Watching John McCain explain his 1983 "no" vote on a federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is like watching an episode of Cops! where a drunk tries to talk his way out of a sobriety test. There’s enough in this YouTube clip to diary about for a week, but let's look at three of the Senator’s explanations, all of which fall flat: 1) He didn’t understand "the issue" or appreciate King’s contribution, 2) the holiday wasn’t "an issue" in his home state of Arizona, and 3) he had to work against a governor from his own party. I'm not holding my breath, but it’d be nice if someone in the press asked him to clarify these three responses. To put McCain's comments in context, over the jump I'll begin with a brief chronology:
1972 – The Arizona legislature introduces its first bill to establish a state holiday honoring King. It is defeated, and between 1972 and 1986 no fewer than eight more bills are introduced, all of which fail.
1982 – John McCain is elected to the U.S. House, representing Congressional District 1.
1983 – The U.S. House votes 338-90 in favor of a federal holiday for MLK. McCain is one of the 90 "no" votes. The Senate votes 78-22 to support the bill, which becomes law when President Reagan signs the legislation.
1984 – McCain is reelected to the U.S. House.
1986 – McCain is elected to the U.S. Senate.
1986 – The Arizona legislature narrowly defeats another attempt to establish a state MLK Day. Taking matters into his own hands, Democratic Governor Bruce Babbitt creates the holiday by executive order.
1986 – A three-way race for governor in Arizona results in far rightwing Republican Evan Mecham being elected with 40 percent of the vote.
1987 – Mecham’s very first act is to rescind the MLK Day established by Babbitt. Senator McCain defends Mecham’s rescission.
1988 – Mecham is impeached and removed from office.
1990 – Arizona voters reject an MLK Day. With the state’s image and business suffering, a coalition of leaders form “Victory Together” to pass a holiday. McCain’s help is solicited.
1992 – Arizona voters overwhelmingly pass Proposition 300 (69-31 percent), establishing a state holiday honoring Dr. King.
::
That little trip down memory lane raises a few questions about McCain’s explanations for his flip-flop on MLK. He voted against the federal holiday in 1983 and as late as 1987 he held the same view, but by 1990 he was "working hard" to pass an Arizona version. What accounts for his slow “evolution” of conscience, as McCain calls it? He offers three explanations:
- “I had not really been involved in the issue.”
It's not really clear what McCain means by "the issue," a phrase he repeats often in the video, but if the issue is race or civil rights, that's not something one can escape if you play on Congress's national stage, nor can it be ignored in Arizona, given our multicultural heritage. If you're in politics here you confront "the issue" regularly.
Or maybe the issue is King himself, which is even more revealing of the Senator's dim-wittedness. McCain's biography says he entered politics because he was interested in current events. So one is tempted to say if he didn’t know about King and "the issue" by 1983, when he voted "no" on the federal holiday, then he was either too uninformed or too stupid to be a U.S. Congressman. It’s not like King had accomplished anything, after all – only a Nobel Peace Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom, only one of the most important American speeches ever given that people worldwide know by heart, only peaceful protests that changed the social and political landscape and led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, only regular meetings with U.S. Presidents and other heads of state. Why would you be expected to know about that, Senator?
After King was killed in 1968, as early as 1973 Illinois enacted a holiday honoring him and other states soon joined the march. In 1983, the Congress that McCain was a member of debated at length the King legislation before passing it by a wide margin. That 338 of McCain's fellow Representatives and 78 Senators supported the measure just might've been a hint to the freshman Congressman that King made a tremendous contribution to our nation. Okay, so maybe in 1983 McCain was still clueless; but by 1987, nearly 20 years after Dr. King’s death, by which time he was venerated around the world and McCain was a member of the nation's most exclusive club, the Senator was still spouting the same crap – defending a bigoted boob who had repealed Arizona’s MLK Day. You were "involved in the issue," Senator, just misguidedly.
::
- “It just simply had not been an issue in my state.”
This, again, plays into the “I just didn’t know about the issue” meme. The point he stresses here, however, is that because Arizona has few African Americans (3 percent of the population) the MLK holiday just wasn’t very high profile. The timeline above notes that the first bill to establish a King Day in Arizona was introduced in 1972. To refresh the Senator’s memory, here’s a list of other attempts between 1972 and 1987, when Mecham overturned the holiday and McCain defended him, courtesy the Arizona State Archives:
1972 – Bill fails in Arizona Senate.
1975 – Bill passes Arizona Senate, fails in House.
1976 – Bill fails in Arizona House.
1981 – Bill fails in Arizona House.
1982 – Bill fails in Arizona House.
1984 – Bill fails in Arizona House.
1985 – Bill fails in Arizona House.
1986 – Bill fails in Arizona House by a single vote.
1986 – May 18, Governor Bruce Babbitt signs executive order creating MLK Day.
1987 – January 12, Governor Evan Mecham rescinds Babbitt’s executive order.
1987 – In response to Mecham's repeal, over several months several bills are introduced in the Arizona legislature to create a King Day but all fail.
There’s another five years of legislative maneuvering, public politics, media coverage, corporate wrangling, and other messy stuff leading up to the voters approval of a King Day in 1992, but just given the short history above, does that look like something "that had not been an issue in my state”? It most certainly was an issue! Nearly every year the legislature entertained a bill; when Babbitt stepped up in 1986 to establish a holiday it was front-page news; and when Mecham rescinded that executive order a year later it too was headline-grabbing stuff. Saying the MLK holiday was "not an issue" in Arizona shows how out of touch McCain was with the people he supposedly represented in Washington. It's also just bull.
::
- "I had to work against a governor who was of my own party."
Here McCain offers an excuse for his sluggish "evolution," at the same time he plays up his maverick image by suggesting he worked against a fellow Republican. That member of his own party was, of course, Ev Mecham, who rescinded the holiday in 1987, a move McCain defended. By the early 90s, however, when McCain had changed his tune on MLK, Mecham was long gone from the scene – booted from office in 1988, so who was McCain "work[ing] against"? The ghost of Ev Mecham? Chronologically, his statement simply makes no sense. After Mecham left office he was replaced by Rose Mofford, a Democrat who supported a King Day; and she was followed by McCain's old friend, Republican Fife Symington, who also supported the holiday.
Mecham is still the only U.S. governor to be impeached, indicted, and recalled at the same time – a complete embarrassment of a man, and most Arizona Republicans quickly distanced themselves from him and his sad legacy. Yeah, Senator, it certainly was a mavericky risk to stand up to Ev Mecham - a man whose political clout was spent, a criminal loathed by nearly everyone.
::
The reason Senator McCain flip-flopped on MLK has little to do with his evolving conscience and more to do with what always motivates him: power and its stepchild money. Because of Mecham’s stupid decisions and the racist image he foisted on the state, many groups canceled their conventions in Arizona, businesses looked elsewhere to locate their headquarters, the NFL threatened to move the 1993 Super Bowl, and tourists stayed away in droves. I imagine a scene like the one at the end of Network but, instead of Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) reading the riot act to Howard Beale (Peter Finch), it's John McCain sitting before his state's power brokers - the corporate moneybags and media giants who made him and continue to shape his brand:
"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. McCain, and we won't have it!"
McCain’s support of Mecham and his racists views threw a monkeywrench into the state’s growth machine. And if there is a “primal force” in Arizona that you don't meddle with, it's growth.