Lindy Boggs

Lindy Boggs
United States Ambassador to the Holy See
In office December 16, 1997 – March 1, 2001
President	Bill Clinton George W. Bush
Preceded by	Raymond Flynn
Succeeded by	Jim Nicholson
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 Jefferson
Personal details
Born	(1916-03-13)March 13, 1916 New Roads, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	July 27, 2013(2013-07-27) (aged 97) Chevy Chase, Maryland, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Hale Boggs
Children	Barbara Tommy Cokie William Robertson
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 met in New York City to nominate the Carter-Mondale ticket. She was the first woman 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 four children: Cokie Roberts (a television journalist); Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr. (a prominent lobbyist); Barbara Boggs Sigmund, a mayor of Princeton, New Jersey and an unsuccessful candidate in the 1982 New Jersey Democratic senatorial primary election (won by Frank Lautenberg); and William Robertson Boggs, who died as an infant on December 28, 1946.

Biographical sketch

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

Lindy Boggs, 1975 Congressional Portrait

On October 16, 1972, Representative Hale Boggs' twin-engine Cessna plane disappeared over Alaska. Boggs was helping a colleague, Nicholas Begich, father of former U.S. Senator Mark Begich of Alaska, to campaign for reelection. 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 successfully as a Democrat for her husband's vacated seat in Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, in New Orleans.

Boggs was elected to a full term in 1974 with 82 percent of the vote and was reelected seven times thereafter until she vacated her office in January 1991. In 1980, she faced her closest challenge from 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). Another 4.8 percent of the ballots were cast for Democratic former State Representative Clyde F. Bel, Jr., of New Orleans. Otherwise, Boggs polled more than 80 percent in her contested races. After her district was redrawn in 1984 in response to a federal court order mandating Louisiana's first majority-African-American district, she became the only white member of Congress representing a majority-African-American constituency.

She was influential in composing the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. When the Banking committee marked up the ECOA, she added the provision banning discrimination due to sex or marital status without informing the other members of the committee beforehand, personally inserting the language on her own and photocopying new versions of the bill. She then told the other committee members, "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." The committee unanimously approved the bill.

Boggs was the first woman to preside over a national political convention, specifically the 1976 Democratic National Convention.

Lindy Boggs in 1984

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 sustained 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.

The Boggs Center for Energy and Biotechnology Building at Tulane is named in her honor.

Boggs died of natural causes at her home in Chevy Chase, Maryland on July 27, 2013. A funeral Mass was held on August 1, 2013 at St. Louis Cathedral at 615 Pere Antoine Alley in New Orleans. Interment followed later in the day at St. Mary's Cemetery in New Roads. Governor Bobby Jindal ordered all U.S. and state flags in Louisiana to fly at half staff until August 2 in Mrs. Boggs' memory.

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
• Appearances on C-SPAN