The South’s Clout After Its Retiring Congressmen

By Tom Fiedler

Vol. 1, No. 3, 1978, pp. 6-7

Early this year, when fighting erupted in the “new” civil war pitting the Sunbelt against the Frostbelt, the Southern Growth Policies Board packed up its research staff and moved north to Washington, D.C.

The reason was clear, executive director Blame Liner explained then; that war was being waged in the caucus and committee rooms of the nation’s Capitol and the troops had to be deployed accordingly.

But the move northward was also symbolic for another reason. Decisions affecting the South in the years ahead will be increasingly made by congressmen from the industrial North.

The move dramatized the fact that congressional power is shifting at an accelerating pace. And it is shifting away from Deep South lawmakers who had held a stranglehold on the congressional process for most of this century.

A decade ago it took little more than a phone call from Lyndon Johnson to Richard Russell of Georgia to initiate law. As often as not, national policy was determined over bourbon and branch water by men such as Wilbur Mills, John Sparkman, James Eastland, John Stennis, Sam Ervin, George Mahon or L. Mendel Rivers.

Though outnumbered by their counterparts from other regions, these and other Southerners controlled Congress so thoroughly that one writer described the institution as a Union Army run by Confederate generals.

They owed it all to seniority. But, in a twist of irony, the sureness of time that carried them to power also assured their demise.

“I was invited to a meeting with some of the senior (Southern) members,” recalls Liner. “Carl Perkins, Jennings Randolph, John Stennis and John Sparkman were there. And if it hadn’t have been for (Russell) Long and (Jim) Wright, I would have thought I was in a retirement community.”

Now, with the end of the 95th Congress, a combination of death, retirements and reform spurred ironically by the abuses the seniority system allowed – has virtually ended the Southern domination of Congress.

More importantly, because only one Southern democrat was elected to the Senate between 1956 and 1970, the power on many key committees will flow to Northern and Western liberals.

What that portends is dramatically symbolized on the Senate Judiciary Committee, birthplace of 60 percent of all legislation and arbiter of all civil rights bills. Sen. James Eastland, the pudgy, cigar-smoking Mississippi plantation owner – who once said on the Senate floor that “Negroes are an inferior race” – is retiring after 36 years.

He will be succeeded by Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts whose late brothers’ names are intrinsically tied into the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

There are numerous other examples: John Sparkman of Alabama will turn over chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee to Frank Church, a liberal from

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Idaho; when John McClellan of Arkansas died early this year, his Appropriations Committee went to Warren Magnuson of Washington.

The Texas delegation alone will be stripped of almost 150 years of House seniority, more than half the South’s total loss of 216 years.

In the Senate, the South will lose through retirements 92 years of seniority. That doesn’t include the losses of men like McClellan and James Allen of Alabama – the South’s master tactician who died during this term.

When Congress reopens in January, the South will be able to claim control of only three major Senate committees: Armed Services, headed by 76-year-old Stennis of Mississippi; Agriculture, headed by Herman Tahnadge, 64, of Georgia (who is being investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee); and Finance, headed by Russell Long, 59, of Louisiana.

In the House, Southerners will preside over just two major panels assuming that they are elected by the caucus. Appropriations will shift to the control of Jamie Whitten of Mississippi and Government Affairs will continue under Jack Brooks of Texas.

Surprisingly, however, students of Southern politics don’t believe that this loss of seniority will have a negative impact on the region.

“It looks like we’ve suffered a tremendous loss,” said South Carolina Congressman Mendel Davis who, at 35, is typical of the “new South” lawmaker.

“But the interesting thing is that while (the power) was changing, Congress itself was changing.” In substance, the South’s loss of seniority coincided with a de-emphasis of the seniority system in Congress. The irony is that many of the reforms pushed in recent years by young, mostly Northern lawmakers were aimed at loosening the grip of oligarchal Southerners on the levers of power.

Today, non-Southerners assuming the key positions find themselves with far less clout than their recent predecessors. That, say relative newcomers like Davis, will protect the South from retaliation.

And at least as important is the fact that the “new breed” of Southern congressmen is ideologically undistinguishable from his counterpart from another region, and thus lacks the Southern consciousness of his forebears. There is only one explanation for this.

“Race was the issue that held the Southern bloc together,” says Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, 38, one of this breed. “Today we are more like the rest of the country.”

Lawmakers like Lawton Chiles and Richard Stone of Florida, Nunn of Georgia, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas,

Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and even House Majority Leader Jim Wright of Texas differ as a group from “frostbelt” congressmen only in the shadings of their accent.

That trend is being continued in balloting so far this fall. In Alabama and Mississippi the old Southern courthouse politicians have been snubbed in favor of fresh, often progressive faces. The match between young progressive Charles “Pug” Ravenel and arch-conservative Strom Thurmond in South Carolina, often called a race between the “Old South” and the “Changing South,” epitomized the contrast in ideology now offered voters, a contrast that wouldn’t have been possible there a decade ago.

“The ones who are being elected,” said Steve Suitts, executive director of the Atlanta-based Southern Regional Council, “are those who say they want to run government like a business.”

“They’ve got no ideology about race. They take the position that if they can uplift the whole population, they are uplifting all segments,” he said.

Liner of the Southern Growth Policies Board calls this the “Americanization of Dixie.”

Indeed, Liner argues that there may be such a lack of Southern consciousness among lawmakers today that the region will be vulnerable to power moves from those who are jealous of the “Sunbelt’s” attractiveness to new industry.

“If the new Southerners begin to act as a bloc again,” Liner said, “it will be only because moves (by Northern congressmen) have forced them into defending their own constituencies.”

But perhaps, as Nunn pointed out, the burden of protecting the South’s interest doesn’t have to be shouldered by a handful of congressmen anymore.

“After all,” Nunn said, “look who’s in the White House.”

Tom Fiedler is the Washington correspondent for the Miami Herald.

Southern Elections: A State by State Version

By SRC Staff

Vol. 1, No. 3, 1978, pp. 8-11, 25-29

Former populist Governor Big Jim Folsom of Alabama once said that politics was for him like, “courtin’ a beautiful woman – if you can’t spend a lot of money you’re gonna have to do a little lyin’.” Yet, the days of suds bucket and singing “you are my sunshine” off key – symbols of Folsom’s success – are gone and Big Jim’s confessed wisdom has been adapted for the modern times of Southern politics. Now, in courtin’ Southern voters, a candidate is required to do both.

This year’s Southerners witnessed more than $35 million spent by major candidates on advertising on radio and television stations. Most ads were designed simply to build an image of personality for candidates – leaving the public issues to be discussed in slogans. While the trend was not uniquely Southern, the changing nature of regional politics showed itself in the election’s results and may portend greater danger to candidates who wish to represent the interests of minorities and poor folk in the future.

In all major statewide races in the South, everyone who had a prayer’s chance spent at least a half million dollars and often more than a million. Those who didn’t – like defeated Democratic senate nominee John Ingram of North Carolina – didn’t come even close on November 7.

While Bob Graham was elected governor of Florida and spent less than his opponent, his total campaign expenditure was more than two million dollars – much of it his own money. Republican Lamar Alexander won the general election for the governor of Tennessee over a bigger spending Jake Butcher; however, Alexander spent around a million dollars on his own campaign. In most other races, the victor was the big spending candidate. Vhile it was not the relationship between money and politics alone that decided the South’s elections, its effects were paramount and will be increasingly exclusionary.

The fact is that like selling soap nowadays, if a candidate doesn’t have the millions to spend on advertising, chances for victory in a real contest are hardly worth the trouble. For candidates whose major constituency comes from the uninfluential, minorities, or the poor, the problems of raising enough funds can he deadly.

As disturbing, even Black candidates appealing largely to a Black voting constituency feel the need to have large advertising budgets. In Mississippi, Charles Evers attempted to win a plurality victory for the U.S. Senate by getting a huge turnout with some White votes. According to Jason Berry, campaign aide for Evers, one of the major problems of the campaign was its desperate need of funds for Evers to go on television. “But I haven’t seen you on television…” was a response Evers got even from Black folks as he campaigned throughout Mississippi. In post election analysis, campaign workers for Evers contend that if there had been more money and more television time, there would have been a better chance for Evers in both the Black and White communities.

While influential in its own right, the politics of big money went hand in hand with the politics of Southern conservatism this year. The old Southern hard-line, conservative Democrats who once occupied the U.S. Senate are being replaced by the newer, younger, and just as hard-line conservative Republicans. In Texas Mississippi, Virginia and North Carolina. Republicans who call themselves, “fiscal conservatives” were elected to the U.S. Senate. While a Democrat will return to South Carolina’s statehouse, Strom Thurmond returns to the Senate and a Republican conservative will become governor of Texas.

