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Trent Lott on Principles & Values

Republican Jr Senator (MS)


Voted with Republican Party 88.2% of 304 votes.

Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), was scored by the Washington Post on the percentage of votes on which a lawmaker agrees with the position taken by a majority of his or her party members. The scores do not include missed votes. Their summary:
Voted with Republican Party 88.2% of 304 votes.
Overall, Democrats voted with their party 88.4% of the time, and Republicans voted with their party 81.7% of the time (votes Jan. 8 through Sept. 8, 2007).
Source: Washington Post, “US Congress Votes Database” Sep 8, 2007

Resigned as Senate Leader over 2002 toast to Strom Thurmond

Pascagoula, Mississippi, Dec. 20, 2002, the morning that would change my life irrevocably.

The ragtag army of press representatives had been there ever since the remarks I'd made about Sen. Strom Thurmond at an affair celebrating his 100th birthday.

The pundits had transformed those forty words into a racial furor ten days earlier. My innocent and thoughtless remark was treated by most of the media as a hanging offense.

The phones had rarely been still. During this morning alone, I'd taken calls of support from three key Republican senators; they all pledged to back whatever decision I made. There also were calls from other GOP senators, terrified that the spreading political brushfire might engulf the Senate as a whole.

After all my editing, the statement came down to one sentence: "In the interest of pursuing the best possible agenda for the future of our country, I will not seek to remain as majority leader of the US Senate for the 108th Congress effective Jan. 6, 2003."

Source: Herding Cats, by Trent Lott, p. 1-5 Aug 29, 2006

Resides on Mississippi Coast overlooking Gulf of Mexico

The winter sun turned the ripples on the Gulf of Mexico into that state of mottled silver so distinctive to the Mississippi coast. Even the Gulf itself was flat and glassy, a beautiful setting as the city around me plunged into the Christmas season. My house looks out over an expanse of grass and trees to the breakwater, and beyond that to the windswept Gulf Islands barely visible through the marine haze. From the back windows you can see a graceful neighborhood of distinctive homes meandering through the remains of a centuries-old grove of live oak trees, including some used to shelter horses during the Civil War.

Occasionally the pelicans dive into the Gulf, then soar from the surface with their catch.

Source: Herding Cats, by Trent Lott, p. 1 Aug 29, 2006

1996: Legislative alliance with Bill Clinton via Dick Morris

In 1996, Bill Clinton hired Dick Morris as his reelection campaign strategist. Morris's plan centered on two unlikely partners: me and Bill Clinton.

What Morris proposed was a highly unusual alliance between the president of the US and the majority leader of the opposing party, with himself serving as clandestine intermediary. It may have been unique in the history of American politics.

Morris wanted me to forge a working relationship with Bill Clinton to enact a series of landmark bills. Morris embraced my suggestions for major welfare reform, a balanced budget act, that would include Medicare cuts, and immigration reform.

After thinking it over, I agreed to Dick's unorthodox suggestion [even though it would hurt the GOP's presidential chances in 1996]. Why, you might ask? I've always had a great enthusiasm for making law--and I believe that was why my constituents sent me to the Senate in the first place.

Source: Herding Cats, by Trent Lott, p.130-131 Aug 29, 2006

Questioned timing of bombing Iraq during impeachment

From a political point of view, this was the worst possible time for a military response against Saddam. With the impeachment vote looming, any action could be challenged as an attempt to distract or delay Congress. On the other hand, if Bill put off air strikes on Iraq, he could accused of sacrificing national security to avoid political heat. On Dec. 16, Bill ordered air strikes.

An openly skeptical Republican leadership postponed the impeachment debate when the bombing started. Trent Lott publicly disputed the President's judgment. "Both the timing and the policy are subject to question," he said of the military action. Lott backpedaled when his statement was interpreted as in indication that partisan politics came before national security in this Congress.

The House leadership was determined to force a vote on impeachment in the lame duck session, before the Republican majority was reduced to 11 members in January, On Dec. 18, as bombs fell on Iraq, the impeachment debate began again.

Source: Living History, by Hillary Rodham Clinton, p.488-489 Nov 1, 2003

Employed Dick Morris while also working for Bill Clinton

Bill and I considered Dick Morris a creative pollster and a brilliant strategist, but he came with serious baggage. First of all, he had no compunction about working both sides of the aisle and all sides of an issue. Although he had helped Bill win five gubernatorial races, he also worked for conservative Republican Senators Trent Lott of Mississippi and Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

Morris's specialty was identifying the swing voters who see-sawed between the two parties. His advice was sometimes off-the-wall; you had to sift through it to extract the useful insights and ideas. And he had the people skills of a porcupine. Nonetheless, I thought Morris's analysis might be instructive, if we could involve him carefully and quietly. With his skeptical views about politics & people, Morris served as a counterweight to the ever optimistic Bill Clinton.

