Annie
Diamond Member
- Nov 22, 2003
- 50,848
- 4,827
- 1,790
Racism in this country is historically a geographical issue. The Civil War attests to this. Its no secret that historically the South is where racism lived, festered, grew and thrived. Yes, at one point the SOUTHERN Dems were racist, but notice the party that courted them and accepts them today. Its not the Democrats. There is a reason why the term "White Southern Male" exists. Joe Wilson, another White Southern Male. Again...no surprise. The Republican base is in the South. No surprise. Now I'm not saying that ALL Republicans are racists, but I am saying that today, if you're a racist, you're most likely a member of the Republican party and they welcome you with open arms.
Right.
CongressLink: [Congress: The Basics - Lawmaking] Civil Rights: Major Features of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
...After outlining specific recommendations and lining up bipartisan support, the Kennedy administration sent its proposal for a bill to Congress on June 19. Political factors continued to shape the President's attitude. He worked to secure Republican congressional assistance; he sought unsuccessfully to ward off opposition from the southern wing of his own party; and he urged African American leaders to control demonstrations more carefully so as not to scare off potential supporters by inciting violence in the streets. Kennedy likewise marshaled support by conducting discussions with businessmen, religious leaders, labor officials, and other groups. He sought by these means to stimulate Congress to action by mobilizing pressure for passage without at the same time jeopardizing the fragile political coalition needed to pass the bill....
Committee Action in the House: Judiciary Committee
H. R. 7152 was referred for consideration to the House Judiciary Committee chaired by civil rights supporter Emanuel Celler. As is the case with most major bills, a subcommittee considered the proposal in depth. From the perspective of civil rights advocates, the choice of Celler as chairman of Subcommittee Number 5 was fortunate in that Celler had a strong, positive civil rights record. The ranking Republican member of Judiciary, William M. McCulloch, joined Celler in maneuvering the bill through the committee process.
Subcommittee Number 5
The subcommittee conducted lengthy hearings from May into August of 1963 on the civil rights bill, inviting many witnesses to testify in favor of, or in opposition to, the proposal. The subcommittee, in weighing the evidence, actually rewrote the Justice Department's draft of H. R. 7152 to make it stronger. In general, the subcommittee draft made it more difficult to prevent African Americans from voting, outlawed discrimination in all public accommodations, gave the Attorney General the right to sue on behalf of integration in education, and guaranteed equal employment opportunities.
Members of the subcommittee approved the bill with little trouble. Northern Democrats welcomed the measure, and Republican subcommittee members voted for the bill in order to receive some credit for its passage. More interesting is the fact that some southern Democrats who opposed the administration's bill favored the more liberal subcommittee bill because they felt that a stronger bill would be impossible to pass on the floor of the House.
Committee Recommendations
The Kennedy administration apparently saw the correctness and the danger of the southern Democrats' reasoning. When the entire Judiciary Committee considered the subcommittee's draft of the bill, Attorney General Robert Kennedy appeared before the full committee in executive session in mid-October to urge that it report a more moderate bill. The Kennedy administration knew that a strong civil rights bill would be more difficult to pass because Republicans would find little in it to support. Republican support was absolutely crucial for Senate passage and only slightly less so for House passage. The administration's successful efforts to moderate the bill naturally aroused suspicion among some civil rights groups, but Kennedy probably had little choice: compromise or no bill.
As a result of the administration's urging, Democratic and Republican House leaders on the Judiciary Committee worked together to produce a more acceptable piece of legislation. Republicans were able to modify voting registration procedures, the status of the Civil Rights Commission, and enforcement procedures. The resulting compromise received the Judiciary Committee's endorsement, 23 to 11, on October 29, 1963, after the original subcommittee proposal was defeated, 19 to 15. The Judiciary Committee formally reported H. R. 7152 on November 20.
...Senator Richard Russell, Democrat from Georgia, led the so-called opposition forces. The group was also known as the "southern bloc." It was composed of eighteen southern Democrats and one Republican, John Tower of Texas. Although a hopeless minority, the group exerted much influence because Senate rules virtually guaranteed unlimited debate unless it was ended by cloture. The "southern bloc" relied on the filibuster to postpone the legislation as long as possible, hoping that support for civil rights legislation throughout the country would falter. The Democratic leadership and Humphrey could not control the southern wing of the party.
Russell's forces disliked civil rights legislation for several reasons. Many feared that their southern constituents would vote them out of office if, as senators, they voted for equal rights for African Americans. The "southern bloc" held up consideration of the bill from March into June hoping that presidential candidate George Wallace, a segregationist from Alabama, would do well in the early presidential primaries. If Wallace seemed popular, Russell would argue that the nation as a whole did not support federal civil rights legislation and that the Senate should not pass an unwanted bill. Southern senators could not compromise. Only by forcing cloture could they demonstrate to their constituents that they had fought to the end against hopeless odds.
From Filibuster to Cloture
The filibuster forces knew that they faced a long and tiring battle. Their opponents had anticipated and planned for the filibuster. In fact, Humphrey personally opened full-fledged debate on the civil rights bill on March 30 with a three hour, eleven-minute speech from a 68 page speech of his own in defense of H. R. 7152. Both Humphrey and Thomas Kuchel (R-CA), Senate Minority Whip gathered enough senators together so that at any time a quorum call came up, the pro-civil rights forces could answer it. Northerners also combated the "southern bloc" by answering southerners' criticisms of the bill on the floor rather than simply letting the filibusterers speak indefinitely without response. To respond to the organized opposition, southerners formed a platoon system composed of three six- member filibuster teams. When one team had the floor for the filibuster, the other two would rest and then prepare to take turns speaking on the floor.
The Republican Party was not so badly split as the Democrats by the civil rights issue. Only one Republican senator participated in the filibuster against the bill. In fact, since 1933, Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights than the Democrats. In the twenty-six major civil rights votes since 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 % of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 % of the votes.
The Republican pro-civil rights forces were blessed with gifted leadership. Although Senate minority whip Thomas Kuchel initially managed the party's forces, it increasingly became clear to Democrats, Republicans, the press, civil rights groups, and the White House that Everett McKinley Dirksen was the key man in the entire civil rights legislative effort.
After criticizing H. R. 7152 in March, Dirksen began to work more closely in late spring with Humphrey and the civil rights forces to fashion a strategy that would secure passage of the bill. Dirksen organized Republican support for the bill by designating a floor captain for each of the bill's seven sections. He and the bipartisan leaders believed that five or six "swing" votes held the key to cloture and the end of debate. Almost all of these uncommitted senators were conservative Republicans from rural states without racial difficulties. Their constituents opposed the legislation because it involved expanded federal powers. The problem facing the leadership was how to enlist the support of these uncommitted senators.
By working with Dirksen to swing key votes and by marshaling public opinion and constituent support for the civil rights measure, Senate leaders moved forward with the legislation....
...Final Votes
Under the Senate rules, after cloture is invoked each senator may speak for one hour on the bill or pending amendments. Although southerners called up many amendments between June 10 and June 17 to stall action further, the Senate leadership allowed only those it wanted to be adopted. Most of the amendments were defeated by large margins. On June 17, the Senate voted by a 76 to 18 margin to adopt the bipartisan substitute worked out by Dirksen in his office in May and to give the bill its third reading. Two days later, the Senate passed the bill by a 73 to 27 roll call vote. Six Republicans and 21 Democrats held firm and voted against passage. In all, the the 1964 civil rights debate had lasted a total of 83 days, slightly over 730 hours, and had taken up almost 3,000 pages in the Congressional Record....
