Russell B. Long
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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. He was a naval officer during World War II.
Long was the son of the flamboyant Louisiana Governor and Senator Huey P. Long. Huey Long was succeeded by his wife, Rose McConnell Long, who served about a year in the Senate. 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. 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.
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).
Specialist on tax law
Long signed "The Southern Manifesto" condemning the Brown v. Board of Education ruling which ordered racial desegration in the nation's public schools.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 corporate capitalism.
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.
Long was unbeatable as senator
After his election in 1948, Long never again faced a close contest for reelection. In 1962, for instance, he (1) defeated attorney Philemon A. "Phil" St. Amant in the Democratic primary, 407,162 votes (80.2 percent) to 100,843 (19.8 percent). Long then (2) 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.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. 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, firsts 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.
After their divorces from their first wives, Senate friends Long and Dole both married women from North Carolina.
Bill Dodd's view of Russell Long
Bill Dodd said that Russell Long's first wife "is a fine woman and good mother. But she was unhappy, and she made Russell unhappy. Finally, she and Russell separated and divorced. Russell's second wife, Carolyn, has all the political astuteness of Miss Blanche (Blanche Long, widow of Earl Long) with none of her liabilities. Outside of being born Huey's son, the best thing, politically that ever happened to Russell Long was his marriage to his second wife. With her help, he stopped his drinking and foolish no-win fights and became one of the best-known and most respected U.S. senators since the glory days of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun."Dodd further described Long as (written in present tense) "the most even tempered of all the 'purebred' Longs. He is affable, intelligent, and he was just ambitious enought to use his exceptional talents to good advantage -- for himself first, the public next.
"As a politician, his greatest gift was his ability to assess a situation or problem, and if it was controversial, express himself in language so simple and easily understood that both sides thought he was for them. He was a good horse trader and engenders none of the hate and jealousy that competitors usually feel for a man as powerful as he became.
"His biggest fault, or weakness, is his suceptibility to flattery and his failure to recognize and reward lower echelon political people who have stood by him and saved him when he was vulnerable -- and he has been on the brink of disaster politically several times, one or twice by guessing wrong on state politics [1963 gubernatorial primary] and several times by becoming a near or real alcoholic. I never knew him to be vindictive, or to hurt a friend by an act of commission, but he has neglected many of those who had to suffer because they supported him. His closest 'friends', or associates, at home in Louisiana hve been opportunists who have gotten rich peddling his influence and who have always been a liability to him politically.
". . . He was "a friendly and cheerful sort of young man. He was extremely naive to have been brought up in such a political family. But he wasn't pushy and never took over things like his dad or Uncle Earl did. I would have to say that those who got to know him as I did, liked him. We didn't respect his juvenile opinion on political matters, but we liked him.
". . . I cannot think of a single piece of Russell Long legislation that helped the poor and downtrodden in Louisana, that is, those so defined by Huey Long and Earl Long. But Russell was better than par for the Senate course. With his retirement [1987], we have lost our last Long in the national capitol. Whether we can stand this loss, I do not know. But very few of us who busted our butts for him will lose any sleep over the loss."
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
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