Last week, on the anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King, John McCain’s record in opposition to a King holiday not only created a headache for the senator’s campaign, but ultimately led McCain to publicly acknowledge that he was wrong.
His record on the Civil Rights Act of 1990 may prove to be a little more complicated.
Eighteen years ago, then-President George H.W. Bush vetoed the civil rights legislation, based on dubious fears of employer-mandates on “quotas.” When the Senate sought to override the veto, the majority could only muster 66 votes, one short of what was needed. McCain bucked the civil rights community and backed Bush.
The act was a response to a series of controversial Supreme Court decisions made the year before. In those decisions, the court overturned a 1971 ruling that required employers to prove a “business necessity” for screening out minorities and women in its hiring practices. That burden of proof, the 1989 court said, should instead be placed on the plaintiff who alleged that his or her client had been unlawfully screened.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate, deeming this unjust, passed bills that would restore the old law. But the Bush administration objected, insisting that a reversion to the old way would amount to forcing employers to have hiring quotas. It was a controversial and somewhat dubious claim, one that the New York Times editorial page called “an unjustified charge.” After all, the system had worked fine from 1971 through 1989. Nevertheless, the president vetoed the legislation.
When a motion to override the veto came to the Senate floor, there was question as to whether it would receive the 67 votes needed to pass. The environment was so charged that white supremacist David Duke watched from one section of the Senate gallery while civil rights leader Jesse Jackson stood briefly at the chamber’s other end.
Ultimately, the vote fell one short: 66 to 34. Prominent Republican Senators like John H Chaffe, John Danforth, Pete Domenici, and Arlen Specter, all chose to override the veto. McCain — who had earlier voted for a watered down version of the bill, one that didn’t reverse the court’s decision – backed the president.
Well, McCain acknowledged his mistake on the MLK holiday, so he can admit he was wrong about this, too.
Except, he won’t. McCain has decided to stand by his vote.
Asked about the decision this past Sunday, he again repeated that the law amounted to a quota system that he historically has opposed.
“The issue in the early ’90s was a little more complicated,” he told Fox News Sunday. “I’ve never believed in quotas, and I don’t. There’s no doubt about my view on that issue. And that was the implication, at least, of that other vote.”
It is, critics say, a shaky defense; one that only a third of the Senate felt comfortable holding on to.
As noted by the Times at the time of the bill’s debate, opponents could not produce any evidence that the original ruling in 1971 had led to a rash of quotas. And indeed, as Thomas Homburger of the Anti-Defamation League said at the time: his group historically opposes quotas and the Civil Rights Act of 1990 was “simply not a quota bill.”
It’s one of the more unfortunate aspects of the current John McCain: he flip-flops on issues where he was right the first time, and sticks to his guns when he should flip-flop.