Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more at the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.
I’m kicking myself because two weeks ago, we missed a chance to commemorate an anniversary. August 7 was the 33rd anniversary of Oregon Senator Wayne Morse’s heroic vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
For you young folks out there, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, passed on August 7, 1964, authorized the president "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom." The resolution was treated as Congressional authorization for the Vietnam War. President Johnson requested the resolution based on reports of attacks by North Vietnam against American ships. Subsequent investigations indicated that those reports were misleading in a variety of important ways.
The Senate approved the resolution by a vote of 88-2. Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening of Alaska cast the only nay votes. At the time, Senator Morse warned: "I believe this resolution to be a historic mistake." History proved him right.
Morse’s vote was a courageous one. It certainly wasn’t the way any political consultant would have advised him to vote. But it is largely for that lonely, courageous vote that he is remembered.
I am not running for Wayne Morse’s seat; Ron Wyden holds that seat, and proved himself worthy of it when he was one of the 23 Senators to vote against the war in Iraq. But I am seeking to follow Morse in another way: the United States Senate was his first elective office.
And when I am in Senate, I will never forget that sometimes, when the vote is 88-2, the eighty-eight are wrong, and the two are right. And that even if it means you might lose the next election, it’s more important to be right.