LCCR Honors Civil Rights Champions: Senator Tom Daschle
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 4/20/2005
This article is the last in a series about 2005's Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award honorees.Senator Tom Daschle, whose political career spanned more than 25 years, will be honored by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) at this year's Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award Dinner on May 4, 2005.
The Civil Rights Award honors the legacy of former United States vice president, senator, and civil rights pioneer Hubert H. Humphrey, whose years of public service, leadership, and dedication to equal opportunity changed the face of America.
Daschle, a Democrat, was elected to Congress in 1978 from South Dakota, a largely Republican state. He was elected to the Senate in 1986, where he quickly rose through the ranks of leadership. In 1994, he was elected Democratic Leader, become second only to Lyndon Johnson in fewest number of years served before being elected to lead his party.
Senator Jim Jeffords' announcement in June 2001 that he was leaving the Republican Party to become an independent and would caucus with the Democrats propelled Daschle in the Majority Leader role. Democratic losses in 2002 returned the party to the minority in the Senate in January 2003, and Daschle reverted to being Minority Leader once again.
"My dream in coming to the Senate was to be an offensive quarterback," Daschle told The N.Y. Times in a December 2004 interview following his narrow defeat for re-election, "and for the most part, I've been a defensive lineman. It's been stopping bad things from happening."
Even so, Daschle was able to build coalitions in support of affirmative action, election reform, education programs, immigrants' rights, expanded health care, and national action in favor of anti-hate crime legislation. He was also a strong advocate for legislation protecting the rights of American Indians.
Involved in politics or public service nearly his entire life, Daschle, while a student at South Dakota State University, helped organize a mock political convention, using the 1968 Democratic National Convention as a model. After serving three years as an intelligence officer in the U.S Air Force Strategic Air Command, he served as an aide to South Dakota Senator James Abourezk, before running for Congress himself.
As he transitions into private life, Daschle would like to continue to advocate for the "issues he cares about, including the concerns of American Indians, health care, and the global AIDS crisis," he told The N.Y. Times.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Award is considered to be the civil rights community's highest honor. The more than 180 national organizations that make up LCCR represent people of color, women, children, older Americans, people with disabilities, gays and lesbians, labor unions, major religious groups, and civil liberties and human rights groups.
