On 5/27/2012 4:40 PM, Yoor...@Jurgis.net wrote:
> On Sun, 27 May 2012 16:35:43 -0400, "C...@PrayForMe.com"
> <C...@PrayForMe.com> wrote:
>
>>> "The degree of Republican support for the two bills actually exceeded
>>> the degree of Democratic support,
>
> The Legislation was introduced by Democrats.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
The Civil Rights Act -- which is best known for barring
discrimination in public accommodations -- passed the House on
Feb. 10, 1964 by a margin of 290-130. When broken down by party,
61 percent of Democratic lawmakers voted for the bill (152 yeas
and 96 nays), and a full *80 percent* of the Republican caucus
supported it (138 yeas and 34 nays).
When the Senate passed the measure on June 19, 1964, -- nine days
after supporters mustered enough votes to end the longest
filibuster in Senate history -- the margin was 73-27. Better than
two-thirds of Senate Democrats supported the measure on final
passage (46 yeas, 21 nays), but an even stronger *82 percent* of
Republicans supported it (27 yeas, 6 nays).
The bill in the House was initially bottled up in the rules committee,
chaired by Howard Smith, a Democrat and - of course - a segregationist.
It was only when a petition for discharge, an extremely rare maneuver,
began to circulate that the segregationist Democrat Smith allowed the
bill to come to a vote and pass in the rules committee, sending it to
the full House.
In the Senate, the bill would have normally gone to the judiciary
committee, headed by James Eastland, a Democrat and - of course - a
segregationist. The Senate leadership came up with a maneuver to bypass
sending the bill to the judiciary committee, and naturally Democrat
segregationists mounted a filibuster. The filibuster ended when the
segregationist Democrats decided to oppose the bill itself (rather than
the committee bypass vote) on the Senate floor. *18 Democrats* along
with one Republican filibustered for 54 days. Two prominent
Republicans, Everett Dirksen and Thomas Kuckel, eventually saved the day
by working out a compromise bill with Mike Mansfield and Hubert
Humphrey. That garnered enough support to end the filibuster, and the
bill passed the Senate and then was sent to a conference committee with
the House.
Opposition to the bill came *principally* from Democrats. Republican
opposition was *not* to the idea of civil rights for blacks, but rather
was to the amount of government power that could be brought to bear on
private business.
Republican support was crucial for overcoming the segregationist
Democrats' last-ditch effort to keep Jim Crow laws in place.