Trent Lott
Categories: 1941 births | American lawyers | Baptists | Freemasons | Phi Alpha Delta brothers | Sigma Nu brothers | U.S. political scandals | U.S. Representatives from Mississippi | United States Senators from Mississippi
| Office: | Junior Senator, Mississippi |
| Political party: | Republican |
| Term of office: | January 1989–Present |
| Preceded by: | John Stennis |
| Succeeded by: | Incumbent (2007) |
| Date of birth: | October 9, 1941 |
| Place of birth: | Grenada, Mississippi |
| Spouse: | Patricia Thompson Lott |
Chester Trent Lott Jr. (born October 9, 1941 in Grenada, Mississippi) is a U.S. Senator from Mississippi and a member of the Republican Party.
Contents |
Political biography
Lott attended college at the University of Mississippi. He obtained an undergraduate degree in public administration in 1965 and a law degree from the same school in 1967. He served as a Field Representative of the University and was president of his fraternity, Sigma Nu. He was later criticized for his involvement in the all-white fraternity (which had a reputation for racism). After getting his law degree, he moved to Pascagoula (where he still lives today) and began a law practice.
He was administrative assistant to House Rules Committee chairman William Colmer, also of Pascagoula, from 1968 to 1972. When Colmer, one of the leading segregationists in the Democratic Party retired after 40 years in Congress, he endorsed Lott as his successor in Mississippi's 5th District, covering the southern tip of the state, even though Lott ran as a Republican. Lott won handily. It's very likely that he'd have won without Colmer's endorsement, as this was the year of a titanic Republican landslide in which Richard Nixon captured 49 of 50 states and 78 percent of Mississippi's popular vote. He and his current Senate colleague, Thad Cochran (also elected to Congress that year), were only the second and third Republicans elected to Congress from Mississippi since Reconstruction. In 1974, Lott and Cochran became the first Republicans reelected to Congress from Mississippi since Reconstruction. Lott was reelected seven times without much difficulty, and even ran unopposed in 1978. He served as House Minority Whip (the second-ranking Republican in the House) from 1981 to 1989, the first Southern Republican to hold such a high leadership position.
He successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1988, filling the seat formerly held by retiring John C. Stennis. He was re-elected in 1994 and 2000 with no substantive Democratic opposition. Although he would be a heavy favorite for reelection in 2006, he has given some thought to retirement, especially after his house was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina (see below).
He became majority whip when the Republicans took control of the Senate in 1995, succeeding as majority leader in 1996 when Bob Dole resigned from the Senate to focus on his presidential bid. As majority leader, Lott was best known for his role in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. It was clear that the Republicans did not have the votes to convict Clinton and remove him from office, but Lott proceeded with the Senate trial in early 1999 under pressure from the far right. He later acquiesced in a decision to suspend the proceedings.
After the 2000 elections produced a 50-50 partisan split, Vice President Al Gore's tiebreaking vote gave the Democrats the majority from January 3-January 20, 2001, when he became Senate Minority Leader in 2001 after Jim Jeffords became an Independent and the Democrats took control of the Senate, but he was to become majority leader again in early 2003 after Republican gains in the November 2002 elections. The Strom Thurmond controversy, however (see below), derailed his chances.
He was a cosponsor of the bill to create a Director of National Intelligence. Despite his alleged racism, Lott has been a strong supporter of high levels of immigration from non-white and third world countries.
Controversy and resignation
Tremendous political controversy ensued following remarks Lott made on Dec. 5, 2002 at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party. Thurmond ran for President of the United States in 1948 on the Dixiecrat (or States' Rights) ticket, whose primary campaign issue was the perpetuation of racial segregation in the United States. Lott said:
- "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
At first, the comment, broadcast on C-SPAN, was largely ignored by the mainstream media but was widely discussed on political blogs such as Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, which also uncovered Lott's history of actively supporting segregation during college and making similar statements at various points throughout his career. Five days later the story was picked up by all the major news networks, and repeated and discussed extensively.
Lott's attempts to explain the remark grew from a mild dismissal as an off-the-cuff remark supporting Thurmond's national defense platform to an explicit repudiation of his racist past and assertions of support for affirmative action in a BET interview, by which time his political fate was sealed.
Once reported in newspapers and television, calls for his resignation as majority leader from both ends of the political spectrum grew. Some Democrats and Republicans considered the remark unconscionable, or as Al Gore put it, "fundamentally racist", and many conservative groups and media were quick to distance themselves from Lott and criticize the incident. Centrist Democrats and Republicans at first defended Lott, insisting the remarks had been blown out of proportion.
