Russell B. Long

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Russell Billiu Long
Russell Billiu Long

Russell Billiu Long (November 3, 1918 – May 9, 2003) was an American politician who served in the United States Senate as a Democrat from Louisiana from 1948 until 1987.

Long was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and received baccalaureate and law degrees from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was a naval officer during World War II.

Long was the son of the flamboyant Louisiana Governor and Senator Huey P. Long and Rose McConnell Long, who served about a year in the Senate following her husband's death. When Russell Long was elected in November 1948, he became the only person in U.S. history to have been preceded in the Senate by both his father and his mother. He may also be the youngest Senator in U.S. history as he was 29 years old when he took office. Before he ran for the Senate, Long had served as executive counsel to his uncle, Earl Kemp Long, who returned to the governorship in 1948.

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[edit] Defeating Kennon and Clarke, 1948

To win the Senate seat vacated by the death of Democrat John Holmes Overton, Long first defeated (1) Judge Robert F. Kennon of Minden in the Democratic primary, 264,143 (51 percent) to 253,668 (49 percent). The margin was hence 10,475 votes. Long then overwhelmed (2) Republican Clem S. Clarke of Shreveport, 306,337 (75 percent) to 102,339 (25 percent). Clarke was the first Republican senatorial nominee in modern Louisiana history. Clarke, a conservative Republican, actually carried Iberia Parish with 54.5 percent of the vote. Iberia Parish was also the only parish to support the Republican national ticket in 1948 of Governors Thomas Dewey of New York and Earl Warren of California. Clarke won 48.2 percent in Caddo Parish, where Dewey polled only 21.6 percent. He won more than a third of the vote in both Lafayette Parish and East Baton Rouge Parish, two parishes that in the future would frequently vote Republican in competitive elections.

Clarke had irritated Long by trying to get the courts to forbid the Democrat from running on both the Harry Truman and Strom Thurmond slates in Louisiana, but he failed to convince the judges, and Long's votes on each slate were counted.

According to William J. "Bill" Dodd, an observer of Louisiana politics and himself a holder of multiple offices in the state, Judge Leander Perez of Plaquemines Parish, a segregationist and conservative member of the Democratic State Central Committee, wanted the panel to tap Clarke as the official "Louisiana Democratic" senatorial nominee. Had Perez pursued that strategy, Clarke may have won the seat on combined Thurmond-Dewey coattails. Under that scenario, Russell Long would have been paired only with Harry Truman and may have lost the general election. Dodd, who was lieutenant governor at the time, claimed that Governor Earl Long reconciled with Perez on other matters of importance to Perez to make sure that Russell Long got the essential "Louisiana Democratic" position on the ballot.

Because the 1948 election was for a two-year unexpired term, Long had to run again in 1950 for his first full six-year term. That year, he had no trouble defeating a minor Republican opponent, Charles S. Gerth. Long polled 220,907 (87.7 percent) to Gerth's 30,931 (12.3 percent).

[edit] Specialist on tax law

Long was known for his knowledge of tax laws, much like his House colleague, the legendary Wilbur D. Mills of Arkansas. In 1953, he began serving on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee and was the chairman from 1966 until Republicans assumed control of the Senate in 1981. During his time in the Senate, Long was a strong champion of tax breaks for businesses, once saying, "I have become convinced you're going to have to have capital if you're going to have capitalism." This is in strong contrast to his father, former Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey P. Long, who championed populism and crusaded against the concentration of wealth. On the other hand, he was aware that tax policies are always based on the financial interests of the politically most powerful population groups, as demonstrated by his quip "Tax reform means, 'Don't tax me, don't tax thee, tax that fellow behind the tree!'" [1]

Long's contributions to the United States' tax laws include the Earned Income Tax Credit, a program aimed at reducing the tax burden on poor working families. He also initiated the provision that allows a taxpayer to allocate $1 of taxes for a presidential campaign-financing fund. Russell B. Long also had significant discussions concerning a Basic Income Guarantee with Louis O. Kelso and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

[edit] Senate career

After his election in 1948, Long never again faced a close contest for reelection. In 1962 he defeated attorney Philemon A. "Phil" St. Amant in the Democratic primary, 407,162 votes (80.2 percent) to 100,843 votes (19.8 percent). Long then defeated Republican challenger Taylor W. O'Hearn, a Shreveport attorney and accountant, with 318,838 votes (75.6 percent) to 103,066 (24.4 percent). Both St. Amant and O'Hearn challenged Long from the right.

