Author: Fascinating Politics

Fascinating Politics

RINOs from American History #21: John Chafee

For the last roughly 90 years Rhode Island has been a Democratic state. This was not always so, but immigration of Irish Catholics as well as the Democratic Party gaining the ability to win Senate seats in the state thanks to direct election of senators resulted in the state’s Democratic orientation, it being the first of the New England states to become Democratic in the long term since the founding of the Republican Party. One figure, however, who defied the modern trend was John Chafee (1922-1999), although he was a different sort of Republican than those of the age of Republican dominance.

Chafee’s political career began in the 1950s, and in 1956 he won a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, later being elected minority leader. He also survived the 1960 election, in which Rhode Island was Kennedy’s best performing state and many Republicans lost reelection. His status as a leader and as a survivor made him a top candidate for the upcoming gubernatorial election. In 1962, Chafee ran and narrowly won in the closest gubernatorial race in the state’s history, winning by a mere .12%. Despite the 1964 election being yet another catastrophe for Republicans in Rhode Island (LBJ won 81% of the vote there), Chafee defied this trend and won reelection with 61% of the vote, carrying all counties. He did even better in 1966, with 63% of the vote. He was a productive governor, enacting public transportation and conservation legislation, and was a supporter of civil rights measures. However, Chafee’s record as governor was marked in some cases with inconsistency, particularly on the issues of public sector unions and pensions, such as supporting collective bargaining for teachers, but not government workers, and backing retaining a minimum age requirement for receiving pensions for government workers but removing it for teachers (Frias).

Despite Chafee having won reelection so strongly in 1964 and 1966, he narrowly lost reelection in 1968 over the issue of enacting a state income tax (he was for it after being against it) and that he stopped campaigning after his 14-year-old daughter tragically died from being kicked in the head by a horse. With this loss, however, came opportunities with the incoming Nixon Administration, and he was nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Navy, his tenure being marked by his bold decision-making. In 1972, he resigned to run for the Senate.

Chafee’s run for the Senate was a significant undertaking and one in which he actually had a chance despite the state’s Democratic orientation. The 1972 election was initially looking bad for incumbent Claiborne Pell, and he was losing in early polls. However, the Senate overall turned out to be a disappointment for Republicans despite Nixon’s landslide win, and Chafee lost by 8 points. Although Chafee was down, this was the most significant challenge Pell ever faced, and he was not out! In 1976, he tried again for the open seat being vacated by John O. Pastore, and he won.  

Senator Chafee

John Chafee was a Rockefeller Republican. He was pro-choice, anti-death penalty, pro-affirmative action and busing, a supporter of strict gun control, a supporter of gay rights, opposed to school prayer, and supported the creation of the Department of Education. Chafee also was a leading advocate of environmental legislation throughout his time in office, and sponsored numerous laws on the subject, including establishing the superfund program. On foreign policy, Chafee was frequently liberal, backing foreign aid as well as the Panama Canal Treaties. Although not a rigid adherent to free market principles, he opposed the Chrysler bailout in 1979. His scores from Americans for Constitutional Action ranged from a mere 14% in 1982 to a 58% in 1984 (the last year ACA did ratings), and from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action ranged from 30% in 1995 to 90% (although this is based on not counting his favorable pair for an abortion measure) in 1988. Chafee’s DW-Nominate score is 0.084.

During the Reagan Administration, although Chafee as had almost all Republicans supported tax reduction, he opposed the portion indexing taxation to inflation and in 1984 sponsored an amendment delaying tax indexing’s implementation to 1988. On fiscal issues, Chafee could sometimes be conservative, and he supported some defense measures backed by conservatives, including backing President Reagan on his sale of Airborne Warning and Control systems to Saudi Arabia. Chafee’s independence from the national Republican Party was a winner in Rhode Island and certainly helped him narrowly win reelection in 1982. He would solidly win reelection in 1988 and 1994, the former being particularly notable as Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis won the state. Despite his frequent dissents from Republican orthodoxy, Chafee was elected chairman of the Senate Republican Conference in 1985, the third highest ranking position in party leadership, and served in this role until 1991. Although for the Supreme Court he backed William Rehnquist for chief justice and Clarence Thomas, he voted against Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork in 1987. Some other notable votes Chafee cast included his vote for entering the Gulf War in 1991 and for NAFTA in 1993.

