McConnell.”But the particular way in which McConnell has always conceived of his own historicity is significant and unusual among contemporary Republicans. “He treated everyone alike, without regard to politics or seniority,” Ted Stevens, the Republican senator from Alaska, once said. A moderate-to-liberal Republican, Cooper was then helping round up Republican votes for what would become the Civil Rights Act. McConnell, who supported civil rights as a college student, has spoken reverently of attending the signing ceremony for the Voting Rights Act in the Capitol Rotunda, at Cooper’s invitation, the following year. “I greatly admired Mansfield,” McConnell told me.

Source: New York Times January 22, 2019 10:00 UTC