Editing Great Society (section)

==The two sessions of the Eighty-Ninth Congress==
The political realignment allowed House leaders to alter rules that had allowed [[Southern Democrats]] to kill New Frontier and civil rights legislation in committee, which aided efforts to pass Great Society legislation. In 1965, the first session of the Eighty-Ninth Congress created the core of the Great Society. It began by enacting long-stalled legislation such as Medicare and federal aid to education and then moved into other areas, including high-speed mass transit, rental supplements, truth in packaging, environmental safety legislation, new provisions for mental health facilities, the [[Teacher Corps]], manpower training, the [[Head Start (program)|Head Start]] program, aid to urban mass transit, a demonstration cities program, a housing act that included rental subsidies, and an act for higher education.<ref name="autogenerated1"/> The Johnson Administration submitted 87 bills to Congress, and Johnson signed 84, or 96%, arguably the most successful legislative agenda in US congressional history.<ref name="unger104">{{cite book |last1=Unger |first1=Irwin |authorlink1=Irwin Unger |title=The Best of Intentions: The Triumphs and Failures of the Great Society Under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon |date=1996 |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=978-0-385-46833-6 |page=104 }}</ref>