Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield was on his feet, waiting. Into the Senate and down the aisle came a clerk of the House of Representatives, carrying the House-approved civil rights bill.
"Mr. President," said Mansfield, "I request that House bill 7152 be read the first time." The Senate clerk read the bill's title. "Mr. President," said Mansfield, "I object to the second reading of the bill today." Those two sentences were part of an elaborate parliamentary maneuver aimed at bypassing the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Mississippi's James Eastland, who could...
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