Long signed "The Southern Manifesto" condemning the Brown v. Board of Education ruling which ordered racial desegregation in the nation's public schools. Like most senators from the Deep South at that time, Long continued to vote against civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 1964, Long defied conventional wisdom by delivering a television address in Louisiana in which he strongly endorsed the Johnson-Humphrey ticket, which lost the state to the Republican Barry M. Goldwater-William E. Miller electors. The action had no impact on Long's future, however, as Republicans declined to challenge his reelection in 1968, 1974, and 1980.

Democratic senators named him the party whip in 1965, but he began drinking heavily and often was seen drunk on the Senate floor. Long is one of numerous public officials known to have drinking problems during the time. {http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n12_v19/ai_6306545} He lost his leadership position in 1969 to Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. He later quit drinking and regained his reputation among his colleagues. He had especially good relations with both of his senatorial colleagues from Louisiana, first Allen J. Ellender and, then, J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., who like Long was born in Shreveport.

The presumed Republican candidate against Long in 1968, Richard Kilbourne, the district attorney in East Feliciana Parish, withdrew from the race, and Long ran without opposition that year. In 1974, Long defeated state insurance commissioner Sherman A. Bernard of Westwego in Jefferson Parish, 520,606 (74.7 percent) to 131,540 (18.9 percent), in the Democratic primary. (Another 6.4 percent went to a third candidate.)

In 1980, Long defeated State Representative Louis Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge, 484,770 (57.6 percent) to 325,922 (38.8 percent). Jenkins was a Democrat in the jungle primary that year, but he later became a Republican and ran once more for the Senate in 1996, only to lose by some 4,000 votes. In the 1980 campaign, Long's personal friend and colleague, Robert J. "Bob" Dole, the Kansas Republican who had been his party's vice presidential nominee in 1976 and who would be the presidential nominee in 1996, cut a television commercial for Long in the race against Jenkins, who had also lost a challenge to Johnston in 1978. Dole and Long were both running for reelection that year. The 1980 jungle primary was the last time Long's name was on a ballot.

In 1986, Democratic Congressman John Breaux of Crowley was elected to succeed Long in the Senate. Breaux defeated the Republican Congressman W. Henson Moore, III, of Baton Rouge, who had served in the House since 1975, in the general election after having trailed Moore in the primary election. Breaux served three terms in the Senate; when he left the body he was as popular as Long had been. Breaux, unlike Long, however, did not secure the election of his chosen successor. The seat went Republican in 2004, with the victory of Congressman David Vitter of the New Orleans suburbs.

After he considered a run for governor of Louisiana, Long retired from the Senate in 1987. He remained in Washington, D.C., as a highly sought-after lobbyist.

At the time of his death from heart failure, Russell Long was the only former senator still living whose service went back as far as 1948. He was in the Senate, for instance, six years before the legendary Strom Thurmond arrived for what turned out to be 48 years of service. The funeral, held in Baton Rouge, is remembered in part for the moving eulogy delivered by his former colleague Bennett Johnston.

Long married the former Katherine Mae Hattie in June 1939. They had two daughters, Rita Katherine (born 1944) and Pamela. The Longs divorced, and the senator thereafter married the former Carolyn Bason, a Senate staffer from North Carolina. His friend Dole also divorced, and he too married a North Carolinian, the former Elizabeth Hanford.

[edit] External links

Billy Hathorn, "The Republican Party in Louisiana, 1920-198," Master's thesis (1980), Northwestern State University at Natchitoches

William J. "Bill" Dodd, Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics, Baton Rouge: Claitor's Publishing, 1991

Preceded by
William C. Feazel		 U.S. Senator from Louisiana
1948–1987		 Succeeded by
John B. Breaux
Preceded by
Harry F. Byrd		 Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance
1965–1981		 Succeeded by
Robert J. Dole
Preceded by
Hubert Humphrey		 U.S. Senate Majority Whip
1965 –1969		 Succeeded by
Ted Kennedy
Preceded by
Berkeley L. Bunker		 Most Senior Living U.S. Senator
(Sitting or Former)
January 21, 1999-May 9, 2003		 Succeeded by
George Smathers
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