None of these candidates were elected with the large support of Blacks or other minorities. All talked about cutting government spending and eliminating the frills in government programs especially social programs. Even the more tolerant Democrats who won had to court voters with their own line of old time conservatism.

In Alabama, a sedate former state chief justice Howell Heflin sounded like daddy warbucks charging his opponent with making “America a second-rate power” by voting for a little cut in defense spending. State Senator Bob Graham, Florida’s next governor with a reputation as one of Florida’s leading liberals, attacked his Democratic primary opponent for “socialist leaning” and demanded the death penalty for rapists “who dare defile the women of our state.” Little was said in any campaign in the South of the virtues of giving folks decent jobs or making decent

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housing available.

The candidates who did run with direct populist appeals were roundly defeated. While none could be accused of having open, liberal tendencies, John Ingram of North Carolina and Pug Ravenel of South Carolina failed in their open appeals to Black and White voters. It just didn’t work in 1978.

Candidates who want to give special attention to the needs of poor and minorities have always found hostile audiences and enormous obstacles in seeking statewide offices in the South. The elections of 1978 will not be recorded as an exception to that fact. Rather, it may well be remembered as the time when big money and Republican conservatism became the fashionable ways to court Southern voters.

Alabama

Nineteen seventy-eight elections in Alabama produced a variety of collector’s items for Southern politics: campaign buttons for people running for other offices, bumper stickers for people who weren’t candidates at all, and hundreds of meaningless slogans (from “Let’s get on down that road” to a more familiar, aborted phrase “More than ever before “). Still, it was not politics as usual in Alabama.

Last year almost everyone expected the political scenario to be as predictable as it has been for the past 15 years. Prohibited by the state constitution from seeking another term as governor, George Wallace was expected to retire from the statehouse and seek the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by retiring Sen. John Sparkman. Alabama’s other U.S. Senator, Jim Allen – the state’s most popular office-holder – was not up for reelection.

As he has for almost two decades, George Wallace began the tremor of events. Facing a campaign against former state chief justice Howell Heflin, Wallace voiced second thoughts about a campaign for the senate. Heflin, the architect of Alabama’s new judicial system and a relative newcomer to Alabama politics, had a broad constituency including lawyers, businessmen, labor and Blacks, and is especially popular in the more urban north Alabama. Finally, Wallace announced: he would not seek the U.S. Senate seat.

Soon another bolting surprise awoke Alabamians. Vacationing on the gulf shore of Alabama, Sen. Jim Allen died of a heart attack. According to Alabama law, the governor was to appoint an immediate successor and an election for the remaining two years of Allen’s term would be held later. Obviously enjoying the speculation that he might appoint himself, Wallace delayed the appointment. Calling a news conference to announce that he had not yet decided on Allen’s replacement, Wallace had changed his mind about going to Washington, many decided. After several weeks Wallace did announce the appointment of Maryon Allen, wife of the dead senator. Mrs. Allen immediately announced that she would run in the Democratic primary.

A state senator with a reputation for consumerism, Donald Stewart decided to remove his name from the growing list of candidates seeking to replace Sparkman and announced his candidacy to challenge Allen. Meanwhile, Congressman Walter Flowers had given up his easy bid for reelection and transferred his campaign to oppose Howell Heflin and seek Sparkman’s seat.

A squadron of other candidates also began printing literature and passing out buttons for their campaigns. More than half the members of the state senate were seeking a higher, statewide office. More than 10 people were running for governor and most of the statewide constitutional offices had at least five or six candidates. Surveying the field, one local political wag noted: “No wonder our crime rate is up.”

Alabama’s most popular female office-holder, State Treasurer Melba Till Allen, was in fact convicted during the summer on federal charges surrounding misuse of state funds. Allen, who was discussed as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate before the trial, said upon conviction that both the Alabama people and God would vindicate her. Allen’s husband later announced that he would seek to succeed her.

As the Democratic primary approached, a former football star, part-time Republican, and millionaire inventor of the sand-filled, plastic dumbbell, Fob James appeared to develop momentum in his race for governor. Helped by a huge advertising budget and calling for “a new beginning,” James led the ticket with Atty. Gen. Bill Baxley a weak second. Apparently, James’ new approach and lack of experience in politics were advantages which Baxley was not able to overcome. With a slick campaign and an earnest face, James became Democratic nominee for governor in late September.

In the senate race, Heflin outdistanced Flowers in a run-off where the congressman emphasized his experience and the judge decried him as a part of “the Washington crowd.” In the other race, Allen and Stewart also faced a run-off in which Stewart was called “a liberal” and Allen portrayed as an “unladylike office-holder.” Stewart prevailed only to face another major challenger, Republican Jim Martin.

At one time registered to oppose the Democratic nominee for Sparkman’s seat, Martin realized Stewart as the “best” opponent and switched races. Supported by considerable Republican money, Martin waged a strong, two-month campaign. Having campaigned against Lurleen Wallace and John Sparkman in prior years, Martin accused Stewart of being liberal and doing nothing to bring down the utility rates of the power company, which he had opposed. Stewart emphasized his opposition to the large utilities and his work in the state Senate to help Alabama consumers.

In congressional elections. State Senator Richard Shelby

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of Tuscaloosa had no problem clef eating his Republican opposition to replace Flowers in Congress. In the primary, Shelby did face State Rep. Chris McNair, one of Alabama’s Black representatives. In a district with 38 percent Black population, McNair failed to gain enough White votes or a large Black turnout.

In other statewide races, all Democrats won with no trouble. Birmingham attorney, George McMillan, had won the Democratic run-off against his colleague, State Senator Bert Bank of Tuscaloosa. While Bank had the endorsement of the largest Black political organization in the state, the Alabama Democratic Conference, McMillan received substantial Black support. Former executive director of the Democratic Party of Alabama, Don Siegelman became secretary of state after defeating in the primary several candidates including the only Black female running for a statewide office, Leola Smith. Charlie Graddick ws elected attorney general.

A peculiar characteristic of Wallace politics – the election of a spouse for public office – failed to carry for other campaigns this year. Sen. Allen’s wife, who advertised herself as “Mrs. Jim Allen,” and the husband of convicted treasurer Melba Till Allen, who was cattily referred to as “Mr. Melba Till Allen,” both failed to replace their spouses unlike Gov. Lurleen Wallace in 1966.

There will be a large number of new faces in the state senate of Alabama this year largely because most incumbents were seeking other statewide offices. Alabama’s two Black state senators, U.W. Clemon and J. Richmond Pearson, were reelected. A Black lawyer from Mobile, Michael Figures, was also elected to the upper house.

Ten Black members of the lower chamber of the Alabama legislature will return; however, two will be new members. Four women and four Republicans will also be in the state legislature.

Local elections throughout Alabama appeared to penalize present officeholders. The plague of incumbency was apparently enough to shake up many local courthouses. In south Alabama, there will be several new Black county officials. For the first time in this century, the Sheriff and Tax Collector in rural Wilcox County, Alabama will be Black as will be the Sheriff of nearby, rural Perry County. Blacks constitute a majority of the population in both places.

Arkansas

Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton breezed through a primary election without a runoff and the general election with only nominal opposition to become the state’s youngest governor ever at age 31. Clinton, who was a Rhodes scholar and former campaign organizer for George McGovern in 1972, had considered entering the Senate race, but decided against joining a crowded field of like-minded candidates. As governor, Clinton is expected to give education a high priority and polish Arkansas’ image and tradition of electing more progressive politicians than the constituency they represent.

Coy. David Pryor, following a close primary race and run-off scored an easy victory in the general election to become Arkansas’ junior senator. Pryor nearly won the seat in a close race against Sen. John McClellan in 1972.

In the House contests, there are two new faces, Doug Brandon in the 2nd District, and Beryl Anthony in the 4th, leaving the House lineup of three Democrats and one Republican unchanged.

Florida

The election of Bob Graham as Governor of Florida represents one of the few instances in 1978 Southern politics where the traditional Democratic coalition including Blacks, labor, and liberals had a winning candidate. It also ends a long gubernatorial campaign where two millionaires came face to face in a contest where millions were spent.

