TRENT LOTT - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 02/27/1995 - HFSID 266001

TRENT LOTT. TLS: "Trent", 1p, 6¼x8½. United States Senate, Washington, D.C., 1995 February 27. On his personal Senate stationery. In full: "Dear Pat: Thank you for your letter and the Michael Barone article regarding your 'What about Mississippi?' question. I appreciate your comments and am glad that you recognize the positive economic and social environment which exists in Mississippi today. Can I also take your letter as an indication of your unequivocal support for block grants?" MOYNIHAN was against block grants. When the issue came to vote in 1996, Senator Moynihan voted against replacement of federal welfare guarantee with block grants to the states and for eliminating block grants for food stamps, leaving it as a federal program. After Senator Moynihan died, political writer MICHAEL BARONE wrote: "He was the best thinker among politicians since Lincoln, the best politician among thinkers since Jefferson." TRENT LOTT has represented Mississippi in the House (1973-1989) and Senate (since 1989), serving as House Minority Whip, Senate Whip and Senate Minority and Majority Leader. He was a member of the House Judiciary Committee that voted in 1974 to send three articles of impeachment of President Nixon to the full House and, as Senator, voted guilty on both articles of impeachment of President Clinton in 1999. On December 5, 2002, during a 100th birthday celebration for South Carolina Senator Thurmond, then-Senate Minority Leader Lott said, in part: "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Then-Democrat Thurmond ran as the presidential nominee of the breakaway Dixiecrat Party in the 1948 presidential race against Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Thomas Dewey. Thurmond's party ran on the platform, "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race." Lott apologized for his remark, but public pressure forced him not to seek the post of Senate Majority Leader when Republicans regained control of the Senate in January.