J Bennett Johnston

Background

Johnston was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, to the attorney John Bennett Johnston Sr. (1894–1977) and the former Wilma Lyon (1904–1996). Johnston attended the private elementary and junior high Southfield School in the South Highlands neighborhood of Shreveport. He was inducted into the Southfield Hall of Fame in 1994. After Southfield, Johnston graduated from C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport. He attended the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

In 1956, Johnston graduated from Louisiana State University Law Center in Baton Rouge. He was admitted to the bar that same year. He served in the United States Army, Judge Advocate General Corps in Germany from 1956 to 1959.

Political life

In 1964, Johnston was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives, along with two Republicans, Morley A. Hudson and Taylor W. O'Hearn, and two other Democrats from Caddo Parish, Algie D. Brown and Frank Fulco. Hudson and O'Hearn were the first Republicans to serve in the legislature since Reconstruction.

In 1966, Johnston hired Ralph Perlman, a business graduate of Columbia University in New York City, to the legislative staff. Soon Governor John McKeithen elevated Perlman to the position of state budget director, a role which he filled from 1967 to 1988.

In 1968, Johnston was elected at-large to the Louisiana State Senate, along with fellow Democrats Jackson B. Davis and Joe LeSage. One of the candidates that he defeated was the Republican Tom Stagg, later a judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in Shreveport. Under senatorial courtesy, Johnston could have blocked Stagg's confirmation but did not do so.

In 1970, state Senator Johnston outlined his proposal for a toll road to connect Shreveport with South Louisiana in the absence of a north-south interstate highway at the time. Johnston said the then state gasoline tax was bringing in only 20 percent of what was needed to construct such a north-south highway. Therefore, he saw tolls as the proper venue to pursue. In time, there was no toll road but Interstate 49, which links Shreveport with Lafayette. Most of the highway was opened in the early 1990s. In turn, there are interstate connections from Lafayette to Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

In 1971, Johnston ran for governor of Louisiana. Harmon Drew Jr., later a judge of the Louisiana Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit, headed the Johnston college campaign. Drew said that Johnston represented a "new outook this state must have." Johnston ultimately narrowly lost this race by 4,488 votes to Edwin Edwards in the Democratic runoff election, the final Louisiana gubernatorial election prior to the adoption of the state's nonpartisan blanket primary in 1975. Edwards' margin was fewer than two votes per precinct. Edwards went on to defeat Republican David C. Treen in the general election held on February 1, 1972. Treen then won election to the U.S. House in November 1972, where he served until his election as governor in 1979.

Campaigns of 1972, 1978, and 1984

In 1972, Johnston challenged the long-term incumbent, Allen J. Ellender, for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate. Ellender died during the campaign, and Johnston, with powerful name identification stemming from his gubernatorial bid only months earlier, won the primary easily. In the primary, Johnston received 623,076 votes (79.4 percent); Frank T. Allen, 88,198 votes (11.2 percent), and the deceased Ellender, 73,088 votes (9.3 percent). Johnston then defeated Republican Ben C. Toledano, then a New Orleans attorney and a former candidate for mayor of New Orleans, and former Governor John McKeithen of Columbia, a fellow Democrat who ran as an Independent in the general election because the filing period was not reopened upon Ellender's death. McKeithen, the first Louisiana governor to serve two conseutive terms, left office six months prior to the Senate election. Johnston received 598,987 votes (55.2 percent); McKeithen, 250,161 (23.1 percent), and Toledano's 206,846 (19.1 percent). Another 28,910 voters (2.6 percent) chose the American Independent Party candidate, Hall Lyons, a Shreveport native who had relocated in the oil business to Lafayette. He was the younger son of Louisiana Republican pioneer Charlton Lyons of Shreveport. (The position was filled by appointment from July to November 1972 by Governor Edwards' first wife, Elaine Schwartzenburg Edwards, the interim senator.)

Johnston was sworn in immediately upon certification of his election, allowing him to gain an edge in seniority over other senators first taking office during the 93rd Congress. Johnston's freshman classmates included Joe Biden (D-Delaware), who served six terms before his ascension to Vice President, and Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico), who served seven terms.

In office, Senator Johnston cultivated good relationships with the Louisiana media, realizing that their portrayal of him would impact his electoral future. The state's newspaper gave Johnston wide coverage. The Alexandria Daily Town Talk's managing editor, Adras LaBorde, for instance, gave extensive coverage to both Johnston and Senate colleague Russell B. Long.

For a time, Johnston's director of special projects was James Arthur Reeder (1933-2012), a former Shreveport and Washington, D.C., attorney and the owner of a chain of radio stations. Like Johnston, Reeder was later inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield. In 1966, Reeder ran as a Republican for a district judgeship in Caddo Parish. He subsequently organized voter registration drives in Caddo Parish to empower minority voters. In 2009, Reeder narrated the inaugural parade of U.S. President Barack H. Obama.

In 1978, Johnston defeated then Democrat, later Republican, State Representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge in the nonpartisan blanket primary, 498,773 (59.4 percent) to 340,896 (40.6 percent).

