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> Democrat-led legislation passed in 1964 and 1965 Fun fact: a greater percentage of Republican representatives (76.4%) and senators (81.8%) voted in favor of

by jwond 6y ago

> Democrat-led legislation passed in 1964 and 1965 Fun fact: a greater percentage of Republican representatives (76.4%) and senators (81.8%) voted in favor of the Civil Rights act of 1964 than Democrat representatives (60.4%) and senators (68.66%). https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/h182 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/h182 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/s409 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/s409 The same is true of the 1965 Voting Rights Act: 80% of Republican representatives and 93.75% of Republican senators voted in favor, vs 75.4% of Democrat representatives and 69.1% of Democrat senators. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h87 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h87 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s78 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s78

fakedang 6y ago
Didn't they switch places? A lot of Southern Democrats became hard Republicans after this.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  The 'switch places' narrative is absurdly simplistic. Taken at face value, it would suggest FDR and his New Deal should be viewed as a modern Republican.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    I was talking about the majority of Southern Democrats.
ojnabieoot 6y ago
I am aware of that, thanks, but the fact that the Democratic president was the one who led passage of the Civil Rights Act, while his 1964 Republican opponent’s campaign focused on opposition to the Civil Rights Act, means that civil rights legislation was in fact “Democrat-led.” It is also relevant that most of the Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights Act had become Republican by the 80s.
- sk5t 6y ago
  You may be confusing the actions and strategy of a single Democrat President with the prevailing wishes of the party.
  - js2 6y ago
    Democratic President, not Democrat President. Please use the correct name of the party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)
    - sk5t 6y ago
      No, I don't think that I will--originally used the -ic suffix but removed it to make an unambiguous reference to the party rather than the more general notion of democracy.
pdonis 6y ago
Most of the actual "law" governing these areas, though, has been made by court decisions rather than statute. Those court decisions have been driven by activist judges who were Democrats. If we were actually living under the legal regime established by the statutes you refer to, without all that has been added on by court decisions, I think the state of cooperation would be better than it is.
- xxpor 6y ago
  That's because we live in a common law country. Of course most of the relevant bits will be case law.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    Case law is not supposed to make new laws. It's only supposed to apply existing law to the facts of particular cases. That has to be done because no written statute can specify how it would apply to all possible combinations of facts. But there's still a difference between applying a statute to particular facts, and making new law that goes beyond anything the statute says or implies. I am certainly not the only one to believe that many court decisions since the passage of landmark civil rights laws in the 1960s have done the latter, not the former.
    - xxpor 6y ago
      No, they make new law all the damn time. For example, there's is no written definition of murder in Michigan. Look it up if you don't believe me. I can't cite a link, because there's nothing to cite. The penalties are in statutes, but the actual definition isn't. It's illegal because it's just assumed that it is and courts have made the definition through case law. It's become less necessary to cite over time for obvious reasons, but court decisions from England from before 1776 are still valid opinions to cite in American courts as the source of law as well.
      - pdonis 6y ago
        > they make new law all the damn time I know they do, but they're not supposed to. That's the point I was making. See below. > there's is no written definition of murder in Michigan Yes, that's true of many common law crimes in many States. And where those common law crimes existed before any of the US States were formed, those States often continue to accept the common law definitions of the crimes, as developed over centuries of Anglo-American case law. That's not what I am saying is a problem. What I am saying is a problem is when there is a statute that makes specific law, but courts then "interpret" things into the statute that were never there and never intended to be there by the legislature that passed the statute.
jolux 6y ago
The parties were not as polarized back then and in particular the Southern Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans were both powerful factions in their party. Strom Thurmond being the most notable example of the former, pre-1964: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republicans-party-of-civil-rights https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republ...
tolbish 6y ago
The parties switched since then, so that point is moot. The Democratic party back then, which is the deep south for the most part, is the modern day Republican party. The deep south overwhelmingly voted against the Civil Right Act.
js2 6y ago
Democratic-led, not Democrat-led. And Democratic representatives, not Democrat representatives. It's the Democratic party, not the Democrat party. Use Democrat only as a noun. The correct adjective is Democratic. This is an ongoing rhetorical war by the GOP to fail to acknowledge the Democratic Party by its proper name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- CincinnatiMan 6y ago
  Is this really a thing? To be honest, this sounds like something only Twitter would care about.
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    He literally linked the Wikipedia article explaining the history and dynamics of its use, dude.
    - CincinnatiMan 6y ago
      Sorry, I meant my question more as is it really a thing that the average person is aware of and cares about. I consider myself pretty educated and I've never heard of this little underground war on the terminology, and I can't see many people caring except hypervigilant Twitter users. Like ask 95% of the population and they'll probably not see a difference between the words. It just seems like a silly thing to care about.
      - bsanr2 6y ago
        Anyone who watches Fox News is exposed to it, and the first time someone corrects them, they're liable to double-down. So, no, I don't think it's a fringe thing at all.
    - meragrin_ 6y ago
js2 6y ago
The Civil Rights Act is what drove racist dixiecrats into the Republican party which it cynically used to its advantage[1] to start winning elections and to eventually destroy the New Deal coalition[2]. You cannot compare today's parties to the pre-Civil Rights Act ideology of the parties. Today's Republican party bears no relation to the party of Lincoln. As a microcosm of this, Strom Thurmond[3] was a Democratic politician until 2003 before switching to the Republican party. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal_coalition#Decline_and_fall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal_coalition#Decline_and... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The Civil Rights Act is what drove racist dixiecrats into the Republican party No, Johnson’s embrace of the Civil Rights Act led to them being disaffected, as they had by integrationist and civil rights moves by Democrats before (“Dixiecrat” specifically refers to a rebellion over Truman’s integration moves a couple decades before, which led to a temporary third party defection.) What led them into Republican arms was the Republicans subsequently leveraging that disaffection by adopting appeal to White racism as a campaign tactic in the Southern Strategy, as they had not in previous instances where the Democratic Party had alienated it's White racist faction. Yes, at the time of the Civil Right Act, the Republicans were still the more reliable backers of equality and the Democrats, while they had a pro-equality faction, still had a large and powerful overtly White racist faction. That changed after the Civil Rights Act, when the Democrats embraced equality and the Republicans took the political opportunity that opened by embracing the racists.
  - js2 6y ago
    Agreed. I was typing late at night and over-simplified. The important point in the big picture is that capitalists and business interests got white labor to split between the parties, and so now neither party represents labor adequately. I'd argue that laborers no more belong in the Republican Party than non-white conservatives belong in the Democratic Party.

