Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care if the Senate doesn’t do one other piece of business this year. You’ve got to keep this bill on the floor. You can tell Mansfield [the Senate Majority Leader] … The President of the United States doesn’t care if this bill is there forever. We are not going to have anything else hit the floor until this bill is passed.
They were discussing the Civil Right Bill of 1964 which they all wanted to pass. See {605438} . However, they faced a filibuster from the Southern Senators who had always before used this tactic and blocked Civil Rights legislation. However, the President here committed himself to the one way to take most of the power out of the filibuster. Accept a shutdown of the Senate, give up the rest of the President’s legislative program but the filibuster blocks all legislation that the Southerners wanted like cotton and tobacco subsidies.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1908-1973, 36th President of the United States (Democrat, TX), Statement to Clarence Mitchell and Joseph Rauh Jr. who represented the leadership conference on Civil Rights, 1964
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
His main reason for believing this is that all appropriations bills must be initiated by the House of Representatives. Lobbyists therefore often give the House more attention than the Senate.
In response to Administration tactics to delay a vote on the Church-Cooper proposal to limit American involvement in Cambodia after June 30, 1970, Senator Cotton asserted:
In the early days of the Senate Filibuster, a senator could hold the floor (and halt all actions) as long as he could continue to speak or 3/5 of the Senate voted to end the filibuster. The filibuster imposed a physical burden on the Senator who chose to use it. Likewise, the other Senators had to be present in sufficient numbers to have a quorum, else the Filibusterer would be able to rest at he did not have to continue to speak if there was not a quorum. The Senate rules were changed to allow a Senator to “announce” a filibuster of a bill, and all action on that bill would stop but there was no burden on the filibustering senator or other senators who had to form the quorum. But in the 112th Congress, the Republicans resorted to more filibusters than there had been in the entire previous history of the Senate and Nelson wanted to return to the old requirement of holding the floor physically.
The United Stats Senate until the hyperpartisanship and the Republican abuse of the filibuster in the early part of the 21st century, was considered by most, the greatest deliberative body in the world. In just a few years it became one of the most feeble.
The senator sees examples of the filibuster in ancient Rome.
- Born: August 27, 1908
- Died: January 22, 1973
- Nationality: American
- Profession: President
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by his initials LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, in office from 1963 to 1969. He served as the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963 and assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson was also a United States representative and later majority leader in the United States Senate. Johnson is one of only four people to have served, at various times, in all four federal elected positions.