Using the gimmick of working at a hundred different jobs during the past several months, Graham had an effective advertising blitz which surprisingly helped defeat his well-known opponent, Jack Eckerd. A Republican millionaire owner of chain drugstores and former head of the General Services Administration, Eckerd easily won the Republican primary using it mostly to campaign to Democrats as well as Republicans. Having sought the Senate post in 1974 and the Governor’s chair in 1970, Eckerd was probably hurt by the GSA scandals which were operating during his tenure in Washington.

Eckerd campaigned on the theme that government is a business and requires a business-like approach. In spending more than $5 million most of it out of his own pocket – Eckerd also apparently was showing voters that you had to sell a product before it could be bought. Graham disrobed his reputation as a liberal but did make direct appeals to minorities.

Graham’s victory was supported by a loose coalition of labor, businesses, Hispanics, Blacks, and urban and liberal voters, who in part helped him defeat Atty. Gen. Bob Shevin who led the ticket in the Democratic primary in September.

Another former office-holder, Edward Gurney, who was tried and acquitted for charges of receiving illegal funds as a U.S. Senator, was defeated by Democratic nominee Bill Nelson. In Miami, Rep. Claude Pepper was also reelected.

The only major female candidate in state elections, Paula Hawkins, ran unsuccessfully for Lt. Coy, as Eckerd’s running mate. In local elections, Florida’s three Black members of the state House of Representatives will return to Tallahassee next year.

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Georgia

Georgia voters, it appeared, would have an easy time of it at the polls this election. There were only six congressional races and five of them were not highly contested, although the Democratic incumbents, refusing to take their opposition lightly, did campaign actively throughout their districts. Coy. George Busbee faced Republican opposition statewide as did Lt. Gov. Zell Miller, but again without much contest.

But Georgia voters probably experienced more frustration election day than most other voters because they were confronted at the polls with a massive 12-page ballot crammed with 36 statewide constitutional amendments and 88 local amendments. The amendments were condensed, but they still made very tough reading.

Amendment 4 was probably the most controversial item on the general election ballot. It would have doubled legislative terms from two years to four years effective with next year’s General Assembly, but Georgia voters soundly rejected that proposal. Adding insult to injury they in turn supported Amendment 15 which authorizes the General Assembly to pass a law setting up a recall procedure for elected officials.

Georgians lost their opportunity to send a woman to Congress by electing Republican Newt Gingrich over State Sen.Virginia Shapard to fill the sixth district seat being vacated by retiring incumbent Rep. John Flynt. Shapard had the endorsements of first lady Rosalynn Carter, who came to the state in her behalf, and a number of other top state Democratic officeholders, but voters favored her opponent. No newcomer to the district, Gingrich had lost to Flynt on two prior occasions by narrow margins. He will be the first Republican in Georgia’s 10-member House delegation since 1974.

The other Democratic congressional contenders won overwhelming victories. Because of recent legislation, Busbee became the first Georgia governor to succeed himself in office. He and Lt. Gov. Zell Miller scored landslide victories, the worst defeats that Republican candidates for the two top state offices have suffered in more than a decade.

The Democrats also won three new seats in the state House for a total of 159. Republicans hold 21 seats. Black representation remained at 21 in the House and two in the Senate. Fourteen women will be included the next term, an increase of three. All of the Blacks and the women, except one, are from urban areas, principally Atlanta, Macon, Columbus, Savannah and Augusta.

Louisiana

Under Louisiana’s new primary system Sen. J. Bennett Johnston was reelected on September 16. Under the new system Louisiana has a non-partisan primary in which candidates of all parties run against each other. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the primary vote as Johnston did, he or she runs in November without opposition. If no one receives more than 50 percent, the top two finishers, regardless of party, face each other in November.

Because of the new primary system, all congressional races except one (4th District, Shreveport) were decided in the open non-partisan primary on September 16th. All of the primary winners were incumbents.

In the 4th District, veteran congressman, Joe D. Waggonner retired after 17 years in the House and nine candidates vied for the vacant seat in the primary. Two former state representatives faced each other in the November runoff and Democrat Buddy Leach defeated Republican Jimmy Wilson by a narrow margin.

Issues were not the main feature of this campaigneveryone in Louisiana is conservative. The effect of the open primary law is still somewhat uncertain, although it clearly seems to favor incumbents, it also seems to have the effect of making the elections in Louisiana uncharacteristically dull, and the voter turn-out unusually low.

In Shreveport, elections were held to elect representatives for a new Mayor-Council form of city government. Following a series of legal actions instigated by BULL (Blacks United for Lasting Leadership), and scandals involving the previous commissioners, the new charter and single member districts were approved by a 3-1 majority last April. This November, as a result of this fall’s election three Blacks will occupy seats on the seven member city council. This marks a dramatic change and new hope for Blacks in traditionally conservative Shreveport.

Mississippi

For the first time since Reconstruction, Mississippi will have a Republican in the U.S. Senate. The election of Thad Cochran, a member of Congress who went to

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Washington in Barry Goldwater’s sweep of the South in 1964, may well mark a new conservative Republican force in Mississippi politics as potentially powerful as the old Democratic regime of U.S. Senator James Eastland.

The shift in Mississippi’s political power was foretold last spring when rumors of Eastland’s retirement spread. When the rumors were confirmed, the June Democratic primary in Mississippi became a crowded contest among some of the state’s most formidable politicians. Fifty-oneyear-old Cliff Finch, in the middle of his term as governor, announced that he would seek Eastland’s seat. Former Governor William Waller, former Lt. Gov. Charles Sullivan, and former District Atty. Maurice Dantin also announced their candidacies.

The campaign for the June 7 Democratic Primary was a contrast between Finch’s folksy, backslapping style and the more subdued campaigns of Dantin and the others. Finch made an open appeal for support among Blacks and rural Whites and even published a listing of all Blacks he had appointed to high positions in the state’s largest newspapers. Dantin had the support of some of Eastland’s political allies as well as the state AFLCIO.

Perhaps hurt by allegations of corruption in his administration and a poor turnout of Black voters, Finch came in second in the primary and lost the run-off to Dantin. At the same time, Thad Cochran won the Republican primary without a run-off.

Three major candidates were in the general election. In addition to the two parties’ nominees, Charles Evers, Black mayor of Fayette, Mississippi ran a populist campaign. Speaking out against multi-national corporations and calling for more local, economic development, Evers’ low budget campaign attempted to pull a large number of Blacks with some Whites for a plurality victory. More than a few Black and White liberals, however, were disturbed by Evers’ opposition to courtordered busing and support for return of prayer in the schools.

While Evers made a strong showing and trailed Dantin by only about 50,000 votes, the effect of his candidacy was primarily to spoil the election for Democrats. Disengaged from the fragile coalition established in the late 60s between Black and White Democrats, Cochran was able to muster enough votes to lead the ticket.

Cochran is a representative standard bearer of Republi-

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canism in Mississippi. He favors lower taxes, strong defense, less money for welfare. While he has attempted to make some accommodations with Blacks in his congressional district, his voting record in Congress exhibits little sympathy for the problems of poor and Blacks in the state.

In congressional races, all of Mississippi’s incumbents were reelected. In Cochran’s old 4th district, which includes Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi, John C. Hinson, a Republican and former aide to Cochran was elected. Perhaps symbolically, Hinson defeated the son of Mississippi’s Democratic senator John Hampton Stennis, who had become a significant political figure in his own right in the state.

With the election of Cochran and his former aide, Mississippians clearly mark their readiness to desert Democratic ranks and they may soon have another chance. Republican Gil Carmichael is expected to be a strong contender in two years for the governor’s chair. Carmichael picked up 45 percent of the vote in his race against Cliff Finch last time. Also, Mississippians did not give Jimmy Carter a clear majority in the 1976 Presidential election (although he carried the state with 49 percent of the vote) and may not do so in 1980.

Mississippi’s three Black Democratic state representatives were not up for reelection this year. In two years, the expected reapportionment of the Mississippi Legislature may well add to their numbers; however, the general mood of Mississippians to vote conservative Republican may also add additional problems for all Democrats.

North Carolina

Armed with more than $7 million for campaign expenses and a strong reputation as a hard-line conservative leader, Republican Senator Jesse Helms swamped populist-styled Democratic nominee John Ingram who had defied pollsters and money to gain the Democratic nomination.

A former broadcaster, Helms will return to Washington for a second term as a conservative Republican with a national following from a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one. Supplied with funds from throughout the nation by the dircct mail appeals of conservative fundraiser Richard Viguerie, Helms picked tip votes throughout the state and received a larger vote than his 54 percent in 1972.

