Into Louisiana's house of representatives one day last week stormed a bulky, rumpled man, his collar tabs curling up over the lapels of his loose-hanging suit, his paunch bulging over his low belt line, his Western-style straw hat in hand. Governor Earl Kemp Long strode straight to the rostrum. "Double-cross!" he bellowed, in his gravel baritone. "I had 69 votes!" The bill before the house was one of the governor's favorites, and it had just gone down to defeat. Even as Earl bellowed, his floor leaders took their cue; member after member rushed to the speaker's desk to proclaim his vote miscounted.
"The governor," wearily explained one onlooking lawmaker, "is at it again." Indeed he was. At the end of an hour of labyrinthine maneuvering on the floor, Earl Long got the bill (to increase taxes on pari-mutuel betting) propped up for reconsideration.
Tax & Spend. Since he began his second full term less than two months ago, there has been scarcely a day when 60-year-old Earl Long hasn't been at it. He has vilified the mildest of opponents, ruthlessly axed holdover appointees from other administrations, defied legislative rules and traditions by roaming the floors of both houses at will. Long's goals, as many a despondent Louisianian sees them: 1) a tax-and-spend policy to dwarf the fondest dreams of the late Brother Huey, even at the risk of bankrupting the state, and 2) a campaign to tighten Earl's grip on the governmental reins until no hand but his guides the state of Louisiana.
To get things going his way, Long backed a program to:
¶ Boost teacher salaries, build more roads, increase old-age benefits, extend already liberal state services.
¶ Soak business (in violation of campaign pledges of no new taxes) by jumping state levies on natural gas by 250%, on sulphur (Louisiana is the nation's second-biggest sulphur producer) by 200%, on timber by 100%. When industry spokes men warn that such taxes will stifle Louisiana's economy, Earl challenges them to go some place else if they don't like it.
¶ Soak the city of New Orleans, which Earl regards as hostile, by upping taxes on pari-mutuel betting by 30% and slashing the city's share of that revenue. New Orleans has the only flat-racing track in the state.
¶ Remove voting machines from most precincts and allow party workers to go inside the voting booths to "help" baffled voters.
¶ Shift control of the remaining voting machines from Secretary of State Wade O. Martin Jr. (who drew Long's wrath by remaining neutral in the gubernatorial campaign) to a Long-appointed board.
¶ Call a convention to overhaul the state's cumbersome constitution, a move that Long's critics (while admitting the need for constitutional revision) see as Earl's gambit to change the constitution so that he can succeed himself.