by jwond 6y ago

fakedang 6y ago

Didn't they switch places? A lot of Southern Democrats became hard Republicans after this.

bigbubba 6y ago
The 'switch places' narrative is absurdly simplistic. Taken at face value, it would suggest FDR and his New Deal should be viewed as a modern Republican.
- fakedang 6y ago
  I was talking about the majority of Southern Democrats.

ojnabieoot 6y ago

I am aware of that, thanks, but the fact that the Democratic president was the one who led passage of the Civil Rights Act, while his 1964 Republican opponent’s campaign focused on opposition to the Civil Rights Act, means that civil rights legislation was in fact “Democrat-led.” It is also relevant that most of the Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights Act had become Republican by the 80s.

sk5t 6y ago
You may be confusing the actions and strategy of a single Democrat President with the prevailing wishes of the party.
- js2 6y ago
  Democratic President, not Democrat President. Please use the correct name of the party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)
  - sk5t 6y ago
    No, I don't think that I will--originally used the -ic suffix but removed it to make an unambiguous reference to the party rather than the more general notion of democracy.

pdonis 6y ago

Most of the actual "law" governing these areas, though, has been made by court decisions rather than statute. Those court decisions have been driven by activist judges who were Democrats. If we were actually living under the legal regime established by the statutes you refer to, without all that has been added on by court decisions, I think the state of cooperation would be better than it is.

