Editing Trent Lott (section)

==Political career==

===House of Representatives===
[[File:Nixon Contact Sheet WHPO-E1454 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|Lott with [[President of the United States|President]] [[Richard Nixon]] in 1973]] 
[[File:Ronald Reagan and Trent Lott.jpg|thumb|left|Lott with [[President of the United States|President]] [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1982]] 
Lott served as administrative assistant to [[U.S. House Committee on Rules|House Rules Committee]] chairman [[William M. Colmer]], also of [[Pascagoula, Mississippi|Pascagoula]], from 1968 to 1972.

In 1972, Colmer, one of the most [[conservative Democrat]]s in the House, announced his retirement after 40 years in Congress. He endorsed Lott as his successor in Mississippi's [[Mississippi's 5th congressional district|5th District]], located in the state's southern tip, even though Lott ran as a Republican. Lott won handily, in large part due to [[Richard Nixon]]'s landslide victory in [[1972 United States presidential election|that year's presidential election]]. Nixon won the 5th district with an astonishing 87 percent of the vote; it was his strongest congressional district in the entire nation.<ref>Barone, Michael; et al. ''The Almanac of American Politics'' (1976), p. 465.</ref>

Lott and his future Senate colleague, [[Thad Cochran]] (also elected to Congress that year), were only the second and third Republicans elected to Congress from Mississippi since [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] ([[Prentiss Walker]] was the first in 1964). Lott's strong showing in the polls landed him on the powerful [[United States House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]] as a freshman, where he voted against all three articles of impeachment drawn up against Nixon during the committee's debate. After Nixon released the infamous "smoking gun" transcripts (which proved Nixon's involvement in the [[Watergate]] cover-up), however, Lott announced that he would vote to impeach Nixon when the articles came up for debate before the full House (as did the other Republicans who voted against impeachment in committee).

Lott became very popular in his district, even though almost none of its living residents had been represented by a Republican before. As evidence, in November 1974, Lott won a second term in a blowout. Cochran was also reelected in a rout; he and Lott were the first Republicans to win a second term in Congress from the state since Reconstruction. They were among the few bright spots in a year that saw many Republicans turned out of office due to anger over Watergate. Lott was re-elected six more times without much difficulty, and even ran unopposed in 1978. However, conservative Democrats continued to hold most of the region's seats in the state legislature, as well as most local offices, well into the 2000s.

In [[1980 United States presidential election|1980]], he served as [[Ronald Reagan]]'s Mississippi state chairman.<ref>Kornacki, Steve (February 3, 2011) [http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/03/reagan_southern_strategy/index.html The "Southern Strategy", fulfilled] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110413151441/http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/03/reagan_southern_strategy/index.html |date=April 13, 2011 }}, ''[[Salon.com]]''</ref> He served as [[Party whips of the United States House of Representatives|House Minority Whip]] (the second-ranking Republican in the House) from 1981 to 1989; he was the first Southern Republican to hold such a high leadership position.

===United States Senate===
[[File:George W. Bush in the Oval Office 2001 west door opened.jpg|thumb|left|Lott with [[President of the United States|President]] [[George W. Bush]] in 2001]] 
[[File:Gingrich and Lott.jpg|thumb|right|Sen. Trent Lott with former [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker of the House]] [[Newt Gingrich]] (R-GA) at the [[2004 Republican National Convention]]; both Lott and Gingrich provided consistent support to President [[George W. Bush]]]]
Lott ran for the Senate in 1988, after 42-year incumbent [[John Stennis]] announced he would not run for another term. He defeated Democratic [[Mississippi's 4th congressional district|4th District]] Congressman [[Wayne Dowdy]] by almost eight points. Lott won by running up a 70 percent margin in his congressional district, and was also helped by [[George H. W. Bush]] easily carrying the state in the presidential election. He never faced another contest nearly that close. He was re-elected in 1994, 2000, and 2006 with no substantive Democratic opposition. He gave some thought to retirement for much of 2005, however, after [[Hurricane Katrina]], he announced on January 17, 2006, that he would run for a fourth term.

