Dan Richey - Other Legislative Highlights

Other Legislative Highlights

In his freshman year in office, 1976, Richey worked for passage of the Louisiana right-to-work law, which had been strongly opposed by the AFL-CIO president, Victor Bussie, who for years thereafter called for the repeal of the measure.

In 1978, Richey was elected to the board of directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council and later became the group's national secretary.

In 1980, Governor Treen named Richey as the Louisiana chairman of the White House Conference on Families in the Jimmy Carter administration. In the conference, Richey co-authored with Dr. James Dobson, then of Focus on the Family, the panel's minority report. In February 1981, Richey was the first Louisiana elected official to meet in the White House with newly elected President Ronald Reagan, whom he and Jenkins had both endorsed.

Richey and Jenkins were leaders of the movement to legalize home schooling in 1980. The Louisiana Conservative Union named him "Legislator of the Year" in 1979, and the Shreveport-Bossier Pro-Family Forum accorded him similar recognition in 1980.

Jenkins, Richey, Scott, Carson, and Representatives B.F. O'Neal, Jr., of Shreveport and Clark Gaudin of Baton Rouge formed the Independent Legislative Study Group (ILSG), an informal mix of conservatives who met daily when the House was in session or when important business was pending before committees. "The ILSG enabled us to maximize our fire power against the Edwards machine. We seldom won, but had a good time setting small fires all over the place," Richey recalled.