Trent Lott

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Chester Trent Lott Sr. (born October 9, 1941) is a former United States Senator from Mississippi and a member of the Republican Party. He has served in numerous leadership positions in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, including House Minority Whip, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, and Senate Minority Whip. Lott is the first person to have served as whip in both houses of Congress.^[1]

On December 18, 2007, Lott resigned from the Senate, to spend more time with family and pursue other job opportunities in the private sector, possibly teaching. He ruled out any health concerns affecting his resignation.^[2][1] His resignation will lead to a special election Senate race.

[edit] Early life

Lott was born in Grenada, Mississippi. His father, Chester Paul Lott, was a shipyard worker; his mother, Iona Watson, was a schoolteacher. He attended college at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where he obtained an undergraduate degree in public administration in 1963 and a law degree in 1967. He served as a Field Representative for Ole Miss and was president of his fraternity, Sigma Nu. Lott was also an Ole Miss cheerleader, coincidentally on the same team with U.S. Senator Thad Cochran. He married Patricia Thompson on December 27, 1964. The couple has two children: Chester Trent "Chet" Lott, Jr., and Tyler Lott.

[edit] Political career

[edit] House of Representatives

Lott was raised as a Democrat. He served as administrative assistant to House Rules Committee chairman William M. Colmer, also of Pascagoula, from 1968 to 1972. Colmer, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, endorsed Lott as his successor in Mississippi's 5th District, located in the state's southwestern tip, even though Lott ran as a Republican. Lott won handily.

Lott's party switch was part of a growing trend in the South. During the 1960s, cracks had begun to appear in the Democrats' "Solid South", as many whites, motivated in part by the national Democratic Party's stance on civil rights, began to switch parties. For example, 1964 Republican nominee Barry Goldwater carried Mississippi by winning an unheard-of 87 percent of the popular vote even as he was routed nationally.

It is very likely that Lott would have won even without Colmer's endorsement, as in that year's presidential election, Richard Nixon won reelection in a massive landslide. Nixon won 49 states and 78 percent of Mississippi's popular vote. Lott and his future Senate colleague, Thad Cochran (also elected to Congress that year), were only the second and third Republicans elected to Congress from Mississippi since Reconstruction. Lott's strong showing in the polls landed him on the powerful House Judiciary Committee as a freshman, where he voted against all three articles of impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon during the committee's debate. After Nixon released the infamous "Smoking Gun" transcripts (which proved Nixon's involvement in the Watergate cover-up), however, Lott announced that he would vote to impeach Nixon when the articles came up for debate before the full House (as did the other Republicans who voted against impeachment in committee).^[3]

Three months later, in November 1972, Lott and Cochran became the first Republicans re-elected to Congress from Mississippi since Reconstruction, in both cases by blowout margins. Lott was re-elected six more 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; he was the first Southern Republican to hold such a high leadership position.

[edit] United States Senate

Lott ran for the Senate in 1988, after 42-year incumbent John Stennis announced he would not run for another term. He defeated Democratic 4th District Congressman Wayne Dowdy by almost eight points. He has never faced another contest nearly that close. He was re-elected in 1994, 2000, and 2006 with no substantive Democratic opposition. He gave some thought to retirement for much of 2005, however, after Hurricane Katrina, he announced on January 17, 2006 that he would run for a fourth term.

He became Senate 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 campaign. As majority leader, Lott was had a major role in the Senate trial following the impeachment of Bill Clinton. After the House narrowly voted to impeach Clinton, Lott proceeded with the Senate trial in early 1999, despite criticisms that the Republicans were far short of the two-thirds majority required under the Constitution to convict Clinton and remove him from office. He later agreed to a decision to suspend the proceedings after the Senate voted not to convict Clinton.

After the 2000 elections produced a 50-50 partisan split in the Senate, Vice President Al Gore's tiebreaking vote gave the Democrats the majority from January 3–January 20, 2001, when the George W. Bush Administration took office and Vice President Dick Cheney's tiebreaking vote gave the Republicans the majority once again. Later in 2001, he became Senate Minority Leader again after Vermont senator Jim Jeffords became an independent and caucused with the Democrats, allowing them to regain the majority. He was due to become majority leader again in early 2003 after Republican gains in the November 2002 elections. Shortly after the Strom Thurmond controversy, however (see below), he resigned from his leadership positions.