In 1989, on the 25th anniversary of the [[Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|murder of the civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner]], Lott and the rest of the Mississippi congressional delegation refused to vote for the non-binding resolution honoring the three men which nevertheless passed the Congress.<ref name="Ladd">{{cite news |last=Ladd |first=Donna |title=Dredging Up the Past: Why Mississippians Must Tell Our Own Stories |newspaper=Jackson Free Press |date=29 May 2007 |url=http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2007/may/30/dredging-up-the-past-why-mississippians-must-tell/ |access-date=15 October 2011}}</ref>

He became [[Assistant party leaders of the United States Senate|Senate Majority Whip]] when the Republicans took control of the Senate in 1995. In June 1996, he ran for the post of [[Party leaders of the United States Senate|Senate Majority Leader]] to succeed Republican [[Bob Dole]], who had resigned from the Senate to concentrate on [[1996 United States presidential election|his presidential campaign]]. Lott faced his Mississippi colleague [[Thad Cochran]], the then-[[Republican Conference Chairman of the United States Senate|Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference]]. Cochran cast himself as an "institutionalist" and who would help to rebuild public trust in Congress through compromise over conflict. Lott promised a "more aggressive" style of leadership and courted the younger Senate conservatives. Lott won by 44 votes to 8.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.rollcall.com/hawkings/thad-cochran-primary-history-chris-mcdaniel-mississippi |title=What Cochran Vs. Lott Said About Today's GOP Civil War |date=June 8, 2014 |access-date=July 23, 2014 |publisher=Roll Call |author=David Hawkings |archive-date=August 10, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140810053550/http://blogs.rollcall.com/hawkings/thad-cochran-primary-history-chris-mcdaniel-mississippi/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> As majority leader, Lott had a major role in the Senate trial following the [[impeachment of Bill Clinton|impeachment]] of President [[Bill Clinton]]. After the House narrowly voted to impeach Clinton, Lott proceeded with the Senate trial in early 1999, despite criticisms that Republicans were far short of the two-thirds majority required under the [[United States Constitution|Constitution]] to convict Clinton and remove him from office.

Lott generally pursued a conservative position in politics and was a noted [[social conservative]]. For instance, in 1998, Lott caused some controversy in Congress when as a guest on the [[Armstrong Williams]] television show, he equated [[homosexuality]] with [[alcoholism]], [[kleptomania]] and [[sex addiction]]. When Williams, a conservative talk show host, asked Lott whether homosexuality is a [[sin]], Lott simply replied, "Yes, it is."<ref name="mitchell">{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E03EFDC133DF934A25755C0A96E958260 |work=[[The New York Times]] |title=Controversy Over Lott's Views of Homosexuals |first=Alison |last=Mitchell |date=June 17, 1998 |access-date=February 1, 2008 }}</ref> Lott's stance against homosexuality was disconcerting to [[Modern liberalism in the United States|liberal]] [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] elected officials and the [[Human Rights Campaign Fund]], an advocacy group for gay rights.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/17/us/controversy-over-lott-s-views-of-homosexuals.html|title=Controversy Over Lott's Views of Homosexuals|first=Alison|last=Mitchell|newspaper=The New York Times|date=June 17, 1998 }}</ref>

According to the [[Anti-Defamation League]], Lott was a frequent speaker at the [[white supremacist]] group [[Council of Conservative Citizens]].<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/CCCitizens.asp?xpicked=3&item=12| title = Council of Conservative Citizens -- Extremism in America| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080521030435/http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/CCCitizens.asp?xpicked=3&item=12| archive-date = May 21, 2008}}</ref> Although he denied knowing of the group's intentions,<ref>{{cite news |title=The political success of the Council of Conservative Citizens, explained |date=2015-06-22 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221230222606/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/22/the-odd-political-success-of-the-white-supremacist-council-of-conservative-citizens-explained/ |archive-date=December 30, 2022 |url-status=live |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/22/the-odd-political-success-of-the-white-supremacist-council-of-conservative-citizens-explained/ |access-date=August 8, 2018 }}</ref> it was later revealed members of his family had CCC membership.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/march99/lott29.htm The Washington Post]</ref>

After the [[United States Senate election, 2000|2000 elections]] produced a 50–50 partisan split in the Senate, [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] [[Al Gore]]'s tie-breaking vote gave the Democrats the majority from January 3 to 20, 2001, when [[George W. Bush]] took office and Vice President [[Dick Cheney]]'s tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the majority once again. Later in 2001, he became [[Party leaders of the United States Senate|Senate Minority Leader]] again after Vermont senator [[Jim Jeffords]] became an independent and caucused with the Democrats, allowing them to regain the majority. He was due to become majority leader again in early 2003 after Republican [[United States Senate election, 2002|gains in the November 2002 elections]].

