President Eisenhower is often looked back with fondness by many as a figure of a more stable time in the United States (although there were social conflicts brimming and a lot of what was seen in the 1960s started developing in the 1950s), and indeed the representative of what President Joe Biden once called “your father’s Republican Party”. Given that Eisenhower is most certainly thought of as representative of “your father’s Republican Party”, what was he like ideologically? I already wrote in a previous post that he’s moderately conservative, but what are the details?

In his first term, Eisenhower took the side of states over the federal government in granting title for offshore natural resources (read: oil) and signed into law a bill making it so as he had promised in 1952. This issue was one of the reasons that Texas for the first time since 1928 had voted Republican. He was a convinced internationalist, and a major reason he ran for president was to stop the rise of Senator Robert Taft to the presidency, who would have been much more of a skeptic of foreign aid and the US role in the world). The relationship between Republicans and Eisenhower, although overall positive, had nuance and was complex. Although certainly far friendlier to business than his predecessor or his successor, Eisenhower was far from a turn back to his three Republican predecessors. Indeed, there was no great concerted effort to outright repeal portions of the New Deal (although there were efforts to scale back government in agriculture and to alter the Tennessee Valley Authority). He initially supported some public housing, but later turned against authorizing more. Although Eisenhower appointed some people who were not pleasing to the conservative wing of the GOP such as Charles Bohlen for Ambassador to the USSR and liberal Republican Paul Hoffman as a delegate to the UN General Assembly, he also picked some staunch conservatives in Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks, and especially Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson. Examining Eisenhower’s official positions on votes counted by Americans for Constitutional Action for the Senate from 1955 to 1960 and for the House from 1957 to 1960 reveals that had he been a legislator, he would have scored an overall 69% by the group. ACA would endorse a legislator for reelection if their score was 65% or above, so the fiction of Eisenhower the legislator would have been endorsed for reelection (had the also fictional scenario existed in which he could and would have run), albeit not with enthusiasm by the group. Although much is made out of the 1956 Republican platform by contemporary liberals, indeed the platform was written by members of the party’s moderate to liberal wing, but Eisenhower was certainly less liberal than the platform made out the GOP to be. The Democratic Party overall was undoubtedly more liberal than Eisenhower, but Eisenhower was definitely to the left of the average Republican in his views by ACA standards. However, his DW-Nominate score was a 0.281 and places him a little to the right of the middle among Senate Republicans.

Eisenhower’s positions on votes counted by ACA were:

Supporting the elimination of a $20 tax credit, which if enacted would have had an estimated impact of removing 5 million taxpayers from the rolls (1955).

Opposed Senator Long’s (D-La.) amendment to cut foreign aid by $318 million (1955).

Supported Senator Capehart’s (R-Ind.) amendment to cut public housing to 35,000 units annually over two years (1955).

Supported the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s amendment increasing foreign aid by $420 million (1955).

Supported Senator Anderson’s (D-N.M.) amendment to the farm bill for 90% of parity price supports (1956).

Supported Senator Aiken’s (R-Vt.) amendment to delete dual parity from the farm bill (1956).

Opposed the adoption of the farm bill for 90% of mandatory price supports for one year and for a soil bank program (1956).

Supported Senator Bridges’s (R-N.H.) amendment to reduce the increase in defense department spending from $960 to $500 million (1956).

Opposed Senator Bridges’s (R-N.H.) amendment to delete funding in future foreign aid bills for Yugoslavia (1956).

Opposed legislation authorizing the construction of the Hells Canyon Dam by the Federal Government as opposed to private development (1956, 1957).

Supported a foreign aid increase by an overall figure of $108.5 million over what was approved by the House (1956).

Supported legislation to authorize federal aid for economically depressed areas (1956).

Supported Senator Hruska’s (R-Neb.) motion to recommit the Rivers and Harbors bill with instructions reducing river and harbor projects by a minimum of $350 million and to consider deletion of new projects (1957).

Opposed Representative Fisher’s (D-Tex.) amendment to delete $50 million in grants for sewage plant construction (1957).

Opposed Minority Leader Knowland’s (R-Calif.) amendment to maintain the restriction on bartering commodities with communist nations (1957).

Opposed Representative Harrison’s (D-Va.) amendment, prohibiting the use of funds for a soil acreage reserve program on 1958 crops (1957).

Opposed Senator Morse’s (D-Ore.) amendment to increase public housing from 35,000 annually to 200,000 annually for fiscal years 1958 and 1959 (1957).

Supported Representative Boland’s (D-Mass.) motion to concur in the Senate amendment providing funds to enact the flood insurance program enacted in the previous year (1957).

Opposed Senator Ellender’s (D-La.) amendment to cut military assistance by $500 million (1957).

