Republican/Southern Democrat Coalition
In Congress, Waggonner often supported a Republican-Southern Democratic coalition on various issues, later known as the "Boll Weevils". He was fiscally conservative and opposed many federal social programs as well as civil rights legislation in 1964, 1965 and 1968. He took a "hawkish" position on the Vietnam War.
Waggonner was personally and politically close to President Nixon and opposed Nixon's impeachment over Watergate-related matters. While leading southern conservatives in the U.S. House, he wielded power with Nixon that was often reserved for the Speaker or a key committee chairman. He was an influential member of the House Ways and Means Committee and a key player the Republican president needed to get legislation passed in the House. Waggonner later revealed that he also had close contacts with Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, neither of whom were particularly popular in the 4th District.
Read more about this topic: Joe Waggonner
Famous quotes containing the words republican, southern and/or democrat:
“The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature—a type nowhere at present existing.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
“Come on, untie me or I’m gonna call your parents.”
—Terry Southern (b. 1924)
“The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative is an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe, and gone to seed,—because both parties stand on the one ground of the supreme value of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)