Joe Biden on Wednesday evoked liberal hero Ted Kennedy to explain that his relationships with segregationist senators in the 1970s were adversarial, not cordial, as he had suggested the day before.
The former vice president had been dogged throughout the day with questions about his remarks at a Manhattan fundraiser Tuesday night, where he waxed nostalgically about his early Senate career’s legislative partnerships with the likes of Democratic Sens. James O. Eastland and Herman Talmadge. Both were staunch segregationists who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and virtually all other civil rights measures.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was the first to pounce. Later Wednesday, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a higher profile 2020 Democratic rival of Biden, slammed the former vice president and Delaware senator. Booker predicted that in light of the former vice president’s comments he would not be his party’s presidential nominee.
Then, Biden on Wednesday night called on Booker to apologize. Ahead of a fundraiser in Rockville, Md., Biden said he fought against the segregationists in the Senate to pass civil rights legislation.
Next, at a fundraiser in Chevy Chase, Md., Biden mentioned Eastland and Talmadge anew, but with a different spin than 24 hours before. Speaking at the home of Tim Shriver, a member of the Kennedy clan, Biden brought up his longtime alliance with the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Democrat who represented Massachusetts in the Senate for 47 years and is known as a leading figure in modern liberalism.
“He’s the guy who got me on the Judiciary Committee, we served from years and years,” Biden said about Ted Kennedy. “And we had to put up with the likes of like Jim Eastland and Hermy Talmadge and all those segregationists and all of that. And the fact of the matter is that we were able to do it because we were able to win — we were able to beat them on everything they stood for,” Biden said, according to a pool report from the event.
During an eight-minute address to donors, Biden added, “We in fact detested what they stood for in terms of segregation and all the rest. And because of Teddy letting me become chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 1982, when he moved on to take on Health and Human Services, we were able to do so much. We restored the Voting Rights Act, we did it, and over time we extended it by 25 years not just five years.”
Biden actually assumed the Judiciary Committee chairmanship in 1987, after Democrats won control of the Senate for the first time in six years. By that point there were only a smaller number of old-time segregationists than when he arrived in the chamber as a 30-year-old in 1973.
