re: #627 HappyWarrior

I’m one of the younger ones here but when y’all were growing up was the now fairly mainstream GOP/right wing idea about doing away with the direct election of senators common?

When I was a teenager, EVERYTHING was different about the parties.

Just for example — women’s issues. who was the party for women?

It was President Nixon who signed Title IX, Title X and affirmative action into law. He was sort of begrudgingly conditionally okay on abortion, but President Ford and his family were vehemently, publicly, loudly pro-choice. The only woman senator was Margaret Chase Smith of Maine — the first woman who’d ever been elected in her own name (not just a widow filling hub’s seat) and the first to push back against McCarthy. Reagan wasn’t hugely feminist, but he did put the first woman on the supreme court (Sandra Day O’Connor) and his wife had a lot more involvement in policy and authority over staff than previous first ladies had had.

The Democrats at that time — their view of women and treatment of women was personified by Ted Kennedy.