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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (7750)	12/17/2003 11:04:38 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Page 2 of 2 < Back In Braun-Helms Fight, Senate Searched Soul One was Howell T. Heflin (D-Ala.), now retired from the Senate. His voice quavering, Heflin noted that he was descended from a signer of Alabama's secession ordinance and a surgeon in the Confederate army. But, much as he revered his ancestors, he said, "we live today in a different world . . . in a nation that every day is trying to heal the scars of racism that have occurred in the past." He said he was changing his vote and would now oppose the Helms proposal. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Colo.), then a Democrat, now a Republican, recalled his Native American ancestry and suggested that tradition should not be invoked in opposing Braun's arguments. "I would point out to them that slavery was once a tradition, like killing Indians like animals was once a tradition. That did not make it right," Campbell told the Senate. There are still places in this country, he added, "where American Indians called prairie niggers, which is about the most vulgar term I can think of" for both groups of people. In moving to reconsider the earlier vote, Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) said many Republicans had supported Helms because they had been told he was offering "a Republican amendment." Bennett said he asked his colleagues, "Do you understand what we have just done? They said no." He said he wanted to "make sure that the party of Lincoln does not bear the taint that some might have given to us by virtue of this vote." When it came time for the final tally, nearly all Democrats voted against Helms, as did 15 Republicans who had supported him originally. It is impossible to say whether the debate had any real effect on the Senate. Many of those who were there then have left. There have been few if any debates since that day that have touched as personally and directly on the country's racial divisions. Braun went on to fight for legislation to repair crumbling schools, provide pension equity for women and clean up abandoned industrial sites. But she was dogged through most of her term by ethical questions involving her handling of personal and campaign funds and by controversy over her privately financed visits to Nigeria at a time it was ruled by an infamous dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha. As she neared the end of her six years in the Senate, questions about ethics appeared to trump her accomplishments, and she was defeated for reelection by Peter G. Fitzgerald (R). Braun was later tapped by President Bill Clinton as ambassador to New Zealand, winning confirmation over the objections of Helms and Fitzgerald. As Braun saw it, she said in the Post interview, the United Daughters of the Confederacy patent debate has embarrassed Helms and turned him into "my nemesis thereafter." During consideration of her ambassadorial nomination, Helms "sent out blanket subpoenas, six subpoenas to all the government agencies, the State of Illinois, the Western world just about," she added. Looking back on the debate over the insignia, Braun said in another interview that she sensed a "sea change in the direction of the Senate" in dealing with racial issues. "They felt they had done something good for the country on race," she added. "The feeling in the chamber was higher than I had experienced before or since."