Chafee was, as might be expected, far from fully on board with the policies pushed with the Republican Revolution of 1994, and he had sponsored a compromise measure on healthcare which included an individual mandate. He also opposed the impeachment of President Clinton, voting against both counts. By this time, Chafee’s health was declining, and he announced on March 15, 1999, that he would not be a candidate for reelection. Before his term was up, he died on October 24th, mere weeks after being one of four Republicans to vote for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty pushed by the Clinton Administration. His very last vote was for a resolution expressing the Senate’s support of Roe v. Wade. His son, Lincoln, was appointed to the Senate to succeed him, and he was elected to a full term in his own right in 2000 before losing reelection six years later to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. The Chafees remain the last Republicans to have been elected to the Senate from Rhode Island.

References

Chafee, John Hubbard. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/14500/john-hubbard-chafee

Frias, S. (2012, December 28). The past haunts RI’s pension reform. Cranston Herald.

Retrieved from

https://cranstononline.com/stories/the-past-haunts-ris-pension-reform,77989

John Hubbard Chafee. Naval History and Heritage Command.

Retrieved from

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/research-guides/modern-biographical-files-ndl/modern-bios-c/chafee-john-hubbard.html

Senator John Chafee dies at age 77. (1999, October 26). Cape Cod Times.

Retrieved from

https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/1999/10/26/senator-john-chafee-dies-at/51023808007/

Fascinating Politics

Past Attempts to Abolish or Change the Electoral College

Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), the Senate sponsor of both the 1970 and 1979 efforts to scrap the Electoral College.

One thing I think Americans should be thankful for with this past election is that the popular and electoral vote went in the same direction. Although yes, I know technically that the electoral vote is what wins elections, there’s an additional sense of legitimacy if the popular vote goes the way of the electoral winner. Many people favor eliminating the Electoral College, but that requires a Constitutional change, and that is a difficult matter. This, by the way, is far from a new proposal.

Opposition to the Electoral College is older than you might think…in 1823, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, later a founder of the Democratic Party, wrote, “Every reason which induced the convention to institute Electors has failed. They are no longer of any use, and may be dangerous to the liberties of the people” (O’Brien). Even a retired President James Madison, the father of the Constitution, had not supported maintaining the status quo of the Electoral College. He supported a district plan in which states would be divvied up into districts for presidential votes, and each district would choose its electors (O’Brien). President Andrew Jackson was the first to call for its outright abolition in favor of the popular vote. So just remember, when liberal Democrats push for the popular vote over the Electoral College, they are, in fact, acting as traditional Democrats. Some 20th century efforts to abolish or alter the Electoral College were pushed, as direct democracy grew in popularity.

In 1913, Senator Robert Owen (D-Okla.), a progressive and one of the fathers of the Federal Reserve, proposed substituting the electoral college with the popular vote, but this proposal failed on January 31st 32-36 (R 12-27, D 20-9). The Southern vote, perceived as particularly strong against changing the Electoral College, was 6-8 on this proposal. The conservative wing of the GOP overwhelmingly voted against.

In 1934, Senator George W. Norris (R-Neb.), one of the GOP’s most celebrated progressives, pushed for the popular vote of the president and vice president. He had been at the forefront of several movements towards direct democracy and was the father of the amendment to the Constitution that eliminated the “lame duck” session of Congress, and had the presidential term start on January 20th rather than March 4th. This proposal failed to achieve the necessary 2/3’s on a vote of 52-29 (D 40-9; R 11-20; FL 1-0) on May 22nd. The Southern vote was 15-5 for this proposal, the opposition making up 56% of Democratic opposition. Among the Republicans, there was a clear split with the party’s moderate to liberal wing voting for and the party’s conservative wing voting against. This was the high watermark of Southern support for scrapping the Electoral College.

