Brenham C. Crothers

Brenham Calhoun Crothers (January 2, 1905 – April 27, 1984) was a Democratic member of the Louisiana State Senate from Ferriday in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana, who served two nonconsecutive terms from 1948 to 1952 and 1956 to 1960, both corresponding with the administrations of Governor Earl Kemp Long.

Career

In addition to Concordia Parish, Crothers' senatorial district included the Mississippi River delta parishes of East Carroll, Madison, and Tensas. In both terms his district colleague was Andrew L. Sevier of Tallulah, a senator from 1932 until his death in office in 1962. Voters from the four parishes at the time elected two senators. That system changed by 1972, with implementation of the United States Supreme Court decision, Reynolds v. Sims, which mandates one man, one vote in state legislative districting.

Crothers served as president of the Louisiana Cattleman's Association and as a second vice-president of the American National Cattleman's Association. In 1967, long after he had left the state Senate, Crothers lobbied U.S. Senator Russell B. Long of Louisiana, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, in support of import restrictions on beef. In his statement before Long's committee, Crothers noted that Louisiana in 1966 had 45,000 herds of cattle and that beef was the number one agricultural product in the state. He questioned how domestic beef producers, with high costs, wages, and taxes, could be expected to compete with foreign imports of cattle grown with a cheap, inferior feed.