That's right. LBJ used the momentum gained over the years of groundswell led by civil rights groups marching and demonstrating for civil rights. This groundswell gained even more steam after Truman first took a stand against the Dixecrats with the Fair Deal putting Civil Rights platforms on the legislative agenda building on what FDR created regarding the precursor of the Civil Rights division in the Justice Department.
This was major change and it was anything but easy. It started Dixiecrats leaving the Democratic party that LBJ would later solidify with the secure passage of the CRA of 1964 he secured. This diary has lots of important details outlining precisely how LBJ factually twisted arms for the CRA of 1964 and changed this nation for the better.
It's not a myth. Join me below the fold as I lay it all out with documented evidence. I promise it's worth it.
Former President Harry Truman was the daddy of Medicare as LBJ called him when he invited Harry to the signing of Medicare into law in 1965. For further analysis of this, I would recommend Joan McCarter's excellent diary on the Time article by Rick Perlstein author of Nixonland. As we know LBJ was the last great Democratic president who passed not only a bulwark of quantitative legislation, he also passed qualitative legislation.
If one cares about electoral victory, Perlstein states the obvious that Democrats win when they defend the Social Safety Net FDR created as JFK and LBJ did while expanding it with Medicare. That's much bigger than anything Obama will ever accomplish and unless Obama gets off the shared sacrifice bus on his tour it will not bode well for him in 2012. We can look at the politifact list all day, unless there was a qualitative aspect to the problems we face(as in solving a problem or a serious step in that direction) like the lack of jobs and the lack of multipliers and of financial reform, it doesn't matter how long a list we can make to tout legislative achievements that don't heal wounds but only patches them up.
Given the tone deafness of this administration, I now often wonder if we can even call this patching up of gaping wounds compromise or capitulation because there's a good reason to believe the President wants SS cuts and Medicare cuts. That's not defending the Social safety net and neither is letting a Super Congress make fast tracked cuts to it because Obama can't negotiate a debt ceiling increase like every other president in history since it's inception. That's not winning the future. That's moving backwards.
It may be that Obama is very principled in wanting to destroy the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society and that he's principled in exactly the wrong way. But let's pretend Obama is just horrible at politics for second; as Drew Westen lays out clearly when a party stands for something voters see it and apply pressure, even center right voters who could move left once they witness a party with gravitas.
Bipartisanship now as we know it, to the detriment of our party and our country (meaning the detriment of Keynesian economic policies which are the only effective means in the deflationary jobs crisis spiral we are in) is a failure of leadership in this context we will feel for some time. Watering down the stimulus when we need another one to cover the 2.5 trillion or more demand gap is not smart. It certainly wasn't smart to never try for a bigger one because the 1.2 trillion stimulus suggested from Christina Romer on his council of economic advisers wasn't even attempted(and derailed by "I love derivatives" Larry Summers).
This was a big part of why we saw one of the biggest wipe outs in history in 2010 along with 30 years of income inequality that was never addressed. Unemployment didn't stay under 8% and it would have had the stimulus had been 1.2 trillion with better multipliers and less tax cuts. It's sad because it's probably too late now that fiscal policy is almost impossible.
When the Fed is at the zero bound as it is now, there's very little monetary policy can do. This was an epic failure that I and other smart kossacks here saw coming but were ignored and mocked. It matters what the President does and says and if the excuse is that he's powerless, which he's not as you will see, it's going to be real hard convincing people to get out the vote in 2012.
That brings me to the main point of this diary regarding LBJ's superior leadership. You see, watering legislation down was not how the big changes the Civil Rights Acts brought forth came about. Here’s a brief look at the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the process behind bringing it forth.
Note: All sources here are from government documents and transcripts linked back to at the non profit Dirksen Congressional Center.
http://www.congresslink.org/...
