Following the election, Johnson continued to push through Civil Rights legislation, most notably the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which committed the federal government to enforce voting rights of citizens by the supervision of elections in states with noted record of voter suppression and disenfranchisement. Thurmond stated that his opposition to the Voting Rights Act was due to not favoring its authorization of the federal government to determine the processes behind how statewide elections are conducted and insisted he was not opposed to black voter turnout. During floor debate on the bill, Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen spoke in favor of the VRA, calling it a means to ensure that the rights granted by the Constitution could be afforded to every American, Thurmond retorted that the VRA would lead to "despotism and tyranny."