By 1991, Morris had picked up more Republican candidates, and nobody in the Democratic power structure liked or trusted him

Source: Living History, by Hillary Rodham Clinton, p.251 Nov 1, 2003

Voted YES on confirming Samuel Alito as Supreme Court Justice.

Vote on the Nomination -- a YES vote would to confirm Samuel A. Alito, Jr., of New Jersey, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Reference: Alito Nomination; Bill PN 1059 ; vote number 2006-002 on Jan 31, 2006

Voted YES on confirming John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Vote on the Nomination (Confirmation John G. Roberts, Jr., of Maryland, to be Chief Justice of the United States )
Reference: Supreme Court Nomination of John Roberts; Bill PN 801 ; vote number 2005-245 on Sep 27, 2005

Religious affiliation: Baptist.

Lott : religious affiliation:

The Adherents.com website is an independent project and is not supported by or affiliated with any organization (academic, religious, or otherwise).

What’s an adherent?

The most common definition used in broad compilations of statistical data is somebody who claims to belong to or worship in a religion. This is the self-identification method of determining who is an adherent of what religion, and it is the method used in most national surveys and polls.

Such factors as religious service attendance, belief, practice, familiarity with doctrine, belief in certain creeds, etc., may be important to sociologists, religious leaders, and others. But these are measures of religiosity and are usually not used academically to define a person’s membership in a particular religion. It is important to recognize there are various levels of adherence, or membership within religious traditions or religious bodies. There’s no single definition, and sources of adherent statistics do not always make it clear what definition they are using.

Source: Adherents.com web site 00-ADH1 on Nov 7, 2000

Rated 0% by the AU, indicating opposition to church-state separation.

Lott scores 0% by the AU on church-state separation

OnTheIssues.org interprets the 2006 AU scores as follows:

About the AU (from their website, www.au.org):

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. AU is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to preserving the constitutional principle of church-state separation as the only way to ensure religious freedom for all Americans.

Americans United is a national organization with members in all 50 states. We are headquartered in Washington, D.C., and led by the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director. AU has more than 75,000 members from all over the country. They include people from all walks of life and from various faith communities, as well as those who profess no particular faith. We are funded by donations from our members and others who support church-state separation. We do not seek, nor would we accept, government funding.

Source: AU website 06n-AU on Dec 31, 2006

Other candidates on Principles & Values: Trent Lott on other issues:
MS Gubernatorial:
Haley Barbour
MS Senatorial:
Roger Wicker
Thad Cochran

Newly elected in 2008 & seated in 2009:
AK:Begich (D)
CO:Udall (D)
ID:Risch (R)
MN:Franken (D)
NC:Hagan (D)
NE:Johanns (R)
NH:Shaheen (D)
NM:Udall (D)
OR:Merkley (D)
VA:Warner (D)

Newly appointed in 2009;
special election in 2010:

DE:Kaufman (D)
CO:Bennet (D)
IL:Burris (D)
NY:Gillibrand (D)

Announced retirement as of 2010:
DE:Kaufman (D)
FL:Martinez (R)
KS:Brownback (R)
MO:Bond (R)
OH:Voinovich (R)


Up for 6-year term in 2010:
(13 Democrats; 15 Republicans)
AK:Murkowski (R)
AL:Shelby (R)
AR:Lincoln (D)
AZ:McCain (R)
CA:Boxer (D)
CT:Dodd (D)
GA:Isakson (R)
HI:Inouye (D)
IA:Grassley (R)
ID:Crapo (R)
IN:Bayh (D)
KY:Bunning (R)
LA:Vitter (R)
MD:Mikulski (D)
NC:Burr (R)
ND:Dorgan (D)
NH:Gregg (R)
NV:Reid (D)
NY:Schumer (D)
OK:Coburn (R)
OR:Wyden (D)
PA:Specter (R)
SC:DeMint (R)
SD:Thune (R)
UT:Bennett (R)
VT:Leahy (D)
WA:Murray (D)
WI:Feingold (D)
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Page last updated: Nov 23, 2009