The House readied itself to take up the most far-reaching civil rights bill since the Emancipation Proclamation. H.R. 7152 would go through the same six-step process followed by all bills that had preceded it since 1789. The House would, in 1964, (1) pass a resolution setting the guidelines for consideration of the bill (the "rule"); (2) resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to engage in general debate; (3) offer, consider, and take unrecorded votes on amendments; (4) resume sitting as the House to take recorded votes on any accepted amendments if one-fifth of the members requested it; (5) permit a minority party member to offer a recommital motion, enabling the minority to obtain a recorded vote on any defeated amendment; and (6) vote on final passage.
We know now it was no exaggeration when it was just declared that this bill was the most far-reaching bill since the emancipation proclamation and it did receive bipartisan support and passed the House, but like our problem now, the Senate was the great barrier as Alexander Hamilton called it.
February 10. The House of Representatives passed an amended version of HR 7152 by a bipartisan majority of 290-130. Republicans favored it 138-34; Democrats favored it 152-96. Of the 122 amendments offered (excluding amendments to amendments), only 28 were written into the bill. Most were technical revisions. Not a single amendment opposed by the bill's managers was adopted.
(The Johnson Treatment: Lyndon B. Johnson and Theodore F. Green, 1957 George Tames/The New York Times Photo Archives)
Notice how only 28 of the 128 amendments offered were written into the bill and as it reads, not a single amendment was written into this bill that was opposed by the bill’s managers. You see, AA don't get treated with the dignity they deserve if you water down human dignity, just like patients don’t get real significant access to health care unless you are serious about real reform involving Medicare for All or at least a public option. This is in the vein of realizing health care as a right instead of a privilege like the British did after WWII.
These principles also involve actually respecting the unions with their boots on the ground who got Obama elected, but do they get unapologetic support for the EFCA from Obama? No. The EFCA is dead.
Obviously this administration cared very little for the EFCA even though the President was going to "put on his comfortable pair of walking shoes" and support it but that promise is long broken. If we believe he wants to pass progressive legislation still, it’s going to take the “treatment” that LBJ adopted in his later years in the Senate to put the pressure on the opposition as well as reaching out, but without Obama style "compromise." But also, the treatment is useful for dealing with those traitors in our own party like the President failed to do with Lieberman and it cost us real HCR and instead we got Dolecare.
Now back then, the Democratic Party was truly split, but it should be known that this southern block known as the Dixiecrats, for obvious reasons hence the name, were the most adamant in opposition to the Civil Rights Acts, because they were the ones who staged this infamous filibuster. Many of your modern day Republicans are Dixiecrats who left the party after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. They started switching parties when Truman beat Dewey in 1948 and ending with the passage of the Civil Rights Acts later on and LBJ beating Goldwater Republicans by a landslide.
As Senate majority whip Hubert Humphrey and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield led the block of northern high-minded FDR/Truman pro civil rights Democrats. Mansfield’s words were very prescient for those times and for these times, because both stress, in the words of MLK, the fierce urgency of now.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield rose from his desk in the front row and requested that the bill be read the first time. "We hope in vain," he said, "if we hope that this issue can be put over safely to another tomorrow, to be dealt with by another generation of senators. The time is now. The crossroads is here in the Senate." He then turned to his right to face the minority leader. "I appeal to the distinguished minority leader whose patriotism has always taken precedence over his partisanship, to join with me, and I know he will, in finding the Senate's best contribution at this time to the resolution of this grave national issue." Dirksen replied:
I want to do what is in the interest of the present and future well-being of probably the only real, true free republic that still remains in God's footstool. . . . I shall cooperate. I shall do my best. When the time comes, when the deliberations are at an end and all facets of the matter have been carefully considered and discussed, I shall be prepared to render judgment and I shall have no apology to make to any man or group anywhere, anytime, for the cause I shall ultimately pursue.
