Rand Paul today—at Howard University, of all places:
I've never wavered in my support for civil rights or the Civil Rights Act. The dispute, if there is one, has always been about how much of the remedy should come under federal or state or private purview. What gets lost is the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights.
So Rand Paul says he's never wavered, except for the part about how he's wavered, but that it's totally unfair to say Republicans are anything but civil rights and voting rights champions. For example, here's Rand Paul
two years ago being a Republican civil rights champion during an interview with the
Louisville Courier-Journal:
INTERVIEWER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I’m all in favor of that.
INTERVIEWER: But?
PAUL: You had to ask me the “but.” I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership.
Yes! He's a Super Civil Rights Champion ... except for the "but," which is that it should be up to private businesses to decide whether or not they should give you any civil rights. And that's the same "but" that forced him to
release a statement claiming he supported the Civil Rights Act after he told Rachel Maddow why he didn't support the parts of it that applied to private businesses. And it's the same "but" that he pointed to today. But other than that, Rand Paul has been a totally unwavering supporter of the Civil Rights Act.