In the last post, I covered the ideology of Jimmy Carter as president, and indeed as far as presidents go, he was quite liberal by DW-Nominate and solidly liberal by Americans for Constitutional Action. I thought I might as well cover his defeated 1976 opponent in Gerald Ford. Ford’s record on national issues goes far further back than Carter, having first been elected to the House in 1948. His record in the House is too expansive for me to cover fully key vote by key vote, but he was moderately conservative overall. ACA gave Ford a high score of 100% in 1959 (many Republican representatives aced by their standards that year) and a low score of 53% in 1969 (many Republican representatives did unusually poorly by their standards that year). His overall modified ACA score was a 78%. His DW-Nominate score stands at a 0.281.

Ford was mostly fiscally conservative on domestic matters, although he did in 1958 vote to establish a trial-run food stamp program (he voted against a similar proposal in 1959) and in 1960 voted for $50 million in urban renewal and slum clearance grants. Ford loyally supported President Eisenhower’s vetoes of public works bills and a sewage plant funding bill in 1960 and sided with the administration on agriculture issues. During the 1960s, Ford opposed Kennedy’s accelerated public works program, tax reduction (he regarded it as inflationary combined with domestic spending), the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, and federal aid for school construction. He was even the only Michigander to vote against Medicare in 1965, perhaps as part of his being the new Republican House leader. Ford did, however, vote to increase the minimum wage in 1966 but only after backing Rep. John Anderson’s (R-Ill.) substitute to limit the measure’s impact on retail establishments based on gross sales. He routinely backed conservative substitutes to minimum wage increases, even if he voted for the final bills. Ford’s differences with conservatism in the 1960s largely surrounded foreign policy and civil rights issues. Speaking of civil rights…

Ford on Civil Rights

Gerald Ford was mostly supportive of civil rights measures. He voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (although he preferred the substitute he backed with Rep. William McCulloch (R-Ohio) that attempted to balance state and federal interests), and although he voted for Rep. Arch Moore’s (R-W.V.) motion to strike fair housing from the Civil Rights Act of 1966, he did vote for the bill itself and voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Ford notably pushed a Nixon Administration backed substitute to the Voting Rights Act extension in 1969 that would have applied the temporary provisions of the act nationwide, but McCulloch didn’t back him on this one. He also backed Nixon on the adoption of the Philadelphia Plan, voting against Rep. George Mahon’s (D-Tex.) effort to kill it. As president, the issue of extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965 fell to him, and he simply signed a law extending the act for seven years. Ford, like Nixon, opposed busing as a means of desegregation. On other matters surrounding states vs. federal, Ford took conservative positions: on federal vs. state title over the Tidelands he voted in 1951, 1952, and 1953 for state title and voted in 1958 and 1959 for anti-preemption legislation to grant states greater leeway in anti-subversive legislation, all in response to Supreme Court decisions. Speaking of the Supreme Court…

Ford on the Supreme Court

Ford was a critic of the Warren Court, and in multiple ways he voted to counter to decisions of the court. He repeatedly voted for legislation against the Mallory rule of evidence that invalidates confessions extracted by criminal defendants if kept for an unreasonably long period in detention from arrest to court appearance whether there had been evidence of coercion or torture or not. In 1964, Ford voted for the Tuck (D-Va.) bill to strip state legislative apportionment from Supreme Court jurisdiction. In 1971, Ford voted for a school prayer amendment to the Constitution in response to Supreme Court decisions ruling state school prayer statutes unconstitutional. In 1970, he attempted to impeach Justice William O. Douglas, in what was at least in part a retaliatory move against Democrats for twice in a row tanking Nixon’s nominees to the court. Yet, Ford’s sole nomination to the Supreme Court, John Paul Stevens (who succeeded Douglas), would become known later in life as one of the most liberal justices.

Ford on Foreign Policy

Gerald Ford was heavily influenced in his politics by Senator Arthur Vandenberg. He reflected in a 2001 speech, “He holds a very special place in my life. Before Pearl Harbor, I emulated the isolationist outlook of my fellow Midwesterners – – Senator Vandenberg included at the time. A tour of duty in the South Pacific, aboard a combat aircraft carrier with nine battle stars, convinced me very strongly otherwise. After four years in the Navy, I came home to Grand Rapids a convert to the bipartisan foreign policy espoused by my fellow townsman, Arthur Vandenberg.

Inspired by Vandenberg’s example, I came to believe that only American leadership could shape a future where peace was possible and freedom was secure” (United States Senate).
As a protégé of Senator Arthur Vandenberg, he not only supported post-war aid to Europe but also, like his fellow townsman and hero, backed Point IV aid to poor nations. He backed every foreign aid vote counted by Americans for Constitutional Action during the Eisenhower Administration, and sponsored an amendment increasing foreign aid in 1960. Ford would, however, support some foreign aid cuts during the 1960s and repeatedly backed stronger anti-communist positions in foreign affairs, such as his support for blocking grain shipments to the USSR and Hungary in 1963. Ford’s retention of Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State was strongly disliked by anti-détente conservatives. Interestingly, however, his presidency was more conservative than his time in the House, as if his positions on ACA-counted votes are counted as votes, he scores an 84%. By DW-Nominate, he’s much higher, registering at a 0.506.