Three Senate factions would determine the bill's fate: pro-civil rights (a.k.a. "national") Democrats, southern Democrats opposed to the bill, and Republicans. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey led the Democrats who supported the bill. As Senate majority whip, Humphrey enjoyed the support of Mike Mansfield, his leader. Together they were determined to pass the legislation and even arranged grueling twelve-hour daily sessions to wear down the opposition. As floor manager for the bill, Humphrey's task was to line up supporters to defend the bill in debate, to persuade reluctant members of his party to vote for passage, to encourage publicity, and to count votes. The senator from Minnesota labored hard for passage and sought cooperation from many sources, including the Republicans.
It is the right path to try at first to seek bipartisan support, though once you start watering things down as important as this it loses its purpose or principal if you will. Notice how they both scheduled grueling 12 hour sessions to put the right kind of pressure on the opposition. This kind of pressure needs to be applied today, especially now that C-Span can be broadcasted all across the web and can be directed to the public who need to hear the weak arguments and oversimplifications about socialism being used to deny the American people what they unanimously support; government creating jobs.
Back to the point, things also looked very bleak for passage of this bill so all avenues had to be considered.
The numbers made it impossible for the Democrats, who held an overwhelming majority in the Senate, to carry the day on their own, however. Twenty-one of the 67 Democrats came from southern states. Twenty of them, the so-called "southern bloc," would oppose the measure vigorously. At most, then, there were forty-seven Democrats likely to vote for cloture. Humphrey needed support from at least twenty of the Senate's thirty-three Republicans, and a few more to guard against defections of national Democrats. Dirksen was the key. "I've only got thirty-three soldiers," Dirksen remarked. "The Democrats have sixty-seven. That's why the administration has legislative indigestion."
Senator Richard Russell, Democrat from Georgia, led the opposition forces, the "southern bloc." Although a hopeless minority, the group exerted much influence because Senate rules virtually guaranteed unlimited debate unless it was ended by cloture.
Ahh yes, the magic word, cloture. As much as things change, they stay the same.
Cloture, or Rule 22, was adopted by the Senate on March 8, 1917, after what President Woodrow Wilson described as a "little group of willful men" had wrecked his proposal to arm U.S. merchant ships against German submarines. It permitted sixteen or more senators to file a petition with the clerk of the Senate against a bill or amendment. The petition had to be acted upon within two days of its submission, and then, if approved by two-thirds of those members present and voting, it limited debate to one hour per member. Of the 28 cloture votes taken since 1917, only five had succeeded. Tried eleven times on civil rights bills, it had failed eleven times.
Many of Russell's southern block of Senators feared they would lose their seats so they felt they had to force cloture to show they did everything they could to stop the bill from going forward. Russell also held the vain hope that the racist George Wallace would do better in the early presidential primaries to give the idea relevance that people were not ready for Civil Rights. However the fierce urgency of now as it was then luckily had enough Republicans, Democrats, and the American people behind it thanks to the perseverance of the civil rights movement.
Now when I say Republicans, I don’t mean Republicans as we know them today, as many of them are very much the same as they were when they were Dixiecrats, both sharing a philosophy of genuine ambivalence or antipathy towards civil rights and instead cared more about state rights. These Republicans were still there and actually took heed of what it meant to be the party of Abraham Lincoln back then.
The Republican Party was not so badly split as the Democrats by the civil rights issue. As it turned out, only one Republican senator would participate in the filibuster against the bill. In fact, since 1933, Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights in Congress than the Democrats. In the twenty-six major civil rights votes since 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.
Yet Republicans were split on the wisdom of invoking cloture. By the advance hard counts, not more than sixteen Republicans senators were likely to support such a move. Opponents were primarily small-state senators who jealously guarded the procedure as a way to protect themselves from being steamrolled by the majority.
You notice a key difference between that form of bipartisanship and this new surrender your principles in desperate times kind? That is assuming Obama has progressive principles because his just might be neoliberal instead. Back then there was actual precedence that there could be enough moderate Republicans to support civil rights legislation as I just outlined. However, those trying to act like "bipartisanship" without principle or any form of the LBJ treatment being effective are living in a dream world.
