Former Louisiana Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, a Democrat who chaired the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and who fought off a surprisingly strong challenge from David Duke in 1990, died Tuesday. He was 92.
Johnston, a moderate Democrat who served from 1972 through 1997, was a strong defender of nuclear energy and a mild-mannered lawmaker prone to deal-making in a state often known for populist flamethrowers.
His election to the Senate came after he unsuccessfully ran for Louisiana governor in 1971; he lost to Edwin W. Edwards in a Democratic runoff, which nonetheless gave him the name recognition to successfully run for Senate a few months later.
He either led the Senate Energy and Natural Resources panel or served as ranking member from 1973 to 1996 at a key time for U.S. energy policy, with his chairmanship overlapping with Middle East conflicts that impacted the price of foreign oil and a nuclear reactor accident at Three Mile Island in 1979.
Johnston proposed and shepherded through the Energy Policy Act of 1992, which rewrote the nuclear licensing provisions of federal law, encouraged conservation, increased competition in electric-power markets and included extensive provisions regarding liquid natural gas. He also worked on natural gas deregulation and served on the Appropriations and Budget committees.
In mid-1986, he challenged then-Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia for that leadership slot. But when the Democrats regained the majority that fall, Byrd was widely regarded as the likely Senate majority leader, leading Johnston to quit the race.
He later sought to challenge Byrd again in 1988. This time, the job went to George J. Mitchell of Maine.
Before being elected to the Senate, Johnston served in the Louisiana House from 1964 through 1968 and in the Louisiana Senate from 1968 through 1972.
A 1994 CQ profile said his voting habits represented “a rare blend of a Southern social conservative and a loyal liberal Democrat.” He backed then-President Bill Clinton’s economic stimulus plan and the Family and Medical Leave Act, but opposed several bills involving gun control and the effort to lift the ban on gays in the military.
He remained on the fence when the Clinton administration sought backing for its 1994 health care overhaul and was one of six Democratic senators to vote against Clinton’s budget plan in 1993.
He was not without legislative disappointments. He was forced to abandon his effort to update the 1872 Mining Law. And he was devastated after House lawmakers cut the superconducting super collider, a Texas-based atom smasher that would have generated millions of dollars of spending in Louisiana for magnet production.
One of his great political challenges came in 1990 when he faced then-state legislator David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader. Johnston beat him in part through an ad campaign showing Duke at cross burnings and giving white power salutes.
After his retirement, he founded a Washington lobbying firm, Johnston & Associates.
According to The New York Times, he is survived by his wife, Mary, and four children: J. Bennett Johnston III, Hunter Johnston, Mary Johnston Norriss and Sally Roemer, the wife of former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, and 10 grandchildren.