Ingram is one of the North Carolina insurance commissioners who surprised everyone by defeating Luther Hodges, Jr. in the May 30 Democratic Primary runoff. Earlier, Hodges had led the Democratic ticket with almost 40 percent of the vote carrying 87 of the state’s 100 counties. Ingram had only 26 percent of the vote and his campaign appeal “I’m fighting for you” appeared to have an isolated following. In the run-off campaign, however,

Ingrain attacked I lodges as “the rich man’s candidate” and referred more often to Hodge’s background as a banker. Despite a large professional staff and many television campaign ads, Hodges trailed distantly behind Ingram in the run-off.

Ingram attempted to use the same approach against Helms in the general election. Calling the Republican “the five million dollar man,” Ingram asked audiences throughout the state how Helms could be a fiscal conservative when spending $7 million just to reelect himself. Ingram’s campaign suffered constantly because of lack of funds.

In mid-October when polls showed that Helms had a sizable lead over Ingram, the Democratic nominee simply reminded voters of earlier polls that showed Hodges as the leading contender. This time, however, the pollsters were right.

While there were no statewide offices up for reelection, members of North Carolina’s general assembly, who are elected every two years, were on the ballot. The state’s two Black Senators from Charlotte and Raleigh were reelected as were the four Black Representatives to the lower chamber.

South Carolina

“Old South” Republican Strom Thurman handily defeated challenger Pug Ravenel in a highly visible South Carolina election. Ravenel hammered away at Thurman’s past stands against civil rights’ issues, but Thurman, who has moderated his position considerably in the last six years, campaigned vigorously for the Black vote. Thurman’s new responsiveness to providing services for Black constituents apparently defused some of Ravenel’s campaign issues but did not result in a significant Black vote for the Republican candidate. In spite of Ravenel’s defeat, it is seen by some as a victory for racial moderation because of Thurman’s visible retrenchment on civil rights’ issues and providing constituent services to Blacks.

In other South Carolina races Dick Hey won the governorship for the Democrats and his running mate Nancy Stevenson won the lieutenant governor’s race, and will become the first woman to preside over the all-male South Carolina Senate. Two congressional races in the Palmetto state also sparked widespread interest in the 4th District (Greenville-Spartanburg) and in the 2nd District which includes Columbia and Orangeburg. Former Congressman James Mann retired from the 4th District seat, leaving the race open to former Greenville Mayor Max Heller, a Democrat, and Republican State Senator Carroll Campbell. Campbell prevailed over the more liberal Heller in a close race dominated by economic issues. In the 2nd District, Congressman Floyd Spence was thought to be vulnerable to a challenge by author-journalist Jack Bass, a Democrat. Spence easily won reelection to a fifth term,

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however, giving South Carolina two Republicans in the House. Both these victories were helped considerably by a large Republican vote as a result of the Thurman campaign. The Thurman coattails were also seen as responsible for Republican Henry Young’s victory as incumbent commissioner of Agriculture.

In the legislature, Blacks retained their seats, but two Democratic women lost their seats. Republicans on the Thurman coattails prevailed in most of the closely contested races to score a net gain in the lower South Carolina House coming especially from the suburban districts.

Tennessee

In Tennessee, Lamar Alexander, a Republican lawyer from Nashville won a clear victory over wealthy Knoxville banker Jake Butcher. Both men had run for the governorship before and went all out to win. Although the race was closely contested, there did not seem to be a great deal of difference on the issues. Butcher, who is a friend of Bert Lance, and not unlike him in style, received .strong support from President Carter, who visited the state on Butcher’s behalf. However, Alexander’s smooth and polished campaign kept Butcher on the defensive about his wealth and flamboyant banking practices. Butcher was able to capture endorsements from normally Republican newspapers in Knoxville and Nashville but that did not provide the support he needed for victory.

The race was characterized by free spending on both sides, but especially by the Butcher campaign which had over 300 staffers on the payroll. Spending was unusually high m the primary election as well.

Alexander was no doubt helped by incumbent Senator howard Baker who led the Republican ticket by defeating Democrat Jane Eskind of Nashville. Senator Baker, apparently looking toward a possible presidential bid in 1980, waged an all-out effort and rolled up a big margin to provide an impressive homestate base.

In other races, Democrat Harold Ford from Memphis became the only incumbent Black representative from the South and Tennessee Democrats kept their 5-3 advantage in the House.

Texas

The elections in Texas this year featured Texas style spending and very closely contested races for the governorship and Senate as well as a number of interesting House contests. Veteran Republican Sen. John Tower squeaked by former Congressman Bob Krueger. This contest in which the candidates spent nearly six million dollars was marked with bitter charges and counter charges and a handshake incident that may have cost Senator Tower some votes but not the election.

In the governor’s race, Republican Bill Clements, a former Deputy Secretary of Defense took a very close race from State Attorney General John Hill. Spending in this race also set new records with Clements spending $6.5 million of mostly borrowed money, and Hill about $2.5 million in a strict pay-as-you-go campaign.

Hill drew support from Spanish speaking Texans because of Clements’ percieved insensitivity to Hispanic issues. At one point in the campaign Clements was asked what kinds of programs for Hispanics he would implement as Governor; to which he replied “I’m not running for Governor of Mexico.”

Voting patterns seemed to indicate that Democratic margins in rural areas and minority communities were not enough to offset Republican advantages in Houston and Dallas-Ft. Worth. The margin in both races was less than three votes per precinct and the outcome was not decided until the day following the election.

Retiring Representative Barbara Jordan was replaced by Democrat Mickey Leland who along with Harold Ford of Tennessee will provide all of the Southern Black representation in this term of Congress. Texans also approved overwhelmingly a tax relief amendment linking state spending to the growth of the state’s economy.

Virginia

Former Navy secretary and husband of Elizabeth Taylor, John W. Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in Virginia. Using much of his own personal fortune and a growing Republican organization in the state, Warner managed to overcome a strong challenge from Democrat Andrew Miller, a former Virginia attorney general, who had relied largely upon the traditional coalition of old time Democrats, Virginia educators, labor, and Blacks.

Unlike most other Southern states, Virginia nominates its party candidates through a convention system which for the Republicans met on June 3rd. The state’s former Republican chairman, Richard Obenshain, defeated Warner and two others to receive the Republican nomination; however, when Obenshain died in a plane accident, Warner became the Republican nominee and inherited the strong Republican organization.

Warner has emphasized his experience in Washington and talked of his tough negotiations with the Russians. He also has often been accompanied by his wife and movie star, Elizabeth Taylor.

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For most of the campaign Warner and Miller attempted to show the other as less conservative. Warner attempted again and again to tie Miller to populist and pro-labor leader Henry Howell, former Democratic lieutenant governor and called frequently for a strong national defense and large tax cuts.

Miller tried to keep his distance from Howell, talk like a conservative, accuse Warner of being less conservative, and still keep labor and Blacks in his camp. His efforts apparently failed.

For a time it seemed that both candidates were trying to see how much they could alienate Black voters. In September, Warner stated in a television interview that as Navy secretary he had worked to slow integration. He constantly refused to appear before the state’s largest Black voting organization or other Black organizations such as the NAACP. While Miller attended such meetings, he kept his distance at tunes and made few promises specifically to Black constituents.

The election marks another victory for a growing Republican party in the South. With Republican Governor John Dalton, the election of Warner puts an end to Democratic hopes to regain the strong rule that the late Sen. Harry F. Byrd maintained. While an unexciting campaigner, Miller was one of the Democrat’s most popular vote-getters and his defeat leaves Virginia’s Democratic party in some disarray.

Both candidates spent well over a million dollars seeking the nomination and election. Most state elections will be held in two years.

Southern Politics

By Gordon Kenna

Vol. 1, No. 4, 1979, pp. 23

Traditionally the South, more than any other region, has maintained remarkable continuity in the leadership it has sent to Washington. That era is surely ending now as the South’s senior Senators and Congressmen are being replaced by younger and often more moderate representatives.

Republicans score a gain of two Senate seats in the eleven state South by winning races in Mississippi and Virginia. The GOP also had a net gain of two House seats in the region.

Just how these and other changes will affect the South’s representation in Congress is not fully known,but some projections can be made based on the South’s past performance on such telling issues as Civil Rights and Consumer Protection. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has provided a rating of Congressional voting records on 12 issues with Civil Rights implications. In this analysis we have also used a rating compiled by Congress Watch, the congressional lobbying arm of Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen. The Congress Watch selected forty votes which concern consumer interests in the five major issue areas of: Consumer Protection, Government Reform, Energy, Tax Reform and Waste/Subsidy. The combined ratings shown in the tables below offer some evidence that the outgoing congressmen represent some of the worst voting records that the South had to offer.

