1. Joe Waggonner was a confidant of Republican President Richard Nixon.
16 Facts About Joe Waggonner
2.
Joe Waggonner graduated from Plain Dealing High School and in 1941 from Louisiana Tech University, where he was a member of Kappa Sigma.
3.
Joe Waggonner was first elected to public office in 1954 to a seat on the Bossier Parish School Board, of which he was president from 1956 to 1957.
4.
In 1959, Waggonner ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for the position of Louisiana state comptroller, losing to Roy R Theriot.
5.
On July 23,1960, Waggonner was elected to the Louisiana State Board of Education from the Third District of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, unseating incumbent C Raymond Heard.
6.
In 1961, Joe Waggonner was chosen president of the Louisiana School Boards Association and the United Schools Committee of Louisiana, positions from which he promoted segregationist policies.
7.
Joe Waggonner had been instrumental in the founding of the White Citizens Council in the late 1950s, and served as the president of its Louisiana Fourth District Chapter.
8.
Joe Waggonner won a special election on December 19,1961, to succeed long-time US Representative Overton Brooks, who had died in office.
9.
Joe Waggonner had already announced his intention to oppose Brooks for renomination in the 1962 Democratic primary, spurred by Brooks' congressional vote to expand the House Rules Committee to permit Speaker Sam Rayburn to add new liberal members to the panel, which was dominated at the time by minority conservatives from both national parties.
10.
Joe Waggonner polled 33,892 votes to Lyons' 28,250 ballots.
11.
In Congress, Joe Waggonner often supported a Republican-Southern Democratic coalition on various issues, later known as the "Boll Weevils".
12.
Joe Waggonner was fiscally conservative and opposed many federal social programs as well as civil rights legislation in 1964,1965 and 1968.
13.
Joe Waggonner took a "hawkish" position on the Vietnam War.
14.
Joe Waggonner served as an informal whip for President Richard Nixon during his impeachment investigation.
15.
Joe Waggonner initially estimated that he could rally 70 Democratic votes against impeachment, but as the investigation unfolded, Nixon's support fell, and Joe Waggonner reported that he could only rally 38 votes, at which point Nixon knew he didn't have the numbers necessary to avoid impeachment.
16.
Joe Waggonner kept putting his district, his state, his country first, not his party.