Supported Representative Arends’s (R-Ill.) amendment, deleting the requirement that the Secretary of Defense notify Congress of transfers of military public works projects to private industry and to subject these transfers to Congressional approval (1957).

Opposed the Anderson (D-N.M.)-Aiken (R-Vt.)-Case (R-S.D.) amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, deleting Title III, which granted the attorney general the authority to institute civil action for preventative relief in 14th Amendment cases, even if all legal remedies hadn’t been exhausted (1957).

Opposed Representative Smith’s (R-Wis.) motion to recommit the Mutual Security Act with instructions to delete the creation of the Development Loan Fund (1957).

Opposed Senator Goldwater’s (R-Ariz.) motion to kill the bill allowing the Tennessee Valley Authority to issue and sell bonds for up to $750 million (1957).

Opposed Representative Taber’s (R-N.Y.) motion to recommit the 1958 Fiscal Supplemental Appropriation bill, reducing Tennessee Valley Authority funds (1957).

Supported Representative Judd’s (R-Minn.) motion to recommit the 1958 Mutual Security Fiscal 1958 Appropriations, restoring funds cut by Congress (1957).

Opposed the bill barring reducing price supports of agricultural commodities except tobacco (covered by separate legislation) below their 1957 level (1958).

Supported Representative McGregor’s (R-Ohio) motion to recommit the River and Harbor and Flood Control Acts of 1958, deleting four projects and reducing costs on fourteen others (1958).

Opposed Senator Jenner’s (R-Ind.) amendment to bar the sales of farm surpluses to any nation that has not pledged that it will not back communist governments in case the Cold War with them goes hot (1958).

Opposed Senator Fulbright’s (D-Ark.) amendment to limit interest rates on loans to states and localities to 3% instead of 3.5% (1958).

Supported Representative Herlong’s (D-Fla.) amendment to substitute the Eisenhower Administration’s proposals on unemployment compensation instead of the more generous committee bill backed by Democratic leadership (1958).

Opposed Senator Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) amendment to expand coverage of unemployment compensation and provide for a federally mandated standard of 39 weeks of unemployment benefits (1958).

Supported Minority Leader Knowland’s (R-Calif.) amendment, deleting allowing foreign aid to communist nations aside from the USSR, China, and North Korea (1958).

Opposed an open rule for debate on the second effort to pass legislation preventing reductions in agricultural price supports (1958).

Supported allowing States to assume jurisdiction in cases in which the National Labor Relations Board will not act (“no man’s land” disputes) (1958, 1959).

Opposed Senator Douglas’s (D-Ill.) amendment to provide for a reduction of personal income taxes by $50 a person along with other reductions in personal and excise taxes, which are unfunded and estimated to loss $6-6.3 billion in annual revenue (1958).

Opposed Senator McNamara’s (D-Mich.) amendment providing for a two-year school construction program at a cost of $2 billion (1958).

Supported three separate efforts to kill anti-preemption legislation by Senator Hennings (D-Mo.) and Representatives Keating (R-N.Y.) and Lindsay (R-N.Y.) respectively to provide that an act of Congress does not undo a state law unless explicitly stated in the legislation, designed to restore anti-subversive powers of states (1958, 1959).

Opposed Representative Hays’s (D-Ohio) motion to strike the enacting clause of a bill for mineral subsidies, thereby killing it for the session (1958).

Opposed Senator Ellender’s (D-La.) amendment reducing by $50 million funds for defense support (1958).

Supported Senator Capehart’s (R-Ind.) amendment reducing funds under the housing bill by $1.3 billion (1959).

Supported Representative Teague’s (R-Calif.) motion to delete a $300 million direct loan program from the Veterans Housing bill (1959).

Supported Senator Schoeppel’s (R-Kan.) amendment reducing from $165 million to $63 million in annual grants for airport construction over four years (1959).

Supported Representative Davis’s (D-Ga.) motion to reduce airport construction funding for fiscal years 1961 and 1962 by $32.3 million and for fiscal year 1963 by $32.4 million (1959).

Opposed the bill authorizing $389.5 million for Federal loans and grants to economically depressed areas (1959).

Supported Senator McClellan’s (D-Ark.) amendment prohibiting unions from coercing or inducing employers or employees to not do business with other entities (1959).

Supported Representative Scherer’s (R-Ohio) motion to add provisions to the Tennessee Valley Authority financing bill to increase control of executive agencies and Congress over the issuing of bonds (1959).

Opposed Senator Humphrey’s (D-Minn.) amendment to the wheat bill, enacting 85% of parity price supports on wheat for farmers who reduce acreage by 20% (1959).

Supported the amendment of Senator Williams (R-Del.) to reduce from $450 million to $375 million in funds for soil bank payments (1959).

