. Swaine then sought to succeed Hightower in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on September 30, 2006, against ten opponents, including fellow Democrat and eventual winner, Cedric Glover, an African American, then a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.

In her announcement of candidacy, Swaine noted that local polling showed that she was then recognized by 85 to 90 percent of the people in Shreveport: "Not only do they know who I am, they have a good impression of me, which certainly helps."Swaine declared her goals as safer, more tidy neighborhoods, more responsive city government, and maintaining the successes of the Hightower administration of which she had been a part for the full eight years.

With 6,600 votes (13.1 percent), Swaine ran third in the primary. Glover finished in second place with 16,327 ballots (32.4 percent), and Republican businessman Jerry Jones led in the primary with 19,762 (39.2 percent). In the November 7 general election, however, Glover defeated Jones, 35,270 (53.6 percent) to 30,594 (46.4 percent).Shreveport was declared a majority black city in the 2000 census, and Glover became the first member of his race to hold the office of mayor.

After her municipal service, Swaine became communications director for Calumet Lubricants Company, an oil and natural gas concern which maintains a large plant in Cotton Valley in central Webster Parish. She has also done podcasting and free-lance journalism.

Swaine and her husband, Albert M. Swaine, reside in Shreveport. She is a motorcycle enthusiast and former triathlete. Swaine was named “Best Journalist in the Nation” by the American Journalism Review magazine, then known as the Washington Journalism Review. She is the first female to have emceed the Congressional Medal of Honor Convention. She was named winner of the VIP Award of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce.