"Phantom" in the North Carolina Legislature

by Karl Kurtz

Back in January we posted a story in which we speculated that Alabama Secretary of the Senate (since 1963) McDowell Lee is the longest serving legislative staff person in the country.  Recently, Gerry Cohen, director of bill drafting in North Carolina has been doing research on long-serving staffers in the Tarheel State, which he has published in his blog, Drafting Musings.  He didn't find any with longer consecutive service than Mac Lee, but he did discover that senate legislative assistant Penny Williams first worked for the General Assembly in 1959, left legislative service for a number of years, returned in 1987 and has been there ever since.

Perhaps more curiously, though, Gerry reports in another post that A.J. Jones, a staffer in the house clerk's office, lived 1943-47 in a home that was in the exact spot where the Legislative Building now sits, directly under the present senate chamber.  "Kind of like the Phantom of the Opera," says Gerry.

Comments

[Gerry Cohen]

Thank for the great summary of my history posts. I did find a long time clerk of the North Carolina House of Representatives (Annie Cooper) who started as an assistant in the House Clerks office in 1921 or 1923 (we are tracking down the information, I talked to her daughter today), became Principal Clerk in 1943, and served through 1968, which would be either 45 or 47 years. Miss Annie (as she was called by everyone) overlapped service with 5 of our current staffers, so that chain goes back 85 years or so.

[Gerry Cohen]

I've been working with folks at the North Casrolina State Archives, it appears that our record for continuous staff service is 50 years and 7 days -- Annie Cooper worked in the NC House Principal Clerk's office from January 8, 1919 until January 15, 1969. From 1943-1969 she was Principal Clerk. Her first assignment was to staff a committee hearing on Woman's Suffrage the first week of the 1919 Session. The 18th Amendment was ratified January 16, 1919. We have four current House staff members who worked for Ms. Cooper when she was House Principal Clerk.
http://ncbilldrafting.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/annie-cooper-house-staff-50-years/