As President, Ford opposed the following:

. Agriculture Act Amendments (1975).
. A strip mining bill that would set federal standards for surface mining regulation, which he vetoed (1975).
. A House resolution disapproving of his plan to decontrol prices for domestic oil over a 39-month period (1975).
. A tax reduction bill reducing 1976 individual and business taxes without establishing a $395 billion fiscal 1977 federal spending ceiling, which he vetoed (1975).
. A bill authorizing $6.5 billion in financial assistance to railroads, which would simultaneously reduce regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission (1975).
. A bill that would grant Congress the right to review any proposal to decontrol oil prices and require the president to place price ceilings on any oil not currently controlled (1975).
. Deleting funds for the B-1 Bomber (1975).
. Deferring funds for the Flight-Testing Maneuverable Reentry Vehicle until it can be established that the Soviets are flight testing their own system (1975).
. The Clark Amendment, limiting US involvement in Angola to gathering intelligence (1975).
. Only deregulating small oil producers while keeping big oil producers price-controlled (1976).
. Extending 65-week employment assistance until March 31, 1977 and special benefits for the uninsured to December 31, 1976 (1976).
. Permitting federal civilian and postal workers to participate as private citizens in political campaigns and protecting employees from improper political solicitation, a scaling back of the Hatch Act (1976).
. The Public Works Anti-Recession bill, making grants for public works programs for the explicit purpose of reducing employment, his veto being overridden (1976).
. The proposed Voter Registration Act, which would have created a voter registration commission in the Federal Elections Commission to register voters by mail (1976). Note on this one: Republicans opposing measures that are touted by their Democratic proponents as expanding voting access is nothing new.
. A bill increasing funding for the Departments of Labor and Health, Education and Welfare by $915,839,318 over his budget, with his veto being overridden (1976).
. A bill providing financial assistance for low-income people to insulate their homes and to push state and local adoption of energy conservation standards in new buildings (1976).
. A bill for no-fault auto insurance (1976).
. A bill establishing a government agency for grain inspection that would not be limited to federal export ports, thus moving into authority previously in the purview of states (1976). This is consistent with Ford’s consistent sense of federalism, his belief that liberal Democrats push measures on the federal level that improperly intrude in state prerogatives.
. A bill increasing Congressional control over U.S. arms sales (1976).
. A bill providing for federal child day care services under the Social Security Act, which he vetoed (1976).
. An amendment barring funds for the B-1 Bomber program before February 1, 1977 (1976).
. Another bill for public works for the purposes of increasing employment, in which Congress overrode his veto (1976).
He supported:
. The proposed South Vietnam Assistance Act, which if enacted would have spent $327 million for humanitarian and evacuation programs in South Vietnam and for the use of U.S. troops to assist evacuations. This measure got a lot of opposition out of fear that the US would be dragged into conflict in Vietnam again (1975).
. A bill providing for automatic cost-of-living increases in pay for members of Congress and top officials in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches (1975).
. Killing a proposal that disapproved of his proposed 5% pay increase for members of Congress, military personnel, and federal government officials, which would have instead resulted in a 8.66% pay increase proposed by the Advisory Committee on Federal Pay (1975).
. $2.25 billion in funds for the Inter-American Development Bank and funds of up to $25 million for the African Development Fund (1975).
. Partially lifting an arms embargo to Turkey (1975).
. Loaning up to $2.3 billion annually to New York City (1975). Ford however did not approve of any measure that would fully bail out the city, resulting in a famous headline from the New York Daily News: Ford to City: Drop Dead (New York Daily News). Although Ford never uttered such words, this was how his threat to veto any bailout was taken.
. The proposal by Rep. Charles Wiggins (R-Calif.) to investigate whether increasing fines is effective for anti-trust regulation instead of an anti-trust bill (1976).

Ford’s presidency was substantially limited on domestic policy due to the Democrats holding a supermajority, and sometimes he caved and reluctantly signed bills that he otherwise opposed (such as continuing federal price control on oil). Ford was essentially a fiscally conservative president, an internationalist, a supporter of increasing US military firepower, an opponent of federal encroachments into state functions, moderately socially conservative, and a compromiser.

References

Address by President Gerald R. Ford, May 23, 2001. U.S. Senate.

Retrieved from

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Leaders_Lecture_Series_Ford.htm

Ford, Gerald Rudolph Jr. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/99905/gerald-rudolph-ford-jr

Ford, Gerald Rudolph Jr. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/3268/gerald-rudolph-ford-jr

Ford to City: Drop Dead in 1975. (2018, April 9). New York Daily News.

Retrieved from

https://www.nydailynews.com/2015/10/29/ford-to-city-drop-dead-in-1975/