Missouri Governor Once Tried To End Desegratation
When Jay Nixon was attorney general of Missouri he filed a motion to end desegregation claiming it was not cost effective. The Washington Post reports:
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Nixon’s position infuriated the local NAACP, anger that was resurrected shortly before he decided to again seek a Senate seat again in 1998. While he was speaking at a Democratic dinner that June in St. Louis, 15 protestors marched outside the hotel, as CQ reported at the time. Among the signs they carried were ones reading “Deseg Yes, Segregation No,” and “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTEGRITY?” One leader said flatly, “As of now, I’m going to vote for the Republican.” Another compared him to Alabama’s George Wallace. For the second time, Nixon lost.
[su_r_sky_ad]Nixon has been embroiled in other controversies one wouldn’t expect from a Democrat.
Earlier this month, he vetoed a tough restriction on abortions, after having previously allowed other restrictions to go into effect. The differentiation on this bill, the governor argued, was the lack of exemptions in cases of incest and rape.
Nixon has also presided over a number of executions in the state, including the seventh of the year just last week. When he was attorney general, Nixon was a strong proponent of the death penalty, saying, at one point, that appeals were “total hokum.”
KABoink_after_wingnut_hacker August 17th, 2014 at 10:45 am
Well that explains his curfew on a specific black community and willingness to spend taxpayer monies to pay mega overtime on a city’s militarized police force rather than solve the fucking problems in his state.
NW10 August 17th, 2014 at 10:48 am
I don’t condone the Governor for taking these positions, but at the same time it’s Missouri: a Republican state. What is one to expect when Republicans have the legislature and are running the show?
Anomaly 100 August 17th, 2014 at 10:51 am
Any respect I may have had for him before just went out the window.
Carla Akins August 17th, 2014 at 11:06 am
Yep, that’s my Dem Gov. Never met an abortion bill he didn’t like. I was stunned when he veto’d the 72 hour waiting period.His willingness to compromise would play better in Congress than Gov.
mea_mark August 17th, 2014 at 11:09 am
Jay Nixon, what a disappointment.
Eric Trommater August 17th, 2014 at 11:26 am
I hate being this guy’s last defender as he gets pushed over the edge by conspiracy theorists and the very real frustration at his inept leadership in the Ferguson crisis. ?
In this particular case I was outraged at the time about it but not at Nixon because it was part of an all out campaign by the Democratic Leadership Counsel to take the very unpopular issue issue of racial busing off the table as a constant wedge for the GOP to use.
This was spearheaded by Bill Clinton himself in what we progressives would come to call “The New Southern Strategy.” At the time this strategy was being put into place the conventional wisdom (which conveniently forgot the cyclical nature of elections) was that Democrats would never be able to win another national election because the GOP had a lock on the electoral college.
Bush had won 41 states in 1988 (including California, as incredible as it seems now) by running exclusively on wedge issues like this and the idea was to once and for all wipe the Democratic slate clean of these types of issues. To the extent that Clinton was elected in 1992 it worked but we were still paying the price 20 later in things like DOMA and the repeal of Glass-Steagal.
To some, that was just the price of getting control of the Executive Branch. To me it was foolish to turn our backs on the people who needed us most and supported us best.
Carla Akins August 17th, 2014 at 11:30 am
I understood his intent here, he was simply out of his depth and not living in reality. It’s his response yesterday to force the curfew, the continued executions, his clear bias on women’s issues – I’m tired of being disappointed.
uzza August 17th, 2014 at 1:29 pm
He’s just waving his dick around. When Cpt. Johnson disarmed the goons, pulled back and showed solidarity with the protesters, everythign was going great. Then this pol had and establish a curfew to show he was tough on crime, not a “weak leader” like Johnson, and establish his macho authoritarian bona fides.
The fact that Johnson’s actions were working and got good results doesn’t matter to these people, it’s all about punishing “bad people”. Sluts who get pregnant, thugs who get killed, slackers who get poor.
Carla Akins August 17th, 2014 at 1:40 pm
Have you been reading the KC Star? That’s what they’re saying – the sluts and thugs and poor people part anyway.
ideagal August 17th, 2014 at 4:33 pm
If I remember correctly, things went well the night Cpt. Johnson marched with the folks. The next night things were a mess again…with store and property owners with guns protecting their own property with no police help. Then, the NEXT night there was a curfew called. Out of thousands of demonstrators, there were apparently a few hundred thugs who chose to dis the curfew. Where am I wrong?
uzza August 17th, 2014 at 9:48 pm
You are not wrong. Thanx. I’ll stand by my larger point, but it’s not as clear cut as I had thought.
R.J. Carter August 17th, 2014 at 12:21 pm
I always felt the issue of desegregation was handled incorrectly. Rather than stopping “forced segregation” and letting people go where they wanted to go to school, it became seen as a “forced desegregation” through busing and a sort of “you will integrate with each other no matter what we have to do to make you” attitude.
M D Reese August 17th, 2014 at 12:31 pm
Do you really think that poor children and children of color would have been welcomed in the nice middle class white neighborhood schools? I sure don’t.
R.J. Carter August 17th, 2014 at 12:41 pm
Do you think that, welcome or not, they needed to be forced to go there anyway?
Esteban Rey August 17th, 2014 at 1:20 pm
This is the argument that the pro-segregation camp normally makes.
R.J. Carter August 17th, 2014 at 1:46 pm
Perhaps so. But I still think it’s a valid argument.
liberalMD August 18th, 2014 at 2:26 am
I can remember back when Missouri was a solidly blue state with government officials like Warren Hearnes, Stuart Symington and Thomas Eagleton. My, how things have changed!