Former House Speaker Tom Murphy Dead At 83

By Dick Pettys
InsiderAdvantage Georgia

(12/18/07) "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend," goes the line from a 1960s western about a man who is credited with deeds he didn't perform. There will be no such confusion over Tom Murphy, the tough-talking master politician whose gruff exterior concealed a heart that ached for the poor and helpless; fact and legend were one and the same. Murphy loomed larger than life over the House of Representatives and Georgia politics for three decades. Incapacitated from a stroke he suffered in 2004, Murphy succembed around 10 p.m. Monday at age 83.

Murphy outlasted four governors and held power longer than any other legislative presiding officer in the nation, until voters in his west Georgia district turned against him in the same 2002 election that saw then-Gov. Roy Barnes and then-Sen. Max Cleland also lose re-election campaigns. He had been Speaker since 1974.

"We have lost one of the greatest Georgians of our lifetime," said former state Rep. Matt Towery, a Murphy favorite, though they were of different parties. Towery and Murphy remained close even after Towery left the House. "The magnitude of that loss can hardly be measured at this moment of both personal and statewide grief."

Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered flags on state buildings lowered to half-staff and issued this statement:

“For more than a quarter-century, Speaker Murphy was a dominant figure in Georgia politics. As a public servant, he always fought for the children of Georgia, our veterans and the disabled. When he rose to speak, people listened, even if they disagreed with his politics. And when he said he was going to act, he kept his word. Speaker Murphy’s spirit will forever be part of the General Assembly and his love for our state should serve as an example to us all. Mary and I are deeply saddened by the loss of Speaker Murphy. His family and friends will remain in our thoughts and prayers.”

The current Speaker, Glenn Richardson, a Republican, issued this statement:

“Georgia has lost a great leader today, and for that, we are all sad. While the family of Speaker Murphy has suffered the greatest loss, all Georgians have lost a true friend and a great political leader. The stresses and responsibilities the job of speaker creates are too many to be counted, and yet, Speaker Murphy handled it all with dignity and distinction for 28 years. His is truly a legacy beyond words. My thoughts and prayers are with his family during this especially difficult time.”

Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming. Arrangements made more than a year ago called for him to lie in state in the Capitol.

Murphy was first elected to the Georgia House in 1961, and rose to power as floor leader for then-Gov. Lester Maddox, whose conservative views in many ways matched Murphy's. But Murphy's brand of conservatism - tempered by the Depression years and Roosevelt's New Deal programs - didn't prevent him from backing programs to benefit the poor and elderly, and while he represented a district that slowly switched from rural to exurban, he often backed programs to benefit Atlanta.

At the height of his power, he was a gruff-talking, cigar-chomping figure whose wrath was feared from one end of the Capitol to the other, but who also was capable of being moved to the point of tears by the plight of the disabled and the needy.

In the 1980s, he was the state's most important political power broker. His influence helped an obscure legislative protege, Joe Frank Harris, win the governor's office in 1982 and 1986, and it turned the tide for Wyche Fowler in the 1986 U.S. Senate race.

His feuds were legendary with Zell Miller, who was lieutenant governor for 16 years while Murphy presided over the House, and governor for another eight. The feuding ended when Miller told him that he could win office without his help but couldn't govern without it.

Murphy was quoted in a 2002 piece as saying this of their relationship:"I think he (Miller) said it best in that TV documentary. He said if there hadn't been a Tom Murphy, he would have invented one and he thinks I would've done the same thing. We've been friends all those years. We disagreed on some issues but reasonable men do that."

A master of the political process, Murphy understood the uses of power as well as any man who ever set foot in the statehouse, boiled down to a phrase once uttered by Miller: politicians only understand two things - what you can do to them and what you can do for them. He was challenged only twice for the gavel - a gift awarded by members of the House who elect their presiding officer every two years. In both cases, the challengers were made to pay a price but ultimately were welcomed back into the fold and assumed leadership positions.

Murphy took charge of the House at a time when it was overwhelmingly white, male, Democratic and largely rural, but over the years found it increasingly difficult to control a body that was growing increasingly diverse and increasingly Republican with nearly every election. Democratic efforts to stem the GOP tide through redistricting - whether originating with him or someone else - only postponed the eventual Republican takeover.

Murphy almost didn't make what would prove to be his last bid for re-election. He had a brush with defeat in 2000, and his lieutenants in the Legislature quickly went to work in 2001 to give him a safer district. He ordered them to change it back, however, because the new district would have adversely affected a friend.

With speculation high in 2002 that he would finally hang up his spurs, Murphy held a dramatic news conference in his district at nearly the last minute to announce he would give it one more shot. In the end he failed, but it seems unlikely that a man who hung a photo of John Wayne over his office door would have wished to go out with anything less than both guns blazing, even into possible defeat.