Today what we see from the opposition is deficit stupidity and the President buys into this free market religion. No wonder we can't push for the government to get involved to fill the demand gap or make the same investments that were made in with the Great Society. This is what you get when pretending any of these wingnuts will even think about supporting real investments in our country when you have a president that buys into deficit hysteria and stupidity about federal budget during a crisis of demand.
Getting back on point, the intrinsically undemocratic institution known as the Senate was set to go for one of the longest filibusters in history. The Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen was one of our only saving graces as far as being able to break the filibuster and from LBJ’s formative years as master of the Senate, he knew he was the man to go after and so he instructed Hubert Humphrey to do so.
Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-IL), the Senate Minority Leader, was the only one who could recruit the half dozen additional Republican votes necessary to quash the filibuster. Ironically considering what lay ahead, when the Senate debated a rules change that would have made it easier to end a filibuster, Dirksen opposed the limitation. According to him, the filibuster functioned as, "the only brake on hasty action of which I have any knowledge." Yet Mansfield depended completely on Dirksen to provide the margin to achieve cloture. "Dirksen is the real leader of the Senate," one senator said privately at the time. "He understands Mike, and Mike turns to him."
February 18. President Johnson made Dirksen the key to the bill when he commanded of Hubert Humphrey, "The bill can't pass unless you get Ev Dirksen. You and I are going to get Ev. It's going to take time. We're going to get him. You make up your mind now that you've got to spend time with Everett Dirksen. You've got to let him have a piece of the action. He's got to look good all the time. You get in there to see Dirksen. You drink with Dirksen! You talk with Dirksen. You listen to Dirksen!"
There is no one with the status and clear headed nature Everett of Dirksen anywhere near the Republican party these days or the mastery and gravitas of LBJ’s mastery of using every parliamentary trick and those off the books to pressure; to fight; to do whatever is necessary to get support for big proposals and for sweeping change.
LBJ had already flirted with incrementalism for too long and saw what was needed to pass this bill was every effort and pulling out every stop along the way after initially seeing JFK’s bill disappear in Committee.
February 26. The Senate voted 54-37 to place the House-passed bill on the Senate calendar rather than refer it to the southern-dominated Judiciary Committee. Between 1953 and 1963, 121 civil rights bills had been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only one had ever been reported, and that action was taken under instructions by the Senate. The committee held only 11 days of hearings on the bill President Kennedy submitted in 1963 and heard only one witness, Robert Kennedy, who was questioned for nine days. Even then, the committee reported no bill.
March 1964
March 9. The Senate began debate on a motion to take up the bill, a debate that lasted 16 days.
March 30. Formal debate began in the Senate. At this point, the southern filibuster began.
It had begun. There were not merely politicians fighting this battle. Church groups aligned with civil rights groups to pressure Congress in order to make civil rights the moral issue of the day that it desperately needed to be, which is where the civil rights movement and MLK among all of the other leaders played their part. It was very effective and courageous.
Because of this enough of the public was beginning to finally see this was about the human race and the advancement of mankind. This is where the historical activism comes in and proves it does make a difference, as the passage of this bill couldn’t of happened without the clergy and the civil rights movement giving moral clarity to this passage.
Churches provided the only possible civil rights constituency for most of the uncommitted senators, those whose votes Dirksen needed for cloture. These senators typically represented small population or rural states without a black constituency or, consequently, a civil rights problem at home. Absent that, these senators feared that voting for cloture would set a dangerous precedent and erode their ability to protect small-state interests.
According to Andrew Young, who worked at Martin Luther King, Jr.'s side during this period, the pressure exerted by churches in the home states of senators from Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and Kansas proved decisive: "When it no longer became a matter of right and left or liberal and conservative, but when it was demonstrated by this group of church and civil rights leaders that there were clear moral and religious issues involved, you gave those senators, eight of the ten of whom were Republican, a clear rationale for opposing something [unlimited debate] that they felt to be a lifelong part of the democratic tradition and very important in the case of a minority in a constitutional body."
