Remembering Sen. Bennett Johnston

A master legislator, the Louisianan passed away last week at age 92

Nearly everyone in and around politics has a story about who or what got them involved. Perhaps it was working on a campaign, on Capitol Hill, or at a state capitol. No matter where it was, it usually involves someone giving a young person an opportunity that changes the trajectory of their life. In fact, one of the better pieces of advice for young people is the importance of identifying role models, getting to know them, and soaking up as much knowledge from them as possible. And you should never forget those who gave you that break.

One of the greatest privileges of my life was to meet, work for, and become longtime friends with Bennett Johnston. Hailing from my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, Johnston served in the Senate for just over four terms (1972-1997). He passed away last Tuesday morning at age 92.

As a second-semester senior and debater in high school, I was recruited early on to help out on his first campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1972. My job, after school, on weekends, and the following summer after graduation, was to be half of the research team, spending countless hours at a library poring over the Congressional Record and the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, along with two exhaustive and expensive weekly magazines covering Congress and the executive: Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report and a publication that was just three years old, National Journal.

My job later expanded to include any number of tasks. Not many college students had the chance to bartend a cocktail buffet with the Senate majority leader and a half-dozen newly elected senators (including one future president) and their spouses, but Mike Mansfield said, “The boy knows how to pour a drink” after I gave him a big tumbler of, if I recall, bourbon.

I’d also drive Johnston around our corner of the state, attempting to listen as intently as possible to every conversation in the car and processing what I heard while I drove. Most infamously, I once picked him up just before midnight at Dulles Airport in my little brown 1973 Ford Pinto, only to run out of gas. He teased me unmercifully ever since; he had an epitaph for that car that the editors will never let me use here. I will also look fondly on the many well-lubricated lunches that a group of former Johnston staffers would have with him at La Chaumiere in Georgetown, most recently in September.

As a former state senator, Johnston lost a heartbreaking 1971 Democratic gubernatorial runoff election to then-Rep. Edwin Edwards by a margin of 4,488 votes out of 1.2 million cast.

The next year, Johnston mounted a primary challenge to Sen. Allen Ellender, who was seeking a seventh term in the Senate at age 81. Ellender chaired the Appropriations Committee and was the Senate’s president pro tempore. With close to total name recognition coming out of his statewide race the year before, Johnston started out with a big lead over Ellender, who had not had a challenging race or the need to crisscross the state’s 64 parishes in decades. But the race was tightening in late July, just three weeks before the Aug. 19 Democratic primary, when he suffered a fatal heart attack en route back to Washington for a vote.

Former Democratic governor John McKeithen soon filed to run in the general election as an independent, and the state GOP switched out its candidate in favor of Ben C. Toledano, a former New Orleans mayoral candidate.

Despite President Nixon winning reelection in the state with 65 percent of the vote, Johnston won his general election with 55 percent, to 23 percent for McKeithen and 19 percent for Toledano.

Johnston would go on to become one of the most effective members of Congress of the 20th century, at a time when Congress was still capable of doing big things, rather than by jamming legislation down the throats of whoever might be the minority party.

Take a look at the obituaries in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the leading newspaper in his home state, the New Orleans Times-Picayune. How many could be written about a single member now?

In only six of his 24 years in the Senate did either party have the White House, the House, and the Senate at the same time, and yet, enormously consequential legislation was debated and enacted, with both support and opposition from each side of the aisle. Because there were plenty of moderate-to-conservative Democrats and liberal-to-moderate Republicans, an adversary on a piece of legislation today might well be your ally or a key swing vote on another. That leads to a different mentality in a legislative body.

Although I majored in government in college, the real education I received came through working for him for three of those years. For those of us who had the good fortune to know and work with him, it was an incredible learning experience. To be a serious and successful legislator is not only to master the subject matter of the legislation and the politics of getting something passed (or defeated), but to act in roles that range from priest and psychologist to social worker, teacher, and cajoler, just to name a few.

Getting to know Bennett, his always gracious wife Mary, sons Bennett and Hunter, daughters Mary and Sally, and their respective spouses has been a pleasure for me and my wife, Lucy. We will miss him, and millions of Americans, most of whom have never heard of him, benefited from his service.