xxpor 6y ago
That's because we live in a common law country. Of course most of the relevant bits will be case law.
- pdonis 6y ago
  Case law is not supposed to make new laws. It's only supposed to apply existing law to the facts of particular cases. That has to be done because no written statute can specify how it would apply to all possible combinations of facts. But there's still a difference between applying a statute to particular facts, and making new law that goes beyond anything the statute says or implies. I am certainly not the only one to believe that many court decisions since the passage of landmark civil rights laws in the 1960s have done the latter, not the former.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    No, they make new law all the damn time. For example, there's is no written definition of murder in Michigan. Look it up if you don't believe me. I can't cite a link, because there's nothing to cite. The penalties are in statutes, but the actual definition isn't. It's illegal because it's just assumed that it is and courts have made the definition through case law. It's become less necessary to cite over time for obvious reasons, but court decisions from England from before 1776 are still valid opinions to cite in American courts as the source of law as well.
    - pdonis 6y ago
      > they make new law all the damn time I know they do, but they're not supposed to. That's the point I was making. See below. > there's is no written definition of murder in Michigan Yes, that's true of many common law crimes in many States. And where those common law crimes existed before any of the US States were formed, those States often continue to accept the common law definitions of the crimes, as developed over centuries of Anglo-American case law. That's not what I am saying is a problem. What I am saying is a problem is when there is a statute that makes specific law, but courts then "interpret" things into the statute that were never there and never intended to be there by the legislature that passed the statute.

jolux 6y ago

The parties were not as polarized back then and in particular the Southern Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans were both powerful factions in their party. Strom Thurmond being the most notable example of the former, pre-1964: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republicans-party-of-civil-rights https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republ...

tolbish 6y ago

The parties switched since then, so that point is moot. The Democratic party back then, which is the deep south for the most part, is the modern day Republican party. The deep south overwhelmingly voted against the Civil Right Act.

js2 6y ago

Democratic-led, not Democrat-led. And Democratic representatives, not Democrat representatives. It's the Democratic party, not the Democrat party. Use Democrat only as a noun. The correct adjective is Democratic. This is an ongoing rhetorical war by the GOP to fail to acknowledge the Democratic Party by its proper name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CincinnatiMan 6y ago
Is this really a thing? To be honest, this sounds like something only Twitter would care about.
- bsanr2 6y ago
  He literally linked the Wikipedia article explaining the history and dynamics of its use, dude.
  - CincinnatiMan 6y ago
    Sorry, I meant my question more as is it really a thing that the average person is aware of and cares about. I consider myself pretty educated and I've never heard of this little underground war on the terminology, and I can't see many people caring except hypervigilant Twitter users. Like ask 95% of the population and they'll probably not see a difference between the words. It just seems like a silly thing to care about.
    - bsanr2 6y ago
      Anyone who watches Fox News is exposed to it, and the first time someone corrects them, they're liable to double-down. So, no, I don't think it's a fringe thing at all.
  - meragrin_ 6y ago

js2 6y ago

The Civil Rights Act is what drove racist dixiecrats into the Republican party which it cynically used to its advantage[1] to start winning elections and to eventually destroy the New Deal coalition[2]. You cannot compare today's parties to the pre-Civil Rights Act ideology of the parties. Today's Republican party bears no relation to the party of Lincoln. As a microcosm of this, Strom Thurmond[3] was a Democratic politician until 2003 before switching to the Republican party. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal_coalition#Decline_and_fall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal_coalition#Decline_and... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond

dragonwriter 6y ago
> The Civil Rights Act is what drove racist dixiecrats into the Republican party No, Johnson’s embrace of the Civil Rights Act led to them being disaffected, as they had by integrationist and civil rights moves by Democrats before (“Dixiecrat” specifically refers to a rebellion over Truman’s integration moves a couple decades before, which led to a temporary third party defection.) What led them into Republican arms was the Republicans subsequently leveraging that disaffection by adopting appeal to White racism as a campaign tactic in the Southern Strategy, as they had not in previous instances where the Democratic Party had alienated it's White racist faction. Yes, at the time of the Civil Right Act, the Republicans were still the more reliable backers of equality and the Democrats, while they had a pro-equality faction, still had a large and powerful overtly White racist faction. That changed after the Civil Rights Act, when the Democrats embraced equality and the Republicans took the political opportunity that opened by embracing the racists.
- js2 6y ago
  Agreed. I was typing late at night and over-simplified. The important point in the big picture is that capitalists and business interests got white labor to split between the parties, and so now neither party represents labor adequately. I'd argue that laborers no more belong in the Republican Party than non-white conservatives belong in the Democratic Party.