and has served in numerous leadership positions in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
He entered Congress as one of the first of a wave of Republicans winning seats in Southern states that had been solidly Democratic for a century, rose to the position of Senate majority leader, then fell from power after praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist Dixiecrat presidential bid.
Lott entered Congress in 1968 as an administrative assistant to Representative William M. Colmer
of Mississippi, who was also House Rules Committee Chairman.
"This is not the way it has been done. We would never surprise each other ... It's not to say that there's not important information that we could discuss or would be discussed in secret or closed session, but I'm astounded by this. I don't really know what the tenor of this is, what is the justification for it and why this extreme approach was used."
"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."
"I've already seen enough. Why would I want to go see a bunch of perverted pictures?"
"I am an advocate of having a gold dollar with Reagan's picture on it, and calling it the Ronnie. The Canadians have the Loonie, and we can have the Ronnie."
"I'm sure you petroleum folks understand that solar power will solve all our problems. How much money have we blown on that? This is the hippies' program from the seventies and they're still pushing this stuff."