This evidence indicates Lijat Southern elections were not a total loss on these issues. This reduction in mostly senior conservative ranks is a function of age rather than political change and was not altogether unexpected. The resultant loss in seniority is minimized by recent challenges to the committee chair system. On the Senate side, even in the states of Mississippi and Virginia where conservative Republicans were elected, conservative Democrats with miserable voting records on Civil Rights and consumer issues were replaced. The other retiring Senate Democrats from Alabama and Arkansas were replaced by men who promise to be more progressive than their predecessors.

In the House where Republicans gained two Southern seats, the retiring Democrats included such conservative veterans as Flynt of Georgia, Waggonncr of Louisiana, and Teague, Poage, Burleson, and Mahon of Texas. Republican absentees in the 96th House include Frey and Burke (who were replaced by Democrats), and Thad Cochran from Mississippi who won election to the Senate. For some of these veterans, a worse voting record on civil rights and consumer issues is hardly possible by their successors.

The Best and the Worst

In terms of Southern state delegations, calling the best mediocre is probably generous. In the House, South Carolina had the best civil rights voting record with 55.6, followed by Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas. The ‘best’ Senate record on these issues was 50 from Tennessee and a 37 rating for Florida. Public interest issues fared poorly in the South generally, but got their highest marks from Senate members in Arkansas and Florida.

On the other hand, the states with the worst voting record stood out clearly. The best that can he said about the tables below is that they allow ample room for improvement.

On balance it seems there may not be a great deal to cheer about, but there can be little remorse in the retirement of some senior Southerners who have spent their careers fighting against the interests of consumers, minorities and the poor.

Declining Donkeydom in Presleyland

By Boyd Lewis

Vol. 1, No. 5, 1979, pp. 6

It was 100 years ago that cartoonist Thomas Nast decided to portray the Democratic Party as a flop-eared jackass and the Republican Party as an elephant of clearly low-wattage intelligence. Amazingly, neither party felt insulted by the nasty Mr. Nast and over the years the animal icons came to symbolize party identity and outlook.

Some years the impish little Demo donkey romps merrily around the ponderous GOP elephant and in others the elephant stomps the Bejesus out of the donkey in the manner of a wonderful underground cartoon called “Bambi Meets Godzilla”.

Politics has meant Party and Party has meant Politics for as long as anyone now alive can remember in this country. But in Memphis this December, amid a Wagnerian weather scheme that featured tornado warnings, howling rainstorms and an ice incrustation, the mainstream part of the USA showed that it is now held together by spit and bailing wire. The donkey is fast going the way of the dinosaur.

The Democrats were lured to Memphis for its first mid-term conference under the impression that the city would be warmer than conventionseeking Denver and drier than Seattle, another contender. As it turned out, it was colder, wetter and more miserable than almost any place in the country for the entire run of the miniconvention.

And the Democratic National Committee thought Memphis would represent a massed hymn to the policies of Jimmy Carter, a highly publicized show of unity, joy and Prussian organization. But as with the weather, Memphis was a ferocious disappointment. The party’s 2,700 delegates and alternates, the insiders in the 1976 campaign and footsoldiers for 1980, were split seven ways from Sunday on the most basic issues of party policy how well or poorly Carter has been doing, how the Democrats should deal with health care, defense, urban development and employment in the next election.

What was excruciatingly clear in Memphis was that the grand old coalitions which have kept the Democrats in power or close to it since the days of Franklin Roosevelt are no more. Gone is the linkage of organized labor, liberals, the cities, Blacks and the poor which interwove the special interests of each into bloc votes for the Democrats.

The George Meany/Alan Barkan/COPE/Teamsters variety of labor political operatives boycotted the Memphis gathering. Unions that did show up – NEA (National Education Association), AFSCME (Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees), auto workers, machinists and the like – were all hotly opposed to the president’s domestic spending slashes and they provided the core of disenchantment on the conference floor which put lump after lump in the smooth, controlled flow of resolutions from the delegates.

White liberals, the veterans, the antiwar movement supporters, the environmentalists, Clean Gene, HHH and McGovern supporters, either closed ranks with the party hierarchy or pecked away at the edges in flaccid coalitions like the Democratic Agenda.

New coalitions rose and the most stunning was the woman’s caucus. The women and the women alone held together through the conference, got most of their resolutions passed and got ringing endorsements of the ERA from Jimmy on down the line. Indeed, the only thing Carter said at his keynote address which got the delegates to their feet was his reendorsement of ERA.

But beyond the internal events of the mini-convention, the Democrats and the Republicans are in big trouble. More voters failed to vote in the 1976 election (71 million) than there are registered Democrats, the party which runs most states, Congress and the White House. Few people vote straight party tickets any more. Single issue voting (tax relief, support of Israel, outlawing abortion, etc.) undercuts the entire rationale of a political party, which strives to provide a little of many things to the most people.

In Memphis, the donkeys of December met to show unity but revealed down-to-the-heart fractures; to support Carter but only by 2/3 of their votes; to discuss issues but only in a rigid format that choked off debate and angered the little democrats: to reinforce coalitions but saw them fall and new ones arise.

But most important of all, the Democratic Party failed to deal with a threat to its reason for being – the party of government helping, not government obsessed by the bottom line. President Carter’s $l5-$l8 billion cuts from health, job, city, education and minority assistance programs while boosting the Pentagon’s budget II percent for the next fiscal year is seen by party liberals as sheer neoNixonism, a Republican ploy if ever there was one.

Carter’s junking of the party’s basic philosophy was given little serious debate by the Memphis miniconvention. Those probing for cancer in the party’s body politick need look no further than that.

Boyd Lewis is an Atlanta free-lance writer.

Southern Politics

By Steve Suitts

Vol. 1, No. 8, 1979, pp. 23-24

In early April Jesse Helms of North Carolina appeared on the virtually deserted floor of the U.S. Senate and, after receiving recognition to debate the issue of a separate federal department of education, introduced an amendment to return prayer to the nation’s public schools. The amendment proposed to legislate away the federal court’s jurisdiction to hear cases involving state laws permitting voluntary prayer in public schools.

The unexpected amendment created a long, intense debate which ended on April 5 with the approval of the measure in a vote of 47-37 and the quick recess of the Senate until April 9 so that Democratic leaders and opponents of the amendment would have time to confer.

When the Senate returned on Monday, April 9, the opponents’ strategy was to remove the amendment from the president’s bill on education to pending legislation relating to the Supreme Court jurisdiction. Helms and his South Carolina colleague, Strom Thurmond, protested that the transfer would kill the amendment since as a part of the Supreme Court legislation it would be sent to the House of Judiciary Committee where chairman Peter Rodino of New York, as Helms said, “would bury it so deep that it will require 14 bulldozers just to scratch the surface.” On a close vote, the transfer was approved and now the measure is not expected to pass Congress.

The school prayer has been an issue in the South since 1962 when the Supreme Court banned official, organized prayers. Yet, not since Mississippi’s James 0. Eastland presided over hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1963 to overturn the “Godless Supreme Court’s opinion” had Congress witnessed a Southerner lead such a serious parliamentary charge to restore school prayers. While efforts to allow school prayer had been considered by Congress in 1971, and earlier in 1968, when Republican minority leader Everett Dirksen failed by only nine votes to have Congress approve a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision banning official school prayer, most of the Southern delegation in both houses were among the strong supporters of both efforts.

The April vote showed that little has changed in the solid South’s support. With Thurmond proclaiming that “here in the nation’s capital, we who make the laws, approve of prayers . . . , then what is wrong with letting little children in schools . . .,” seventeen Southern senators voted for the amendment, four were absent or did not vote, and only one opposed the measure.

The single vote against the amendment was cast by Arkansas Democrat Dale Bumpers. While Florida’s senator Lawton Childs voted to kill the amendment by tabling it, when the Helms amendment came up for an actual vote he supported it.

The four senators who were absent or not voting were Don Stewart of Alabama, Herman Talmadge of. Georgia, Russell Long of Louisiana, and Howard Baker of Tennessee. All others voted to remove the power of the courts to interfere with states wanting to authorize prayers.

The seventeen Southern votes, of course, gave the Helms amendment

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its margin of victory. As in the past, Southern Democratic senators departed with the Democratic majority from other regions and voted with the majority of Republicans in the Senate who supported the measure.

While another Southerner had no vote, President Jimmy Carter also expressed opposition to the amendment. At a news conference the president stated:

My preference is that Congress not get involved in the question mandating prayer in the schools. I am a Christian; 1 happen to be a Baptist. I believe that the subject of prayer in the schools ought to be decided between a person individually and privately and God. The Supreme Court has ruled on this issue and I personally don’t think that the Congress ought to pass any legislation requiring or permitting prayer.

