Thurmond's last hurrah.Byline: The Register-Guard Whatever one might think of Strom Thurmond's politics or personality, it must be admitted that the man has staying power. Thurmond, whose 48-year career in the U.S. Senate - the longest in American history - will end when the new Congress is sworn in next month, celebrated another milestone last Thursday: his 100th birthday. He's the oldest person ever to serve in Congress, and now he's held that record for seven years. Throughout a controversial career that began with his election to the South Carolina Senate The South Carolina Senate is the upper house of the South Carolina General Assembly, the lower house being the South Carolina House of Representatives. It consists of 46 senators elected from single member districts for four-year terms at the same time as United States Presidential in 1933 at the age of 31, Thurmond has been a lightning rod lightning rod, a rod made of materials, especially metals, that are good conductors of electricity, which is mounted on top of a building or other structure and attached to the ground by a cable. to those who have opposed his past segregationist seg·re·ga·tion·ist n. One that advocates or practices a policy of racial segregation. seg  re·ga views
and those, especially South Carolinians, who consider his constituent
service and his no-nonsense approach to issues a hallmark of what a
politician should be.
His long career includes many landmarks of the past century. On June 6, 1944 - D-Day - he parachuted into Normandy after receiving an exemption because at 41 he was originally considered too old for military service. He attended the Democratic National Convention in 1932 and voted to nominate Franklin Roosevelt for president, and he attended the Republican National Convention in 1996 and voted for Bob Dole as the GOP presidential nominee In United States politics and government, the phrase presidential nominee has two distinct meanings. The first is somebody chosen by the primary voters and caucus-goers of this party to be the party's nominee for President of the United States. . In 2000, at age 98, he skipped the GOP convention that nominated George W. Bush. In between, he ran for president in 1948 as a "States' Rights states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Democrat" under the Dixiecrat Party banner, winning 39 electoral votes in the South and helping give voice to political sentiments that in time would transform the South from a decidedly Democratic region to one that today is more often in the Republican ranks. It was that run for president that gave Thurmond his reputation as a "segregation now and forever" politician. He enhanced that reputation when he set the Senate filibuster filibuster, term used to designate obstructionist tactics in legislative assemblies. It has particular reference to the U.S. Senate, where the tradition of unlimited debate is very strong. It was not until 1917 that the Senate provided for cloture (i.e. record at 24 hours and 18 minutes in 1957, railing against a fair housing bill. But after the 1965 Voting Rights Act Voting Rights Act Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1965 to ensure the voting rights of African Americans. Though the Constitution's 15th Amendment (passed 1870) had guaranteed the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” triggered voting by large numbers of African-Americans, Thurmond became the first Southern senator to hire black staff members and to appoint African-Americans to high positions, including a federal judgeship. He even voted for renewal of the Voting Rights Act and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Over the years, Thurmond also took on a host of issues, among them legislation (passed in 1988) to require warning labels on alcoholic beverages and to kill (which he did in 1999) "educational labeling" on wine bottles to promote wine's health benefits. He's also supported fetal tissue research Scientific experimentation performed upon or using tissue taken from human fetuses. Although fetal tissue research has led to medical advances, including the development of the polio and rubella vaccines in the 1950s, it has also generated controversy because of its use of and has opposed attempts to halt cloning research. Through it all, Thurmond in many ways personified his native South and the changes, good and bad, that the region has undergone over his long career in Congress. Like Thurmond, the South is no longer the hotbed hotbed, low, glass-covered frame structure for starting tender plants. It differs from a cold frame only in that the soil is heated—either artificially as by underground electric wiring or steampipes, or naturally with partially fermented stable manure, which of segregation it once was and, also like Thurmond, the South - the "New South" particularly - is open to new ideas, new concepts and new ways of looking at the world. If nothing else, that's progress. |
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