1950: The Lodge-Gossett Amendment – Electoral College with No Electors

In 1950, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (R-Mass.) and Representative Ed Gossett (D-Tex.) proposed an amendment to the Constitution that abolished electors and maintained the electoral numbering system, with electoral votes allocated proportionately to the vote. This is known as the fractional-proportional method, and everyone would have had motivation to vote in their states as the electoral vote of a state was no longer to be winner take all. Lodge, a moderate, thought this a good compromise between those who would want to abolish the electoral college and those who wanted to retain the power of states and wanted the GOP to make some headway in the South. His colleagues largely thought the same on the merits of the amendment, and it passed 64-27 (D 46-4; R 18-23) on February 1st. The Senate’s opposition, interestingly enough, consisted almost entirely of conservatives. Gossett, however, was a conservative Democrat and had some other motivations, wanting to limit the power of urban areas and of radicals and racial and ethnic minorities to push left-wing policies and civil rights bills. He expressed his views in 1949, “The Electoral College permits and invites irresponsible control and domination by small organized minority groups, within the large pivotal States. It aggravates and accentuates the building up and solidification within these States of religious, economic, and racial blocs. Small, definable, minority groups, organized religious or economic or racial lines, by voting together, can and do hold a balance of power within these pivotal States. As a result, the political strategists in both parties make special appeals to these various groups as such. These groups have become more and more politically conscious. They know their power. In many instances, they have no political alignments or philosophy as such, but are simply up for sale to the highest bidder. To encourage economic racial, and religious group consciousness and group action, is a dangerously undemocratic practice, aside from its other evil consequences” (National Popular Vote, 5-6). The timing of this amendment is interesting too, as in 1948, both major parties adopted pro-civil rights platforms, and some Southern Democrats broke away from the Democratic Party that year to back the explicitly segregationist State’s Rights Party, which ran South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond. Given the South’s unity at the time against civil rights legislation, this would turn the South into an even more powerful voting bloc. Once Gossett’s motivations became clear, support for the amendment among Northern liberals collapsed. On July 17th, the Lodge- Gossett Amendment was easily defeated 134-210 (D 85-116; R 49-92; L 0-1; ALP 0-1). This reform proposal was not brought up again.

1956 – Electoral College Reform Debate

In 1956, reforming the Electoral College was brought up again. An effort to abolish the Electoral College and institute the popular vote fared badly in a Senate vote of 17-66 (D 16-25; R 1-41) on March 27th. After the failure of this proposal, liberal Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.) pushed a compromise reform that would award two electoral votes to the winner of each state and the rest would be proportionately represented (Goldman). This proposal was shelved on voice vote, and no proposed reform had 2/3’s support.

