Winning While Losing: Civil Rights, The Conservative Movement and the Presidency from Nixon to Obama

5. Civil Rights Policymaking in the Clinton Administration: In Reagan’s Shadow

5 CIVIL RIGHTS POLICYMAKING IN THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION In Reagan’s Shadow Robert C. Smith Bill Clinton was elected, and to some extent governed, in the shadows of Ronald Reagan. Reagan was a “reconstructive” president. That is, like FDR, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Jackson, he brought an end to one “political time” and started a new one that changed the terms or conditions of electoral competition and political debate. This paper examines the impact of Reagan’s reconstructive presidency on the Clinton administration ’s civil rights policymaking. Specifically, I compare the policies of Reagan and Clinton on two fronts: affirmative action and welfare reform . In each of these policy areas Clinton’s initiatives consolidated and legitimated the Reagan revolution and extended its time. This comparative assessment of the two presidencies demonstrates in all its complexities and contradictions the volume’s theme of winning while losing in the post–civil rights era. Reagan’s Reconstructive Presidency In his innovative study, The Politics Presidents Make, Stephen Skrowronek identifies Reagan as one of the most transformative American presidents. When Skrowronek identifies Reagan as a great president, however, he is not playing some presidential rating game. Rather, he· 153 · 154 · Robert C. Smith is locating presidents in “political time,” that is, not in relationship to their individual achievements per se but rather in relationship to previously established governing regimes. According to Skrowronek, Reagan is a reconstructive president because he repudiated an old regime and inaugurated a new one. By contrast, LBJ is a mere “articulator” since his landmark accomplishments (Medicare, civil rights, environmental regulations , and aid to education and the arts) simply continued the work of FDR’s reconstructive presidency.1 Reagan’s reconstructive presidency, however, lacked a generation-defining policy and its principal success was repudiating New Deal liberalism .2 He successfully discredited liberalism, arguing that it was inconsistent with the nation’s founding principles and values. Reagan’s greatness as a leader is, therefore, negative and lies not in what he accomplished but in what he prevented. In other words, he closed off the opportunities for further liberal, activist government. Reagan accomplished this because “like no other politician since Franklin Roosevelt he made very good use of language and sentiments to tap into the wellspring of traditional beliefs and values which were associated with an old fashioned patriotism , on the one hand, a commitment to free markets and individual opportunity, on the other.”3 In doing this Reagan became the “Roosevelt of the right.”4 This was a historic accomplishment for sure, but it was more symbolic than substantive. Despite the potency of symbolism, Skrowronek argues that Reagan’s policy accomplishments were far from great or reconstructive . Putting aside his contested role in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War,5 Skrowronek concludes that in general the “Reagan revolution was a single shot affair,” largely the adoption in its first year of huge tax cuts and a massive increase in military expenditures.6 The result of these policies was huge deficits and debt—a deficit trap—perhaps intentionally created to “starve the beast,” the federal government.7 In general, then, Reagan’s major “reconstructive” accomplishment was delegitimizing liberalism, turning it by the time he left office into the dreaded “L” word to be avoided by politicians with presidential ambitions.8 Related to this delegitimization of liberalism was the reinforcement in the political culture of skepticism toward the role of government—especially the federal government—as an agent of positive change. And, finally, related to both, Reagan turned taxes into the Civil Rights Policymaking in the Clinton Administration: In Reagan’s Shadow · 155 dreaded “T” word to be avoided as well by politicians with national ambitions . Thus, in Reagan’s reconstruction, taxes became not the price of civilization but nutrients for the beast of a wasteful welfare state. Reagan’s delegitimization of liberalism specifically relied on undermining the victories and framework of the civil rights movement. Throughout his career Reagan opposed all civil rights legislation, contending that such legislation infringed on either the rights of the states or the rights of individuals. And while he was hostile to the welfare state in general, he reserved his most venomous rhetoric for those parts of it designed for or disproportionately serving the needs of the poor and African Americans. Thus, he repeatedly attacked the “failed” Great Society programs of the 1960s, that is, affirmative action and...