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→1946 voter suppression, denial of Senate readmission, subsequent death
{{cquote|No man can leave the Klan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux.|||Bilbo, August 9, 1946}}
{{cquote|No man can leave the Klan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux.|||Bilbo, August 9, 1946}}
Due to the prominent allegations garnering plentiful public attention, a Senate committee was sent to Mississippi to investigate the credible claims of Bilbo's white supremacist voter intimidation.<ref name=fleegler,pp.21-22/> Although the Republican Party gained a Senate majority in the 1946 midterm elections, the Democrats still retained a majority in the lame-duck session until the new congressional session began. As a result, the investigating committee still retained a Democratic 3–2 majority; its Democratic members were [[Allen J. Ellender]] (the chairman), Elmer Thomas, and Burnet R. Maybank, while the Republican members were conservatives [[Styles Bridges]] and [[Bourke Hickenlooper]].<ref>"Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism," p. 23.</ref> When witnesses testified of fraud they observed and the assaults they endured, Ellender defended Bilbo and claimed that such violence was the result of "tradition and custom."
Prior to dying of oral cancer at the age of 69 following decades of spouting hatred, bigotry, and inciting violence, the last weeks of Bilbo's life were spent writing a racist screed, ''Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization'', where he promoted fearmongering of "race-mixing" and called for the repatriation of black Americans to [[West Africa]]. (a relocation bill he sponsored in the Senate in 1938 had failed) Never having repudiated his lifelong legacy of white supremacist hatred, Bilbo remained a figurehead for segregationists in the South long after his death.
The committee split along party lines, with all three Democrats voting to acquit Bilbo while the Republicans dissented, Hickenlooper and Bridges stating that Bilbo's inflammatory rhetoric was unacceptable and abused the [[First Amendment]].<ref name=fleegler,pp.24-26>"Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism," pp. 24–26.</ref> Due to the GOP gaining control of the chamber, they refused to seat Bilbo. Louisiana's other Democratic senator, [[John H. Overton]], attempted to maneuver around this by introducing two motions which would seat Bilbo while resuming investigations.<ref name=fleegler,pp.24-26/> The notability of the move was grounded in Senate rules, under which a simple majority could deny an elected senator from being ''seated'' while a two-thirds majority would be required to remove a senator ''already'' seated. Although the Overton motions were defeated on the Senate floor, Southern Democrats threatened filibusters, and Missisippi's pro-Bilbo governor Fielding L. Wright declared that in the circumstance Bilbo was denied his Senate seat, he would simply name the latter as the replacement.<ref name=fleegler,pp.24-26/>
Bilbo privately conferred to Southern Democratic colleagues Clyde R. Hoey and Claude Pepper, who presented a compromise solution of delaying his seating while ensuring appropriated funds to pay for his throat cancer surgery.<ref name=fleegler,pp.24-26/> Due to ultimately not returning to the Senate, the anti-Bilbo forces cheered. Prior to dying of oral cancer at the age of 69 following decades of spouting hatred, bigotry, and inciting violence, the last weeks of Bilbo's life were spent writing a racist screed, ''Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization'', where he promoted fearmongering of "race-mixing" and called for the repatriation of black Americans to [[West Africa]]. (a relocation bill he sponsored in the Senate in 1938 had failed) Never having repudiated his lifelong legacy of white supremacist hatred, Bilbo remained a figurehead for segregationists in the South long after his death.
==References==
==References==