The Nixon Era: The Electoral College Comes Closest to Its Demise

In the 1968 election, although Richard Nixon won by 110 electoral votes he had won with less than 1% in the popular vote, and the third party candidacy of George Wallace was fully intended not to win, but rather to try to force the winner into making a deal with him. Much was also made of a faithless Nixon elector in North Carolina voting for Wallace instead. This set the stage for the consideration of the Bayh (D-Ind.)-Celler (D-N.Y.) Amendment, which if adopted would have scrapped the electoral college but not replaced it with an outright popular vote, rather a two-round system akin to how presidential elections work in France. There would be a first election, and if no duo won at least 40% of the popular vote, there would be a runoff election. The momentum for supporting this proposal was quite strong, with President Nixon as well as Speaker John W. McCormack (D-Mass.) and Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R-Mich.) in support. After a last-ditch effort by conservative Rep. David Dennis (R-Ind.) to institute a district plan was voted down 162-246 (D 62-166; R 100-80), the House passed this amendment on a vote of 339-70 (D 184-44; R 154-26) on September 18, 1969. Nearly all Democrats opposed were from the South, but interestingly two members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Charles Diggs of Michigan and Bill Clay of Missouri, also voted against. However, opposition grew when the measure reached the Senate, and there was a much less favorable climate in the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, as the chairman was James Eastland (D-Miss.) and his Republican counterpart was Nebraska’s Roman Hruska. Both men were strongly opposed to scrapping the Electoral College, and a bloc of Southern and some small state senators, notably Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Carl Curtis (R-Neb.), filibustered. Two motions to end debate failed 54-36 (D 33-18; R 21-18) and 53-34 (D 34-15; R 19-19), and the proposal was scrapped after Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) gave up in the midst of attempting a third, realizing he didn’t have the votes to proceed. Most of the Democratic opponents were from the South, and the Senate Republicans voting against were mostly a who’s who of its conservative wing.

1979: Jimmy Carter Supports Popular Vote

One of the presidents who supported abolishing the Electoral College was Jimmy Carter, who proposed simply a substitution of the popular vote. This proposal was debated on in the Senate as a Constitutional amendment, again sponsored by Senator Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), but there were some defections among Senate liberals for reasons that are similar to why liberal support collapsed for the Lodge-Gossett Amendment in 1950. These senators were convinced by arguments from black and Jewish groups that the Electoral College would cost them political influence, and the vote was 51-48 on July 10th, far short of the 2/3’s needed to adopt a Constitutional amendment (Weaver). Of the 22 Southern senators, only 6 supported, most of them being “New South” Democrats, a moderate to liberal sort that won with multi-racial coalitions. Another opponent of this proposal was none other than Joe Biden of Delaware.

Other proposals have been made since to abolish the Electoral College, but have not received votes, as attaining the 2/3’s majority is a highly difficult task. Instead, some other movements have been underway, including the National Popular Interstate Vote Compact to try to make the Electoral College irrelevant by granting all electoral votes to the popular vote winner, but this doesn’t go into effect until the number of states that agree to it amounts to 270 electoral votes.

What I found interesting is that although modern narratives surrounding the Electoral College that I’ve read recently seem to like to paint it as a part of historical racism that there were arguments for keeping it as a bulwark against racism. This impacted the 1950 debate on Lodge-Gossett and the 1979 effort to repeal the Electoral College. Furthermore, political journalist Theodore H. White held about scrapping the electoral college in 1970 that a direct election system would produce results that would go “brutally against our black population” and that it would “give the racists a chance” (CQ Press).

References

Electoral College Reform Victim of Senate Filibuster. CQ Press.

Retrieved from

http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/cqal70-1291702

Goldman, R.M. (1958). Hubert Humphrey’s S.J. 152: A New Proposal for Electoral Reform. Midwest Journal of Political Science, 2(1).

Retrieved from

O’Brien, F.D. (2001). The Electoral College: How It Got That Way and Why We’re Stuck With It. American Heritage, 52(1).

Retrieved from

https://www.americanheritage.com/electoral-college-how-it-got-way-and-why-were-stuck-it

S.J. Res. 2. Passage. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/81-1950/s242

S.J. Res. 2. Joint Resolution Proposing an Amend. To the Constitution Providing for the Election of a Pres. And Vice-Pres. On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/81-1950/h211

S.J. Res. 31. Electoral Reform. Substitute Proposal to Abolish Electoral College and Elect President and Vice-President by Direct Popular Vote. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/84-1956/s132

The Fractional Proportional (Lodge-Gossett) Method of Awarding Electoral Votes. (2021, May 1). National Popular Vote.