Sometimes a student might object even to a so-called voluntary prayer when it’s publicly coordinated. It might be very embarrassing to a young person to say, “I want to be excused from the room because I don’t want to pray.”

In the April 19 vote removing the Helms amendment from the education bill, four Democratic Southerners apparently decided that the President was right and rejoined. Still, Lloyd Benson (Texas), Lawton Childs and Dick Stone (Florida), and Sam Nunn (Georgia) would still be able to claim that they supported prayers since they did vote to approve the amendment.

TheArkansas Gazette editorially bemoaned the fact that the Senate had spent so much time on an amendment it called “vintage demogogery.” While accusing its own senator David Pryor of “throwing kisses to the peanut gallery” for his support of the Helms amendment, the editorial called the measure “another effort to subvert the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights.”

The Southerner who wrote the 1962 Supreme Court opinion first banning official prayer in schools, Hugo Black stated it another way: “it is neither sacriligious not anti-religious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves In 1979, however, Black’s opinion still finds little support among the South’s political leaders.

Changing Politics in Mississippi

By JoAnn Klein

Vol. 2, No. 3, 1979, pp. 5-6

Mississippi ― fresh from legislative reapportionment designed to better reflect racial composition of voting age population – became the state with the greatest number of Black elected officials in elections November 6. Long a hotbed of racial conflict and struggle, the Deep South state took over the top spot from Louisiana by electing record numbers of Blacks to county offices and four-year legislative terms.

In addition, William Winter, a former lieutenant governor, was elected governor by a 2-to-l majority. Winter, a three time candidate for the chief executive’s slot, lost his first gubernatorial contest because he was considered too moderate on racial matters.

Seventeen Blacks won seats in the Mississippi Legislature, an increase from six in the 1979 session. In the 122-member House of Representatives, Blacks will comprise 12.2 percent of the membership. Fifteen Black candidates, all Democrats, won seats in the lower chamber. Four are from Hinds County, the state’s most populous county and the location of Jackson, the state capitol.

Black state Rep. Robert Clark of Lexington in rural Holmes County, is expected to retain his chairmanship of the House Education Committee. Two years ago, Clark became the first Black committee chairman since Reconstruction. He is also the senior Black legislator, entering his fourth term.

Black House members also include state NAACP president Aaron Henry of Clarksdale, who doubles as co-chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party; Meridian NAACP president Charles Young and Jackson NAACP president Fred Banks, a leading candidate to become Mississippi’s first Black federal judge.

A result of a 14-year fight to reapportion the legislature, the increased Black membership comes from across the state, from north to south, east to west.

Across the hall in the state Senate, two Blacks will join the 52-member body. Both are Hinds County Democrats and will become the second and third Black senators in Mississippi since Reconstruction. Doug Anderson, presently a state representative, and Henry Kirksey, principal plaintiff in the reapportionment case, will make 3.8 percent of the upper chamber Black.

However, with all the Black gains, there was at least one major setback. The state’s most famous Black senate candidate – Fayette mayor Charles Evers, brother of slain civil rights leader Medger Evers – was stopped in his effort to win a senate seat in four counties along the Mississippi River.

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With the legislative victories, Black elected officials in Mississippi neared the 350 mark. That figure was buoyed by the re-election of 15 incumbent Black supervisors, who run county governments in the state’s 82 counties. Blacks picked up supervisors posts in Claiborne, Holmes, Yazoo and Hinds counties.

In Hinds County, two Blacks will sit on the five-member supervisors’ board. They are the first Black members since Reconstruction. Both defeated long-time incumbents.

At the same time, Blacks won sheriff’s post previously held by Whites in Claiborne, Marshall and Holmes counties. All three counties have predominantly Black populations.

Along with local and legislative races, the 1979 gubernatorial election also reflected a change in Mississippi politics.

Winter won the Democratic nomination without the support of former U.S. Sen. James 0. Eastland, Mississippi’s chief political kingpen for three decades. In addition, Eastland’s longtime political organization didn’t back Winter until he had won the party nomination.

As a result, Winter is not expected to choose from the Eastland favorites when he makes several hundred appointments that befall a new governor.

Winter’s election also purged former supporters of George Wallace from the ranks of the Democratic Party hierarchy. Party Vice Chairman Jan Little and secretary George Winborne switched to support Republican nominee Gil Carmichael.

More moderate members of the Democratic Party had been trying to rid themselves of the Wallacites for years and believe they’ve finally driven them into the more conservative Republican ranks.

In addition, Carmichael’s nomination was also a victory for more moderate Republicans. Carmichael, who angered GOP conservatives in 1976 by supporting Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan for the party’s presidential nomination, defeated Leon Bramlett, hand-picked by the State’s Reagan following.

Mississippi’s new governor has thus far stayed out of presidential politics. However, Winter stumped the state for John F. Kennedy in 1960. Immediately after the election, Winter said his support of President Kennedy doesn’t mean he’ll endorse Sen. Edward Kennedy this year.

JoAnn Klein is a political reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi.

Election day in Mississippi

By L.C. Dorsey

Vol. 2, No. 3, 1979, pp. 7-8

As almost a hundred people crowded into Henry J. Kirksey’s campaign headquarters, it was clear that they were also keeping their eyes on other races in the state.

The November 6 general election saw the culmination of a concerted struggle for the fulfillment of the “one man, one vote” doctrine, which began in the mid-fifties, escalated in 1964 with the “Freedom Summer” activities and finally, fourteen years later, was realized when a federal court ordered plan guaranteed the election of Blacks to the Mississippi legislature.

Henry Jay, as Kirksey is affectionately called by friends, was one of the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit against the state with other members of the old Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The suit became the full-time occupation for Kirksey who worked with a series of attorneys over the years to legally reapportion the state to allow Blacks a fair shake in state government.

A lawsuit filed by Kirksey and several other citizens in 1975 has resulted in three Blacks from Hinds County joining the legislature, making a total of four Blacks in the House of Representatives (Douglas Anderson, Fred Banks, Horace Buckley, and Robert Clark from Holmes County).

Watching other races, the supporters in the Kirksey headquarters considered some of the Black candidates “movement” people. While others were “opportunists” or even “front men” for the White establishment. Several of the Blacks vying for the newly created positions in the legislature simply decided that they would run, sought the endorsement of powerful people in their areas and

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announced their candidacy.

Whatever the political and legal events that brought Mississippians to the 1979 General election, it was obvious that Mississippi politics would never be the same. “I couldn’t sleep,” Kirksey acknowledged in anticipating election day.

Kirksey’s youthful campaign manager talked about the strategy that was supposed to guarantee Kirksey’s victory. They’re voting heavily in Jackson, but the vote appears to be splitting enough so that Henry will win,” E.C. Foster said.

All over the state Blacks were being urged to go to the polls to vote. A worker from gubernatorial candidate William Winter’s campaign headquarters called: “There are some people in West Jackson who need rides to the polls. Can you pick them up?” he asked. A quick check of the map showed that the people lived in another district. A call to the local Labor Council’s office was made and cars were dispatched from there to get the voters.

In Mound Bayou in Boliver County, where there was a hotly contested Sheriff’s race, a16yearold Black was in charge of the Winter campaign machinery. He busily ferried people to the polls for both Winter and Richard Crowe, a Black man running for Sheriff.

Yet the stream of information about voting irregularities also began coming m. Amzie Moore, a long-time political leader in Boliver County drove to the “Crowe for Sheriff Headquarters” to complain about the way he and other voters were pressured at the polls. There was one report that incumbent William B. Alexander, challenged by a Black was inside a polling station telling the voters to “remember your Senator” in plain view of a federal observer and poll workers.

In nearby Marshall County, early reports indicated that police stationed at the polls were deterring voters from the polls. There were also charges of vote-buying.

Finally, though the votes were in.

Kirksey, who is expected to be the chairman of the Black Caucas in the 1980 Legislature, defeated two White opponents for Senate District 28. It was Kirksey’s fourth bid for public office, having lost two previous state bids and a U.S. Senate bid last year.

Douglas Anderson, one of four Blacks elected to the House in 1975, had prevailed over a former campaign worker. Hillman Frazier, a newcomer to politics, went to an easy victory over a Republican candidate. Political observers credit his success to a serious, door-to-doOr “talking to people” campaign.

Judy 0. Cambrell, a Black attorney running in a predominantly White district, lost to the incumbent Dick Hall.

