E. L. Henry - Henry' Biggest Legislative Defeat

Henry' Biggest Legislative Defeat

Henry's most conspicuous defeat as Speaker of the House occurred in 1976, when the Equal Rights Amendment was rejected by the House Civil Law Committee. At the national level, 35 of the required 38 states had ratified ERA, and advocates of the amendment were targeting Louisiana, Florida, and Illinois as the final three. Social conservative groups opposed the amendment, arguing that it would federalize family law and pre-empt the states in areas dealing with the family.

Henry had placed what he believed was a majority of ERA backers on the Civil Law Committee. One of those was his future law partner with Adams and Reese in Baton Rouge, Sam LeBlanc III, a Metairie (Jefferson Parish) Democrat. LeBlanc, who served in the legislature from 1972–1980, was in fact the committee chairman. Previously, the committee had given ERA an "unfavorable" report, which had rendered it nearly impossible for the measure to be passed on the House floor. There were believed to have been nine ERA backers on the committee, based either on their past votes in the previous legislative session or on how the lawmaker had stood on ERA in the 1975 election campaign. There were only five ERA opponents on the panel, including Daniel Wesley "Dan" Richey, then a young Ferriday (Concordia Parish) Democrat, but later a Republican political activist in Baton Rouge. Supporters expected ERA would receive a "fair" hearing and a "favorable" report to the full House.

ERA generated nearly as much attention from legislators as the simultaneous consideration of the successful right-to-work law. Supporters of the amendment seemed to think that it was a foregone conclusion that Speaker Henry had found a way to get the amendment out of the previously "obstructionist" committee. Meanwhile, a small group of social conservatives, unknown to Henry or LeBlanc, was giving speeches in parts of the state where they sought to switch the votes of four Democratic representatives on the committee. These lawmakers were John W. "Jock" Scott of Alexandria, Michael F. "Mike" Thompson of Lafayette, Lane A. Carson of New Orleans, and A. J. McNamara of Metairie. It was believed that the Pentecostal Church, which opposed ERA and which was influential in Rapides Parish, convinced Scott to reverse his position. pro-life and anti-feminist groups in Lafayette and New Orleans, persuaded Thompson to oppose the ERA, and conservative women in Jefferson Parish pleaded with McNamara, later a Ronald W. Reagan-appointed U.S. district judge, to switch his vote as well.