Press Releases
Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami
202-226-7616
05/21/2008
Pelosi:‘For His Living Legacy of Expanding Opportunity and Hope, We Pause Today to Honor Lyndon Baines Johnson’
Washington, D.C. - Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered remarks today during a luncheon in the Capitol on Lyndon Baines Johnson Day, held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Johnson’s birth. Below are the Speaker’s remarks:
“As Speaker of the House, I am honored to welcome Linda Johnson Robb and Lucie Baines Johnson back to the Capitol as we celebrate the legacy of their father, President Lyndon Baines Johnson. As children, they used to run around these halls, they tell me. And go see Uncle Sam [Rayburn] down in the Speaker’s office. So this is familiar territory to them.
“This is a great celebration for our Capitol, because a giant served here and led in this Capitol. I was telling Lucie and Linda that my father served with Lyndon Johnson as Congressmen in the House of Representatives, and served under President Johnson in the Johnson Administration. I feel very proud to be associated with this celebration today for personal and official reasons. I’m pleased to join Leader Reid and Leader McConnell in extending hospitality to you in the Capitol.
“One of the stories I want to tell you that connects to Lyndon Baines Johnson is that when Abraham Lincoln made his second inaugural address, it took place at a time when it was raining and storming in Washington, D.C. for a couple of days before the inauguration took place.
“But that did not deter the newest free people from coming to that inauguration. The newly freed people, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, came in their Sunday finest for their first inauguration as free people. And I often think that their ghosts are still here.
“And I think how proud they would be of our many chairmen of committees in the House and Senate side who followed in their footsteps. But there was an important threshold that had to be crossed before their hopes and aspirations could be realized—the passage of the Civil Rights Act. That would not have been possible without President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
“The dream of those people here many years ago is now a reality, and a source of great pride to all of us who serve in the Congress. Simply put, they would not have even been here, much less have been the chairmen of the committees, with Lyndon Baines Johnson. We would not have the legitimacy of our electoral process without the fullest of participation of the American people that is fundamental to our democracy.
“And so our debt to Lyndon Baines Johnson is as fundamental as our democracy. We thank his family for sharing him with us.
“He did serve in the House of Representatives. As a New Deal Congressman, he fought for rural electrification, which transformed small town America and brought comfort and commerce to people and to their community.
“As Senate Majority Leader, he was a master at work, helping to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1957—which was essential to set the path for what would follow—the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction and many other critical laws.
“But nothing would compare to his impact as President. His vision of the ‘Great Society’ transformed Americans’ way of life. The Great Society was not an ethereal hope for the future or a past we have left behind. It is the America we enjoy in 2008.
“When seniors have affordable health care through Medicare; when children attend quality public schools—thanks to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965—or when college students receive financial aid—thanks to the Higher Education Act of 1965 as well; when all of our people enjoy the full rights of citizenship, including the right to vote—thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and when Americans enjoy our nation’s natural beauty, which he and Lady Bird Johnson worked to protect.
“When he announced his vision for the Great Society, President Johnson told the crowd assembled at the University of Michigan: ‘We have the power to shape the civilization that we want.’
“What a truly American statement, and certainly one befitting a proud Texan.
“For his living legacy of expanding opportunity and hope, we pause today to honor Lyndon Baines Johnson and thank him for his service to our nation. May God bless his family wonderful family. God certainly did bless America with the life and leadership of Lyndon Baines Johnson.”