Roger D. Branigin (1965 – 1969)
As a lawyer in Lafayette, I know the name Branigin primarily from the law firm Stuart & Branigin across the street and the Branigin Bridge on 231 over the Wabash. Branigin was born in Franklin and went to the public schools in Franklin, Indiana and then to Franklin College. He went to Harvard Law School then returned and joined the prosecutor’s office in Franklin County. In 1930, he went to work for the Federal Land Bank and the Farm Credit Administration in Louisville out of Louisville. In 1938, Branigin joined the Stuart firm in Lafayette which had historical ties to Purdue University and the development of the railroads in the area. During World War II, he served in the Judge Advocate General’s Department, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Branigin was an active Democrat, and in 1948, he was the chair of the state’s Democratic convention where Henry Schricker was nominated. Schricker subsequently appointed Branigin as chairman of the state conservation commission. In 1956, Branigin ran for the Democratic nomination but was defeated by Ralph Tucker. In 1964, however, he did get the nomination. Branigin had learned some lessons from his 1956 effort.
Roger Branigin reported that in his unsuccessful bid for the gubernatorial nomination in 1956 he drove 19,000 miles and “talked to all the wrong people.” The money goes primarily for meetings, dinners and travel.
In 1964, Branigin had the support of party leaders, and won on the first ballot. The Democratic Party became somewhat more fractured during the general election. Branigin made it clear early on in the general that he was going to disassociate himself from the Welsh administration. Party leaders were aligned with Welsh. Nevertheless, the Democrats managed to raise and spend a great deal of campaign money when compared to recent years, labor lined up behind Branigin and provided manpower for his campaign, and the Republican candidate, Richard Ristine could not keep up.
The results of the election are well known. The Democrats carried the state for President Johnson, re-elected Vance Hartke to the Senate, elected Roger Branigin Governor, elected two additional Congressmen for a total of six of eleven, and won overwhelming control of both houses of the Indiana legislature for the first time in 30 years. The Democrats hold a 35-15 margin in the state Senate and a 79-21 majority in the House. The Democrats also won most of the county elections. It was the greatest Democratic victory since 1936.
By distancing himself from Welsh and because Ristine had been the Republican Lieutenant Governor who facilitated passage of a state sales tax through the Senate, Branigin was able to attack Ristine as a tax raiser. This was, of course, a landslide year for President Johnson. Branigin’s victory over Ristine was also substantial — Branigin won by more than 250,000 votes and 13% of the 2 million votes cast. The 1964 campaign was something of a rebuke to the Republicans who had argued that Hoosiers wanted a “true conservative,” firmly committed to repealing New Deal programs. In Barry Goldwater, they had gotten the candidate they wanted. But, it turned out, that agenda was not necessarily what Hoosiers really wanted.
That said, Branigin did not necessarily see eye-to-eye with the more liberal Democrats who had been elected to the General Assembly. One Democrat quipped that Branigin was “the best Republican governor the Democrats ever had.” Nevertheless, one of his first acts in 1965 was to reverse the anti-union “right to work” law. In 1958, just after the law had been passed, the wife of a Nashville, Indiana carpenter described the law as follows:
“I pooh-poohed when the right-to-work was first called a mankiiller. But it is. The man I love is being killed by it. He is a carpenter, strong, capable, hard-working, able to do three men’s work, which he does. Thereby, he keeps his job, luckier than most carpenters these days.
“He retains his job by doing man-killing work, but the rest of the crew is fired each Friday. A fresh group is brought in on Monday. There is no longer a union steward whose job it used to be to see that the company provided fresh drinking water, toilet facilities, a place to change and keep dry clothes, safety precautions, etc.
“My man comes home each day thirsty, soaking wet and heartsick because eager, hard-working family men on the job are being laid off when they can’t double or triple their output. This is not an isolated case.
“I am a school teacher. I address this to other teachers, office workers, business people, and others who know first hand what the “[Governor] Handley law” really is–a right-to-work-a-man-to-death law. I plead for its repeal.”
Repealed by Branigin and the Democrats in 1965, the right-to-work law would be re-adopted by the Indiana General Assembly 47 years later in 2012.
Even though Branigin went along with the right-to-work repeal, he ended up vetoing the General Assembly 100 times, the most ever for a one-term governor. Among the issues he disagreed with the General Assembly about were “legalizing abortion in Indiana, prohibiting the use of strikebreakers in labor disputes and outlawing the death penalty.” Where legislation did succeed was in “providing more scholarships to Indiana college students, repealing the personal property tax on household goods, improving state prisons, parks, highways and forests, and expanding the powers of the Civil Rights Commission.”
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