Locals were apparently slow on the uptake, but as the Kentucky legislature closed down for Memorial Day weekend, the state’s Republican-controlled Senate slapped down Rand Paul, the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate.
The body passed with a sharply worded resolution in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the Lexington Herald-Leader:
Suggestions have appeared recently that we retreat from the core values of the protection of equal rights of the citizens of the United States,” says Senate Resolution 31.
Only an “extreme minority of persons in the United States” would support such a move, it says.
The Senate adopted the resolution, which did not name Paul, on a voice vote. Only one senator, Gary Tapp, R-Shelbyville, did not sign onto the resolution, but he did not attend last week’s special legislative session.
Senate President David Williams, the top Republican in Frankfort, said he agreed with the resolution’s language but did not view it as a jab at Paul or a political statement on the U.S. Senate race.
“There’s not very much in this resolution that anyone could disagree with,” Williams said Tuesday.
Paul’s campaign chairman, David Adams, said Tuesday he was aware of the Senate’s resolution but declined to comment on it.
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45 comments Add your comment
Wreck
June 2nd, 2010
11:06 am
Worthless posturing. The Civil Rights Act is a sacred cow, and nobody should ever find any disagreement with it lest they be a racist. Great showmanship there, Kentucky GOP.
Jimmy H.
June 2nd, 2010
11:11 am
Rand Paul and the Tea Party movement are dangerous. Paul is on record as being opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (although he has since backed off from that extreme position), the Fair Housing Law, the Americans with Disabilities Act, among others. People better be careful about this movement and what they think it represents. Some government is necesary. Many of the Tea Party people I know personally are racists, some overt but most are covert. They cover it up with talk of “states” rights.” We all know what that meant back in the 60’s.
wesleywhatwhat
June 2nd, 2010
11:13 am
rand paul is a joke. kinda surprised he isn’t running in georgia.
Lynn
June 2nd, 2010
11:16 am
Well, wesleywhatwhat, there are many just like him running in Georgia, and most of them are jokes too.
Matt
June 2nd, 2010
11:42 am
Thats the problem with this whole process. When a candidate reveals how they truly feel about subjects we can’t continue to probe and get more answers b/c the Establishment that Rand Paul has campaigned so hard against won’t let him speak so we can find out who he really is. Thats why we need open debates where people can’t talk around subjects but actually answer questions.
Matt
June 2nd, 2010
11:44 am
I don’t think every Tea Partier is racist. Thats a broad brush to paint with but there are fringe elements people need to be made aware of but overall there just hard-working tax payers who want real change. Now of course they’ve hitched their wagon partially to the GOP which will in turn destroy it eventually and add the leftovers to their repetoire but overall they’re nto bad folks. The press jumps on the Fringe elements b/c it makes for good news.
All I'm Saying Is...
June 2nd, 2010
11:51 am
Amen to Jimmy H. and his post.
Jimmy H.
June 2nd, 2010
11:57 am
No, Matt, not every Tea Partier is a racist, but in my personal experience many of the ones I know are. I don’t think Rand Paul is a racist, but his positions on some issues are so extreme that he attracts racists and other “crazies,” which hurts his cause and the cause of the Tea Party. They need to denounce the extreme fringe groups who are aligning themselves with the Tea Party.
Tim
June 2nd, 2010
12:10 pm
So glad to see that most of the folks posting are happy with the direction the country is going!
Even the Obama meeting is turning on him. Nice that different opinions are not accepted here.
I am not a tea party person but I keep hearing about the crazies, I guess they mean folks like Palin, and the new governors of NJ & Va.
They are so crazy that they are actually trying to balance their states Budgets.
I bet California would like that kind of crazy.
Barry
June 2nd, 2010
12:11 pm
But if you take the crazy fringe out of the Tea Party, aren’t you just left with plain moderate republicans? That’ll never make the news.
Garry Owen
June 2nd, 2010
12:28 pm
Trouble is – some people are using these laws in a way they were not intended to be used. As the old saying goes – be careful what you wish for, you might get.
Jon but not Jon Voight
June 2nd, 2010
12:38 pm
Yes Tim, I am happy at the direction this country is going after that 8 year train wreck we experienced.
You Asked
June 2nd, 2010
12:45 pm
The next time someone mentions “states rights” ask them “the right to do what exactly?”
