Printed Page 854 Chapter Chronology

Gridlock in Government. The son of a wealthy New England senator, George Herbert Walker Bush fought in World War II, served in Congress during the 1960s, and headed the CIA during the Nixon and Ford years. When Ronald Reagan tapped him for second place on the Republican ticket in 1980, Bush adjusted his more moderate positions to fit Reagan's conservative agenda. At the end of Reagan's second term, Republicans rewarded him with the presidential nomination.

Several candidates competed for the Democratic nomination in 1988. The civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson — whose Rainbow Coalition campaign centered on the needs of minorities, women, the working class, and the poor — made an impressive bid, winning several primaries and seven million votes. But the centrist candidate, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, won the nomination. On election day, Bush won 54 percent of the vote, but the Democrats gained seats in Congress.

President Bush promised "a kinder, gentler nation" and was more inclined than Reagan to approve government activity in the private sphere. For example, Bush approved the Clean Air Act of 1990, the strongest, most comprehensive environmental law in history.

Some forty million Americans benefited when Bush signed another regulatory measure in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act, banning discrimination and requiring that private businesses and public facilities be accessible to people with disabilities. Disability advocate Cynthia Jones, feeling a breeze stirring over the White House lawn at the signing ceremony, said, "It was kind of like a new breath of air was sweeping across America. ...People knew they had rights. That was wonderful." Yet Bush also needed to satisfy party conservatives to whom he had pledged, "Read my lips: No new taxes." Bush vetoed thirty-six bills, including those extending unemployment benefits, raising taxes, and mandating family and medical leave for workers. Press reports increasingly used the words stalemate, gridlock, and divided government.

Continuing a trend begun during the Reagan years, some states compensated for this paralysis with their own innovations. States passed bills to establish parental leave policies, improve food labeling, and protect the environment. Dozens of cities passed ordinances requiring businesses receiving tax abatements or other city benefits to pay wages well above the federal minimum wage. And in 1999, California passed a much tougher gun control bill than reformers had been able to get through Congress.

The huge federal budget deficit inherited from the Reagan administration impelled Bush in 1990 to abandon his "no new taxes" pledge, outraging conservatives. The new law modestly raised taxes on high-income Americans and increased levies on gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, and luxury items, while leaving intact most of Reagan's massive tax reductions. Neither the new revenues nor controls on spending curbed the deficit, which was boosted by rising costs for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and natural disasters.

Like Reagan, Bush created a more conservative Supreme Court. His first nominee was a moderate, but in 1991, when the only African American on the Court, Justice Thurgood Marshall, retired, Bush set off a national controversy by nominating Clarence Thomas, a conservative black appeals court judge who had opposed affirmative action as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Reagan. Charging that Thomas would not protect minority rights, civil rights groups and other liberal organizations fought the nomination. Then Anita Hill, a black law professor and former EEOC employee, accused Thomas of sexual harassment. Thomas angrily denied the charges, and Hill's testimony failed to sway the Senate, which voted narrowly to confirm Thomas. The hearings angered many women, who noted that only two women sat in the Senate. They denounced the male senators for not taking sexual harassment seriously.