BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - When the new term of Louisiana state government starts in a week, nearly 100 years of institutional memory will walk out of the House and Senate.
The Legislature’s chief administrative officers - Senate Secretary Glenn Koepp and House Clerk Alfred “Butch” Speer - are exiting their jobs and retiring more than 47 years after each man started at the Louisiana Capitol.
The men, lawyers elected to the positions every four years by the House and Senate, likely are unknown to the general public. But their roles are critical to the functioning of the Legislature.
In each’s respective chamber, the men dispense advice on the body’s complicated rules and parliamentary procedure, act as general counsel and serve as custodian of records of chamber proceedings.
Anyone who’s watched House or Senate floor action will have seen Speer and Koepp front and center, reading bills into the microphone, keeping the calendar moving and offering information about vote counts and chamber rules.
Asked to explain their jobs in separate interviews, each struggled.
Speer, 67, equates his role in the 105-member House to the position of executive producer on a movie or TV show: “It’s my job to make sure that the people are where they’re supposed to be, they’re ready to say what they were supposed to say and they know what’s going to happen next.”
Koepp, 74, said his job in the 39-member Senate is “to keep things moving, keep things as efficient as possible, keep things in order.”
In general terms, the Senate secretary and House clerk are part traffic cop, part cat herder and part mind reader.
In political terms, Speer and Koepp watched tremendous change in the makeup and political leanings of the Legislature, along with the egos and temperaments of House and Senate leaders.
In institutional terms, they retain the long memories that term limits have wiped from lawmakers, understanding House and Senate history.
They’ve worked in the Louisiana Capitol through seven different governors. Speer’s been clerk under nine House speakers, in the job since 1983. Koepp’s been secretary under three Senate presidents since 2004 and assistant secretary under five more before that.
The men started in the Legislature on the same day in May 1972, neither looking for a career in state government.
Koepp, a law student, hitchhiked to the Capitol with a friend seeking a summer job and ended up getting a position as an assistant sergeant-at-arms. Speer, an undergraduate student, took a job as assistant head page in the House so he could leave his job in the LSU greenhouses and work in air conditioning.
Both worked at the constitutional convention, and both moved their way up in the ranks - with a few short gaps along the way. Koepp took a three-year break in the mid-1970s. Speer missed one legislative session in fall 1982.
After decades of watching Louisiana politics evolve, both have a similar disdain for term limits that upended the Legislature and cleared out the chambers 12 years ago.
“I think term limits was the worst thing we ever did. It just changed the whole atmosphere in the Legislature,” Koepp said.
He and Speer said the limit to three consecutive terms in a chamber made it difficult for lawmakers to gain institutional knowledge helpful to crafting laws. They blame term limits for undermining the building of relationships and trust among lawmakers of differing parties and political perspectives. Speer’s encountered House members who don’t know each other’s names, content to live in the comfort zones of their own region or party.
“It’s led to members voting against other members’ bills purely because of the political party of the person who offered it, not having a thing to do with whether it was a good, bad or indifferent idea,” Speer said. “I think it’s detrimental to getting a good product out of the Legislature. That makes it detrimental to the state.”
Lawmakers select a new Senate secretary and House clerk on Jan. 13. The House and Senate appear poised to select women who worked with Koepp and Speer.
Koepp seems more reticent to leave entirely, calling it a “scary frontier.” The Senate’s longtime redistricting expert, Koepp’s had conversations with senators about working on the redrawing of political maps in 2021.
Speer plans a complete exit, describing himself as “lusting after free time” awaiting in retirement.
“It’s not going to be hard for me to walk away that day,” he said.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Melinda Deslatte has covered Louisiana politics for The Associated Press since 2000. Follow her at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte
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