If they answer regulate banks and water usage they are probably harmless warm fuzzy center right Republicans. If they answer “segregate schools, fly the confederate battle emblem and keep slaves” you may not want to vote for their favorite candidate.
DannyX
June 2nd, 2010
12:47 pm
The New Jersey Governor? LOL!
His approval rating is now at 44%. Sounds like a case of buyer’s remorse to me.
Stay away from the Tea Party and Republicans. In Georgia it took them 7 short years to totally mess things up.
Elmo
June 2nd, 2010
12:51 pm
That’s right. Paul has stated that he supports the outcome of the civil rights act of 1964, but not the legislation. From a libertarian standpoint, there should have never been a need from the CRA bc the federal government would have never had the power to impose Jim Crow laws in the first place. If you do a little research, you will see that most libertarians were abolitionists and believed every man should be a self-owner.
Jimmy H is correct, to a certain extent. Paul is against just about ANY piece of legislation where the government intrudes on the private sector. MSM is focusing on the CRA because they are able to portray him as a “racist”, but if they would have run through a list of historically important legislation, his answer would have been “no” across the board.
Most libertarians believe that the only government necessary is foreign defense, military, and intrastate infrastructures. Everything else should be left to the states. That is too bad that people think States Rights=racist. This country was founded as a republic.
raz
June 2nd, 2010
12:56 pm
Worthless RINOs in the Kentucky Senate … sounds a lot like the country-club GOPers running Georgia’s government. The left can rant and rave about unconstitutional laws all they want, people vote with their feet on race issues and big government has never and will never change a heart or mind. Rand is 10 points ahead of limo lib Jack Conway, even after the liberal media’s blitz over a 40 year old law, so all you lefties get used to 6 years of US Senator Paul…
Liberty Dawn
June 2nd, 2010
1:07 pm
Wow. Lots of uneducated folks out there that no nothing about state’s rights and Constitutional Law. I think most everything we needed was set forth in the Constitution. Everything else was left to the states.
Rand Paul will stop D.C. spending and central planning like Obamacare. The racist topic is so misused and overused — it’s moot. The real point is we’re borrowing money from CHINA to pay unemployment benefits right now.
So the noose tightens as people criticize Rand Paul who represents the Constitution.
Go figure. Keep buying made in China — keep voting for “free” hand outs” — keep voting for central planners who take your money and give you chains that bind — keep walking the road to the final demise of freedom in the U.S.
VOTE RAND PAUL. Break the chains that bind.
Port O'John
June 2nd, 2010
1:16 pm
Vote libertarian/Tea Party.
If you like the BP oil spill, you will love unrestricted mountain-top mining/oil drilling. Keep the govt and its pesky environmental/safety concerns out of the way of oil and coal companies.
If they pollute your property (hello TVA neighbors in Tennessee) you can always sue them. Same with those whiny coal miners who want coal companies to comply with OSHA regs.
How many lawyers can TVA and BP hire anyway….
ramblwrk68
June 2nd, 2010
1:29 pm
RE: Jimmy H. @ 11:11am
“States Rights” means what the 10th amendment to the Constitution says it means. Read it sometime.
FWIW …
WAW
June 2nd, 2010
1:42 pm
Most folks conveniently forget that “State’s Rights” as guaranteed by the Constitution was the “legal” basis for a conflict over 140 years ago. Also conveniently forgotten by the “historical heritage” folks is the fact that their forefathers LOST! The War Between the States (commonly known as the Civil War) was won by the Central Government not the fringe states rights folks. When you pledge your allegiance next time, think about “ONE NATION under GOD” (and there ain’t no comma)!
Jim
June 2nd, 2010
1:59 pm
Jim, what are you hearing about Liz Carter’s “dis-invite” to the Ga-4 candidate’s forum hosted by NewsMakersLive?
Mr. Grumpy
June 2nd, 2010
2:09 pm
Where is it written that private interests ALWAYS outweigh the interests of society? Do you know how goofy some of these Libertarians are? Some will even go so far to state that government doesn’t have the right to put traffic control devices at our intersections. That’s how screwy they are. I prefer the ones who believe in hiding in a cave in North Georgia or Idaho. How’d you like to live ina world run by Libertarians? No thank you!
lmno
June 2nd, 2010
2:13 pm
The free market does not regulate itself. It does on paper, but not in reality. Lack of government oversight leads to financial system meltdowns and enormous toxic oil spills.
