Obama to honor Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act

President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act in the East Room of the White House on July 2, 1964. (Associated Press)

AUSTIN, Texas — President Obama has tried to model Abraham Lincoln's team of rivals and Teddy Roosevelt's power of the bully pulpit. He's lauded Ronald Reagan's communication skills and linked himself to the Kennedy clan. He's praised his onetime nemesis, George W. Bush, as well as his onetime adversary, Bill Clinton.

But Obama has rarely cozied up to the predecessor some argue did more than any other modern president to pave the way for his election as the nation's first black president: Lyndon B. Johnson.

Five years into his presidency, Obama will head to Austin on Thursday to remedy what some Johnson admirers have described as a "pattern of omission." At a ceremony at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Obama will honor Johnson and the Civil Rights Act, signed 50 years ago this year.

But it is other elements of Johnson's legacy that have confounded and irked the Obama White House. As a president who tried to end two wars, Obama was not inclined to align himself with a president who escalated the Vietnam War.

More recently, any mention of Johnson and Obama in the same sentence is typically a comparison of their legislative prowess — and Obama comes up short. In the age of partisan gridlock, the master of the Senate, as Johnson became known during his time as majority leader, has become for many Democrats an example of how a president once used government to do big things. By comparison, the current president has become a symbol of how little government can get done.

But the story of Obama's and Johnson's legislative records is more complex — and with a more similar arc than sometimes described. Both passed sweeping legislation in short order, taking advantage of early political momentum, mindful, in Johnson's words, that a newly elected president is "a giraffe; six months later, he's a worm."

Both also faced great frustrations and backlash in later years. And like Johnson, Obama hopes history will prove his earliest major legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, to be his most widely embraced.

For now, the White House is quick to note the many differences between the two presidents and their times.

Most obviously, Johnson benefited from large Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress when he pushed the Civil Rights Act, even as the country mourned John F. Kennedy. Those majorities jumped — to a whooping 295-140 in the House — after the 1964 election. When Obama passed his healthcare overhaul in 2010, Democrats had 253 seats.

But Johnson also embraced the sort of parliamentary maneuvers and horse trading that today would have good government advocates screaming about legislative payoffs and backdoor politics. And thinking Obama could wine and dine his way to moving his legislative agenda is to misunderstand the current political climate, White House aides argue. Political polarization has diminished common ground between the parties and left few moderates to woo.

Even Obama seems to chalk up Johnson's success to political momentum, noting that his election in 1964 was followed in 1966 by Democratic losses in the congressional elections, although the party retained control of Congress. Obama has faced a Republican majority in the House since 2011.

"When he lost that historic majority, and the glow of that landslide victory faded, he had the same problems with Congress that most presidents at one point or another have," Obama said in a recent interview with the New Yorker.

For those close to the Johnson legacy, attributing his legislative accomplishments to mere political good fortune ignores Johnson's political gift.

"Schmoozing is not just sitting and having a drink — though LBJ did plenty of that," said Joseph Califano Jr., a former Johnson aide. "It's knowing exactly what buttons turn congressmen on and off. I think, bluntly put, Johnson knew the price of every member of Congress — whether it was a dam or a schoolhouse or invitation to dinner."

Califano noted, "Obama has other skills, but that was a big one for Johnson."

Mark K. Updegrove, a historian and director of the Johnson library, noted that Johnson was willing to alienate his old friend and mentor Sen. Richard Russell, a fierce opponent of the civil rights legislation. Russell, a Georgia Democrat, warned that he'd risk losing the presidency and also the defection of Southern states to the GOP.

"LBJ said that, if that was the price for the bill, he'd gladly pay it," said Updegrove, author of three books on the presidency, including one on Johnson. "He said, 'What the hell is the presidency for?'"

That's a question Obama faces regularly in his fifth year, as he uses his executive authority to move his priorities, including environmental regulation, increasing minimum wage and, this week, closing the gender pay gap.

H.W. Brands, a presidential historian at the University of Texas in Austin, said Obama could not count on the same kind of powerful social movement and growing consensus that benefited Johnson in passing civil and voting rights bills. "The issues are less clear-cut today and the parties are more clearly at odds," he said.

Even Johnson saw the limits of his powers of persuasion. After the 1966 midterm election, Johnson came to feel a backlash from lawmakers he had won over, particularly when it came to paying for the Great Society programs.

But Johnson's agenda was cemented into American life. Medicare, passed in 1965, was quickly accepted by the opposition, implemented successfully by the administration and, over time, embraced by both parties — along with the Civil Rights Act.

Despite that, Johnson's legacy has often been overshadowed by the Vietnam War. Thursday's event, and Obama's remarks, were anticipated by those who have sought recognition for LBJ's domestic achievements.