Bennie Thompson, mayor of Bolton, is a newly elected supervisor in Hinds County, having survived a highly controversial campaign.

In Boliver County, White incumbent Alexander prevailed. Richard Crowe lost.

No one seems optimistic that the seventeen new Black members of the state legislature will create instant change, but a Kirksey volunteer and senior at Tougaloo College said, “At least we will have someone up there who will fight for us, and let us know what is going on.”

Johnny Todd, Black mayor of Rosedale, while happy about the election results, was disappointed about the failure in his home county Bolivar. “We have to organize,” he said. Milburn Crowe, agreed that the lack of organization in Bolivar County allowed some politicians and leaders to exchange money for votes and voter influence. “We have to start now to organize so that we are ready next time,” said Crowe.

It was a day of victories in Mississippi and the moment to begin again for the next times.

L.C. Dorsey is a civil rights worker and author of Freedom Came to Mississippi.

Southern Politics

By Staff

Vol. 2, No. 3, 1979, pp. 26

Alarmed by the enormous amounts of money that Political Action Committees (PACs) are contributing to campaigns, a majority of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives took a first step in October to limit the funds that PACs can contribute to House candidates.

In a 217-198 vote House members decided to limit the “arms race. . . of campaign dollars . . . .” in approving an amendment sponsored by Dem. David Obey of Wisconsin and Rep. Tom Railsback of Illinois. The amendment which applies only to the lower house of Congress would prohibit House candidates from receiving more than $70,000 from any or all PACs in any two-year period preceding an election.

PACs are often the political units of labor, business, or professional associations that presently can contribute any amount of money to any candidates for the U.S. House or Senate. A study by the Federal Elections Commission in 1978 showed that labor, corporate and trade association PACs gave almost three times as much money to incumbents as they did challengers. In 1978 almost 25 percent of all funds contributed to House candidates – nearly $23,000,000 came from PACs.

The Congressional Quarterly reported that 13 representatives in the South would be directly affected by the limit since in the last election they received more than the proposed limit of $70,000 from PACs (see chart below). Six of these House members are from Texas and four from Louisiana and Tennessee. Of the thirteen, five voted for the limit. They were Jim Wright (Texas), Bob Eckhardt (Texas), Claude Pepper (Florida), Jim Mattox (Texas), and Gillis Long (Louisiana).

Southern House members as a whole, however, overwhelmingly opposed the limit on PAC contributions. Of the 108 House members from the 11 Southern states, 76 opposed the Obey amendment; 30 supported it; and two members from Louisiana didn’t vote. Only in Tennessee and Florida did a majority of the state’s House members support the limit. Four of eight Tennessee representatives and eight of fifteen Florida House members voted “yea”. No House member from Mississippi or Arkansas supported the limit.

As a matter of fact, Southern Congressional delegations provided the bulk of opposition to the limit on contributions. Almost 40 percent of all the “nay” votes against the limit came from the South and more than 90 percent of all the Democrats opposing the changes were Southerners.

A list of the 30 Southern representatives who did support the Obey amendment follows:

Southern Representatives Supporting the Obey Amendment to the Federal Elections Campaign Act.

Alabama

Nichols

Bevil

Florida

Hutto

Fugua

Bennett

Mica

Stack

Lehman

Pepper

Fascell

Georgia

Fowler

Louisiana

Long

North Carolina

Neal

Preger

Rose

Hefner

Gudger

South Carolina

Derrick

Jenrette

Tennessee

Gore

Boner

Jones

Ford

Texas

Mattox

Eckhardt

Brooks

Wright

Leland

Virginia

Harris

Fisher

Economic Development: Southern Representatives Oppose Welfare Reform

By Steve Suitts

Vol. 2, No. 4, 1980, pp. 24

Proposing to increase present payments to the Southern poor, major welfare reform was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on November 7th with strong opposition from a solid, Southern Congressional delegation.

By a deceptively comfortable margin of 222 to 184, the House approved the Carter administration’s proposal to seek greater uniformity among state welfare programs and to reduce costs. The heart of the legislation proposed a guaranteed payment equal to at least 65 percent of the poverty level approximately $4,700 of welfare payments to a family of four today.

States would also be required to offer assistance to eligible families with two parents when the principal wage earner is unemployed. Presently, the public assistance program – Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) – assists only one parent families. Other provisions of the legislation reflect the Congressional mood of austerity and cut benefits to some recipients and strengthen incentives for recipients to work.

Solid opposition to the bill came from the South. Roughly seven out of 10 representatives from the 11 Southern states voted against passage supplying more than 40 percent of the entire opposing votes. No Congressman in Alabama, Mississippi or North Carolina voted for the bill and only in South Carolina did at least half of the Congressional delegation support the legislation. In that state Representatives Davis, Holland and Genrette supported the bill.

Of the Democrats opposing the reforms, Southerners constituted almost 75 percent of the entire group. At the same time, every Southern Republican except Treen of Louisiana, who was campaigning in his home state for governor, voted against the legislation.

Ironically, Southern representatives voted to oppose redistributing federal funds to the South where the major impact of the legislation would be felt. Ten of the 14 states which presently have welfare payments below the proposed floor are Southern – excluding Virginia where AFDC and food stamp payments presently offer benefits equal to about 69 percent of the poverty level. Most of the $900 million increase in federal contributions to state welfare programs would go to Southern states under the bill – which the Southern delegation solidly opposed.

Most Southern members apparently preferred the proposal of Rep. Archer of Texas who moved to recommit the bill to committee with instructions to report back legislation providing eight states and three counties with blocks of funds to run a demonstration welfare system according to their own design and allowing all states to set their own work requirements for welfare recipients. Almost 60 percent of the Southern representatives voted for the Archer amendment which failed by the narrowest margin – 200 in favor and 205 opposed.

Prospects for the legislation’s passage in the Senate is uncertain at best since Senate Finance Committee Chairman Russell Long of Louisiana has expressed opposition to the bill.

The chart shows the degree of support for welfare reform from each of the Southern states’ Congressional delegation.

Women and Minorities in Louisiana Elections Despair or Hope?

By Norma Dyess

Vol. 2, No. 5, 1980, pp. 19-23

At first glance,the 1979 election returns portend a grim future for women and minorities in Louisiana for the next four years. In fact, many human rights activists have been in despair feeling that the outcomes of the gubernatorial, statewide and legislative races represented a giant step backward.

The main source of pessimism and alarm was the election of third district Congressman David C. Treen, the first Republican governor in 102 years. No moderate, Charles Percy-type Republican, Treen is a bedrock, longtime conservative who once belonged to the States Rights Party, was one of four Congressmen voting in 1974 against impeachment of Richard Nixon and has made feminist and civil rights activists recoil in distrust by his Washington voting record.

Their concern was compounded by the fact that the governor of Louisiana is probably the most powerful governor of any of the 50 states. He controls the purse-strings, a vast array of appointments and patronage opportunities and generally oversees a network of political power that guarantees his formidable grasp on the harness of state government.

But other elections were just as discouraging. Consider the scorecard:

-Only three women and one Black sought statewide office this year. All but incumbent State Treasurer Mary Evelyn Parker were defeated by White men. Former Secretary of the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism Sandra Thompson of Baton Rouge lost her bid for Secretary of State, as did Ben Jeffers, a young, Black management consultant from Baton Rouge. Louisiana Women’s Political Caucus President Lynne Hair, also of Baton Rouge, was defeated in her race for Commissioner of Elections. With the exception of Parker, all statewide elective offices are held by White men.

-Of the 28 women who ran for seats in the state legislature, only three were elected. Furthermore, the state Senate lost its only woman member with the defeat of Virginia Shehee of Shreveport. In the House, formerly the state’s only female Representative Diana Bajole of New Orleans will be joined only by Mary Landrieu, (the 23 year-old daughter of Moon Landrieu, former Mayor of New Orleans and now HUD Secretary), and Margaret Lowenthal of Lake Charles. At least three of the women who ran for the state legislature were anti-feminists whose elections

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would have been a setback for the women’s movement.

-There was a net gain of only two Blacks elected to the legislature. Sen. Henry Braden of New Orleans will be joined by William Jefferson, also of New Orleans. The new Black state representative is Charles D. Jones of Monroe.

-While strides were made the fact that 28 women were politically viable enough to wage strong campaigns for the legislature, for example, the overall results and above all the election of Treen made 1979 appear something less than a watershed year.

But there is another side to the story.

The same Republican victory that has signaled disaster has some liberals optimistic that perhaps the best is yet to come.

