Pork Chop Gang

The Pork Chop Gang was a group of 20 Democratic Party legislators from rural areas of North Florida who worked together to dominate the Florida legislature, especially to maintain segregation and conserve the disproportionate political power of mostly rural northern Florida. The origins of the name are obscure, referring either to a purported divide in the state's cuisine (pork supposedly being preferred in the north and lamb being preferred in the south) or to the legislative pork that the members of the Gang were allegedly awarding themselves.^[1] They were active primarily from the 1930s to the 1960s, although the final "nail in their coffin" was in 1977.^[2][3] The spokesperson was Senator Charley Johns. They "had become unusually powerful in the 1950s because the legislative districts of the state had not been redrawn to account for the massive growth of urban areas in earlier years."^[4] The key figure in the group, coordinating their activities, although not a legislator, was industrialist Ed Ball. Their favorite haunt was the fish camp of legislator Raeburn C. Horne, at Nutall Rise, in Taylor County on the Aucilla River.^[4] The group targeted communists and homosexuals.