Re: "no one can dig up any racist actions on the part of Lott."
Well, that's a matter of interpretation, right?
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Lott critics cite history as civil rights opponent
gomemphis.com
By James W. Brosnan
brosnanj@shns.com
December 12, 2002
WASHINGTON - Sen. Trent Lott's history of opposing civil rights legislation is catching up with him in the current controversy over remarks last week that seemed to endorse Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential race in 1948.
From a vote in the early 1980s against extending the Voting Rights Act to being the only senator opposing President Bush's nomination of a black judge last year, Lott has compiled a record that leaves him vulnerable to charges that he holds racist or segregationist views, say critics and political experts.
"His recent statements are not an aberration but the culmination of a career of consistently opposing key civil rights principles and protections, even when people like Strom Thurmond sometimes supported them," said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way.
Lott went on talk radio and television Wednesday to explain his remarks and apologize. They were intended to endorse Thurmond's views on the economy and defense, not the segregationist stance Thurmond took in 1948 as a so-called Dixiecrat.
But even as Lott was apologizing, news reports circulated that he made a similar comment while campaigning in 1980. And its that kind of action, along with his record, that many of his critics were focusing on.
Lott was a senior at Ole Miss in 1962 when James Meredith became the school's first black student, sparking riots. In previous interviews, Lott has said he played no role in those historic events, other than urging his fraternity brothers not to get involved.
Lott eventually went to work as an aide to the segregationist Democratic Congressman William Colmer. When Colmer retired in 1972, Lott won the seat as a Republican.
At the time, the Republican Party had adopted President Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" of recruiting George Wallace supporters in the South by softening the GOP's historic commitment to civil rights.
In 1982, Lott voted against the extension of the Voting Rights Act, which authorizes the Justice Department to review election law changes in Mississippi and other Deep South states and to monitor elections.
In 1983, he was one of 90 House members who voted against creating a national holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Six years later, Lott was one of seven senators who voted to abolish the King holiday commission, and in 1994, he was one of 28 who favored scrapping its federal funding.
Lott was one of 34 senators who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1990, which reversed five Supreme Court rulings that had limited the ability of minorities to win job discrimination lawsuits and damages. After President George H. W. Bush vetoed the bill, Lott voted for a different version in 1991.
And in 2001, Lott was the only senator who opposed President George W. Bush's nomination of Roger Gregory, an African-American from Virginia, to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
President Clinton had previously given Gregory a recess appointment and Lott opposed confirming recess appointees, said his spokesman, Ron Bonjean.
"Look at the record. That is what is so troubling about these statements," said Elliot Mincberg, vice president and legal director for People for the American Way.
But Lott and his supporters contend his record reflects not racial insensitivity but his conservative beliefs.
Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), a former aide to Lott on the House Rules Committee, said there is nothing in Lott's record to "indicate he has any racist feelings whatsoever."
"You don't serve with somebody as a colleague for 20 or 30 years without knowing where their true heart is. He is the only person in the history of the Republic who has been elected (Republican) whip in both the House and the Senate. That is the position that deals with members almost every day," said Wicker.
Norm Ornstein, a congressional expert with the American Enterprise Institute, said Lott's votes would merely cast him as a conservative were it not for some racial controversies he's been involved with off the floor of Congress.
Lott said in his appearance on the Sean Hannity radio show Wednesday that he had hired or appointed many African-Americans.
But his office did not respond to a request from The Commercial Appeal for a racial breakdown of his staff. In 1999, when Lott was embroiled in another racial controversy, he had only one African-American worker, a mail clerk, out of a staff of 65.
In 1981, Lott filed a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit seeking to overturn an IRS decision to deny a tax exemption to Bob Jones University because of the school's ban on interracial dating.
In 1995, Lott criticized Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) for intervening with 39 other lawmakers to get the FBI to release documents in the 1966 death of civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer to Forrest County prosecutors.
In 1999, it was reported that Lott had spoken to and met with the segregationist Council of Concerned Citizens on a few occasions. Lott then condemned the group.
Last year, Lott and the other white members of the Mississippi congressional delegation refused an entreaty from former Netscape president James Barksdale to declare that they would vote in favor of a statewide referendum to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag. The proposal lost.
Contact Washington correspondent James W. Brosnan at (202) 408-2701. |
