# Everett Dirksen **Everett McKinley Dirksen** (1896–1969) was an Illinois Republican who served eight terms in the House (1933–1949) and then in the Senate from 1951 until his death, leading Senate Republicans from **1959 to 1969**. Famous for his florid speaking style (critics called him "the Wizard of Ooze"), he was a conservative on most issues and a hawk on Vietnam. He is remembered above all as the Republican whose votes made the great civil rights laws of the 1960s possible. ## Why he matters In the 1960s a civil rights bill could pass the Senate only if two-thirds of senators voted to end a southern filibuster, and that meant winning Republican votes. Dirksen controlled most of them. His decision to back cloture on the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]], and his compromise on fair housing in 1968, are why those laws exist. He is also a reminder of how differently the party once operated: a conservative, anti-communist Republican leader treated civil rights as a cause his party should own. ## Career Born in Pekin, Illinois, Dirksen won a House seat in 1932. In 1950 he unseated the Senate Democratic leader, Scott Lucas, with help from [[Joseph McCarthy]]. At the 1952 Republican convention he backed [[Robert Taft]] and attacked [[Thomas Dewey]] from the podium: "Don't take us down the path to defeat again." He became Republican whip in 1957 and leader in 1959. ## Civil rights - **1964.** Dirksen negotiated changes to the civil rights bill for weeks with its Democratic floor manager, [[Hubert Humphrey]], then delivered the Republican votes that ended the southern filibuster against it. In his June 10, 1964 cloture speech he quoted Victor Hugo: "Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come." - **1965.** He supported the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]]. - **1968.** When [[Walter Mondale]] and [[Edward Brooke]] could not break the filibuster against their fair housing amendment, Dirksen agreed in late February to a somewhat narrower compromise. The Senate broke the filibuster on March 4, and his version became the [[Fair Housing Act of 1968]]. He fought the Supreme Court's one-person, one-vote rulings, leading an unsuccessful campaign for a constitutional amendment to overturn [[Reynolds v. Sims]] so that states could apportion one legislative chamber by something other than population. He died in office on September 7, 1969. The Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington and the federal courthouse in Chicago are named for him. ## Connections - [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] - [[Fair Housing Act of 1968]] - [[Edward Brooke]] - [[Hubert Humphrey]] - [[Republican Party]]