Hubert Humphrey agreed. "We needed the help of the clergy, and this was assiduously encouraged," Humphrey noted. "I have said a number of times, and I repeat it now, that without the clergy, we couldn't have possibly passed this bill."
Now we come to a real fork in the road and basically the point and comparison I believe has to be made from that crucial time to now which is the same kind of crucial time in our history. A bump in the road was beginning to erode all the progress up to that point regarding Dirksen and the decisions made by LBJ, Mike Mansfield, and Hubert Humphrey. The pro Civil Rights Republicans and Democrats were crucial in this turbulent time as what happened with the stimulus and Dolecare took shape in Dirksen’s actions as he watered down the bill to appeal to the more Conservatives Goldwater Republicans and Dixiecrats.
April 7-8. Senate Minority Leader Dirksen presented 40 amendments to HR 7152 to his Republican colleagues in an effort to persuade the reluctant ones to support the bill. In general, these amendments would restrict the bill's jurisdiction to southern states and permit states that already had progressive civil rights laws to operate without federal interference.
Conservative Republicans applauded the modifications. However, a liberal revolt broke out on both sides of the aisle in the Senate. Two Republicans and one Democrat said that if the Senate accepted the amendments, they could not vote for the bill or for cloture. Senator Kenneth B. Keating (R-NY) said that three of the Dirksen amendments "would seriously weaken the effectiveness of the bill." Republican Clifford Case of New Jersey proclaimed it might be necessary "for those of us who favor a strong civil rights bill to take the position from now until Kingdom Come that he will not go along with closure [sic] or with anything else other than an effective bill." There was consternation among several Republican civil rights leaders in the House, too, who expressed doubt that House conferees could accept such changes.
Liberal and moderate Republicans' fury only mounted when they saw language for the amendments. They said a study of the official prints confirmed that the amendments not only watered down the fair employment section but practically gutted it. "The Senator from Illinois may not be Mack the Knife but he's certainly Ev the Dirk," one remarked in pique. Hubert Humphrey was more sanguine. He had told the bipartisan Senate leadership on the 6th that "My position is no amendments, but I want to praise Dirksen. He's not trying to be destructive. He's trying to be constructive. There's no chance of getting cloture unless we have Dirksen."
Public pressure did not slacken during this period, either. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights held a large day-long meeting on Sunday, April 12th, to coordinate their plans for the coming weeks. They agreed on a variety of actions to keep the matter in public view even as the filibustering senators droned on in an almost empty Senate chamber. They also proposed vigorous action to sink Dirksen's amendments. "If we let the Dirksen amendment prevail," Clarence Mitchell warned, "it will be a disaster. There will be a Negro revolution around the country." Humphrey immediately responded, "We don't plan on letting them pass. Don't you break out in a sweat, Clarence. I believe we should analyze the Dirksen amendments and then move to table them."
The next day, Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, wrote Dirksen, enclosing his testimony on the public accommodations title before the Senate Commerce Committee eight months before:
The situation has not changed. The title is needed by the millions of American citizens who are told daily -- even hourly - that while others are welcome in places open to the general public, they are either circumscribed or barred. This is an affront to American citizenship, but more importantly and more penetratingly, it is a deeply wounding affront to a person as a human being.
And so more events in this same vein then ensued.
April 15. Senator Hubert Humphrey and others issued a press statement warning that "illegal disturbances and demonstrations which lead to violence or injury" would hamper efforts to enact the civil rights bill. "Civil wrongs do not bring civil rights," they said, and the cause of civil rights is not helped by "unruly demonstrations and protests that bring hardships and unnecessary inconvenience to others."
April 16. Dirksen prepared to go to Senate with his amendments to the House-passed bill. He had reduced the number from 40 to ten, all related to Title VII, the fair employment title.
