A good woman passed away today:
http://abcnews.go.com/...
Former Rep. Lindy Boggs, who filled her husband's seat in the House of Representatives after his plane disappeared and went on to serve 18 years as a tireless advocate for women and minorities, died today at the age of 97.
"She was remarkable in every way," ABC's Cokie Roberts, one of Boggs's three children, said. "She was able to accomplish a great deal for a great many people around the country and around the world, but doing it in an always gracious, always pleasant way that would serve as a great lesson for folks of today who think that the only way to operate is through confrontation and criticism."
Born on a plantation in Coupee Parish, La., in 1916, Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne graduated from Tulane University, where she met her future husband, Thomas Hale Boggs Sr., while working on the student newspaper.
The two married in 1938, and two years later Hale Boggs won election to the House, launching a long and prominent career that would include the role of House majority leader.
Hale and Lindy Boggs would become a political power couple, representing Louisiana in Congress for nearly a half century combined. - ABC News, 7/27/13
Louisiana politicians paid their respect:
http://www.bayoubuzz.com/...
“Our dear friend Lindy will be remembered for generations to come for her selfless and distinguished service to New Orleans, Louisiana and our entire country as a wife, mother, congressional leader, ambassador extraordinaire and trailblazer for women everywhere. She has set the gold standard for public service. Our state is in mourning but also in celebration of a life well lived.” - U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D. LA)
More below the fold.
“As the first woman elected to Congress in Louisiana, and as the first female Chair of the Democratic National Convention, Lindy no doubt left her mark on history.
“She lived a life of service, carrying on for those who couldn't and speaking up for those who didn't have a voice in the halls of Congress. Lindy was a true fighter, but she did it with incredible grace and the people of Louisiana are grateful for her service.
“The thoughts and prayers of my family and of the people of Louisiana are with Lindy's family.” - Governor Bobby Jindal (R. LA)
http://theadvocate.com/...
“Lindy was so beloved that almost anything she would ask for, she would get on the House side,” said former U.S. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D. LA), who recalled how from her seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee Boggs steered millions of dollars to Louisiana for its port system and flood control. “It makes me thinks that if she were a member of Congress today, she would have been able to bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats.”
“Different politicians have different techniques, but not many could get away with Lindy’s technique,” former congressman Bob Livingston (R-La.), who served with Mrs. Boggs on the House Appropriations Committee, told the New York Times in 2000. “It was ‘Dahlin’ this’ and ‘Sweetie that.’ And she usually walked out with what she came in to get and never mentioned it again.”
Senator David Vitter (R. LA) tweeted this:
President Obama and Nancy Pelosi also honored Boggs' memory:
http://thehill.com/...
President Obama expressed his condolences in a statement late Saturday.
"Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to the family and loved ones of Lindy Boggs. Her legacy as a champion of women's and civil rights over her nine terms in office as the first woman elected to the United States Congress from Louisiana will continue to inspire generations to come," Obama said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), meanwhile, praised the "Lady of the House" as a deserving recipient of bipartisan praise.
"More than anyone in the House, she commanded the respect, admiration and affection of Members on both sides of the aisle," she said in a statement. "I hope it is a comfort to the Boggs family that so many people in the world mourn their loss and appreciate the life of Lindy Boggs.” - The Hill, 7/27/13
Here's a look back at Boggs' life:
http://www.npr.org/...
Lindy was born in the spring of 1916. She went to college at Sophie Newcob at Tulane in New Orleans, where she met her future husband, Hale Boggs. They were married when she was just 21, and he was elected to Congress not long after that. He was, at 26, the youngest member of the House. Lindy Boggs came to Washington just in time for Franklin D. Roosevelt's third inauguration.
She began her political career by running her husband's office, managing his campaigns, moving on to work for the Democratic Party, and chairing inaugural committees for President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
She ran for Hale Boggs' seat in Congress after he died in a small plane crash in 1972. He was campaigning in Alaska in with Congressman Nick Begich, who also died in the accident. Lindy Boggs was elected in a special election in 1973, to represent New Orleans' French Quarter. She had a wonderful house there for many years, right on Bourbon Street. - NPR, 7/27/13
Here's a little more info about her time in Congress:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Politics was central to Lindy Boggs’s life long before she won a special election in 1973 to succeed her husband, Thomas Hale Boggs Sr., better known as Hale Boggs. Her family, the Claibornes, traced its roots to colonial Jamestown and was one of the country’s early political dynasties.
