(April 24)
More than four decades after he left public life, former state House Speaker E.L. “Bubba” Henry was no longer a familiar figure to most Louisianans. But Henry, who died April 23 at age 89, helped make state government considerably better.
Before Henry in the late 1960s helped lead a reformist group called the “Young Turks,” the Legislature wasn’t merely the somewhat wild and woolly place it was in, say, the 1980s and early 1990s, but so wild and woolly that people today have a hard time believing the stories.
The late John Hainkel, also a Young Turk before later becoming both speaker and state Senate president, told me once of a legislative session reaching its mandatory end date without having passed a budget — a legislative calamity. As the clock high on the wall neared midnight, someone figured that if they stopped the clock, they could claim the legislative day hadn’t ended, and anything passed hours later would still be valid.
When they couldn’t find a ladder to reach the clock, they resorted to other tools. Food and drink back then were allowed on the House floor, so legislators started throwing chicken bones and whiskey bottles at the clock until one well-aimed throw broke the darn thing. I think I remember Hainkel saying that the budget that finally passed about 4 a.m. was deemed valid.
Bubba Henry with former colleague Ben Bagert, in 2021.
Henry was one of the leaders of the reformers who changed all that. After the Young Turks successfully pushed for rule changes, legislators actually were given the chance to analyze the budget before voting on it. (Gee, what a concept!) As this newspaper’s Tyler Bridges reported, lobbyists had been allowed freely to roam the House floor and even use the members’ voting machines. Junior legislators weren’t given advance notice of committee meetings and had no staff. The Turks changed all that, too…. [The full column is at this link.]