Retrieved from

Click to access memo-fractional-proportional-lodge-gossett-v4-2021-5-1.pdf

To Pass S.J. Res. 26, Providing for the Direct Popular Election of the President and Vice President of the United States. (Motion Failed; 2/3 Required). Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/96-1979/s161

To Pass S.J. Res. 29, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. Relating to Popular Election for President and Vice President. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/73-2/s198

To Recommit H.J. Res. 681, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution Relating to the Election of the President and Vice-President, to the Committee of the Judiciary with Instructions to Report it Back Forthwith with an Amendment Incorporating the “District Plan”. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/91-1969/h82

Weaver, W. (1979, July 11). Senate Rejects Proposal To End Electoral College. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Fascinating Politics

FDR vs. Veterans Benefits

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is aiming to find waste, inefficiency, and areas to cut government spending. One subject that they have touched on is veterans benefits as has prospective Trump nominee to the post of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. On that one from a historical perspective, they are in for one hell of a fight! Veterans’ benefits have a long history of being politically difficult to resist. In 1949, for instance, the House by only one vote rejected Veterans Affairs Committee chairman John Rankin’s (D-Miss.) measure that would have provided for a massive pension program for World War I and World War II veterans at $90 a month (or $1,193.69 in October 2024 dollars) starting at age 65 that at the same time would have served to fiscally prevent President Truman from expanding Social Security as he planned (Time Magazine). The measure’s defeat was in no small part due to the vocal opposition of certain World War II veterans in Congress, most notably Olin “Tiger” Teague of Texas, the second-highest decorated soldier of the war. Even President Roosevelt at the height of his power struggled with the issue.

Speaker Henry Rainey (D-Ill.) was perfectly willing to let the executive branch write laws and have the House rubber stamp them, but there was a fight in the early New Deal that Roosevelt lost, and not even the opposition of Speaker Rainey could overcome this, and this was on funding New Deal programs in part through cuts in veterans’ benefits.

The first New Deal law to pass, and one that actually got substantial support from conservatives, was the Economy Act, which cut spending for the purposes of making room in the budget for FDR’s New Deal programs and served to effectively repeal all laws passed after the War of the Rebellion for veterans’ pensions, granting FDR the power to restructure veterans’ benefits, and he did so by cutting benefits by over $400 million. This provoked a lot of bipartisan opposition, including from individuals thought of as progressive in this time, such as Senator Burton Wheeler (D-Mont.). On June 14, 1933, the Senate responded to FDR’s veterans’ benefits reduction with the Steiwer (R-Ore.)-Cutting (R-N.M.) amendment 51-39 (D 19-39; R 31-0; P 1-0) to the Independent Offices Appropriations bill, which if enacted into law would have only permitted Roosevelt to cut up to 25% of an individual veteran’s benefits, amounting to a maximum overall reduction between $100-160 million. Interestingly, this vote presaged further opposition to Roosevelt’s agenda in the future, most notably on foreign policy, from certain senators who were at least nominally for the New Deal at this point, including Wheeler, Pat McCarran of Nevada, and Robert R. Reynolds of North Carolina. This was also a point of contention between the flamboyant Huey Long of Louisiana and the president. Roosevelt was prepared to veto the bill if the amendment remained, but the House came to his rescue and refused to adopt Steiwer-Cutting 177-209 (D 79-201; R 93-8; FL 1-0) the following day. However, the battle was far from over on veterans’ benefits, the most hotly contested part of the Economy Act, and the House voted to increase veterans benefits to largely offset Roosevelt’s cuts. Although President Roosevelt vetoed the bill, the House overrode his veto of the bill 310 to 72 (D 209-70; R 97-2; FL 4-0) on March 27, 1934. Among Republicans, only Robert Luce and George Tinkham of Massachusetts, normally opponents of Roosevelt and the New Deal, voted against this effort. Although Majority Leader Robinson (D-Ark.) was more successful at persuading his fellow Democrats to sustain Roosevelt’s veto, his veto was overridden the following day 63-27 (D 29-27; R 33-0; FL 1-0) that same day. This would be predictive of the override of another of President Roosevelt’s vetoes, on the Patman Bonus bill. Like President Hoover before him, Roosevelt opposed the Patman Bonus bill, which permitted veterans to collect their bonuses at any time as opposed to 1945 as established by the 1924 World War Adjusted Compensation Act as a budget-busting measure. Unlike with the appropriations bill, he got some sizeable conservative Republican support for his position. Although the House overrode President Roosevelt’s veto on May 22, 1935, 322-98 (D 248-60; R 64-38; P 7-0; FL 3-0), Majority Leader Joseph Robinson (D-Ark.) was successful in getting the Senate to sustain the veto the following day 54-40 (D 41-28; R 12-12; P 1-0). However, a compromise Patman bill was pressed into 1936. This one managed to pass over President Roosevelt’s veto, with members of Congress feeling more pressure as the next election approached. The House voted to do so on January 24th 326-61 (D 249-32; R 67-29; P 7-0; FL 3-0) and the Senate voted to do so 76-19 (D 57-12; 17-7; P 1-0; FL 1-0) three days later. Although veterans’ organizations advised veterans to wait until 1945 to collect, many chose to do so right away. This measure would essentially serve as a stimulus for veterans. Roosevelt would later do quite well for veterans in his signing of the GI Bill in 1944.