Since he lost the Majority Leader post, Lott has been less visible on the national scene. He battled with President Bush over military base closures in his home state. He showed support for passenger rail initiatives, notably his 2006 bipartisan introduction, with Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, of legislation to provide 80 percent federal matching grants to intercity rail and guarantee adequate funding for Amtrak.^[4] On July 18 2006, Lott voted with 19 Republican senators for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act to lift restrictions on federal funding for the research. On November 15, 2006 Lott regained a leadership position in the Senate, when he was named Minority Whip after defeating Lamar Alexander of Tennessee 24-23.^[5]

Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire said, after Lott's election as Senate Minority Whip, "He understands the rules. He's a strong negotiator." Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he's "the smartest legislative politician I've ever met."^[6]

[edit] 2006 re-election campaign

Main article: United States Senate election in Mississippi, 2006

Lott faced no Republican opposition in the race.^[7] State representative Erik Fleming placed first of four candidates in the June Democratic primary, but did not receive the 50 percent of the vote required to earn the party's nomination. He and second-place finisher Bill Bowlin faced off in a runoff on June 27, and Fleming won with 65% of the vote. Fleming, however, was not regarded as a serious opponent, and Lott handily defeated him with 64% of the vote.

[edit] Resignation

On November 26, 2007, Lott announced that he would resign his Senate seat by the end of 2007.^[2] According to CNN,

A senior Republican source close to Lott said one reason for Lott's decision to resign is the new lobbying restrictions on former lawmakers. A law kicks in on January 1 that forbids lawmakers from lobbying for two years after leaving office. Those who leave by the end of 2007 are covered by the previous law, which demands a wait of only one year.^[8]

In his resignation press conference he said that the new law had no influence in his decision to resign.

Lott's resignation became effective at 11:30 p.m. on December 18, 2007.[1]

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Homosexuality

In 1998, Lott caused national outrage and controversy in congress when as a guest on the Armstrong Williams television show, he equated homosexuality to alcoholism, kleptomania and sex addiction. When Williams, a conservative talk show host, asked Lott whether homosexuality was a sin, Lott replied, "Yes, it is."^[9]

[edit] Resignation from Senate leadership

Tremendous political controversy ensued following remarks Lott made on December 5, 2002 at the 100th birthday party of Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond ran for President of the United States in 1948 on the Dixiecrat (or States' Rights) ticket. Lott said:

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 the years, either.

Thurmond had based his presidential campaign largely on an explicit racial segregation platform. Lott had attracted controversy before in issues relating to civil rights. As a Congressman, he voted against renewal of the Voting Rights Act, voted against the continuation of the Civil Rights Act and opposed the Martin Luther King Holiday.^{[citation needed]} Lott gave an interview with Black Entertainment Television explaining himself and repudiating Thurmond's former views.^{[citation needed]}

Under pressure from Senate colleagues, and having lost the support of the White House, Lott resigned as Senate Republican Leader on December 20, 2002.^{[citation needed]} Bill Frist of Tennessee was later elected to the leadership position.

In the book Free Culture, Larry Lessig argues that the resignation of Lott would not have occurred had it not been for the effect of Internet blogs. He says that though the story "disappear[ed] from the mainstream press within forty-eight hours", "bloggers kept researching the story" until, "[f]inally, the story broke back into the mainstream press."^[10]

[edit] Richard Scruggs

On November 29, 2007, The New York Times noted that Lott's brother-in-law, Richard Scruggs, was indicted on charges of offering a $50,000 bribe to a Mississippi state judge in a fee dispute. Scruggs represented Lott and Rep. Gene Taylor in settlements with State Farm after the insurer refused to pay claims for the loss of their Mississippi homes in Hurricane Katrina. Lott and Taylor had pushed through federal legislation to investigate claims handling of State Farm and other insurers after Hurricane Katrina, a potential conflict of interest.^[11][12]

[edit] Author

Lott wrote a memoir entitled Herding Cats: A Life in Politics. In the book, Lott spoke out on the infamous Strom Thurmond birthday party gaffe, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and about his feelings of betrayal toward 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."^[13] He also described former Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota as trustworthy.^[14] 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.^[15]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Trent Lott, Herding Cats: A Life in Politics (Regan Books: 2005) ISBN 0-06-059931-6
• Donald W. Beachler, "Militias and Segregationists", Polity, April 2003

[edit] External links

• United States Senator Trent Lott, U.S. Senate site

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
• New York Times — Trent Lott News ongoing collection of news stories and commentary
• SourceWatch Congresspedia — Trent Lott profile

[edit] Articles

• 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 required).
• Lott to run again for Senate, CNN, Wednesday, January 18, 2006.

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