J. Bennett Johnston obit

J. Bennett Johnston, who delivered millions for Louisiana during long Senate career, dies at 92

 

He was not on the list.

J. Bennett Johnston, a pro-business Democrat who during 24 years in the U.S. Senate steadfastly defended Louisiana’s oil and gas interests and worked in a bipartisan fashion to win congressional funding for infrastructure projects throughout the state, died Tuesday. He was 92 and had been living in Sperryville, Virginia, outside of Washington.

Johnston was overshadowed during much of his career by flashier politicians in Louisiana during an era where populist Democrats dominated. He didn’t rouse crowds with table-thumping speeches.

Instead, Johnston cultivated relationships with Republicans and other Democrats in Washington, D.C., at a time when working across party lines got things done. Johnston had a low-key and friendly style that served him as he became an effective advocate for his moderate-to-conservative views and for Louisiana’s interests.

During more than 30 years in elected office, Johnston’s two biggest moments in the spotlight came in 1971, when he fell just short of winning the governor’s race, and in 1990, when he won reelection to the Senate over the surprisingly strong candidacy of David Duke.

The loss in the governor’s race came at the hands of Edwin Edwards, but it ended up benefiting Johnston because it gave him enough political strength the next year to challenge veteran Sen. Allen Ellender, who was 81. Ellender died during the campaign, and Johnston won easily.

Johnston won reelection in 1978, 1984 and 1990, with the race against Duke generating headlines nationwide because of how powerfully Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard who was then in the state House, tapped into resentment among White voters against Washington.

Reflecting a sharp difference from today’s partisan politics, Johnston developed close relationships with three Republican presidents, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, while he locked horns with President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat.

“I started off as Jimmy Carter’s campaign chairman in Louisiana (for the 1976 election),” Johnston recalled years later. “He was a Southerner, reasonably conservative, strong on national defense. But he was just a clumsy politician.”

Carter tried to block Congress from continuing a time-honored tradition of funding water projects back home favored by powerful lawmakers like Johnston. The president viewed the projects as wasteful.

Johnston marshaled Senate allies, Republican and Democrat alike, to keep the money flowing.

“Most of them were good, not pork,” Johnston said. “Look at what the Red River has done for Shreveport in commerce and recreation. But Carter couldn’t see that.”

Johnston praised Democratic President Bill Clinton, saying, “He was just extremely bright. It was a pleasure to see him handle a news conference. He was also undisciplined.”

President-elect George W. Bush, another Republican, asked Johnston in 2000 to serve as his secretary of energy, but the former senator declined.

“We were very much in sync on energy policy,” Johnston said, but he was nearing 70, working as a lobbyist and serving on the boards of several major oil and gas companies.

Johnston grew up in Shreveport and was a star running back at Byrd High School. He attended West Point and Washington and Lee University and didn’t graduate but went on to get a law degree from LSU.

During the early 1960s, reflecting the views of his community, Johnston defended Shreveport’s right to block the integration of city bus terminals, airports and schools. He was elected to the state House in 1964 and the state Senate in 1967.

After the civil rights movement gave Black people the right to vote in the South, Johnston campaigned for their support.

In 1971, Johnston announced his candidacy for governor. Few people gave him a chance in a 16-candidate field that included two congressmen, a former governor and the lieutenant governor.

But Johnston won notice by campaigning as a sober-minded fresh face who would make government work efficiently, unlike the populists who were colorful and were often accused of using government to enrich themselves and their cronies.

Edwards, who epitomized the populist tradition, ran first in the primary, followed by Johnston.

They met in a Democratic Party runoff that would elect the next governor, because no Republican at that time could win statewide office.

Years later, Johnston still remembered the narrowness of his loss to Edwards: 4,488 votes, or 0.38% of the vote.

Johnston later attributed his defeat to his refusal to cut a deal with the third-place finisher, former U.S. Rep. Gillis Long. Johnston had promised voters he was a different candidate because he would not cut deals to win. So he rejected Long’s request to help him eliminate his campaign debt and let Long name four people who would work in Johnston’s administration.

Long endorsed Edwards.

“I lost the Black vote 60-40 or more,” Johnston said in 1996. “Had I gotten Gillis’ support, there’s no doubt in my mind I would have been elected governor.”

While losing, Johnston had become known statewide, and he was elected to the Senate in 1972.

“Doing the right thing cost me the governor’s race,” Johnston remembered in 2023. “But it turned out to be the right thing in the long run. My career of 24 years in the U.S. Senate was more rewarding.”

During his Senate tenure, he was known as a work horse, not a show horse, chairing the energy committee and collaborating over his first 14 years with Sen. Russell Long and during his final 10 years with Sen. John Breaux.

“He will be remembered as a doer and as a person who believes in this institution and believes in making things happen for the good of all of us,” Breaux said in January 1995, moments after Johnston announced he would not seek reelection in 1996.

Johnston played a key role in the construction of Interstate 49, the widening of Interstate 10 in Jefferson Parish, obtaining $150 million to protect wetlands and hundreds of millions of dollars to conduct research at LSU, construction of the Russell B. Long Federal Building and Courthouse in Baton Rouge, and dozens of other projects across the state, including the establishment of two national parks and seven wildlife refuges.

But as Johnston began his reelection campaign in 1990, his pollster’s initial surveys revealed disquieting news: With the state deeply in recession, with the state’s unemployment rate higher than the national average for the 10th year in a row and with many residents — particularly recent college graduates — leaving the state in droves looking for new opportunities, Johnston’s achievements didn’t excite many voters.

That created an opening for Duke, who was blaming the state’s plight on Washington and government programs that aimed to help Black people.

For much of the campaign, Johnston didn’t take Duke seriously. Not only did Duke have a Klan past, but he had celebrated Hitler’s birthday and spent years demeaning Jews.

But many White people saw voting for Duke as a way to express their grievances to Washington.

On election day, Johnston pulled out a yellow legal pad and calculated his expected winning percentage. His last poll, a week earlier, had given him 55% of the vote. So he allocated himself 55% of the undecideds. This meant he would receive about 65% of the overall vote.

Instead, Johnston won with 54%, to 43.5% for Duke.

Duke won an astounding 59% of the White vote, clobbering Johnston in White working-class neighborhoods and rural areas.

“I was disappointed we didn’t win by the 2-1 I thought,” Johnston said years later. “Race is just very powerful.”

In 1995, after announcing his retirement from the Senate, Johnston flirted with running again for governor.

He toured the state, trying to determine whether voters saw him as the person to revitalize Louisiana.

"For someone who now has a reputation and a history to risk, it's kind of like the guy at the casino,” he said in an interview. “He just won the jackpot. He won all these chips. He can go home and have a great time. But he says, 'How about one more roll of the dice?’”

He chose not to roll the dice in that race and never ran for office again.

Johnston's survivors include his wife Mary and four children: Hunter, Sally, Mary and Bennett.

After Johnston stood on the Senate floor in 1995 and broke the news that he would not seek reelection, Democrats and Republicans took turns expressing sorrow at the impending departure of a senator who worked across party lines.

“I have a feeling that Sen. Bennett Johnston has never seen that middle aisle as a line of demarcation nor as a line of division but merely as a line of invitation to join hands and join parties,” said Sen. David Pryor, a Democrat from Arkansas.

Minutes earlier, the normally stoic Johnston briefly teared up as he remembered telling Mary while they were at LSU 40 years earlier that he dreamed of becoming a senator.

“I’m one of those few fortunate human beings who have seen his dreams fulfilled in the fullest and most satisfying sense,” he said.