Mr. Mandela’s Coattails. The Mandela visit to Washington showed again why Democrats make such good politicians, and how the Republicans help them out. A plan was hatched by Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to force a procedural vote on the Kennedy-Hawkins civil-rights bill—a piece of legislation whose practical effect would be to mandate quotas—on the same day as the visit by Nelson Mandela. This would obviously have made it difficult for Republicans to vote against the bill.
Minority Leader Bob Dole squawked when he found out, but his cure is as bad as the disease. The night before the scheduled vote, he and Senator Mitchell reached a “unanimous consent” agreement that postponed it, but in exchange for giving the majority leader the sole right to call up the bill at any point after Congress’s return from its July 4 recess.
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