"Every family wants to have their loved ones get the credit they believe they deserve. But I grew up in politics. I know that doesn't happen when you want it to, as you want it to; that's part of life," said Luci Baines Johnson, the president's daughter. "Whatever has happened in the past and people have not focused on Lyndon Johnson, I'm just so glad they are now."

christi.parsons@latimes.com

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

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Column: Democrats cede human rights

Are Democrats ceding the human rights mantle to Republicans? The recent spectacle of a blind Chinese dissident being whisked by wheelchair from our embassy in Beijing suggests that the issue of human rights still has the ability to command Americans' attention. In fact, it might be one of the few foreign policy issues where daylight remains between the two presidential candidates.

By Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu

By Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

Consider the following: A recent survey by the political scientists Josh Busby, Will Inboden and Jon Monten found that Democratic foreign policy specialists were less likely to identify human rights as a "very important" policy priority (about 50%, compared with nearly 85% of such Republican specialists). Indeed, on this issue the Democratic Party has shifted to the center.

Republicans, meanwhile, have continued their embrace of neoconservatism, which places greater weight in the sanctity of U.S. force to protect human freedom abroad (Mitt Romney's foreign policy team is stuffed with such dewy-eyed conservatives).

The reasons for this shift are manifold: Progressive Democrats might feel that human rights have been co-opted to serve other interests and no longer have faith in Washington's ability to promote them with integrity. They may associate the cause with the failed democracy-promotion agenda of Obama's predecessor. Or perhaps the party has strategically softened its stance to project a more macho air on national security and win over undecided voters. Still, the survey suggests progressive Democrats could be at risk of abandoning, or at least de-prioritizing, deeply held principles of human rights that have guided the party from its inception.

Obama's spotty record

Take Obama's own spotty record. He balked at granting the Dalai Lama an Oval Office invitation and didn't press the issue of human rights on his visit to China. He punted on his campaign promise to shutter the Guantanamo Bay prison. And his administration has tried to block the a measure that would freeze assets and deny visas to Russian officials guilty of human rights abuses. Perhaps most controversially, Obama has stepped up the use of drone strikes abroad, killing undisclosed numbers of civilians.

Obama has also been a reluctant interventionist, preferring a hands-off approach to the Arab Spring and protests in Russia, Iran and other authoritarian states. While accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, Obama preached the importance of "just" interventions. "To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism," he said, "it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

Yet, his speak-softly stance has drawn fire from his Republican opponent, particularly Obama's policy toward Iran and Syria. "President Obama's lack of leadership has resulted in a policy of paralysis that has watched (Bashar) Assad slaughter 10,000 individuals," Romney said recently.

Shifting sands

Part of the shift from human rights is a function of today's Democratic elite, Obama included. While the Baby Boom generation's world view was shaped by Vietnam, the new elites' formative years were the 1980s and 1990s. This era included intervention successes, notably Iraq in 1991, but also disasters (Lebanon in 1982-83 and Somalia in 1993). As Peter Beinart noted in his 2006 book, The Good Fight, the party of Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman has traditionally focused on U.S. legitimacy abroad and self-improvement at home. Democrats from Obama's generation understand America's moral fallibility, as well as the importance of international institutions. In the political scientists' survey, Democrats were much more favorable toward strengthening institutions such as the International Criminal Court than Republicans were.

Yet, liberalism has also been about promoting America's core values, especially human rights, on the world stage, both through international institutions and, at times, military intervention. Democrats cannot allow the failures, dramas and expenses of the latter to deter them from supporting the full spectrum of U.S. tools, including force, when necessary to support their ideals.

When a Pakistani doctor is tried for treason for assisting American forces or the Syrian government slaughters thousands of its own citizens, these are moral issues that should not come at the expense of U.S. strategic concerns with Islamabad or Moscow. There are times when hard-won principles such as the responsibility to protect have to trump pragmatic interests.

Human rights, of course, involve trade-offs and prioritization — not every crisis should command U.S. intervention. And some notable progress on this front has been made by this administration. Burma's release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and our intervention in Libya top this administration's list of achievements. Obama also deserves kudos for launching the Atrocities Prevention Board, a government panel to appraise the threat of mass killings, and for enacting tougher sanctions against governments' use of technology to trample human rights.

But as we disengage from Iraq and Afghanistan, and as the fight against global jihad recedes, human rights should return to the forefront. No, the issue is not expected to top voters' concerns this election season, but by ceding the moral high ground on this issue to their opponents, Democrats do themselves, and their intellectual forefathers, a disservice.

Human rights are the last issue the White House should be seen as "leading from behind."