In 1984, Johnston faced minor opposition from Robert Max Ross (1933–2009), a small businessman from Mangham in Richland Parish in northeast Louisiana. Several other minor candidates also filed against Johnston in the primary but none made a showing. Some Republicans had encouraged former Governor David C. Treen to run against Johnston. Treen filed but withdrew in the wake of his loss the previous year for governor. Ross therefore ran as the best-known of the Republican candidates. The tally was 838,181 votes (85.7 percent) for Johnston, 86,546 votes (8.9 percent) for Ross, and others took 52,745 votes (5.4 percent).

Johnston v. Duke

Johnston's closest re-election race was in 1990 against former Ku Klux Klansman and Republican candidate State Representative David Duke, who was not endorsed by his party's leadership. In fact, Louisiana State Senator Ben Bagert of New Orleans dropped out of the primary race in a bid to avoid a runoff battle between Johnston and Duke. Eight Republican U.S. senators endorsed Johnston over Duke. These included Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski of Alaska, David Durenberger and Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota, John Danforth of Missouri, William Cohen of Maine, Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, and Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas.

The HUD Secretary at the time, Jack Kemp, also endorsed Johnston.

Johnston defeated Duke in the primary, 752,902 votes (53.9 percent), to 607,391 votes (43.5 percent). Other candidates took the remaining 35,820 votes (2.5 percent). Johnston retired after his fourth term ended in 1997; he was succeeded by his choice for the seat, fellow Democrat Mary Landrieu of New Orleans, daughter of Jimmy Carter's HUD Secretary and former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu.

A conservative within the Democratic caucus

Considered a conservative within the Democratic caucus, Johnston procured Senate passage in 1981 of a measure to limit school busing for purposes of racial balance to a distance of no more than five miles or fifteen minutes of time. Johnston's bill passed the Republican-controlled Senate, 60 to 39, with the liberal Republican Lowell Weicker of Connecticut leading the opposition. However, Speaker Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts blocked the measure from being considered by the House of Representatives.

Johnston broke with his party in 1991 to authorize the use of military force in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq and in support of the narrow confirmation of Clarence Thomas as associate justice on the United States Supreme Court. However, in 1987, he had voted with his Democratic majority against President Ronald W. Reagan's choice of former D.C. Appeals Court Judge Robert Bork for elevation to the Supreme Court.

Johnston was one of the few Senate Democrats to vote against the Budget Act of 1993, which was strongly supported by President Bill Clinton. He repeatedly voted against the Balanced Budget Amendment and giving the President the line-item veto, both of which were measures strongly favored by fiscal conservatives in both parties. On foreign policy issues, he frequently voted with more liberal Democrats to terminate restrictions on travel to communist Cuba and in support of the United Nations and foreign aid. Johnston was the only member of either house of Congress to vote against a 1995 resolution to allow Taiwan's president Lee Teng-hui to visit the United States.

During his tenure as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, he was recognized as the nation's pre-eminent legislator on energy policy. One of his major concerns was the threat of man-made global warming.

Johnston was a firm advocate of the Flag Desecration Amendment but opposed abortion and most gun control measures.

In 1988, Johnston sought the position of Senate Majority Leader but lost to George J. Mitchell of Maine. From 1972 to 1987, Johnston's Louisiana colleague was Russell Long. The two agreed on many issues and formed a close working relationship to deliver federal spending to Louisiana. On Long's death, Johnston delivered a moving eulogy at the funeral. Johnston continued the same kind of partnership with Long's successor, former Senator John Breaux, who served from 1987 to 2005.

Later life

Since leaving the Senate, Johnston formed Johnston & Associates LLC. In 2008, Steptoe & Johnson, a major international law firm, formed a "strategic alliance" with Johnston. Steptoe added three members from Johnston & Associates to the firm.

In 1997, Johnston was elected to Chevron's board of directors but since left the board.

In 2010, Johnston received the National Parks Conservation Association Centennial Leadership Award. In addition, Johnston and former Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee co-chaired the National Parks Second Century Commission.

Currently, Johnston is one of the advisory directors at Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and Angeleno Group, an energy-based investment group.

Johnston's wife, the former Mary Gunn, is a native of Natchitoches, Louisiana. Her brother and only sibling was the Alexandria banker and businessman Norman L. Gunn (1926-2011). Norman Gunn was employed from 1950 to 1988 by the former Rapides Bank and Trust Company, for which he was a senior vice president upon retirement. He was also a former president and one of only five lifetime members of the Alexandria-Pineville Chamber of Commerce.

The Johnstons' son-in-law, former Democratic U.S. Representative Timothy J. Roemer of Indiana, served on the 9/11 Commission.

Coincidentally, one of Johnston's Louisiana congressional colleagues was U.S. Representative and Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, a native of Bossier City, located on the opposite bank of the Red River from Shreveport. Buddy Roemer and Timothy Roemer are not related.

Johnston is a member of the Baptist Church; his wife is Roman Catholic. The Johnston children are Bennett, Hunter, Mary, and Sally; there are ten grandchildren.

The video conferencing room at Southern University at Shreveport is named in Johnston's honor; it is located inside Stone Hall, named for the late civil rights activist and former president of the Southern University System, Jesse N. Stone of Shreveport.

DEBRA v. Johnston

In April 2013, the Kyrgyz Republic's DEBRA filed a claim with the October Regional Court of Bishkek, against several defendants including J. Bennett Johnston, who was the member of the AUB bank board. DEBRA's statement says that although the ex-senator received $175,000 a year, plus share options, "during 2009 and 2010," he attended board meetings only once.