The Emerson Legacy: Bill, Jo Ann Emerson change political culture

Part one of two. Read more from Jo Ann Emerson about her decision to leave the U.S. House of Representatives in Monday's Southeast Missourian.

On the night she won Missouri's 8th Congressional District seat for the 10th time, Jo Ann Emerson was in Cape Girardeau watching returns come in with her Republican Party supporters.

She was prompted for a statement about her victory -- it was, after all, expected. The name Emerson had prevailed in an election every two years for more than three decades.

Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh announces at a news conference May 2, 2011, that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will activate the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway. Col. Vernie Reichling Jr., center, also spoke. At right is U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson. (Fred Lynch)

"No way," Emerson said with a smile. "That could jinx me."

Headlines on Nov. 7, 2012, weren't a surprise: "Emerson cruises to 10th term representing 8th District."

There was a different story to tell less than a month later. After 16 years in Congress representing nearly 30 counties in southeast and southern Missouri, Jo Ann Emerson decided she was finished. On Dec. 3, she announced her intent to resign from the U.S. House of Representatives to head the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, an Arlington, Va.-based organization that represents more than 900 rural electric cooperatives nationwide.

The decision essentially ended a political era defined by Emerson and her late husband, Bill, who served 16 years before her. He died from lung cancer in 1996 at the age of 58, and later that year, Jo Ann Emerson won his seat in Congress.

Arms raised triumphantly, Jo Ann, center, and Bill Emerson celebrate victory at Republican headquarters Nov. 4, 1980, in Cape Girardeau. He defeated U.S. Rep. Bill D. Burlison in the 10th District congressional race. (Southeast Missourian file)

In 1953, a 15-year-old Bill Emerson from Hillsboro, Mo., attended the inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He wanted more than anything, say the people who knew him well, to be a page in the U.S. House of Representatives. At first, he didn't make the cut, but a short time later with Republicans taking control of the House that year, he received a call from a St. Louis congressman. He phoned home to his mother. She quickly wired him the money to buy a dark suit.

Fast forward to 1984. Bill Emerson was in his second term as a congressman, seeking a third. The writer of an editorial in the Caruthersville, Mo., Democrat Argus newspaper coined the phrase "Emercrats." Since Bill Emerson was elected, a mobile office had been traveling Southeast Missouri. A staff member, Lloyd Smith, raised as a Democrat, was assigned to conduct agricultural outreach, and in the midst of that effort, Bill Emerson was making friends with farmers, ranchers and businesspeople. Southeast Missouri's voter base started turning from blue to red. People felt a connection with Bill Emerson. He listened to their concerns, encouraged them that he could make a difference and took action.

"The hardest thing to do with Bill Emerson was to get him to disengage with a person so you could make the next stop on the schedule," said Smith, of Sikeston, Mo.

Smith worked 28 years with the Emersons, serving as campaign manager and chief of staff for Bill Emerson, then his widow. He later served as executive director of the Missouri Republican Party until he resigned in January to spend time seeking the seat held so long by the Emersons. His efforts were unsuccessful. A Republican congressional committee nominated Jason Smith, a state representative from Salem, Mo., to run in a June 4 special election for Jo Ann Emerson's vacant seat.

Two sides to story

Lloyd Smith said there are two sides to the story of the Emerson legacy. One is political. The other, official. Still, the sides tie together.

"Our goal was always put service first, to treat people right, and then to give them the opportunity to feel like,'it's OK to vote Republican in a U.S. congressional race,'" he said.

Bill Emerson entered Congress when he was elected to the 10th district over Democrat Bill Burlison in 1980 -- a feat no Republican had been able to attain in more than 50 years. Seen then was a chance to add Republicans to the state Legislature using a constituent service-focused strategy.

President Ronald Reagan, the first sitting president to visit Cape Girardeau since President William Howard Taft in 1909, disembarked from Air Force One on Sept. 14, 1988, at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport. With him were U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, front right; U.S. Sen. John Danforth, rear left, and U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, rear right. (Missourian archive photo by Fred Lynch)

Starting in the 1980s, Smith worked alongside party leaders to encourage Republicans to run for statehouse seats. Sometimes candidates had to run twice, but the ultimate goal was reached. The effort brought legislators like Lanie Black, Bob May, Peter Myers, Ott Bean and Mark Richardson to Jefferson City, Mo. Gone was a time when only one Republican held a seat -- today, only a handful of Democrats represent Southeast Missouri districts.

