Presidential Candidate Senator Christopher Dodd's poor record on Neo-Confederacy

According to this article, U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut is running for the presidency. U.S. Senator Dodd has a particularly bad record, for a Democrat, on Neo-Confederacy.

An overwhelming majority of Democratic Senators voted against Ashcroft's confirmation on the basis of Ashcroft's interview in Southern Partisan, Dodd was one of the few that voted for Ashcroft.

Dodd also voted for Gale Norton for the position of Secretary of the Interior, despite her unique Neo-Confederate ideas justifying her anti-environmentalism. Norton also had a Neo-Confederate interpretation justifying her attack on the American's With Disabilities Act.

Unfortunately, a great many other Democrats voted for Norton also. I have the background about Norton at the end of this entry.

However, what is most damning about Dodd is his praise of Strom Thurmond at Thurmond's 100th birthday. Derrick Z. Jackson had an editorial about the Democrats who were Lott enablers in 2002. I am looking for my copy in my files. I know it is here somewhere.

Dodd did vote against the renewal of the Patent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in both the first and second vote. However, opposing Neo-Confederacy is going to take more than merely voting the right way when the issue of Neo-Confederacy is embarrassling evident to the point that it can't be accomodated.

I have gotten started on a 2008 presidential election page and will hopefully have something online in the next month, with some information. I am going to have to steadily populate it with information.

*****************

Gale Norton was nominated to the position Secretary of the Interior by George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. During the nomination Gale Norton's ideas about the Confederacy, states rights, and the 10th amendment received attention in press. This was a speech at a 1996 conference in Vail, Colorado. The following are some excerpts from her speech.

This is the introduction to the speech in which environmental law is put opposite states rights and the 10th amendment.

The issue of the 10th Amendment is something that even with a Republican Congress in place, it is still alive and well as an issue. Just a couple of days ago I met with the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice, who is in charge of land and natural resource issues. She quite explicitly threatened the State of Colorado and other states because we had the audacity to adopt something in environmental area that we in Colorado think makes sense but the Federal government doesn’t agree. We’ll have the opportunity to do battle once again on the issue of the state being able to make its own decisions. This is not something that is a battle that we have won and we can forget about. This is a battle where we are still very much in the trenches in trying to make a difference.

The 10th Amendment is part of our Constitution. It says the powers that are not delegated to the Federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. It is, unfortunately, an amendment that through time has not been given the power that one would think that it should be entitled to. The courts have not been strong defenders of that amendment. We’ve seen the cases sort of ping pong back and forth, with the states very often losing the ground that we’ve managed to gain. Part of that has been because we seem to be plagued by bad facts in these cases; bad facts make bad law.

Norton also complains about the American's with Disabilities Act. Then Norton brings up how she feels that American victory of the Confederacy had bad consequences.

But to go back to the issue of bad facts and bad law. I recall, after I had just gone through this massive battle with the EPA on state sovereignty and states rights, visiting the east coast. For the first time, I had the opportunity to wander through one of those Civil War graveyards. I remember seeing this column that was erected in one of those graveyards. It said in memory of all the Virginia soldiers who died in defense of the sovereignty of their state. It really took me aback. Sure, I had been filing briefs and I thought that was pretty brave. And then there were times we looked beyond the substance. When we looked at the decision making process. And understood the 10th Amendment was part of that separation of powers. It was part of what was supposed to guarantee that our government would remain limited. What would guarantee our freedom? Again, we certainly had bad facts in that case where we were defending state sovereignty by defending slavery.

Norton also complains about the American's with Disabilities Act. Then Norton brings up how she feels that American victory of the Confederacy had bad consequences.

But to go back to the issue of bad facts and bad law. I recall, after I had just gone through this massive battle with the EPA on state sovereignty and states rights, visiting the east coast. For the first time, I had the opportunity to wander through one of those Civil War graveyards. I remember seeing this column that was erected in one of those graveyards. It said in memory of all the Virginia soldiers who died in defense of the sovereignty of their state. It really took me aback. Sure, I had been filing briefs and I thought that was pretty brave. And then there were times we looked beyond the substance. When we looked at the decision making process. And understood the 10th Amendment was part of that separation of powers. It was part of what was supposed to guarantee that our government would remain limited. What would guarantee our freedom? Again, we certainly had bad facts in that case where we were defending state sovereignty by defending slavery.

But we lost too much. We lost the idea that the states were to stand against the Federal government gaining too much power over our lives. That is the point I think we need to reappreciate. We need to remind ourselves and remind the political debate that part of the reason the states need to be able to make their own decisions is to provide that check in our Federal system against too much power going to Washington.