====Resignation from Senate leadership====
Lott spoke on December 5, 2002, at the 100th birthday party of Senator [[Strom Thurmond]] of South Carolina, a retiring Republican senator who had switched parties from the Democrats decades earlier. Thurmond had run for [[President of the United States]] in 1948 on the [[Dixiecrat]] (or States' Rights Democratic) ticket. Lott said: "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."<ref name=wapo2>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/12/11/lott-remarks-on-thurmond-echoed-1980-words/c613ae1c-e17d-41c1-836a-4dd0741ec7c8/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |title=Lott Remarks on Thurmond Echoed 1980 Words |first1=Thomas B. |last1=Edsall |first2=Brian |last2=Faler |date=December 11, 2002 |access-date=May 26, 2010}}</ref>

As a senator and presidential candidate, Thurmond maintained an explicit [[States' Rights]] platform that challenged the [[Civil Rights Movement]] and later, the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964|Civil Rights Act]] as illegally overturning the [[separation of powers under the United States Constitution]] and called for the preservation of [[Racial segregation in the United States|racial segregation]]. ''[[The Washington Post]]'' reported that Lott had made similar comments about Thurmond's candidacy in a 1980 rally.<ref name=wapo2 /> Lott gave an interview to [[Black Entertainment Television|BET]] explaining himself and repudiating Thurmond's former views.<ref name=cnnbet>[http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/lott.transcript/index.html Transcript of Lott interview on BET], December 13, 2002</ref>

In the wake of the controversy, Lott resigned as Senate Republican Leader on December 20, 2002, effective at the start of the next session, January 3, 2003. [[Bill Frist]] of [[Tennessee]] was later elected to the leadership position. In the book ''[[Free Culture (book)|Free Culture]]'', [[Lawrence Lessig]] argues that Lott's resignation would not have occurred had it not been for the effect of Internet [[blog]]s. He says that though the story "disappear[ed] from the mainstream press within forty-eight hours", "bloggers kept researching the story" until, "finally, the story broke back into the mainstream press."<ref name="lessig">{{cite book |last=Lessig |first=Lawrence |title=Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity |year=2004 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-59420-006-9 }}</ref> ''The New York Times'', however, attributed his resignation to "ruthless maneuvering" by [[Karl Rove]] and George W. Bush to depose Lott, "a threat to the president’s agenda", and replace him with Frist, who had "long been the president's choice."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Bumiller|first=Elisabeth|date=2002-12-21|title=DIVISIVE WORDS: BEHIND THE SCENES; With Signals and Maneuvers, Bush Orchestrates an Ouster|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/21/us/divisive-words-behind-scenes-with-signals-maneuvers-bush-orchestrates-ouster.html|access-date=2022-01-14|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

[[File:Lott Portrait.jpg|thumb|175px|Lott's official Senate portrait]]
After losing the Majority Leader post, Lott was less visible on the national scene, although he did break with some standard [[Conservatism in the United States|conservative]] positions. He battled with Bush over military base closures in his home state. He showed support for passenger rail initiatives, notably his 2006 bipartisan introduction, with Sen. [[Frank Lautenberg]] of [[New Jersey]], of legislation to provide 80 percent federal matching grants to intercity rail and guarantee adequate funding for [[Amtrak]].<ref name="ranting">{{cite news |url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/30/ING4PIGEQC1.DTL |title=Ranting about rail |work=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] |date=April 30, 2006 |first=Tim |last=Holt |access-date=February 1, 2008 }}</ref> On July 18, 2006, Lott voted with 19 Republican senators for the [[Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act]] to lift restrictions on federal funding for the research. On November 15, 2006, Lott regained a leadership position in the Senate, when he was named Minority Whip after defeating [[Lamar Alexander]] of [[Tennessee]] 25–24.<ref name=rejoins>{{cite news |last=Babington |first=Charles |title=Lott Rejoins Senate Leadership |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/15/AR2006111500533.html |access-date=December 21, 2007 |date=November 16, 2006 |newspaper=[[Washington Post]]}}</ref>

