Jefferson Parish President Mike Yenni announced Thursday that he will not run for re-election in the upcoming race, ending months of speculation about whether the popular politician would try to convince voters to put his sexting scandal in the past.
"Stepping away from the office that I love is difficult," he said in a statement on his Facebook page. "I walk away knowing that our second term would have continued the accelerating progress that we are making in dozens of critical areas."
Three other candidates, former Parish President John Young, At-Large Councilwoman Cynthia Lee-Sheng and frequent parish council critic Lee Bonnecarrere, have already qualified for the election.
Before he made his decision, Yenni had raised $15,000 between April and July, putting him well behind his main competition.
Young raised $155,000 (10 times as much money as Yenni) and had $421,000 in cash on hand, according to campaign finance filings. Lee-Sheng raised $420,000 in the same timeframe (about 28 times the money Yenni raised) and had $544,000 on hand at the last campaign finance deadline.
Yenni was rocked by scandal in 2016 when sexually explicit texts to a 17-year-old boy came to light in a WWL-TV investigation.
The Jefferson Parish Council unanimously called for his resignation and the JP School Board passed a resolution banning him from more than 80 schools in the parish, but Yenni vowed to stand his ground and continue with the business of parish government.
"I also want the people of Jefferson to know that I recognize the disappointment caused by my personal actions," he added in a lengthy statement on his Facebook page. "I apologized then and I am just as contrite today. However, that never, ever impacted my ability to deliberate, act or govern."
Before the scandal rocked his career, Yenni was a rising political star.
From his first position as Jefferson Parish's director of the Department of Citizen's Affairs in 2005, Yenni quickly began moving up the political ladder. In 2006, he became the Chief Administrative Officer for the city of Kenner. In 2010, he followed in the footsteps of his grandfather Joe Yenni, successfully running for the Kenner mayor's office.
Yenni set his sights on the seat of the Jefferson Parish president in the tradition of his grandfather, (Joe Yenni, who was parish president from 1980 to his death in 1987) and uncle (also named Mike Yenni, who succeeded his father as parish president in 1987 until his own death in 1995).
Yenni even changed his name from Michael Maunoir to Michael Yenni in 1998, prompting some to claim he was trying to capitalize on his mother's family name.
Yenni won the seat as a Republican in the fall of 2015, taking office in January 2016. Less than a year later, WWL-TV broke the story of his sexting scandal. The FBI looked into the allegations against him, but no charges were ever filed.
Acknowledging that a potential campaign would focus heavily on the scandal, Yenni said he could not put the people close to him through a campaign of that nature.
"I can’t submit my family, friends, and this parish to months of that kind of campaign," he wrote in his statement. "Michelle and I have two children and a third on the way, and as we prepare our growing family for the future I must focus on family and step away from politics."