Lindy Boggs

Lindy Boggs
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 2nd district
In office March 20, 1973 – January 3, 1991
Preceded by	Hale Boggs
Succeeded by	William J. Jefferson
5th United States Ambassador to the Holy See
In office 1997–2001
President	Bill Clinton
Pope	John Paul II
Preceded by	Raymond Flynn
Succeeded by	Jim Nicholson
Personal details
Born	Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne (1916-03-13)March 13, 1916 Brunswick Plantation, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	July 27, 2013(2013-07-27) (aged 97) Chevy Chase, Maryland, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Hale Boggs
Alma mater	Tulane University

Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs, usually known as Lindy Boggs (March 13, 1916 – July 27, 2013), was a United States political figure who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and later as United States Ambassador to the Holy See. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Louisiana. She was also a permanent chairwoman of the 1976 Democratic National Convention, which made her the first female to preside over a major party convention.

Boggs was the widow of former Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives Hale Boggs, and the mother of three children: Cokie Roberts (a television journalist), Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., (a prominent lobbyist), and Barbara Boggs Sigmund, a mayor of Princeton, New Jersey, and a candidate in the 1982 New Jersey Democratic senatorial primary election.

Life

Boggs was born in Brunswick Plantation, near New Roads in Pointe Coupee Parish. She attended Newcomb College at Tulane University in New Orleans. She was a second cousin of New Orleans Mayor and Ambassador to the Organization of American States, deLesseps Story "Chep" Morrison, Sr., who for a time was also her husband's law partner.

October 16, 1972, Congressman and Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives Hale Boggs' twin-engine Cessna plane disappeared over Alaska. Boggs was helping Congressman Nicholas Begich campaign. The first bill that the House passed in 1973, House Resolution 1, officially recognized Hale Boggs' death and created the need for a special election. Lindy Boggs ran as a Democrat for her husband's vacated seat and became Representative of the New Orleans-based 2nd District in 1973.

Boggs was elected to a full term in 1974 with 82 percent of the vote and was reelected seven times thereafter, leaving office in January 1991. In 1980, she faced the Republican Rob Couhig, an attorney-businessman who raised some $200,000 for the race, a large amount at that time for a challenger in a difficult district. Lindy Boggs still prevailed, 45,091 votes (63.8 percent) to Couhig's 25,512 (36.2 percent). Otherwise, Boggs polled more than 80 percent in her contested races. In her four final campaigns, she ran without opposition even though the district had been redrawn with an African American majority following the 1980 United States Census. In 1994, Boggs was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield, one year after her husband had been among the original thirteen inductees.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed her official U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, a position she held until 2001.

In 2005, Boggs's home on Bourbon Street in New Orleans' French Quarter suffered moderate wind damage from Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, she was awarded the Congressional Distinguished Service Award for her time in the House of Representatives.

Boggs was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho, one of the four traditionally African-American sororities in the United States.

Tulane's Boggs Center for Energy and Biotechnology building is named in honor of her.

Boggs died of natural causes at her home in Chevy Chase, Maryland on July 27, 2013.

Further reading

• Boggs, Lindy, with Katherine Hatch. Washington Through a Purple Veil: Memoirs of a Southern Woman. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1994
• Ferrell, Thomas H., and Judith Haydel. “Hale and Lindy Boggs: Louisiana’s National Democrats.” Louisiana History 35 (Fall 1994): 389–402.

Tyler, Pamela. "Silk Stockings & Ballot Boxes: Women & Politics in New Orleans, 1920 - 1965". University of Georgia Press, 1996.

• Carrick, Bess. "Lindy Boggs: Steel and Velvet". Documentary film chronicles Mrs. Boggs' career in politics and features Cokie & Steve Roberts, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Lewis, former House Speaker Tom Foley, and scholars, Dr. Patrick Maney, & Dr. Pamela Tyler. Produced by Bess Carrick with Louisiana Public Broadcasting, 2006. Airdate 2006–present, nationwide via PBS-Plus.
• Maney, Patrick J. "Hale Boggs: The Southerner as National Democrat" in Raymond W Smock and Susan W Hammond, eds. Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership Over Two Centuries (1998) pp 33–62.

External links

• United States Congress. "Lindy Boggs (id: B000592)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame
• Oral History Interview with Lindy Boggs from Oral Histories of the American South