Drill baby drill, indeed.
poer 3
June 2nd, 2010
2:31 pm
All Libertarians are and were abolishionists. The very core of there moral values is individual freedom and you can’t have individual freedom if you are a slave. But, I agree it gets more complicated than that. I personally agree with the civil rights act.
techengineer
June 2nd, 2010
2:39 pm
Call it what ever you want but it’s not Constitutional. Actually makes a mockery of the sacred document but what else would these ignorant idiots representing the people be expected to do today? Rand is probably the only actual Constitutionalist in the entire damn Senate!
Lew Rockwell
June 2nd, 2010
3:00 pm
GOP’ers in KY just don’t want Libertarians trying to infiltrate their party – they want to distance themselves from this guy as much as possible
Bubba
June 2nd, 2010
3:12 pm
A lot of the good ol’ boys and girls I grew up with all all aboard for the Tea Party. The same folks still cuss about “n**gers” when they think it’s “just us” in the room though they are more circumspect in public. The overlap between Tea Party and old fashioned racism may be purely coincidental, but I doubt it.
David Rairigh
June 2nd, 2010
3:13 pm
For all of you mocking the libertarian view, try to remember that many of the Founding Fathers were libertarian in their beliefs (although they didn’t use the term). I believe that all solutions start with the individual, then branch out to family, friends, neighbors, communities, counties and then the state. If we follow that path then very few things will need Federal intervention, perhaps only those things defined in the Constitution.
Peace.
brokebackvol
June 2nd, 2010
3:14 pm
Folks, I must remind you, regardless of your stance on the issues: PROOFREAD!
When you make an impassioned response, especially criticizing another’s education, yet you confuse “no” and “know”, you deflate your argument (and cause me to wince and want to slap your english teachers.)
Ok, back to your argumentative banter….
Tim
June 2nd, 2010
3:51 pm
Port O John, if you can believe the news, this oil spill well was approved under this administration. Not sure how long till we can stop blaming the last folks, but then again I saw that Regan also was blamed for this oil spill. So sorry we can’t just talk issues and come to some middle point. We have to always blame some body else.
jawshoeah
June 2nd, 2010
3:51 pm
Damn straight Liberty Dawn and Elmo.
Will
June 2nd, 2010
3:56 pm
Tim:
Since you asked, no I am not happy with the way the country is moving.
I long for the last eight years when nothing was done to reform Social Security, nothing was done to reform immigration, when a budget surplus was turned into a massive deficit, when we decided to engage in “nation building” in the Middle East, when our patriots were treated like animals at Walter Reed and when massive amounts of tax dollars were added to government run prescription costs.
We can return to these “golden years” but returning republicans to the majority in Congress.
DANIEL
June 2nd, 2010
4:20 pm
I wish he was running in my state a man that stands for what he believes,,,, the republican establishment are cowards and i can not wait untill they are all gone. Go rand go buddy….
Legend of Len Barker
June 2nd, 2010
4:57 pm
The Civil Rights Act came about in part because Southern states would not have made any changes. Even with the Civil Rights Act, the feds had to sue about 2/3 of Georgia’s school systems because they either refused or were doing it with utmost deliberate speed. One county managed to evade the ruling until 1974 (nearly everyone had complied by 1970 with a handful of others holding out until 1971).
It took federal intervention to make Georgia stop the white primary.
It took federal intervention to stop school segregation in the South.
It took federal intervention to stop bus depot segregation in the South. And even after that, an integrated bus was beaten by a mob in Birmingham and had their bus firebombed in Mississippi.
It took federal intervention to force South Carolina to provide school buses for black students in public schools.
It took federal intervention to stop segregation in restaurants in the South.
It took federal intervention to make the South stop slavery.
It took federal intervention to make the South recognize blacks as citizens (which the South subverted as much as possible until the 1970s).
It took federal pressure to make Southern states started convicting lynchers. In this case, Governors Northen, Atkinson, Candler, and (strangely enough) Dorsey were vehemently anti-lynching, but without federal pressure most sheriffs departments would have done very little. When a black man was shot by a mob in the jail in Darien in McIntosh County in 1930, the sheriff claimed he didn’t know who shot the man and he didn’t give a d***.
