Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment, which declared that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridge by the United States or any State on account of sex,” but the amendment was never ratified.
Congress passed the Boland Amendment, which prohibited American assistance in training, equipping, or advising the anti-Communist rebel Contras in Nicaragua. A second and third Boland Amendment passed in 1983 and 1984 closed loopholes in Boland, which allowed for humanitarian aid and further limited US government support for the Contras.
Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The law was named for former White House press secretary James Brady, who survived being shot by John Lee Hinckley in an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. The act required a five-day waiting period and background check for gun purchases. The five-day waiting period was eventually eliminated in December 1998 with the institution of an instant-background-check system.
In his annual message to Congress, President Lincoln urged passage of Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery in the United States. The Emancipation Proclamation had freed only those slaves in states still at war. The permanent emancipation of all slaves required a constitutional amendment. In April 1864, the Senate passed the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery in the United States. Opposition from Democratic congressmen prevented the amendment from receiving the required two-thirds majority in the House. Only after Lincoln was...
Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (passed January 1, 1970) to “promote efforts which will prevent or elimate damage to the environment.”
Congress enacted the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which allowed tribes to directly make federal contracts and receive grants and gave tribal governments control over their own law enforcement, education, health programs, and social services.
Jeannette Rankin (1880–1973) was the first woman elected to Congress. Rankin, originally from Montana, was a social worker and became involved in the suffrage movement as a student at the University of Washington. She returned to Montana and ran successfully in 1916 as a Republican for Congress, where she supported woman suffrage and western issues, and voted against entering World War I. In the 1918 election she ran for the Senate but did not win. For the next two decades she continued to support social issues and pacifism. The threat of...
Donald Rumsfeld (1932– ) was the US secretary of defense under President George W. Bush. He was largely responsible for the early handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Before serving in the Bush administration, Rumsfeld worked as a private businessman and served in Congress and under Presidents Nixon and Ford. Though he earned praise for ending the regime of Saddam Hussein, public opinion turned against Rumsfeld as US military involvement in the Middle East was prolonged and the Abu...
Hillary Clinton (1947– ) is the US secretary of state and a former First Lady and US senator. Hillary Rodham grew up in suburban Illinois and attended Wellesley before earning a law degree at Yale. There she met Bill Clinton, whom she married in 1975. While Bill served as governor of Arkansas, Hillary ran a successful law practice and worked on issues affecting children and the disadvantaged. After Bill’s election to the presidency in 1992, the Clintons set out to reform health care. Bill appointed Hillary head of the Task Force on National...