Some Resolutions that Republican "Lynching is a crime" holdouts DID sign

You’d think Republicans and Democrats would agree on an issue like lynching. You’d be wrong.

by John Aravosis

On June 13, the U.S. Senate passed Resolution 39, a formal apology for failing to make lynching a federal crime. Between 1882 and 1968 at least 4,742 people—mostly African-Americans—were lynched in the U.S., and 99 percent of the perpetrators escaped punishment, often with the complicity of state and local officials. A federal law would have allowed the government to intervene but Southern senators filibustered the legislation for decades. Even in today’s divided political climate, you’d think that on an issue like lynching, Democrats and Republicans could muster a rare show of unity. You’d be wrong.

Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), who added her name to the resolution after being browbeaten by callers for a week, echoed an excuse used by many of the senators: While she abhors lynching, “you don’t have to cosponsor everything that you are in favor of.” Fair enough. Perhaps Ms. Hutchison and her all-male posse weren’t sucking up to the racist wing of the Republican Party. Maybe they were simply being good small-government conservatives who don’t sign on to every Tom-Dick-and-Harry resolution that crosses their desks. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, Radar thought it might be useful to find out what other important resolutions the Lynch Mob has cosponsored recently.

Senators Hutchison and Cornyn, both of Texas, cosponsored a resolution “commending the Lady Bears of Baylor University for winning the 2005 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Women’s Basketball Championship.” Alexander, Cochran, and Gregg (NH) cosponsored “National Airborne Day.” Thomas and Enzi cosponsored “The National Day of the American Cowboy.” Bennett (UT), Gregg, Lott, Sununu (NH), and Thomas cosponsored a resolution designating March 25, 2005, “Greek Independence Day.” Smith authored a resolution for the “victims of communism.” And just in time for Father’s Day, Alexander, Bennett, Cochran, Cornyn, and Lott took time out to cosponsor a Hallmark-ready resolution “protecting, promoting, and celebrating fatherhood.” Perhaps they would have cosponsored the lynching resolution if the victims had been Greek airborne cowboys or Cuban refugees.

Would things have been different if just one of the 55 Republicans in the Senate or the 231 Republicans in the House of Representatives were, I don’t know, black? Oh, there I go again, channeling Howard Dean. You remember him, don’t you? The Democratic Party chairman who got lynched in the press a few weeks back for saying that the GOP is “pretty much a white Christian party”? As Dr. John Sperling reports in his new book, The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America, 99 percent of Republican federal, state, and local legislators are white. In state legislatures alone there are 3,643 Republicans, only 44 of whom (1.2 percent) are minorities.



http://www.radarmagazine.com/web-only/politics/2005/06/hangin-loose.php

He wrote a letter to the NYTimes today complaining about how he is being portrayed.

He is a snip:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/opinion/l24apology.html>

To make clear my abhorrence of lynching, I said in February that I'd vote for the resolution apologizing for the Senate's failure in 1937 to pass an anti-lynching law.

I didn't co-sponsor this resolution because I prefer a different approach.........

......Instead of apologizing for Tennessee legislators who refused to enact the Martin Luther King's Birthday holiday, I helped make it law. I didn't think it was effective merely to apologize for what others failed to do.

I believe that it's better to look forward and take action rather than look backward and apologize for others.


I couldn't help thinking as I read his letter that protests a little too much - Hey Lamar, couldn't you do both?