Read the record of Massachusetts' last Republican senator -- and weep

[nichomachus]

Edward W. Brooke

Brooke served as a U.S. senator for two terms, from January 3, 1967, to January 3, 1979. In 1967, he served on the President's Commission on Civil Disorders. He was a member of the liberal wing of the Republican Party and organized the Senate's "Wednesday Club" of progressive Republicans who met for Wednesday lunches and strategy discussions. Brooke, who had supported New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's bid for the 1968 GOP presidential nomination against Nixon's, often differed with President Richard Nixon on matters of social policy and civil rights.

By his second year in the Senate, Brooke had taken his place as a leading advocate against discrimination in housing and on behalf of affordable housing. With fellow Senate Banking Committee Member, Walter Mondale the Minnesota Democrat, he co-authored the 1968 Fair Housing Act which President Johnson signed into law on April 11, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Dissatisfied with the weakened enforcement provisions that emerged from the legislative process, Brooke repeatedly proposed stronger provisions during his Senate career. In 1969, Congress enacted the "Brooke Amendment" to the federal publicly assisted housing program which limited the tenants' out-of-pocket rent expenditure to 25 percent of his or her income. By the 1990s, the percentage had gradually increased, but the principle of limiting the housing 'burden' of very-low income renters survives in statute, as of 2008.

Richard M. Nixon (center), then a former Vice President of the United States, campaigns in Massachusetts in the 1966 mid-term elections for U.S. Senate nominee Edward Brooke (left) and Governor John A. Volpe.

During the Nixon years, Brooke opposed repeated Administration attempts to close down the Job Corps and the Office of Economic Opportunity and to weaken the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission--all foundational elements of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

In 1969, Brooke was a leader of the bipartisan coalition that defeated the Senate confirmation of the President's nominee to the Supreme Court, Clement Haynsworth. A few months later, he again organized sufficient Republican support to defeat Nixon's second Supreme Court nominee Harrold Carswell. Nixon then turned to Harry A. Blackmun, later the author of Roe v. Wade.

In 1970, the Senate adopted his resolution prohibiting tests of MIRV missiles.

Brooke was re-elected in 1972, defeating Democrat John J. Droney 62%-34%.

Before the first year of his second term ended, Brooke became the first Republican to call on President Nixon to resign, on November 4, 1973, shortly after the Watergate-related "Saturday night massacre". He had risen to become the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee and on two powerful Appropriations subcommittees, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Foreign Operations. From these positions, Brooke defended and strengthened the programs he identified with; for example, he was a leader in enactment of the Equal Credit Act which ensured married women the right to credit of their own.

Senator Edward Brooke meeting with President Lyndon Johnson in the Oval Office shortly after taking office in the Senate in 1967.
In 1974, with Indiana senator Birch Bayh, he led the fight to retain Title IX of the 1972 Education Act which guarantees equal educational opportunity to girls and women.

In 1975, with the extension and expansion of the Voting Rights Act at stake, Brooke faced senator John Stennis (D-Mississippi) in "extended debate" and won the Senate's support for the extension.

In 1976, he also took on the role of champion for a woman's right to an abortion. The Appropriations bill for HHS became the battleground over this issue because it funds Medicaid. The foes of abortion rights fought, eventually successfully, to prohibit funding for abortions of low-income women insured by Medicaid. Brooke led the fight against restrictions in the Senate Appropriations Committee and in the House-Senate Conference until his defeat.

In Massachusetts, Brooke's support among Catholics weakened, and during the 1978 re-election campaign, the state's bishops spoke in opposition to his leading role, in spite of the equally pro-choice position of his Democratic opponent. In addition, he was challenged in the Republican primary by a conservative talk show host, Avi Nelson. Most seriously, Brooke "confessed that he had made a false statement about his finances in his divorce deposition. The admission...erupted into a staccato of charges that ultimately cost him his Senate seat" to Paul Tsongas.<2></div>

And this was a Republican. I can't think of very many Democrats today who are this progressive -- and have this much courage.