After President George W. Bush voiced his own harsh criticism of Lott's remarks ("Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive, and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day that our nation was segregated was a day our nation was unfaithful to our founding ideals."), Lott's position became untenable. It was obvious he would be unable to remain as Senate Republican leader, although the official White House line was that Lott did not need to resign.
Lott later agreed with the President's speech. In the aforementioned BET interview, he said, "Segregation is a stain on our nation’s soul... Segregation and racism are immoral."
Under pressure from Senate colleagues, and having lost the support of the White House, Lott resigned as Senate Republican Leader on December 20, 2002. Bill Frist of Tennessee was later elected to the leadership position.
Lott was chosen by his colleagues as Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee after the controversy. Some of his critics for the original remarks have noted that this position still carries a great deal of power, and that conservatives and Republicans were mainly using the whole controversy to get rid of a leader they regarded as weak, particularly in the conduct of the Clinton impeachment trial.
Despite his having been removed from the position of Senate Republican Leader Lott remains a Senator.
He is also a frequent speaker at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a law abiding pro-white civil rights group.
Recent developments
Since he lost the Majority Leader post, Lott has kept relatively quiet. However, Lott started to show an unusual shift from his traditionally strong conservative views when he said that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign within a year. He has also battled with President Bush over military base closures in his home state.
Lott was rumored to be making a push to become Republican Whip once again after the 2006 elections, especially if the GOP front-runner for that post, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, loses what is expected to be a tough re-election campaign. However, after his home in Pascagoula was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Lott has seriously considered retiring from the Senate. Even before Katrina, he has not directly stated that he will run for a fourth term.
Lott has also written a memoir entitled Herding Cats, A Life in Politics. In the book Lott speaks for the first time on the infamous Strom Thurmond birthday party gaffe. He also speaks out on current Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and how Lott feels that he was betrayed by the Tennessee Senator claiming "If Frist had not announced exactly when he did, as the fire was about to burn out, I would still be majority leader of the Senate today." He also described former Majority Leader Tom Daschle (Democrat) of South Dakota as "trustworthy." He also reveals that President Bush, then Secretary of State Colin Powell and other GOP leaders played a major role in ending his career as Senate Republican Leader.
Lott was Jon Stewart's guest on The Daily Show on 24 August 2005.
Trivia
With fellow Senators Larry Craig, non-Senator John Ashcroft, and James Jeffords, he formed a barbershop quartet called The Singing Senators.
Bibliography
- Herding Cats: A Life in Politics (Regan Books: 2005) ISBN 0060599316
External links
- Trent Lott's Senate homepage
- Lott Decried for Part of Salute to Thurmond, The Washington Post, Saturday, December 7 2002; Page A06.
- Sen. Lott Fights to Save Post as Leader, The Washington Post, Saturday, December 14 2002; Page A01
- Lott Remarks on Thurmond Echoed 1980 Words, The Washington Post, Wednesday, December 11 2002; Page A06
- Sen. Lott's New Spin The Washington Post, Saturday, December 14 2002; Page A24
- Talking Points Memo, a political weblog, has posted Lott's racially-inflected Fall 1984 interview with the Southern Partisan and discusses his long-standing association with a paleoconservative group, the Council of Conservative Citizens
- Joe Conason's Journal: Lott's involvement with the neo-Confederate movement, racists and extreme rightists goes way back, Salon.com, December 12 2002.
- Bloggers Catch What Washington Post Missed, The Guardian (UK), Saturday, December 21 2002.
- Katrina Weighs on Lott’s Decision-Making, Roll Call, September 15, 2005 (subscription retired).
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=William M. Colmer}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=United States Representative for the 5th Congressional District of Mississippi|years=1973–1989}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=John C. Stennis}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Mississippi|years=1989–}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=Bob Michel}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=House Minority Whip|years=1981–1989}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=Robert Dole}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=Senate Majority Leader|years=1996–January 3, 2001}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=Tom Daschle}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=Senate Minority Leader|years=January 3, 2001–January 20 2001}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=Tom Daschle}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=Senate Majority Leader|years=January 20, 2001–June 6, 2001}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=Tom Daschle}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=Senate Minority Leader|years=June 6, 2001–2002}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| United States Senate Majority Leaders | Image:Us senate seal.png |
|---|---|
| Curtis | Watson | Robinson | Barkley | White | Lucas | McFarland | Taft | Knowland | Johnson | Mansfield | Byrd | Baker | Dole | Byrd | Mitchell | Dole | Lott | Daschle | Lott | Daschle | Frist |
| Image:Flag of Mississippi.svg | Mississippi Congressional Delegation serving in the 109th United States Congress |
|---|---|
| Senators | Thad Cochran (R), Trent Lott (R) |
| Representative(s) | Roger Wicker (R), Bennie Thompson (D), Charles Pickering, Jr. (R), Gene Taylor (D) |
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