April 21. Southerners introduced an amendment that would entitle defendants in criminal cases to jury trials. It became the "pending business" before the Senate and blocked further consideration of the comprehensive civil rights bill. Civil rights proponents believed that southerners sought this amendment in the unavowed conviction that most southern juries would not convict on charges of criminal contempt in civil rights cases.
Here is where the main point I am driving at today also takes shape as Dirksen then signaled he wasn’t going to budge when it came to more watering down of the bill despite the pressure from LBJ who was not happy with this.
April 29. Dirksen met with President Johnson at the White House. In late March, the senator had noted in a press conference that he used to see Johnson five or six times a day when they both served in the Senate, but that "it has been quite a while since I've seen him." Now, in late April, Dirksen intended to strike a bargain, and he took a gamble to do so. He announced to the press what he wanted from Johnson before he left for the White House, a tactic that would not endear him to the president, and Dirksen knew it. "You say you want the House bill without any change," he planned to tell the president. "Well, in my humble opinion, you are not going to get it. Now it's your play. What do you have to say?" By signaling his intentions, Dirksen meant to test Johnson's resolve. If Johnson agreed to strike a bargain, the senator told the press he could deliver the 22 to 25 votes for cloture.
President Johnson, however, was in no mood for compromise. He called Mike Mansfield a few minutes before Dirksen's visit to complain about the minority leader's comments to the press. "He gave out a long interview of what he's going to tell me today, before he comes, which is not like him. I don't know what is happening to him here lately. He's acting like a shit-ass!" Johnson did not discuss civil rights at any length with Dirksen, instead telling him to work it out with Humphrey. Dirksen came away with no concessions.
lol. Now that LBJ comment is a hilarious, but also it’s heartening to know that something that important was not going to get watered down in the process like before or dissapear in Committee and that LBJ did not take kindly to that idea. I think that deserves repetition: Dirksen came away with no concessions. And that made a difference then and it makes all the difference today when we are talking about real substantive change even if it doesn’t work out at times.
Fighting and standing firm for progress can have unforeseeable positive effects one might not expect unless a real effort is made.
May 5. Dirksen offered scores more amendments, a few substantial, the rest "perfecting," or technical. Predictably, this unexpected move angered civil rights proponents. But Dirksen and the pro-civil rights senators were making progress. True, these early May negotiations represented a collapse of the Democratic leadership's original hopes that the Senate would pass the House bill without change, thereby removing all of the parliamentary dangers of House-Senate disagreement. But the mathematics of a cloture vote, plus Dirksen's principled refusal to accept the House bill as is, made compromise necessary. Only if some of Dirksen's objections were dealt with, would he or could he possibly produce the votes that would make the difference on cloture. Dirksen apparently felt at this point that he had 22 Republicans for cloture. Only substantial changes would attract Karl Mundt (R-SD) or Carl Curtis (R-NE), he believed, but Dirksen held out hope that more modest compromises would bring along Bourke Hickenlooper (R-IA), and Len B. Jordan (R-ID)
So it looked like this bill was going to be watered down after all despite LBJ and the pro civil rights wings of both parties standing firm at first. Though it would turn out that some compromise with principal had it’s own surprising positive effect. A positive effect that would ensue without giving up all of one's principles unlike what is ensuing today as we give up important aspects of our political platform for what we factually call failed compromise if we're being kind.
May 6. The Senate took its first votes on amendments to the civil rights bill. The Senate defeated efforts by southerners to broaden the bill's provisions for jury trials in criminal contempt cases.
May 13. After negotiations involving Attorney General Kennedy and Senators Hubert Humphrey and Everett Dirksen and other interested senators, agreement was reached on a "clean bill" to be introduced as a substitute for the pending civil rights measure. This substitute made 70-odd changes in the House bill, but only a few of them were substantive. The major change was to provide, in both the fair employment and public accommodations sections, that the government could sue only against a "pattern or practice" of discrimination. In other cases, the problem would be turned over for solution to local agencies set up to handle the problem; if this failed, the newly established Community Relations Service or the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission would attempt to work out a solution; if this failed, the individual could bring suit in court. The Justice Department could, as the discretion of the court, enter the case on the plaintiff's side.
