Southern Clout in Congress Hits Low

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-cong/2007/mar/31/033106360.html

When he was in Congress, Rep. Howard "Judge" Smith routinely frustrated the Washington establishment by leaving town when House leaders tried to push bills he did not like through his Rules Committee.

Once in 1957, the Virginia Democrat blocked President Eisenhower's civil rights legislation by saying a barn burned down on his farm and he needed to tend to it.

At the time, Smith's antics were hardly out of place. Colorful Southern politicians wielded near-authoritarian control on Capitol Hill, presiding over committees that wrote tax laws, set federal spending and steered subsidies to cotton and peanut farmers back home.

Now, Dixie's heyday in Congress is over. It is rare to find anyone with a Southern accent in a position of power. After the Democratic victories last November, congressional historians say, the region's clout fell to its lowest level in at least 50 years.

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Please: no N/S flame-fest here - this is a consequence of the South's flip to the Republic Party and the failure of the Bush administration and the Over-reaching GOP War Party Congress to maintain their majorities...

[BlueManDude]

1. good.

[Hand]

6. Dang! Ya beat me to it! nt

[calimary]

10. Yes.

They've had their day. Time's up. Especially thanks to the Democratic takeover in November.

World's Biggest Entitlement Program: the republi-CONS' presumption that all power and governing authority, plus ownership of the White House and most if not all of Capitol Hill is theirs by some sort of divine decree. They don't have exclusive rights to ANY of those things.

[tularetom]

2. hallafuckinlujah

most of these guys didn't really represent their constituencies anyway. Coming from mostly poor states, they consistently voted with the haves against the interest of their own citizens. Not that they were the only ones doing it, but they were the most visible and overt about it. It always mystified me why poor whites would ever vote for people who constantly shit on them. My grandfather lived all of his adult life in the south and he never could understand why his customers (owned a feed store) voted the way they did.

[Frances]

5. I have to speak up for Alabama Senator Lister Hill

He sponsored or co-sponsored the Education Defense Act that provided me with a student loan that paid for my last 3 years of college.

Many of the Democrats were racist, but many were also populist. They often brought home the bacon.

[DCKit]

3. Yeah, it was bad behavior and destructive to our nation

But those old timey southern politicians were a HOOT.

[Frances]

4. You mean like the congressman from Mobile whose

motto was "Everything's made for love"? I think his name was Frank Boykin.

But I think Boykin was a lot better than some who have come after him.

[TwilightGardener]

7. Good. Sorry, Southerners, but it's time for the Union to take back

its national influence. You guys have fucked it up for too long with your brain-dead Republican Evangelical Redneck Anti-Intellectual Bullshit. I sympathize with Southern Dems, I used to live there.

[Solo_in_MD]

8. What is overlooked is the taking down of the seniority system which

allowed long term incumbents from minor states to wield a great deal of power. Yet another example of where the use of seniority produced a bad results.

[Rydz777]

9. Generally true

but there are African-American members of Congress from the South. Rep. James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, is the new Majority Whip (third in the leadership after Pelosi and Hoyer.)