References

Ortiz, S.R. (2009). Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era. New York, NY: NYU Press.

Retrieved from

https://academic.oup.com/nyu-press-scholarship-online/book/16388/chapter-abstract/171539464?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Senate Votes 51 to 39; Adopts New Increases for Veterans Despite Leaders’ Pleas. (1933, June 15). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/1933/06/15/archives/senate-votes-51-to-39-adopts-new-increases-for-veterans-despite.html

The Congress: Rankin’s Revenge. (1949, February 28). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6602178/the-congress-rankins-revenge/

To Amend H.R. 5389, by Amending Sec 20, Authorizing President to Establish Review Boards Dealing with Veterans Pensions. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/73-1/s97

To Concur in an Amendment to H.R. 5389. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/73-1/h61

To Override the President’s Veto of H.R. 3896. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/74-1/s69

To Override the Veto of H.R. 9870. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/74-2/s138

To Pass H.R. 3896, the Objections of the President of the United States Notwithstanding. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes#session=217&chamber%5B%5D=2

To Pass H. 9870 Over the Objections of the President of the United States. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/74-2/h138

Fascinating Politics

Franklin D. Roosevelt…Jr.: An Underwhelming Presidential Son

Although there is no royalty in the United States and never can be as a matter of constitutionality (unless we decide to repeal that part of the Constitution for reasons that escape me), there have been political families who have been tremendously influential: the Kennedys, the Bushes, and the Roosevelts. Two of FDR’s sons had political careers of their own in FDR Jr. and James Roosevelt. Today I will be writing about the former, who fell far from the tree of his father in terms of political acumen.

When it came to war service, President Roosevelt was no hypocrite, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. (1914-1988) served in the war and he did so with honor. In his personal life, however, Roosevelt Jr. had issues, being married a grand total of five times. In 1948, he sought to recruit Dwight Eisenhower for the Democratic nomination, not knowing that his true sympathies lay with the Republicans. His time for public office would come in 1949.

