Lyndon Johnson – Sandy Rosenberg

Decisions and Consequences

January 18, 2021 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

“With Black ministers leading the way, Kennedy won an estimated 68 percent of the Black vote on Election Day, 7 percent higher than Adlai Stevenson’s showing in 1956.”

What did then Senator Kennedy do to earn those votes?

After a sit in at a department store in Atlanta, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was sentenced to serve his sentence in a prison in rural Georgia,

Coretta King feared for her husband’s life.

Both the Kennedy and Nixon campaigns were asked to intervene on Dr. King’s behalf.

Senator Kenned did. Vice President Nixon did not.

That act was crucial to the Kennedy margin of victory in the Black community, as described in a review of a new book about the nine days between King’s sentence and Election Day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/books/review/nine-days-martin-luther-king-jr-stephen-kendrick-paul-kendrick.html

Black support for Stevenson in 1956 was less than it was in 1952.

I know this because that’s how Robert Caro begins his account of Lyndon Johnson’s role in the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

If the Southern Democrats again filibustered to death a civil rights bill, the Black vote for the Republican nominee was expected to grow again.

But Majority Leader Johnson used his legislative skills to pass a bill, the first civil rights legislation enacted since Reconstruction.

It set the stage for Kennedy’s intervention on behalf of Dr. King.

In both instances, elected officials made decisions.

Their decisions had consequences.

Red Hots

September 13, 2019 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

Lyndon Johnson called them red hots.

Johnson was the majority leader of the US Senate. Mitch McConnell’s job.

The red hots were the liberal Democrats – passionate on civil rights and other issues but not very good at counting votes and getting bills passed.

Bernie Sanders is a red hot. I am not.

I’m working on many issues for next year’s legislative session.

At the top of the list: keeping the Preakness at Pimlico, redeveloping the rest of that site, and funding our children’s pre-kindergarten-12^th grade education.

I’m also working on other education issues, lead poisoning prevention, and election security.

Not ready to talk details yet because private conversations come first. My goal is to get the bills passed.

Counting, Comparing, and Amending

February 23, 2017 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2017 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Lyndon Johnson would be proud of me – if the bills I’m working on are enacted into law.

We’re in the counting stage.

Counting to 71, a majority of the House of Delegates.

“If your constituents know that you work hard and reach a decision on a difficult issue after much thought,” I told a first-term delegate, “they’ll cut you some slack if you cast a vote they disagree with.”

“But try not to make a habit of it,” I added.

The best poll is the one on Election Day. We think that the results of a referendum (in a member’s legislative district) are a good indication of how those constituents will react to his or her vote on a similar issue this session.

If so, it may not be such a tough vote. (see above.)

An amendment can make a good bill better, provided that change brings with it additional votes for the legislation.

We haven’t offered any yet on a certain bill.

We’re waiting for the bill hearing, where we can gauge my colleagues’ reaction.

January 21 – The most fundamental right a citizen has

January 20, 2016 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2016 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“When I spoke to this body on Opening Day, I talked about our obligation to address the needs of the least among us,” I began my speech on the House floor today.

“The people who would be able to vote because of this bill – those who have been imprisoned but are now on parole, are the least among us.

“But when George Washington was elected our first President, only white men with property could vote. The majority of the adult population was the least among us.

“Voting is not a reward. This debate is not a distraction from other more important issues, as some have contended.

“This debate is about the most fundamental right a citizen has.

“John Lewis knew that when he marched across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma. President Johnson knew that when he introduced the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And the Supreme Court knew that when it declared that the right to vote preserves other basic rights.”

The Governor’s veto was overridden, 85-56.

January 8 – Winning the war on poverty

January 8, 2014January 8, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Today is Day 1 of my 32^nd Year in the House of Delegates.

More importantly, it is the 50^th anniversary of the war on poverty.

At an event outside the State House, I quoted from President Johnson’s State of the Union speech when he announced the war on poverty.

“Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity,” the President declared, “not only to relieve the symptom of poverty but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.”

Given the misinformation from the right about the failure of the war on poverty and its emphasis on cash payments, even I was surprised at LBJ’s reference to curing and preventing poverty.

Ron Haskins was the principal Republican staffer in the House of Representatives when the two parties reached a compromise on welfare reform in 1996.