Supported his nomination of Lewis Strauss as Secretary of Commerce (1959).

Supported Representative Kilburn’s (R-N.Y.) motion to recommit the Housing Act of 1959 to adopt the Herlong (D-Fla.) substitute, which authorizes no public housing and reduces funds for other housing programs by $1.3 billion (1959).

Opposed Majority Leader Johnson’s (D-Tex.) motion to raise parity in the wheat bill from 75% to 90% and incorporates a 25% acreage reduction (1959).

Supported Senator Dirksen’s (R-Ill.) motion to reduce funds for the Departments of Labor and of Health, Education, and Welfare by $365,061,000, in accordance with his budget (1959).

Opposed Senator Long’s (D-La.) amendment to increase funds for public assistance by $150 million (1959).

Supported Senator Williams’s (R-Del.) motion to recommit the Public Works Appropriations bill, reducing funds by $80,159,300, in keeping with his budget (1959).

Opposed the adoption of the wheat price support bill (1959).

Vetoed the Housing Act of 1959 (1959).

Opposed the proposed Federal Youth Conservation Corps to employ 150,000 young people, which would have cost between $375 and $400 million (1959).

Opposed concurring in the Senate amendments to the TVA Revenue Bond bill, thereby ending all efforts to place the TVA’s budget under the President’s control (1959).

Opposed Senator Anderson’s (D-N.M.) amendment capping interest rate at 4.25% for savings bonds, encouraging short-term borrowing for government funding (1959).

Supported the adoption of the Landrum (D-Ga.)-Griffin (R-Mich.) substitute labor bill, which curbed secondary boycotts as well as organizational and recognition picketing, and granting states authority to address “no man’s land” disputes (1959).

Opposed Representative Kearns’s (R-Penn.) motion to recommit and thus kill the Landrum-Griffin Act (1959).

Opposed the bill expanding Federal grants for sewage plant construction and permitting localities to request Federal grants, vetoing the bill in 1960 (1959, 1960).

Supported Representative Hiestand’s (R-Calif.) motion to recommit the Housing Act of 1959, spreading the $550 million urban renewal program over two years rather than one and deleting $50 million for college classroom construction loans (1959).

Vetoed a bill adding 67 public works projects not contained in his budget, which was sustained (1959)

Vetoed a second bill adding public works projects to an estimated over $800 million cost, but his veto was overridden (1959).

Passage of the bill eliminating prohibitions on foreign aid to Communist-dominated nations aside from the USSR, China, and North Korea (1959).

Supported Representative Simpson’s (R-Penn.) motion to recommit the bill permitting an increase in the interest rate of government bonds to permit the issuance of securities at over 4.25% should the President determine it in the national interest (1959).

Opposed Senator Ellender’s (D-La.) amendment to the 1959 Mutual Security Appropriations bill, reducing military assistance by $100 million (1959).

Opposed the $1.5 billion bill providing aid for school construction (1960).

Supported Representative Yates’s (D-Ill.) amendment to appropriate $50 million for urban renewal and slum-clearance grants (1960).

Supported Majority Leader Johnson’s (D-Tex.) motion to delete Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, granting the Attorney General authority to seek injunctions in civil rights cases (1960).

Supported Senator Williams’s (R-Del.) amendment to reduce subsidized ship voyages from 2,400 to 2,225, saving an estimated $20 million (1960).

Opposed the Emergency Home Ownership bill, providing for an additional $1 billion to enable the Federal National Mortgage Association to buy Federally insured home mortgages on new homes worth $13,500 or less (1960).

Opposed the Area Redevelopment Act to provide Federal grants to economically depressed areas, vetoing the bill (1960).

Supported Senate approval of Executive N, an executive agreement for the compulsory settlement of disputes between nations (1960).

Supported the bill authorizing the United States to participate in the International Development Association and authorizing a subscription of $320,290,000 (1960).

Opposed Senator Clark’s (D-Penn.) amendment authorizing 37,000 more public housing units (1960).

Supported Representative Kitchin’s (D-N.C.) amendment substituting a bill that extends $1 an hour wage protection but no overtime protection to employees of interstate retail chains and raising the hourly minimum for previously covered workers to $1.15 instead of the stronger Democratic minimum wage bill (1960).

Opposed Senator Anderson’s (D-N.M.) Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act Amendments, providing for a system of medical benefits to all Social Security retirees 68 and older, financed by an increase in the Social Security tax (1960).

Supported Representative Ford’s (R-Mich.) amendment adding $65 million to the Mutual Security Program for defense support (1960).

Supported $190 million more for foreign aid (1960).

References

Eisenhower, Dwight David. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/99901/dwight-david-eisenhower