When it comes to Oklahoma lawmakers, we often think of them as partisan, nonsensical ass-hats who spend their time taking away constituents’ civil rights, tweeting inflammatory bullshit, and staying in office well beyond their best-by date. Nowadays, that doesn’t appear to be an unfair assessment. However, once upon a time there was a 5’4 “Little Giant” lawmaker from Oklahoma who spearheaded social programs and was next in line to becoming president of the United States…twice.
When many of us think of Carl Albert, what often comes to mind are usually the high school, parkway, or research center at OU rather than his tenure in Congress as a representative and eventual Speaker of the House. In all honesty, I was only vaguely familiar with the man until I got into a Richard Nixon kick earlier this year and started binging a bunch of podcasts on Watergate and Spiro Agnew’s bribery conspiracy. It was then that I began to understand why so many random things are named after him.