Senator [[John E. Sununu]] (R) of [[New Hampshire]] said, after Lott's election as Senate Minority Whip, "He understands the rules. He's a strong negotiator." Former [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|House Speaker]] [[Newt Gingrich]] (R) said he's "the smartest legislative politician I've ever met."<ref name=revival>{{cite news |last=Calabresi |first=Massimo |title=The Revival of Trent Lott |date=November 19, 2006 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1561139,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061122235100/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1561139,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 22, 2006 |work=[[Time Magazine]] |access-date=March 25, 2007}}</ref>

==== 2006 re-election campaign ====
{{Main|2006 United States Senate election in Mississippi}}
Lott faced no Republican opposition in his primary race. State representative [[Erik R. Fleming]] placed first of four candidates in the June Democratic primary, but did not receive the 50 percent of the vote required to earn the party's nomination. Fleming and the second-place finisher, business consultant Bill Bowlin, faced off in a runoff on June 27, which Fleming won with 65% of the vote. Fleming criticized Lott for not doing enough to alleviate poverty in "the poorest state in the nation." Fleming's bid was viewed as a longshot, and Lott handily defeated him with 64% of the vote in November.<ref>{{cite news |date=28 June 2006 |title=Fleming gets nod to challenge Lott |url=https://www.vicksburgpost.com/2006/06/28/fleming-gets-nod-to-challenge-lott62806/ |access-date=5 January 2024 |work=[[The Vicksburg Post]] |publisher=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Federal Elections 2006: Election Results for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives |url=https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2006senate.pdf |access-date=5 January 2024 |website=FEC.gov}}</ref>

==== Resignation ====
On November 26, 2007, Lott announced that he would resign his Senate seat by the end of 2007.<ref name="msnbc-resign-11-26-2007">{{Cite web |date=2007-11-26 |title=Trent Lott announces his resignation |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna21973397 |access-date=2024-01-10 |website=NBC News |language=en}}</ref> According to [[CNN]], his resignation was at least partly due to the [[Honest Leadership and Open Government Act]], which forbade lawmakers from lobbying for two years after leaving office. Those who left by the end of 2007 were covered by the previous law, which he cosponsored and which required a wait of only one year.<ref name="cnnresignation">{{cite news |url=http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/26/lott.resign/index.html |title=Senate's No. 2 Republican to resign by end of year |date=November 26, 2007 |access-date=February 1, 2008 |work=[[CNN.com]]}}</ref> In an interview regarding his resignation, Lott said that the new law "didn't have a big role" in his decision to resign.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.democracynow.org/2007/11/29/is_trent_lott_leaving_senate_to|title=Is Trent Lott Leaving Senate To Dodge New Ethics Law on Lobbying?|website=[[Democracy Now!]]|access-date=March 26, 2019}}</ref>

Lott's resignation became effective at 11:30&nbsp;p.m. on December 18, 2007.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kapochunas |first=Rachel |date=December 19, 2007 |title=Lott Officially Resigns, All Eyes Now on Barbour |url=http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002646810 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090104042116/http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002646810 |archive-date=January 4, 2009 |access-date=July 1, 2009 |website=[[Congressional Quarterly]]}}</ref> On January 7, 2008, it was announced that Lott and former Senator [[John Breaux]] of [[Louisiana]], a Democrat, opened their lobbying firm about a block from the White House.<ref name="clarionledger" >{{cite news |title=Lott joins heavy lawmaker-to-lobbyist trend |first=Ana |last=Radelat |url=http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080108/NEWS/801080363/1001/NEWS |work=[[Clarion-Ledger]] |date=January 8, 2008}}</ref>