(Official editorial of the Times-Picayune/Advocate, April 1 print edition)
Former U.S. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, who died March 25 at age 92, was a significant player on national policy and an absolute giant of Louisiana politics. Both state and nation were better for his public service.
Johnston, a lawyer and Army veteran, began his political career in Caddo Parish with elections to the state House of Representatives in 1964 and the state Senate in 1968. In those days of notoriously indecorous (to put it kindly) state government, Johnston began forging a reputation as a quiet, serious legislator. Given little chance when he entered a 16-candidate Democratic field for governor in 1971, he tapped into a new voter hunger for reform to earn a runoff primary spot against then-U.S. Rep. Edwin Edwards.
Edwards’ scant 4,488-vote runoff victory, alas, kept Louisiana in the state-politics-as-entertainment business, but the skintight race had the effect of giving Johnston the statewide name recognition to easily win a U.S. Senate race in 1972. Johnston’s ascent to Washington, D.C. arguably was an inflection point, as he ushered in the decades-long era in which most Louisiana members of Congress began establishing reputations not as colorful Southern demagogues but as bipartisan workhorses often key to the agreements that just plain “got things done.”
Using affability more than raw power plays during his four full Senate terms, Johnston became arguably the single most influential legislator on national energy policy. He did so without regard to party, forging alliances with Republican presidents as well as Democratic ones. Johnston pushed laws that encouraged energy exploration that greatly benefited Louisiana’s economy while helping keep energy prices low nationwide. Between 1982 and 1998, the years when his legislative stewardship held most sway over national policy, inflation-adjusted energy costs declined steeply.
Meanwhile, Johnston was a staunch and effective advocate for bringing federal money back home for Louisiana projects. He was a particularly diligent proponent of the Red River Project and Interstate 49, opening key transportation links between North and South Louisiana, and he helped deliver dozens of other projects to the state, including two national parks and seven wildlife refuges…. [The full editorial at at this link.]