Rick Althaus, a political-science professor at Southeast Missouri State University who is active in the Democratic Party, points to the unwavering support of important networks, like that of the Missouri Farm Bureau, as a main factor for why the Emersons stayed in office. Other factors, he said, included the built-in name recognition, moderate voting records and high-quality constituent services.

"Bill Emerson developed the support of large farmers, particularly down in the Bootheel, who prior to [1980] had been comfortable voting Democrat. But they came to see him as a strong advocate for agriculture," Althaus said.

Another aspect: Althaus and his colleagues in 1998 analyzed the incumbency of Bill Emerson, and how it seemed to continue without a hitch when Jo Ann Emerson won his seat in 1996.

"We almost concluded that the position almost didn't really become vacant when Bill died," Althaus said. "And some of my colleagues and I, up until she left, said she could continue to have that job for as long as she wanted it. We couldn't anticipate a scenario where a Democrat could knock her off, and even though she had a couple of challenges from the right, nothing really significant."

Continued support

Attention to issues that mattered most to people's livelihoods in the 8th district, such as transportation and agriculture, kept support strong for Jo Ann Emerson.

"My most important goal was to put in place a foundation for economic development and opportunity, for everybody across our district," Emerson said in a March 16 interview with the Southeast Missourian.

Among the most important accomplishments she counted during her tenure were tangible: Building highways 60 and 67 into major four-lane thruways, building the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge in Cape Girardeau and building the Rush Hudson Limbaugh Sr. U.S. Courthouse.

Disaster recovery also defined Emerson's career. She was a major voice for the region through the devastation brought by a 2006 tornado in Caruthersville, Mo., an ice storm in 2009 and historic flooding in 2011, which led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to activate the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway by breaching a levee on the Mississippi River and sending water rushing over 130,000 acres of farmland and small communities in Southeast Missouri.

Those days of disaster, along with a few others on the House floor, are the ones Emerson, now three weeks into her new job, remembers most as a member of Congress. They tie directly to the foundation she said she feels was laid through her service and that of her husband.

Disaster relief needed because of major Mississippi River flooding during the Clinton administration helped Emerson recall what she described as a "terrible, terrible fight with the speaker."

Convincing Gingrich

Emerson was working alongside Republican John Thune of South Dakota, who is now a U.S. Senator, trying to convince Newt Gingrich to support allocations for flooded areas.

"[Gingrich] said under no circumstance are we going to do disaster relief, in spite of the fact that people were displaced, livelihoods lost," Emerson said. "But he always got so nervous when Thune and I were together, because we could pull this huge rural group together and get some of our other allies and we would roll him. So he finally came to us because he knew we were really serious, and he said, 'All right, if you can find some offsets in the agriculture budget to do what you want to do, then I will let you do it. You've got two hours.'

"So we took the binder line-by-line, we made our cuts, and he accepted them and everything was fine after that," Emerson said. "But it was a very interesting situation, and it was a good coalition building. We had so many Blue Dog Democrats and so many rural Republicans that we were able to fashion a great coalition and he knew he wouldn't be able to beat us."

In 1999, with the help of U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt a Republican, of Washington, Emerson took on an effort to push for more trade with Cuba.

"This was a very political issue, and understandably so, because we had some colleagues who were born in Cuba, and their families emigrated to the United States once Castro came into power," Emerson said. "And they lost their land, and it was a very emotional situation for them."

A Dexter, Mo., rice farmer asked Emerson a question about trade with Cuba, a question she said she couldn't answer.

"He said, 'Jo Ann, how come Cuba used to be the largest importer of our rice, and now suddenly we can't sell to them anymore?'"

Emerson said she wanted to find out, so she did some research, joined with Nethercutt, built a coalition of supporters and added some language to appropriations bills. It took fights on the floor and an all-night committee session, but her efforts worked.

"It came to be that we have now sold a lot of rice to Cuba," she said.

'Got things done'

Two stories of success, but, according to Emerson, "it was back in the days when we actually got things done. We had regular order in the House. It was when you brought bills to the floor, you fought it out on the floor and then you tried to find common ground and get the bills passed. That hasn't happened in the Congress for years."

That way of life for the members of Congress, said Emerson, "just trying to do your job as you were elected to do, it's gone."

"It's just really gone now," she said. "Everything has become very politicized. I love the people, and I love the institution, and it really makes me sad."

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627