Posted on 03/23/2007 4:55:08 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
WASHINGTON — Its front entrance now touts President Bush's education policy, but the Education Department headquarters will one day honor Lyndon Baines Johnson and his work to improve U.S. schools.
Bush signed legislation Friday naming the agency's offices after the follow Texan, with 17 members of the Johnson family looking on.
Johnson's children, Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Bird Johnson Robb and their spouses, their children and grandchildren gathered at the Oval Office for the signing that was not open to reporters. First lady Laura Bush also attended.
Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady, was unable to attend but listened from Texas through a conference call, said Rep. Gene Green, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the bill.
"This will be a fitting tribute to Lyndon who worked so hard to make life better for so many, and — were he alive — I can think of nothing that would please him more," she said in a statement.
She said her husband would want to be remembered as the "Education President."
"Education was at the heart of my father's career in public service. He felt that it was mankind's passport out of poverty and our greatest hope for tomorrow," said Luci Baines Johnson, the 36th president's daughter.
Johnson, a Democrat, served as president from 1963-69 and died in 1973. He signed dozens of education-related bills, including a 1964 law that established Head Start, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which provided assistance to underfunded school districts and the Higher Education Act of 1965.
"If every building in D.C. had no name and we could choose one to bear my father's, we couldn't have hoped for one that would reflect more who he was and what he tried to do," Luci Baines Johnson said.
Johnson attended the former Texas State Teachers College, now Texas State University in San Marcos, and taught for a year in Cotulla in South Texas. His experience teaching poor Mexican-American children in the town was considered a great influence on his policies.
Throughout the Bush administration, a red school house facade with "No Child Left Behind" — the name of Bush's education legislation — has stood at the education department's front entrance.
Green said he was uncertain when Johnson's name would be on the building and whether it would share billing with the red schoolhouse.
Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Austin, helped garner backing for the bill among Republicans.
"Any time you name a federal building after somebody you are enshrining a memory. Hopefully, when people walk by the building, future generations, and see the name Lyndon Baines Johnson, they will pick up the history books and read about him," said McCaul. Several Johnson family members, including Lady Bird, live in his district.
Lyndon Kyle Boozer, who said his mother Yolanda Garza Boozer was a secretary to Johnson, approached Green with the idea to honor Johnson two years ago. The bill was first introduced in 2003 but stalled in the then Republican-controlled Congress.
Despite his Texas ties, some in the state's delegation chose not to co-sponsors the bill. Twenty-five of the 32 House members from Texas, all 13 Democrats and 12 of the 19 Republicans, added their names to the bill.
Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, both Texas Republicans, backed the bill in the Senate.
The bill is H.R. 584.
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On the Net: To find legislation: http://thomas.loc.gov
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." -Ronald Reagan
"Basher" means someone who trashes the President over any and everything.
All I can ask is WHY?
You're right.
Carter was/is plain stupid, Clinton an immoral philandering lying hedonist, but LBJ was criminal to the bone. Undoubtably the most evil man to be POTUS.
Ah, then I am not. Thank you for clarifying.
Why not? Big Spending Bush expanded LBJ Medicare with the costly Medicare Rx plan.
What's next on the agenda? Amnesty and more H1-B Visas?
His dark side comes out too often..I loved the unveiling of the Rapist and Hitlery. Bush was so gentlemanly. I guess once you have praised the Rapist then doing LBJ is not that hard.
You have to work at it very very hard to be as big a disappointment as George W Bush has become to me since his reelection. Oh my God, do I ever wish Ronald Reagan was still President!
Oh come on, Big Government is your friend.
LBJ was so crooked, he had to be screwed into the ground when he was buried.
Why am I not surprised. He IS LBJ.
Why am I not surprised. He IS LBJ.
Honoring LBJ is like honoring Al Capone because he donated to soup kitchens. Sheesh, Mr. Bush, you don't have a lot of time left - don't waste it on trash.
Sounds about right : )
Twice for governer of Texas.
Twice for President.
I have to admit to some disabatement of my hopes.
He has lost his way. He has lost the true path of conservatism.
It started with the "new tone" stuff and has come to this.
Wasn't his also the first administration to tap in to the Social Security Lock box?
Wasn't his also the first administration to tap in to the Social Security Lock box?
There is no such thing.!
It was always a ponzi...nothing more. It's days are numbered.
I honestly wonder if he ever really had it.
There's only been one conservative president in my lifetime and he died in 2004.
I believe the SS Fund was kept separate until LBJ and the Dem's started dipping into it to fund their Great Society Programs.
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