Why was Lyndon B. Johnson so effective as president when it came to passing legislation?
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963. Johnson, a Democrat, succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, completed Kennedy’s term and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large margin in the 1964 Presidential election. Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party and, as President, was responsible for designing the “Great Society” legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education, and his attempt to help the poor in his “War on Poverty.” Simultaneously, he greatly escalated direct American involvement in the Vietnam War. Johnson served as a United States Representative from Texas, from 1937–1949 and as United States Senator (as his grandfather[1] foretold when LBJ was just an infant) fr
Lyndon B Johnson: The uncivil rights reformer 36th president – 1963-1969 By Lisa Jardine Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of many contradictions. Personally rude, overbearing and at times politically unscrupulous, he was nevertheless capable of immense personal charm, particularly when he was lobbying and brokering backstage in the Washington corridors of power. A fiercely proud Texan, who in the course of his rise to power openly backed reactionary and retrograde legislation on race, union labour and protectionism, he was eventually responsible for establishing some of the most important cornerstones of liberal American legislation, the most significant of which was groundbreaking anti-poverty and civil rights legislation, whose effects can still be felt in the United States today. I was a student at Cambridge during the years of Johnson’s presidency. Many people probably only remember him for being the second American president of the 20th-century to have been precipitated into office
