Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: I think the anger over the Harris- Biden exchange is not because she asked the question [View all]Celerity
(43,077 posts)But feel free to continue to believe that.
here is another interview
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/08/24/senate-rejects-amendment-to-restrict-judges-authority-on-school-busing/6ba7d8ed-d746-46c5-8aa9-51e134ec89bc/?utm_term=.552468cca54f
https://books.google.se/books?id=ZFQE3bLDsS4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Between+North+and+South:+Delaware,+Desegregation,+and+the+Myth+of+American&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI3vygyYzjAhXyxcQBHYohDEIQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=Between%20North%20and%20South%3A%20Delaware%2C%20Desegregation%2C%20and%20the%20Myth%20of%20American&f=false
He supported a wide-reaching Jesse Helms anti-integration (not just bussing) amendment
How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/joe-biden-integration-school-busing-120968?o=1
snip
Sen. Jesse Helms, a Republican from North Carolina, was the first to strike. On September 17, 1975, when a larger education bill came up for debate, Helms offered a crippling anti-integration amendment. It would prevent the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) from collecting any data about the race of students or teachers. In addition, HEW could not require any school
to classify teachers or students by race. Thus, HEW could not withhold funding from school districts that refused to integrate. This is an antibusing amendment, Helms explained. This is an amendment to stop the current regiments of faceless, federal bureaucrats from destroying our schools.
Biden rose to support Helmss amendment. I am sure it comes as a surprise to some of my colleagues
that a senator with a voting record such as mine stands up and supports [the Helms amendment]. Helms replied that he was happy to welcome Biden to the ranks of the enlightened. After the laughter died down, Biden launched an anti-busing screed. I have become convinced that busing is a bankrupt concept. The Senate should declare busing a failure, and focus instead on whether or not we are really going to provide a better educational opportunity for blacks and minority groups in this country. He praised Ed Brookes initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights. In one breath, Biden seemed to reject busing in the North and the South, and claimed that he was committed to equal opportunity for African Americans.
A few other senators spoke briefly about the amendment, then Brooke sprung to action. The Helms amendment would eviscerate Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Brooke said, which enabled HEW to cut off funding to school districts that refused to integrate. Brooke asserted that the federal government should attempt other integration remedies before resorting to busing. But if compliance with the law cannot be achieved without busing, then busing must be one of the available desegregation remedies. Brooke introduced a motion to table Helmss amendment. Brookes motion passed, 48-43. Biden wouldnt budge, and voted with Jesse Helms and the anti-bussers.
Brooke had fought this fight before, but he would face a more formidable adversary in Joe Biden. When a southern conservative like Helms led the anti-busing forces, Ed Brooke could still rally his troops. But it would be tougher to combat the anti-busing faction when its messenger was a young liberal from a border state.
Immediately after the Helms amendment was tabled, Biden proposed his own amendment to the $36 billion education bill, stipulating that none of those federal funds could be used by school systems to assign teachers or students to schools
for reasons of race. His amendment would prevent some faceless bureaucrat from deciding that any child, black or white, should fit in some predetermined ratio. He explained, All the amendment says is that some bureaucrat sitting down there in HEW cannot tell a school district whether it is properly segregated or desegregated, or whether it should or should not have funds. Finally, Biden called busing an asinine policy.
Brooke pointed out that the amendment would do much more than Biden claimed. Like the Helms gambit, it would still gut Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. But this time, a number of liberal senators that had opposed Helmss amendment now supported Biden: Warren Magnuson and Scoop Jackson of Washington, where Seattle faced impending integration orders; and Thomas Eagleton and Stuart Symington of Missouri, where Kansas City confronted a similar fate. Mike Mansfield, the majority leader from Montana, also jumped on board. Watching his liberal colleagues defect, Republican Jacob Javits of New York mused, Theyre scared to death on busing. The Senate approved Bidens amendment. Biden had managed to turn a 48-43 loss for the anti-busing forces into a 50-43 victory.
In a seminal moment, the Senate thus turned against desegregation. The Senate had supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 1965 Voting Rights Act and 1968 Fair Housing Act. In the early 1970s, as President Richard Nixon and the House of Representatives encouraged the anti-busing movement, the Senate remained the last bastion for those who supported strong integration policies. Biden stormed that bastion, and it seemed to be falling. On September 23, another border-state Democrat moved against busing. Robert Byrd, the West Virginian who had since repudiated his Klan past, offered a perfecting amendment. It would prohibit busing beyond a students nearest school. It passed the Senate by a vote of 51-45.
snip
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden