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.
To win the Senate seat vacated by the death of Democrat William Feazel, Long first (1) defeated 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. He then (2) defeated 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. He actually carried Iberia Parish with 54.5 percent of the vote. Iberia Parish was also the only Louisiana 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. Clarke had irritated Long by trying to get the courts to forbid the Democrat from runing 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. 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).
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 also 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 its chairman from 1966 until Republicans took 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.
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 political 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 Goldwater-Miller electors. The action had no impact on Long's future, however, as Republicans declined to challenge his reelection in 1968, 1974, and 1980.
His fellow party senators elected him Democratic whip in 1965, but he began drinking heavily and often was seen drunk on the Senate floor. He lost his leadership position in 1969 to Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. He later quit drinking and soon regained his reputation among his colleagues. He had especially good relations with both of his senatorial colleagues from Louisiana, Allen J. Ellender and J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.
The presumed Republican candidate against Long in 1968, Richard Kilbourne, quickly 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 just over 4,000 votes. In the 1980 campaign, Long's personal friend and colleague, Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who had been the party's vice presidential nominee in 1976 and 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 Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., 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 publicly toying with 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 of South Carolina. The funeral, held in Baton Rouge, is remembered in part for the moving eulogy delivered by his former colleague J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.
After their divorces from their first wives, Senate "friends" Long and Dole both married women from North Carolina.
External links
Billy Hathorn, "The Republican Party in Louisiana, 1920-198," Master's thesis (1980), Northwestern State University at Natchitoches
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