Lyndon B. Johnson

Before the presidency, Johnson was the most effective Senate majority leader of the century, using 'the treatment' of personal persuasion, committee assignments and a mastery of rules. His landmark was the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first since Reconstruction, which he passed by weakening it enough to avoid a Southern filibuster. Liberals called it a sham; Johnson argued that breaking the filibuster's hold mattered more than the contents. It created the Civil Rights Commission and the Justice Department's civil rights division.