Viewing page 11 of 380
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
[[column 1]] The Record of Senator Edward W. Brooke: Effective Advocacy by Melvin Farnsworth As the first session of the 95th Congress drew to its pre-Christmas close, Congressman Parren Mitchell, the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, took pen in hand to let Senator Edward W. Brooke know just what the Congressman thought of him. Mitchell wrote in part of his deep admiration for Brooke's "forceful, courageous, and inspiring leadership on two of the most difficult issues which have come before the congress — abortion and busing...." Mitchell went on: "...I cannot imagine how we could have done as well as we did without your eloquent and steadfast guidance. Your commitment to principle above conventional political wisdom on two of the most important and volatile issues facing not only Black people, but the entire nation, cannot be praised highly enough." For Ed Brooke, the nation's first black Senator since reconstruction, the support and friendship of such trusted allies is a primary source of the strength needed to struggle without much respite for the ever-threatened rights of the black, the poor, and the neglected. The six month debate over denying indigent women Medicaid payments for legal abortions was, in Congressman Mitchell's words, "...perhaps the most gruelling legislative battle I have seen while serving in Congress." Ed Brooke led the Senators who, for months, struggled to insure that low income women and girls had access to abortion medical services as they and their physicians determined to be medically necessary. It was a fight marked by intense, sometimes ugly, lobbying and political pressures on the forces supporting indigent women's right to choice. After 35 roll call votes in both Houses of Congress, Brooke had won a compromise which vastly expanded the availability of abortions to women in need. But the Senator was not elated. "There are still women out there who are being denied their constitutional right to make their own choice simply because they cannot pay," he told his supporters. "We will have to keep fighting year after year until this unconscionable situation is eliminated." The Senator has become sadly accustomed to leading never-ending struggles to consolidate civil rights gains and to make sometimes agonizingly slow progress. Nationwide, he has gained recognition as a seasoned warrior to whom those who look for protection of the rights of minorities and the fulfillment of the needs of the poor always turn when the going gets tough. Ed Brooke, the black Republican elected from virtually all-white, all-Democratic Massachusetts, seems to have little conventional political caution. Those who really know him were not surprised to see him lead the fight for medicaid abortion payments, for this was the man who battled to keep the courts' right to use busing as a tool for school desegregation even as mobs ranged through the streets of Boston. This, too was the man who opposed the President of his own party and brought about the defeat of not one but two Supreme Court nominees who, said Brooke, "Did not meet the high standards required of a Supreme Court Justice." Later, Brooke was the first elected official of stature in either party to call for that President, Richard Nixon's resignation. And it was Ed Brooke who filed the legislation offering genuine amnesty to Vietnam war deserters, and Ed Brooke who ignored the clubby Senate tradition and wrote the new Ethics Reform legislation which the Senate adopted last year. In 1972, Brooke's re-election campaign slogan billed him as "the freest man in the Senate." The question to outsiders has always been how one who is so independent of the conventional political wisdom can continue to pile up landslide support in a state which has a strong, ethnic, conservative element. In answer to this question, Brooke says pensively, "I think it is because [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] I try to let the people know exactly where I stand and why I hold the beliefs I do. I think the country is crying out for leadership, and that, when I act on the principles I think are basic, people understand and respect it even if they disagree. I have to do this job as I believe right. The opportunity to make real contributions is too precious to waste." The quiet assurance with which Ed Brooke uses his opportunities for leadership has sometimes deceived and confused his foes. This is a man of courtly charm; his manners are formal, impeccable, his voice is seldom raised, his words are carefully chosen. In battle, Brooke is a lawyer who resorts to facts and to the Constitution to make his points. He uses reason and reality to counter his opponents' arguments. He is known for demolishing the demagogic rhetoric of others with simple but definitive restatements of the central problems of rights or benefits being debated and the central rationale for his positions. As his second term draws to a close, there are few who have encountered him who do not come away realizing he has become a force to be reckoned with. Ed Brooke is hoping for a chance to serve his third term. "It is getting lonelier," he says. "There are few left who want to carry on the work we began in the '60's and yet there is so much more to do." For the Senator, the job ahead means continuing advocacy for the forgotten and the oppressed. He laid out his own vision of the task of the elected officials when, in answer to President Jimmy Carter's simple assertion that "Life is unfair," he said, "But it is our job to right the wrongs, overturn life's inequities, and see that we share the riches of our nation equitably." But Brooke foresees more difficult years ahead in attempting to achieve these goals. And he cites the fight to pass the 1975 extension of the Voting Rights Act as an example of the resistance that still remains. For even though the Voting Rights Act had been heralded throughout the nation as an outstanding success, a formidable coalition of Senators attempted to gut the important triggering mechanism which makes the Act work so effectively. Only the efforts of Brooke, along with Senators John Tunney (D-California), Jacob Javits (R-New York), and James Pearson (R-Kansas), saved the provision by managing to rally enough Senators to defeat the critical weakening amendment by a scant five votes. Shortly after this close call, Brooke explained to the Third National Institute of Black Elected Officials why the Senate vote so clearly showed that our struggle is far from over: "We were not debating a complex civil rights issue. We were not even debating busing. We were debating voting. We were trying to assure the most basic constitutional right for all American citizens. And yet on the floor of the United States Senate American politicians very nearly said to Black, Brown, and Red American's[[Americans]]: You cannot even be guaranteed your right to vote." And there is no question that Senator Brooke is needed for this struggle. For he has been an effective advocate. And a look at his legislative career will show how effective he has been. Civil Rights When someone writes the definitive biography on Senator Edward Brooke, there will be many legislative highlights, but none will shine brighter than the work he has done to assure equal educational opportunity for all our nation's school children. While he has championed this principle since his days as a young attorney for the Boston NAACP, his role in recent years has taken on added importance. For civil rights is no longer a popular cause. And as the battles for equal educational opportunity have moved northward to the large urban areas, many former allies have deserted the ranks. This is especially evident in the congressional debates over busing for the purposes of desegregation. Although Brooke himself is not wedded to any particular desegregation remedy, he firmly believes that a judge must have available to him all the appropriate tools to remedy unlawful segregation. And thus, time and time again, Brooke has led a small band of allies in rear-guard actions to withstand the congressional assaults on the constitutional rights of school children. Unfortunately, in the fall of 1975, the Senate for the first time passed an anti-busing amendment. Brooke decried the "erosion of political leadership which raised the busing problem [[/column 2]] 9 [[end page]]
