Fond recollection of bipartisanship

With the recent debacle in Washington, we should remember the great bipartisanship of minority leadership of Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois and his Republican minority in the Senate in the middle '60s which enabled the passage of the great Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the passage of Medicare in 1966.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was bottled up in congress by the Southern democrats for many months. President Lyndon Johnson asked Senator Dirksen to provide Republican minority support to overcome the southern Democratic opposition to the bill and the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 became the law of the land. That act outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

In 1965 with the help of Republican Everett Dirksen, minority leader of the Senate, Medicare was passed by a Democratic Lyndon Johnson administration. This outstanding bipartisanship led by both parties enabled our country to move forward helping many people of all kinds to improve their lives with guaranteed civil rights and protection against destructive medical expenses in their older years.

We need more extraordinary politicians in Congress today to run our country such as Senator Everett Dirksen and President Lyndon Johnson.

Stewart E. Brekke

Downers Grove