As Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s record is being more heavily scrutinized since presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump named him as his vice presidential pick, some very interesting data is surfacing.
BuzzFeed.com reports that in 1992, as executive director of an Indiana think tank, he wrote an editorial sharply criticizing then-President George H.W. Bush for signing the 1991 Civil Rights Act, calling it “objectionable” and a “quota act.”
The site reports that at the time, Pence was executive editor of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation.
Although the Civil Rights Act was supported by an overwhelming majority of Congress on both sides of the aisle (only 33 Republicans voted against the bill), Pence joined a chorus of neoconservatives who argued that such a bill would create “reverse discrimination.”
The crux of Pence’s op-ed opposed calls to remove Vice President Dan Quayle from Bush’s ticket, criticizing Bush for raising taxes and signing the bill, and saying that Quayle was the truer conservative. It read in part:
Whether it was Bush’s cynical reversal of the ‘no new taxes’ pledge or his vacillation on the 1992 (sic) Civil Rights (quota) Act, he has managed to alienate a sizable portion of the Reagan Republican coalition,” wrote Pence. “Somehow, miraculously, Dan Quayle has managed to keep his distance from these objectionable acts and has, more than any other politician in America, engendered real credibility as a spokesman for the strong-defense, free-market, and tradition-driven platform of that coalition.
Bush did go on to choose Quayle as his running mate, but the ticket lost to Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election.
Read the entire editorial at BuzzFeed.