Inside Report: Lindy Boggs cast shadow to aid women
by LANNY KELLER - Advocate (excerpt)

A very practical household issue led Lindy Boggs to make her first mark on national policy. She succeeded her husband in Congress when he was killed in a plane crash. She learned that in 1973 when one lost one’s husband, one also lost one’s credit rating. “It was very very difficult for women to establish credit,” recalled Cokie Roberts, Boggs’ daughter. To general surprise, the new Rep. Boggs asked for a seat on the Banking and Currency Committee, which was undertaking changes to the banking laws. The committee’s early discussions included changing the law to forbid discrimination in lending based on race and veterans’ status.

In a Louisiana Public Broadcasting documentary, Boggs recalled stepping out of the committee room and adding sex and marital status in an amendment. She put on her best Southern accent and distributed the new language to members, saying surely it had been an oversight to have left the language out of the bill. She shamed them into making the change.

Not for the last time, Boggs recalled in the LPB interview, she learned that “that Scarlett O’Hara (imitation) was better training than all my experience at legislating.”