— Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), during a speech at Howard University, April 10, 2013
There’s an old rule in politics: If it’s too complicated to explain, you are probably in trouble.
Paul, a potential GOP candidate for the 2016 presidential election, gave an interesting speech on Wednesday to historically black Howard University, but his remarks were overshadowed by his attempt to explain the controversy over his 2010 comments on the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“I have never wavered in my support for civil rights and the Civil Rights Act,” he said in his speech. “The dispute, if there is one, has always been about how much of the remedy should come under federal or state or private purview.”
But then Paul expanded on his remarks in the question-and-answer period, saying in response to a tough question that he had been concerned really only about the “ramifications and extensions” of the Civil Rights Act. We sought an explanation from Paul’s staff but did not get a response. So let’s go to the video tape!
The Facts
The Civil Rights Act was pushed by President Lyndon Johnson but likely would not have become law without the shrewd legislative gamesmanship of then-Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Dirksen figured out a way to bring along wavering Republicans, in order to break a lengthy filibuster led by Southern Democrats, by carefully tweaking a House bill to reduce federal intervention in local matters — but not enough to force a rewriting of the whole bill in the House.
As an interesting history by the Dirksen Center notes: "The substitute gave higher priority to voluntary compliance than the House bill. It encouraged more private, rather than official, legal initiatives." Indeed, thanks to Dirksen's leadership, a larger percentage of Republican senators than Democrats supported the Civil Rights Act — 82 percent (27 in favor and 6 opposed) versus 69 percent (46 in favor and 21 opposed).
The problem for Paul started when the Louisville Courier-Journal placed on its Web site an April 17, 2010, interview between Paul and the paper’s editorial board. Presumably that is the extended interview that Paul referenced. We have embedded the relevant section below and have highlighted the key sections.
As the Courier-Journal noted in a long article of Paul's history of controversial statements, the "criticism mirrored the views of his father [Rep. Ron Paul], who stood up on the House floor when it celebrated the 40th anniversary of the act in 2004 and denounced it as 'a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society.'"
Indeed, Rand Paul, in a 2002 letter to the Bowling Green Daily News, made a similar point about the U.S. Fair Housing Act, saying it "ignores the distinction between private and public property." He added: "Decisions concerning private property and associations should in a free society be unhindered. As a consequence, some associations will discriminate."
In other words, Paul’s problem with the Civil Rights Act appears to be with the delicate balance that Dirksen had struck in order to bring along the votes of other Republicans — not “ramifications and extensions.”
Indeed, we could find no reference to “ramifications and extensions” in the interview — or in other high-profile interviews that Paul had at the time to explain the Courier Journal remarks.
To be fair to Paul, we have included lengthy excerpts from the interviews.
Here's what Paul told National Public Radio on May 19, 2010:
Then here's what Paul said on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show on May 20, in which he suggested he would have wanted to modify one section of the Civil Rights Act, one dealing with "private institutions." However, his logic is a bit confusing because he appears to be referring to Title 2 — "public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce" — (such as hotels and restaurants) — but there is also Title 7, which prohibits discrimination in businesses of a certain size.
Finally, on CNN on May 22, Paul said there was “a need for federal intervention” and declared he would have voted for the law. He also appeared to reverse himself on whether private enterprise could discriminate. But there was still no mention of “ramifications and “extensions.”
Paul’s logic is sometimes hard to follow in these interviews, but as far as we can tell he never makes a case that “ramifications and extensions” in the Civil Rights Act affected laws concerning smoking, guns and calorie listing in menus.
Even that claim is a bit confusing.
Former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger said he was puzzled by Paul’s reference to menus and guns in the Howard University speech, since he did not believe there was a direct application.
“What he could mean, however, is that by adopting a principle that Congress can legislate to prohibit racial discrimination in matters affecting commerce, future Congresses might use that principle to enact future legislation regulating calorie listings in restaurants affecting commerce,” he said. “To equate such matters with the regime of Southern racial apartheid that had a huge impact on national commerce (and on the country's moral position) is to equal matters fully different and to suggest that he did not understand the magnitude of what was at stake in the civil rights movement.”
The Pinocchio Test
Paul is rewriting history here. We don’t see anywhere in these interviews “an extended conversation about the ramifications beyond race,” at least in the way that Paul describes it at Howard University.
Indeed, Paul claims he “never wavered” on the Civil Right Act but in the MSNBC interview he mused openly about possibly wanting to change one provision if he had been a senator. Ironically, the issue that troubled Paul was what Senate Republicans at the time had modified in order to deal with the very concerns that Paul raises almost five decades later.
We were tempted to give this Four Pinocchios but some of his language at Howard appears to be a product of fuzzy thinking. Still, Paul does earn Three Pinocchios for trying to recast and essentially erase what he said in 2010. It would be better to own up to his mistake — if he now thinks it was one — rather than sugarcoat it.
Three Pinocchios
Check out our candidate Pinocchio Tracker