The rest would be taken care of later on in the 1965-68 civil rights statutes but substantial progress was being made; particularly with AG Robert Kennedy on the case to make sure whatever Dirksen was proposing to live up to his brother’s legacy and what the pro Civil Rights platforms of both parties were trying to accomplish.
Coming after day-long talks, Robert Kennedy told reporters, "There's an understanding between all who participated . . . this bill is perfectly satisfactory to me." The attorney general called President Johnson at 4:05 p.m., shortly after the negotiations for the day ended. He reported that agreement had been reached, noting that "Senator Dirksen was terrific" and urging Johnson to call the minority leader. The president did so immediately. To his old friend he began, "The Attorney General said that you were very helpful and did an excellent job and that .... I ought to tell you that I admire you ... and I told him that I had already done that for some time. . . ." He and Dirksen commiserated about the schedule for a vote before Johnson concluded: "I saw your exhibit at the World's Fair, and it's the Land of Lincoln, so you're worthy of the Land of Lincoln. And a man from Illinois is going to pass the bill, and I'll see that you get proper attention and credit." In a call three hours later with Humphrey, Johnson asked if Dirksen could deliver 25 Republicans for cloture. Based on a conversation he had with Dirksen at dinner the night before, Humphrey expressed confidence, ". . . Mr. President, we've got a much better bill than anyone even dreamed possible. We haven't weakened this bill one damn bit; in fact in some places we've improved it. That's no lie; we really have."
Years later, Humphrey evaluated Dirksen's work on the bill this way:
The meetings in Dirksen's office were, as we know, successful. Actually, Dirksen gave a great deal of ground. The bill which he finally supported - the substitute - in my mind is as good or better a bill than the House bill. Dirksen supported with his own amendments an effective enforcement of Title II, integration of public accommodations, but he mainly insisted on some time for conciliation and more involvement of local and state government, both of which were very good ideas, and I vigorously supported them.
So standing up for the principles in the 1964 Civil Rights Bill had positive effects and it wouldn’t of been worth it had LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, and all the Senators one both sides of isle who cared about civil rights not stuck to their principles. Dirksen might not have decided to adopt amendments that were helpful for the cause and passage if that didn't happen. Though this was back when it actually was possible (that era is long gone) for the Republican party to have good ideas, too; it turns out Dirksen came up with enough substantive change that led to the cloture vote on June 10th and then the bill passed on June 10th.
Had Democrats and Republicans not have pressured Dirksen who understandably was under considerable pressure to get the votes to stop cloture and wanted to make the bill more passable through the Senate, it would have been watered down to the point where the celebration probably would not have ensued on June 19 when the Senate passed the bill by a 73-27 roll-call vote. Six Republicans joined 21 Democrats in opposition. The passage vote came exactly one year after President Kennedy submitted the bill to Congress.
You see, though it wasn't him alone as I also document, LBJ's effectiveness wasn't a myth and neither is the bully pulpit. It really just makes one look ignorant when they say this without doing their research. LBJ went to bat for the civil rights acts knowing he would split the Democratic party for generations. that's real political sacrifice.
This was back when it took 2/3rds to break a filibuster or 64 votes so the "he had it easy" argument also fails. So if Obama really cared about winning the future instead of winning it for the Rubinites, Wall Street, and the Peter Petersons who want to gut our safety net this is a good place to look. I think the most logical explanation unless we see something radically different is that Obama just doesn't care that much about the future for our country.
If he won't stop saying economically ignorant things like "we have to balance the budget so we can make the investments we need for jobs," how else are we supposed to take that? This Super Oligarchy and their economic and budget trigger stupidity is just going to make things worse and worse because the president believes more in the confidence fairy than the Democratic party. It's sad, so I have to look back for inspiration and identity as a party that once stood for something.
Thank you for reading.