Lawmakers reflect on MLK Day 'no' votes

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

A Grassley spokesperson noted that the Senator has been “very active in several African American causes,” including efforts to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act when he joined the Senate in the early 1980s. More recently, he has advocated for black farmers who had been discriminated against when applying for financial help.

“Senator Grassley’s vote against an MLK Day holiday was purely an economic decision both in the cost to the broader economy in lost productivity, and the cost to the taxpayers with the federal government closed,” the aide told The Hill in an email.

While running for president in 1999, McCain said he had made a mistake, telling the late Tim Russert of NBC he regretted that vote.

"If you change your opinion by result of experience, then I don't think people hold that against you," McCain told The Hill last week.

McCain was in a Vietcong prison on the day King was assassinated. When he ran for president in 2008, McCain honored King on the 40th anniversary of his death by giving a speech in Memphis.

Still, he insisted that 1983, when he took his vote against the MLK holiday, was a long time ago.

"I know that it was not an issue in my presidential campaign," he told The Hill.

McCain’s home state wrestled with recognizing the holiday. Arizona’s governor first declared a King holiday through executive order, but the next governor repealed it. Voters eventually approved the holiday in 1992.

Hatch referred to the vote as “one of the worst decisions I have made as a senator” in an essay published in the book If I Only Knew Then ... Learning From Our Mistakes by Charles Grodin. He added that while he voted against it partly because of the productivity cost of another federal holiday, he failed to realize that “legislation often goes beyond cold policy calculations.”

Two other current lawmakers also voted against the holiday on the state level: Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

Isakson’s vote came in 1984, after a ten-year struggle to recognize the holiday on the state level. After King holiday advocates repeatedly pushed the change, lawmakers agreed on a bill described by the New York Times at the time as one to designate all federal holidays as state holidays, as well as two other holidays to honor confederate leaders and soldiers.

“Had I to do it all over, I would have voted differently in the Georgia House, and I think my actions throughout my career in honor of the holiday and of Dr. King’s life have demonstrated that,” Isakson said in a statement provided to The Hill.

His office added that he’s co-sponsored legislation supporting the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and another to award the Congressional Gold Medal to victims of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., on the tragedy’s 50th anniversary. He also introduced a bill to encourage the National Parks Service to preserve King’s papers.

Culberson’s vote came in 1991 while the Texan served in the state House. A number of future lawmakers, including Reps. Kevin Brady ®, Henry Cuellar (D), Pete Gallego (D) and Kenny Marchant ® all served in the Texas Legislature during that vote and backed the bill.

His office didn’t return a request to comment on his vote.

http://thehill.com/homenews/229844-lawmakers-reflect-on-no-votes-on-mlk-day

Today is a good day, for reflecting on how far we have come, as a Nation, and how far we need to go, to make a great man's dream come true.

Edited January 19, 2015 by I AM NOT THAT GUY