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When filibusters required a special bag

By Zack McMillin on September 2, 2010 10:56 AM Share: submit to reddit Share on Facebook StumbleUpon Toolbar
 
The filibustering on the filibuster brought the reminder of a maneuver attributed to former Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver back when senators really did have to go to great lengths to extend debate to obstruct, delay or otherwise kill legislation that otherwise had 50-plus votes. A Wall Street Journal article earlier this year on the filibuster mentioned how former South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond once dehydrated himself prior to taking the floor, so that he would not need to leave to use the facilities.

According to the article:
To avoid the same problem, Sen. Estes Kefauver (D., Tenn.) once rigged up a bag so he wouldn't have to leave the Senate floor.
One quarrel with that article, however -- the author unfairly lumped Kefauver and Thurmond together as southern senators who used the filibuster to stop civil rights legislation from going to a vote (the legislation had majority support but could not get past the filibuster). Kefauver and fellow Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Sr. were among those rare southern senators most often opposed to filibustering civil-rights legislation; both deserve credit for taking courageous political stands, along with President Lyndon Johnson (a former southern senator himself), in favor of civil rights legislation.

This archived piece from TIME spells it out:
The entertainment was a filibuster, staged not by Deep Southerners−the most frequent filibusterers of recent years−but by liberal Democrats, notably Oregon's Wayne Morse and Maurine Neuberger, Tennessee's Estes Kefauver and Albert Gore, Texas' Ralph Yarborough. Some of them, over the years, had conspicuously denounced Southern filibusters against civil rights measures. Ex-Republican Morse (he quit the G.O.P. in the midst of the 1952 campaign) once called filibustering a "disgraceful and contemptible procedure," and has been one of the Senate's most vociferous advocates of rule changes to shut off filibusters, even though in 1953 he set a senatorial wind record with a speech lasting 22 hours and 26 minutes.

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Will local corruption bloom because of Supreme Court's ruling on honest services fraud law?

By Zack McMillin on June 29, 2010 12:04 PM Share: submit to reddit Share on Facebook StumbleUpon Toolbar
 
Last week's ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States significantly narrowing the use of the so-called "honest services" fraud law that prosecutors from around the country employed to fight corruption is one of those decisions that the public doesn't much follow but that will have a huge impact on how public business is done. It was used here to prosecute John Ford and was a key part of the federal investigation into whether former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton improperly mixed public and private business.

The CA's own Marc Perrusquia gave a nice overview of what that ruling may or may not mean. At the left-leaning muckraking political website, Talking Points Memo, the ruling was given not one but two treatments. And at the online magazine The Root -- which provides commentary from "a variety of black perspectives" -- a writer bemoaned the Supreme Court decision. 

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Interesting Ag Extension story. Really.

By Zack McMillin on June 8, 2010 1:30 AM Share: submit to reddit Share on Facebook StumbleUpon Toolbar
 
County government writer Daniel Connolly's report on the County Commission continuing to keep the same level of funding for the local agricultural extension service brought to mind a national piece from December that drew a lot of attention. Atul Gawande, a practicing physician, provided a fascinating look at the impact of the federal government's creation of the agricultural extension program. Gawande described the creation of a system in which the federal government inserted itself into agricultural policy but stopped well short of nationalization, and asserted that health-care in the United States could benefit from a similar approach.

In 1914, Gawande points out, the Smith-Lever Act established the Cooperative Extension Service, and by 1930 there were more than 750,000 demonstration farms that spread the gospel of more efficient, effective practices, thereby reducing waste and increasing yield.

What seemed like a hodgepodge eventually cohered into a whole. The government never took over agriculture, but the government didn't leave it alone, either. It shaped a feedback loop of experiment and learning and encouragement for farmers across the country. The results were beyond what anyone could have imagined.

Agree or disagree with Gawande's overall thesis, the article is an eye-opening look at the important role the local agricultural cooperative services played in the United States. And puts into perspective the Commission's decision to keep funding at the same level for our local office.

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With the 2010 political season accelerating into high gear, The Commercial Appeal’s political reporters in Memphis, Nashville and Washington are ramping up coverage of local politics. We’ll be following key congressional races that are drawing national attention, paying close attention to how candidates for governor are responding to issues most important to voters in the Memphis metropolitan area and explaining how candidates for local offices say they intend to improve things in communities throughout the area. Have a comment or tip? Contact political editor Zack McMillin at 901-529-2564, zmcmillin@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter: @zackmcm.

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