She arrived in Washington in 1941, the 24-year-old wife of the youngest freshman in the House of Representatives; she quickly delved into the politics and strategies of the Capitol, acting as a Democratic hostess, campaign manager and adviser to her husband and scores of other politicians.
Her children followed her into public life. Her son, Thomas Hale Boggs Jr., known as Tommy, is one of the marquee partners of the law firm and lobbyist group Patton Boggs; her younger daughter, Roberts, has worked for National Public Radio and ABC-TV; her elder daughter, the late Barbara Boggs Sigmund, was mayor of Princeton, N.J.
With her Southern graciousness, Mrs. Boggs was said to charm, flatter and persuade even the most curmudgeonly of her male counterparts in Congress. As a representative for nine terms, she used those skills to support civil rights — eventually becoming the only white member of Congress elected from a majority-black district — and to promote legislation that helped women and children. - Washington Post, 7/26/13
She made some major legislative victories:
http://theadvocate.com/...
During her first term, she slyly amended a lending bill that would prohibit discrimination based on age, race or veteran status to include discrimination based on gender. She suggested to members of the banking committee that they had merely forgotten the words “sex or marital status.”
“Knowing the members composing this committee as well as I do, I’m sure it was just an oversight that we didn’t have ‘sex’ or ‘marital status’ included. I’ve taken care of that, and I trust it meets with the committee’s approval,” Boggs recalled telling the committee in her 1994 memoir “Washington Through a Purple Veil: Memoirs of a Public Woman.”
The result, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, ensured that borrowing and business lending was opened to women.
“The term steel magnolia is over used, but she was,” said Jan Schoonmaker, Boggs’ longtime legislative director. “People in Washington tell me that it’s unfortunate that there are no more Lindy Boggs in Congress anymore.”
Boggs was the first woman to preside over the Democratic National Convention in 1976. - The Advocate, 7/27/13
And here's some background info on her political career:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
She also fought for higher pay for senators and representatives, a politically unpopular cause, because she thought it would raise the quality of legislators and reduce turnover.
Mrs. Boggs hated offending anyone, she wrote in her memoir, and so taking strong stands did not come easily. But “maybe” was not a voting option, she added; only “aye” or “nay.”
Mrs. Boggs championed racial justice at a time when doing so invited the resentment if not hostility of most Southern whites. She saw the growing civil rights movement as necessary to the political reform movement of the 1940s and ’50s.
“You couldn’t want to reverse the injustices of the political system and not include the blacks and the poor; it was just obvious,” she said in 1990.
While her husband was in office, she supported civil rights legislation as well as Head Start and antipoverty programs. As the president of two organizations of Congressional wives, she saw to it that each group was racially integrated.
After her district was redrawn in 1983, giving blacks a majority, Mrs. Boggs was re-elected three times. In the first of these victories, in 1984, she captured more than a third of the black vote in defeating a popular black politician, Israel M. Augustine Jr., a former state judge, who was backed by black political organizations. When she announced her retirement from Congress in 1990, she was the only white member of Congress representing a black-majority district.
Her national profile was raised in 1976 when Robert S. Strauss, the chairman of the Democratic Party, chose her to preside over the party’s 1976 national convention in Manhattan, where Jimmy Carter became the presidential nominee. In 1984 she was often mentioned as a possible vice-presidential candidate, but she was ultimately passed over by the presidential nominee, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, in favor of Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro. Mrs. Boggs believed that her strong stand against abortion had hurt her chances. - New York Times, 7/27/13
In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed her to as ambassador to the Vatican:
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Her Vatican posting was from 1997 to early 2001, and she said her goals were to work with the Vatican on promoting democracy, tolerance, religious freedom, peace and human rights.
In 2000, she announced that she would resign after President Bill Clinton left office, no matter which party won. "It's been an honor and a privilege and a wonderful opportunity to be in this position, but it's also extremely exhausting," she said at the time.
Shortly before Pope John Paul II died in 2005, she joined those praying for him. "I have a thousand wonderful memories of him," Boggs said. "I have been very, very fond of this pope for a very long time."
In addition to her children, Boggs is survived by eight grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. - CBS News, 7/27/13
Mrs. Boggs will be missed.