Denny Heck Wow

[pnwmom]

44. Scoop Jackson retired 34 years ago. And people forget how liberal he was in many ways,

despite his reputation as a "hawk" and support of Boeing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M._Jackson

A Cold War liberal and anti-Communist Democrat, Jackson supported higher military spending and a hard line against the Soviet Union, while also supporting social welfare programs, civil rights, and labor unions.[1] His political beliefs were characterized by support of civil rights, human rights, and safeguarding the environment, but with an equally strong commitment to oppose totalitarianism in general, and communism in particular.

SNIP

Jackson boasted one of the strongest records on civil rights during the civil rights movement.[6][7] He supported the 1957 Civil Rights Act, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In April 1968, responding to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Jackson gave a speech in which he talked about the legacy and injustice of inequality.[8]

In 1963, Jackson was made chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, which became the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1977, a position he held until 1981. In the 1970s, Jackson joined with fellow senators Ernest Hollings and Edward Kennedy in a press conference to oppose President Gerald Ford's request that Congress end Richard Nixon's price controls on domestic oil, which had helped to cause the gasoline lines during the 1973 Oil Crisis.[9]

Jackson authored the National Environmental Policy Act. This Act has been called one of the most influential environmental laws in history. It helped stimulate similar laws and the principle of publicly analyzed environmental impact in other states and in much of the world.[10] He was also a leader of the fight for statehood for Alaska and Hawaii. In 1974, Jackson sponsored the Jackson-Vanik amendment in the Senate (with Charles Vanik sponsoring it in the House) which denied normal trade relations to certain countries with non-market economies that restricted the freedom of emigration. The amendment was intended to help refugees, particularly minorities, specifically Jews, to emigrate from the Soviet Bloc. Jackson and his assistant, Richard Perle, also lobbied personally for some people who were affected by this law—among them Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky. Jackson also led the opposition within the Democratic Party against the SALT II treaty, and was one of the leading proponents of increased foreign aid to Israel.