It’s a long story, and one that is as unique to Louisiana as crawfish etoufee, filet gumbo and Mardi Gras.

Louisiana is just now truly beginning to emerge from the decades-long grip of rural poverty that existed alongside the rich oil fields, the bustling commercial activity of the river port in New Orleans and the developing tourist industry of that area. The recent boom of the petrochemical corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the oil, gas, and related industrial growth of Shreveport and the manufacturing plants throughout the state has produced a more even distribution of the state’s wealth. It has also produced a nascent middle class – a political innovation that was bound to have a dramatic impact on the state government.

Surprisingly enough, it was Gov. Edwin Edwards who provided the mechanism that quickened the arrival of the new government. Back in 1975 Edwards was embroiled in his bid for re-election, and the memory of his 1971 gubernatorial bid was fresh in his mind. The closed primary system he was operating under pitted him against a legion of other Democratic contenders for the October primary spot. This meant that Democrats spent long months bitterly slugging it out, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars only to have to turn around and face a lone Republican candidate who often managed to swallow up 40 percent of the vote. While the Democratic party and candidates were bitterly divided and emotionally and financially drained, the Republican sat back until his December appearance, fresh as a daisy and with votes in hand. Determined to “reform” this procedure, Edwards began

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pushing for a change. In 1976, he won. The legislature passed the open primary law.

In 1979, Dave Treen, the Republican nominee who was handed a mantle as a reward for his longtime party loyalty when times were bad, had to jump in at the forefront to assure himself a place in the general election. He would have to campaign just as long and spend just as much as the Democrats.

At the same time the Republican nominee was virtually assured a spot in the general election, because he started out with the usual 35-45 percent expected vote as well as a chance to pull out an early lead on the Democrats.

In the first primary, there was a stunning array of Democratic contenders, the top elected officials in the state, and each had something to offer. Lt. Gov. Jimmy Fitzmorris of New Orleans, who as chairman of the Board of Commerce and Industry had made jobs and industrial inducement the foundation of his campaign, was early-on tagged the frontrunner. House Speaker “Bubba” Henry of Jonesboro, the “Mr. Clean” of state government, was the tall, Lincolnesque godfather to the Independent Legislature I Good Government faction. State Sen. “Sonny” Mouton of Lafayette, a diminutive Cajun, had labored in the vineyards of the legislature for 15 years for liberal causes. Secretary of State Paul Hardy, a boyishly handsome, young newcomer from St. Martinville had just been elected to his first statewide office. And Public Service Commissioner Louis Lambert of Gonzales, with the support of organized Blacks and labor, hoped to follow the historic footsteps of Huey P. Long by jumping from the PSC into the Governor’s Mansion. These five men represented the full gammut of political philosophy, intellect, and integrity. But only one would face Treen in the runoff. Everyone assumed it would be Fitzmorris. It wasn’t.

After a close primary that required several recounts and three court rulings before a decision, Louis Lambert emerged as the Democratic candidate who would battle Treen for the go vernorship. The state’s populist heritage and the considerable political clout of organized labor and urban Black groups (over 100 in number) that had put Lambert in the runoff, was expected to put him over the edge – until an incredible phenomenon that still has the Democratic party reeling began to take shape. All four of the defeated Democratic primary contenders joined together to endorse Republican Treen over their fellow Democrat.

That development is what finally tilted the scales over to Treen. With the support of some Democrats, Treen was able to carry the traditional Republican votes and enough of the new middle class independents. It was close – a margin of less than ten thousand votes among over a million cast. Still, it was a victory for Treen.

The fact is that Treen owes his election to a large segment of the Democratic party. The four gubernatorial candidates were not the only elected Democratic officials to cross party lines to endorse him. Legislators and local officials all across the state actively worked toward his election. The Iberia Parish Democratic Executive Committee even voted unanimously to endorse him over Lambert.

The most fascinating aspect of this boost from Democrats is that Edgar Mouton, the most liberal of all of them, is the one to whom Dave Treen owes the most. A quick took at the demographics of this year’s returns shows why: North Louisiana went for Lambert in spite of “Bubba” Henry’s help (due to labor’s pressure increased recently by the heavy amount of unionization accompanying the lumber/paper mill industry). New Orleans went to Lambert despite the endorsement by Fitzmorris. But Acadiana was another story. While 97 percent of the Black vote in the state went to Lambert, the Lafayette parish area was an exception. Because of Mouton’s support, Lafayette even the Black boxes – went resoundingly to Tree n. (Because Mouton endorsed George McGovern for president in 1972, Lafayette was also the parish in the state that McGovern carried.)

Ironic? It appears that way until one considers that Mouton says he extracted a commitment from Treen prior to his endorsement regarding appointments of women and minorities in his administration and the operation of several key programs as well.

Mouton didn’t have to work very hard to achieve that promise; it was one that Treen

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had articulated repeatedly throughout the entire campaign. Since the state only has 98,211 registered Republicans, the Treen machine set its sight early on capturing the votes of what they termed “discerning Democrats”. During the primary, Treen worked hard to moderate his philosophy, moving so far to the left in some cases as to usurp some traditional Democratic positions. The end result was that on virtually all of the issues of the day Treen’s positions were essentially identical to those of his Democratic opponents.

In fact, Treen came out early and strongly in favor of affirmative action programs, even saying that quota systems were sometimes necessary to ‘address the grievances of the past.” He publicly apologized during a live television debate with Lambert for his having been “remiss in the past” in the area of race relations in response to a question about his membership in the States’ Rights Party and acknowledged that he had a lot of catching up to do in that area. His position on labor-management relations was downright friendly compared to Democrat Hardy, who campaigned on vituperative attacks on organized labor.

The glaring exception to Treen’s conversion was his opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment; he was the single gubernatorial candidate who did not come out in support of ratification of the ERA. Near the end of his runoff campaign, however, he began hinting that he “had an open mind” and that Mouton, who was lobbying him on the issue extensively, “was beginning to make a lot of sense.” Treen also sounded like the old Dave Treen on crime. In fact, much to his political gain, Treen cornered the market on the “hard on crime” line early in the campaign.

Because he moderated his positions, recognized his need to establish political debts to certain key Democrats and “discerning Democrats” in general, Treen is now the governor-elect. As a newcomer to state government, he says he needs the advice, counsel and guidance of leading Democrats, and has pledged repeatedly a bi-partisan administration. He is publicly committed to appointing women and minorities (as well as the elderly and the handicapped) to key policymaking positions.

Treen is no political naif. As the first Republican governor of a deep South state in over a century, Treen is aware his performance in office will reflect glaringly on his party and will affect Republicanism throughout the South for years to come. As LSU Prof. Mark Carleton recently pointed out, “If he (Treen) is a flop he could be the last Republican governor for another hundred years.”

Gov. Edwards is waiting in the wings, eager to reclaim his old job with $450,000 already sitting in his campaign coffers. Elected eight years ago by a coalition of labor, Blacks and liberals, Edwards has appointed more Blacks and women to government positions and done more to steer state government in the direction of their needs than any other in Louisiana’s history. He has publicly pledged to be back in 1983.

Edwin Edwards is leaving office this year with the highest popularity and approval rating in the polls of any Louisiana governor in history. Treen will have to encroach mightily on the governor’s “coalition territory” to stave off that kind of opposition in four years.

If any state in the union has little patience with politicians who don’t it’s Louisiana. That is not a state that is particularly enamored of the lofty ideals of “good government”; it is a state steeped in the tradition of autocratic Gallic rule, of benevelent dictatorship, of despotic populism of the Longs. Less than it demands honesty and reform it demands action. And such preferences diminish in the energy-short and inflation plagued 1980’s.

Louisiana in the 1980s will face a unique opportunity for women and minorities to impact state government as inexorably and as emphatically as they did

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in the 1970s – and possibly more so. As more of them discover they have an entree in the vast network filtering down from the governor’s office, more programs will be developed and funded, more victories will be won in the legislature, and more women and minorities will be getting elected.The ground is fertile for change.

The mantle of his party bearing heavy on his shoulders, Treen’s victory is founded on a shiveringly thin margin of 9,557 votes and campaign promises and debts to liberal Democrats. Certain of formidable Democratic opposition in four more years, Treen will probably be a man of his word. With the economic law of Supply and Demand, Louisiana’s gubernatorial politics, and the state’s unique history, the Treen administration may add up to an opportunity for those so long denied equality in the South.

Norma Dyess is a Baton Rouge native currently working as a reporter for the Louisiana News Bureau, a private state government reporting and service agency.