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Loading ...26 NC lawmakers sit out of Helms resolution vote
06.10.2009 7:09am EDT
(Raleigh, N.C.) Twenty-six North Carolina legislators sat out a vote Tuesday on a resolution honoring the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, showing that the Republican remains a polarizing figure a year after his death.
The state Legislature approves dozens of honorary resolutions each two-year session, and the body’s bill drafting director, Gerry Cohen, said he could remember none of the others being avoided by so many lawmakers in his three-decade career.None of about a dozen House members seated outside the chamber during the vote would say whether the effort was coordinated. But only one member each of the House and Senate registered an excused absence for the day.
Most of the holdouts were black Democrats such as Sen. Floyd McKissick. Helms opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a commentator and voted against its reauthorization once in the Senate.
“I could have never voted in favor of a resolution honoring Sen. Helms because of his divisive history and his anti-civil-rights principles,” said McKissick, D-Durham. McKissick said he instead skipped the resolution’s debate as a quiet protest.
Helms’ political career made him a lightning rod for controversy. He entered politics in helping elect segregationist candidate Willis Smith to the Senate in 1950 and his final campaign was in 1996. He led an unsuccessful filibuster in 1983 to stall the effort to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday.
Sixteen out of the state House’s 20 black members and five out of nine black senators skipped the vote that came after speeches praising Helms’ integrity, honesty and patriotism. They were joined by a handful of white Democrats and the only American Indian, a Democrat.
The Senate voted 41-1 for the Helms resolution, and the House 98-0.
The single dissenting vote came from Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover, the Legislature’s first openly gay member.
As Helms’ family listened from seats in the legislative galleries overhead, lawmakers of both parties praised Helms for qualities ranging from his legendary constituent service to his advocacy for traditional values in turbulent times.
“He stepped forward when this country needed an anchor,” said Rep. Pearl Burris-Floyd, R-Gaston, the Legislature’s only black Republican.
Sen. Dan Blue, D-Wake, voted to honor Helms despite being “diametrically opposed” to the GOP icon on nearly every political issue.
“It’s about the people he represented. Once he’s gone and he’s dead, it stops being about Jesse Helms,” said Blue, who became the first black speaker of the state House in 1991 and ran unsuccessfully in 2002 for the Democratic nomination to contend for the U.S. Senate seat Helms vacated.
Back when I was a tobacco smoker, a dear friend of mine asked me, “Do you know what the tobacco companies do with your hard-earned gay money? They turn around and give it to Jesse Helms for his re-election campaigns.” He went on to say, “So think about it next time you light up–smoking a cigarette is like sucking Jesse Helms’ dick.”
Needless to say, I no longer smoke tobacco.
I live in North Carolina and grew up having to hear and see this man’s divisive actions and hateful speeches. There are many people like me in North Carolina that are appalled that they are honoring this man. Yet there are people in NC that think this man was an awesome righteous man. This just goes to show that we still have a long way to go.
Jere, this argument against term limits resonated for me: a constant flux of newbies would be inordinately dependant on those in government jobs who “know the ropes.” And there are no term limits on these people, who would end up running the country without benefit of being voted into office to do so. I see this in action in our city government more than not now. The rats are running the sinking ship.
Kudos for Julia Boseman and sssssssssss for those Democrats who “sat out the vote.”
Good for Julia Boseman… She was the only person who was willing to cast a vote against honoring this hateful bigot. It is unfortunate the other opponents were too afraid to stand up and vote their conscience.
>to avoid kicking the gay post mortem,
…kicking the “guy” post mortem.
Interesting typo.
I could understand the decision to sit this one out rather than to vote no. The thing that complicates the story is that, in addition to all the nasty stuff being very true, he also became an ally to increased AIDS spending and prevention. (Remember Bono meeting with him and getting him on board?)
So, you kind of want to avoid kicking the gay post mortem, because he successfully pulled a “Chaucer’s retraction” at the end of his life. At the same time, you don’t want to honor what he did with *most* of his life leading up to his conversion to having a human heart.
Sitting out the vote seems to be the right thing to do, IMO.
This ex-religious fuk, jesse helms, is a movie-of-the-week, a charlatan, a sloth republiCON and a seething racial hypocritical bigot of the God condemned south, at best. I spit, urinate and stoop over it’s carnage grave to dump a load of steaming diarrhea feces to anoint it’s satanic coffin lying deep in the worm and roach-filled soil !!!
It’s legacy is one of corruption, hate, prejudice and typical deep-south bigotry, that would make a maggot vomit. I vaguely remember this southern bastard tyrant as an ass hole and a dog turd, that has dried to a dusty white in the deep woods of the Smoky Mountains. This sorry chunk of crap is best forgotten; that is, if we can get rid of the stench it left behind !!!
I scrape the dead jesse helms off my shoes, like a stuck piece of toilet paper from the feces splattered floor of a stagnant abandoned out house. Goodbye and good riddance to NOTHING,…… in my opinion.
It’s rather brave of Senator Boseman to be the loan dissenting vote, sitting out and not being on record just seems cowardly to me vs. being in the chamber and speaking about helms record.
I have a symbol of my sentiment towards Jesse Helm, and I just flushed some down the toilet.
What’s next, a resolution to honor Hitler?
Dan Blue should be ejected from the Democractic Party. Rather than honored, Helms should have been condemned as a profoundly evil man.
Anti-civil rights, antigay, champion of nasty, stinking tobacco, what on earth did that man do that was of any good worth to North Carolina and to America as a whole?
I thought this was an honor being given to the best Grand Wizard of the KKK!
I just assumed this because it was being bestowed in N.C., sorry my mistake.
A shame I wasn’t there to speak. I would have loudly proclaimed him to be the white trash he was – and voted ‘NO’ on any legislation ‘honoring’ such a complete waste of space and resources.
The actions of Helms and the people now voting for this resolution are the reason that there should be congressional term limits in the constitution.