Haskins recently wrote, “The nation should face up to two facts: poverty rates are too high, especially among children, and spending money on government means-tested programs is at best a partial solution. On the other hand, providing government support to increase the incentives and payoff for low-income jobs and redesigning the nation’s welfare programs to encourage marriage hold great promise for at last achieving the poverty reduction envisioned by President Johnson.”

Since I have worked with Ron in the past, I emailed him this week, asking what we could do in Maryland to further those objectives.

Much has been accomplished but more remains to be done, I said at today’s rally. Welfare reform in Maryland has incentivized work and benefitted families. Expansion of pre-kindergarten, building upon Head Start, will prepare the next generation for the 21st Century economy.

Lilly and You

July 20, 2012 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

A lawsuit brought by a Goodyear worker in Alabama will benefit some of my constituents and countless others across the country.

That was the theme of my remarks below, after receiving the Community Leadership Award last night from Shalom USA, a weekly radio program produced by two Baltimoreans, Jay Bernstein and Larry Cohen.

—-

Several weeks ago, Jay emailed me, “Could you give a few lines on some of the things you’ve worked on recently of particular interest to the Jewish community?”

I sent him summaries of the legislation that he included in his very kind introduction, but I forgot to mention Lilly Ledbetter.

Who is she?

Lilly Ledbetter was a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber’s plant in Gadsden, Alabama, from 1979 until her retirement in 1998. She went to court because she was being paid $3,727 per month while her lowest paid male counterpart was receiving $4,286 and the highest, $5,236.

The trial court ruled that she had been discriminated against. The Supreme Court, however, found that she had waited too long. Because she had not filed a claim within 180 days of the first illegal act, she lost her case and could not recover any damages.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took the unusual step of reading from her dissent in open court. She concluded, “Once again, the ball is in Congress’ court. As in 1991, the Legislature may act to correct this Court’s parsimonious reading of Title VII.”

In Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an “unlawful employment practice” means discrimination “against any individual with respect to his compensation … because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amended Title VII to give a day in court for employees like her, who become aware that they have been denied fair pay months or years after the initial discriminatory pay check.

It was the first bill passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Obama. To guarantee that a Maryland court could not interpret our civil rights law to deny someone a day in court, I successfully sponsored our Ledbetter bill.

A Jew who has been denied fair pay will benefit from these laws. So will a member of another minority faith, as well as an individual in one of the law’s other protected categories.

Fortunately, we live in a country that recognizes the ongoing need to protect those who have been historically discriminated against – in the workplace, in the housing market, and in the voting booth.

We don’t always prevail – in the legislature or in the courts. Lilly Ledbetter was not compensated but others will because of her – people in our community and others like us.

—-

Jay Bernstein and I were thinking along similar lines. In introducing me, he did not limit himself to my legislation of particular interest to the Jewish community.

He concluded by discussing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the law that Lilly Ledbetter changed and Lyndon Johnson was advised he shouldn’t waste his political capital on because he couldn’t pass it.

“What the hell is the presidency for?” Johnson replied.

Two Presidents on the Fourth

July 5, 2012July 5, 2012 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

My Fourth of July was bookended by two Presidents.

Once again, I had the honor of reading from the Declaration of Independence at the start of the Roland Park Parade. Thomas Jefferson was its author.

I read the first two paragraphs and the last paragraph, adhering to Jefferson’s literary advice: “I would have written a shorter letter but I didn’t have the time.”

—-

Since the Orioles played in the afternoon, my channel surfing took me to CSpan last night.

Robert Caro, the Lyndon Johnson biographer, spoke of LBJ’s “transferring passion to government action.”

“Remind me of that when necessary,” I wrote two people I work with in Annapolis.

Different Church, Same Pew

May 7, 2012 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?”

That’s Lyndon Johnson, responding to an adviser’s counsel that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a lost cause.

Bill Clinton highlighted that quote in his review of the new Johnson biography.

The stakes aren’t as high, but I think the same principle applies when casting a tough vote in Annapolis.

I’ve said before that if your constituents disagree with a vote you made but believe that you cast it after much thought, they will cut you some slack. If they know that you work hard at the job, they’re more likely to respond this way.

The importance of the issue should also be part of that calculation.

Significant constituencies may disagree with my positions on stem cell research, exempting teachers at the KIPP charter school from a provision in the teachers’ union contract, or marriage equality.

Nonetheless, my reputation and my efforts to explain my vote – in print, online, and, most importantly, in person, should shape my constituents’ reaction.

After all, what am I there for if I don’t work hard and vote the right way on the most important and difficult issues?

My Key Issues:

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