Lionel Beehner is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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Democrats to pursue protections for voting rights (AP)

WASHINGTON – Democrats said Thursday they are planning a major effort to protect voting rights in the 2012 election after several states passed voter identification laws and restrictions on early voting and same day registration.

Concerned over what they call voter suppression efforts in states, party officials said they were organizing on a number of fronts to overturn some of the measures, educate voters on the types of documents necessary to vote and pursue lawsuits if necessary.

"We have a history of challenging these matters in court if need be. We'll be more than prepared to continue that into the future," said Will Crossley, the Democratic National Committee's counsel and director of voter protection.

Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin have passed laws this year that allow voters without the required photo ID to cast provisional ballots, but the voters must return to a specific location with that ID within a certain time limit for their ballots to count. Efforts to restrict early voting have been approved in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Party officials contend blacks, Hispanics, senior citizens and the poor are less likely to have required photo IDs and worry that the laws could lead to some voters being disenfranchised if they fail to carry an ID with them. They said early voting among black voters was key to Barack Obama's success in the 2008 election in North Carolina and Florida and could complicate efforts there next year.

"We're aggressively engaged in making sure that we help voters move these obstacles and barriers that are being put in their way that are essentially designed to rig an election when Republicans can't win these elections on the merits," said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC head.

Republicans said the laws were designed to deal with mounting administrative costs and to eliminate voter fraud, citing the activities of ACORN, a now defunct political advocacy group. Congress cut off ACORN's federal money in 2010 following allegations the group engaged in voter registration fraud and embezzlement.

"Knowing President Obama is facing a steep climb to re-election, Democrats are resorting to scare tactics rather than addressing voter fraud cases," said Kirsten Kukowski, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman.

Democratic officials point to success in Maine, where voters repealed a new state law that required voters to register at least two days before an election, restoring Election Day voter registration. In Ohio, party activists say they have gathered enough signatures to prevent a law reducing the number of days of early voting from taking effect until residents can vote in a referendum next year.

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How and Why Republicans Suppress Voter Rights (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Republicans often accuse Democrats of voter fraud, despite the activist judges and squelched recounts that won them the 2000 presidential election. These accusations continue today, even though there's little substance to back them up, for one reason:

Republicans consider all Democratic votes to be illegitimate

Tea partiers compare Democratic leaders to Nazis, and scrutinized Obama's birth certificate to a degree that no white, Republican candidate has ever faced ... even one who was born outside the United States, as Sen. John McCain was. To them, no Democratic leader is legitimate, and many preach the use of the "ammo box" to get their way if the ballot box fails them. Unfortunately, the less stable among them heed these calls.

One of this year's earlier Republican presidential hopefuls, Mike Huckabee, said at the Rediscover God in America conference that he "almost wish[ed]" all Americans would be "forced at gunpoint" to listen to revisionist historian David Barton. Barton misquotes America's founders, in order to teach that the United States were meant to be a "Christian nation." His website even promotes "Biblical slavery" for unbelievers.

A party whose leaders and pundits proclaim such views can be expected to act on them. That's why a new crop of voter suppression laws is coming into effect, in states brought under Republican control during the 2010 elections.

Voter suppression 101

Naturally, laws designed to suppress the vote are never described as such. Not except in especially candid moments, like when New Hampshire's Republican House Speaker said letting people register to vote on Election Day led to "the kids coming out of the schools and basically doing what I did when I was a kid, which is voting as a liberal." In other words, he admitted that the laws he promotes, such as that one and photo ID laws, are designed to suppress Democratic votes.

An innocent observer might ask, what's wrong with tightening our laws to make sure no voter fraud happens? The problem is two-fold. First, there is no real voter fraud problem to begin with; and second, tougher laws make it harder for society's weakest members to vote.

Students, minorities, the poor and disabled, and America's working class all have less ability to learn and comply with these laws, and may not know about them until it's too late. Even a photo ID requirement could be the last straw, for a student or single mom working two jobs. And it's exactly these harried people who are likely to be hardest hit by a law that says they can't register at the polls.

An unsympathetic conservative might reply with an anecdote about pulling himself up by his bootstraps, and how these kids and poor people have to learn responsibility (that's why they're poor, you know). But a more cynical observer might note that those most affected by these laws are more likely to vote Democrat, and that the Republican winners of 2010 are writing them -- effectively kicking the working poor while they're down. Even voter outreach programs are being curtailed, so that "get out the vote" efforts stall.

Might makes right

To a conservative enough Republican, there are no legitimate Democrat votes. And as long as the ballot box is a way to make your voice heard in government, they will do their best to deny it to everyone who disagrees with them. Especially the most vulnerable members of our society, who don't have an "ammo box" to fall back on and wouldn't use one if they did.

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