Morris
June 2nd, 2010
4:59 pm
Has anybody out there renewed their insurance yet.Well I have and now I can have a physical and not worry about being slapped with higher premiums or worry about pre existing illness.and last my cost per month went down.Boy what was that again about Obama care ruining the country.
beep beep
June 2nd, 2010
5:01 pm
I will vote for anyone that will get rid of ALL the entitlements that go to the self inflicted mass uneducated, unmotivated and unhealthy people of this country…..
BehindEnemyLines
June 2nd, 2010
5:12 pm
Sounds like Kentucky needs to remove some clueless pols from their state legislature. Hopefully many of them will suffer the same fate as Paul’s last opponent, the sooner the better.
max
June 2nd, 2010
5:35 pm
Rand Paul’s problem is that he comprehends the constitution. Sadly our other politicians continue to deconstruct it and we have no defense against their tyranny.
jerry
June 2nd, 2010
5:53 pm
Rand Paul wouldn’t know the Constitution if it hit him in the face, much less understand it.
ga female
June 3rd, 2010
1:28 am
I guess you Tea Party members better stop shopping at Walmart, if you are against buying Chinese. That would be too much of a conflict for most ignorant Tea Party members, just like the majority who go on collecting Social Security, Disability, Medicare and Medicaid, but are hypocrates about entitlements. No one has paid in enough to Social Security to get a lifetime benefit, so these Tea Partiers collecting these benefits are hypocrites. I want to see the Tea Partiers stay out of Walmart too, if they are so anti-China.
Well said, Legend of Len Barker!
June 3rd, 2010
11:48 am
Spot on!
Note to all you Tea Baggers: If you don’t like government, please exercise your right to MOVE to one of those third world countries where there really is no centralized government, and the governments that do exist end of changing every three months or so, due to military coups and the like. See how that works out for ya!
Ronald Reagan started this “…government is the problem …” stuff. The man should have been tried for treason for what he did to this country.
Juanita
June 3rd, 2010
4:04 pm
Can we all just get along……………..
David S
June 3rd, 2010
4:50 pm
A private business is either owned and controlled by the individual who owns it or it is not. You can’t have it both ways. Private ownership with government control of the operation is FASCISM (yes, that is the definition).
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 rightfully went after all of the horrible GOVERNMENT laws that prohibited integration of private businesses, truly public places (government “owned”, etc.) but also told private business who they must serve, etc.
Rand only objects to the government telling private businesses what they must do. He objected to them telling folks that they could not serve blacks as much as he objected to them telling them they MUST serve blacks.
Unfortunately for most, the government media and the government schools have only taught about the private businesses that did not wish to serve blacks. They never talk about all of the ways government was violating the rights of blacks. That wouldn’t do, since the Civil Rights Act must come accross as a pure angelic action of government to demolish private racism and discrimination. Now that this indoctrination is complete, its hard for most folks to face up to the truth that government was the bigger racist and greater factor in the segregation that existed in the south.
Liberals will support a private individuals right to be secure in his home and free to do what he wants there, but as soon as the same person owns a private business, then screw them, all bets are off and the government should be allowed to tell them everything regarding running their business.
It is nothing short of hipocracy.
John
June 3rd, 2010
8:52 pm
I believe every thing Mr paul said is correct and more. I don’t want em eating with me at all.
Shawn
June 4th, 2010
9:53 am
As I read everyone’s comment, I’m in awe. I’m 24 years old…my mother is 55. All of the things happening in politics lately reminds me of the stories my mother use to tell me that happen in the 60’s & late 70’s in the south. It’s sad to hear and read grown people say some of the things that have been said. I thought after 1964, everyone was onboard with Civil Rights…I didn’t know after reading about the Jim Crow laws and events in the 1960’s that people would still believe in those same things in 2010. It’s very sad. It’s like…hey you guys are 40, 50, 60 plus…and here I am telling you to grow up. It’s just skin color; it won’t make you sick, it won’t degrade your values or make you less of a person. Just skin. Yet here we are…in 2010…still debating who is allowed to eat where, who’s accepted where and these are the people that are being endorsed? The people you want to represent America. At this rate we will be discussing the same things come 2060. Thanks you guys…you’re really paving the way for my generation. We really appreciate this!