Congress: The Princefish Calls It Quits

Having spent more than half his life in the U.S. Senate, Louisiana’s Russell Long last week announced that he will retire when his current term ends in 1987. Son of the “Kingfish,” Huey P. Long, Louisiana’s legendary populist Governor and Senator, “Princefish” Russell, 66, came to the Senate in 1948. Enthroned as the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, he became an acknowledged master of the tax code, manipulating it to protect his home state’s industries. In a series of filibusters in the 1950s and ’60s, Long’s bayou banter helped slow civil rights legislation; later he softened his views.

Long became assistant majority leader in 1965, but his stewardship was erratic because of drinking and marital problems, and Ted Kennedy ousted him in 1969. Soon after, he remarried, swore off the bottle and has been back at his eloquent best ever since. Using rhyme to reason, he coined a popular Senate witticism: “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me; tax that fellow behind the tree.” Younger Senators learned to fear the wily negotiator, and on the morning after the 1980 election, when Democrats had lost control of the Senate, Robert Dole, Long’s successor to the chairmanship, quipped, “Who’s going to tell Russell?”