Congressional Career

In 1949, longtime Congressman Sol Bloom, who had been chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, died, and Roosevelt Jr. ran to succeed him, managing to defeat the Tammany Hall picked candidate as the Liberal candidate. Roosevelt Jr., who would win his subsequent reelections as a Democrat, was per Americans for Democratic Action a perfect liberal during his time in Congress, never having voted against a single one of the issues they regarded as a key vote. He supported public housing, price controls, foreign aid, reciprocal trade, public power, more immigration, and opposed the McCarran Internal Security Act. His DW-Nominate score was quite a low -0.619. Although Roosevelt Jr. was a perfect liberal by the standards of Americans for Democratic Action, he proved a poor member of Congress for laziness and general lack of enthusiasm for the job. Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas would tell his brother James upon his entrance into Congress in 1955 to “not waste our time like your brother did”, and James himself would recount that Jr. “had a dreadful record in Congress. He was smart, but not smart enough. He had good ideas and the power of persuasion, but he did not put them to good use. He coasted instead of working at his job, considering it beneath him, while he aimed for higher positions. He may have had the worst attendance record of any member of those days, and it cost him those higher positions” (Roosevelt, 314). Instead of running for reelection for Congress, Roosevelt Jr. ran for attorney general, but was defeated by fellow Congressman Jacob Javits, thus being the only Democrat to lose a statewide election that year.

In 1960, he served as something of a bulldog for his friend John F. Kennedy’s campaign in the hopes that he could revive his faltering political career, and falsely insinuated during the West Virginia primary that Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.), who was also running for the nomination, had been a draft-dodger during World War II (Time Magazine). The truth was that Humphrey was not allowed to fight due to a disability, and Roosevelt would subsequently apologize. Kennedy’s win in that race tipped the primary decisively for him. Although Kennedy had initially wanted Roosevelt to be Secretary of the Navy, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara nixed the idea. Roosevelt would instead serve as Under Secretary of Commerce from 1963 to 1965. Any hope Roosevelt Jr. had of further rise died with Kennedy, although he did serve in one more federal position as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1965 to 1966. Roosevelt made one last bid for elective office in running for governor on the Liberal Party ticket in 1966, but he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell against the powerhouse of incumbent Nelson Rockefeller.

Roosevelt would pursue business ventures for the remainder of his life, including the distribution of imported cars. He died on August 17, 1988, his 74th birthday, of lung cancer.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. Dies of Lung Cancer at 74. Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved from

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-08-17-mn-651-story.html

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. Columbian College of Arts & Sciences.

Retrieved from

https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/franklin-delano-roosevelt-jr-1914-1988

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, Jr. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/8050/franklin-delano-roosevelt-jr

Roosevelt, J. (1976). My Parents: A Differing View. Los Angeles, CA: Playboy Press.

The Administration: Roosevelt’s Reward. (1963, February 8). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from https://time.com/archive/6626000/the-administration-roosevelts-reward/

Fascinating Politics

Worcester v. Georgia: The Ignored Supreme Court Decision

The idea of defiance of the Supreme Court is one that seems remote in the minds of many, although the court is certainly unpopular among liberals right now, an outright defiance of any one decision still seems remote. The closest that a president came to defying the Supreme Court as far as my memory goes was if the Supreme Court had ruled against FDR in the Gold Clause Cases in 1935. They ruled for the Administration 5-4, but Roosevelt had every intention to defy the court if they ruled otherwise, and the Supreme Court had ruled against numerous New Deal laws without FDR defying their verdicts. Andrew Jackson and the state of Georgia, however, did in 1832.

Samuel A. Worcester

One of President Jackson’s priorities, which really appealed to the South at the time, was moving the five civilized tribes out of their ancestral lands to make room for settlers to farm. Although popular in the South, the issue was highly controversial, and the Whig Party was opposed. The vote in the House was exceptionally close at 102 to 97. In the meantime, the tribes had a number of white sympathizers, which included missionaries. One of these missionaries was Samuel A. Worcester, who was helping the Cherokee, and Georgia’s state government didn’t appreciate their efforts. The state in response passed a law that prohibited whites from living in tribal land unless they got a special license from Georgia’s governor and swore an oath to the state. Worcester and his fellow missionaries were subsequently arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. He appealed his imprisonment to the Supreme Court, and in 1832 they ruled 5-1 in Worcester v. Georgia that Georgia had no authority to make laws regarding Cherokee land, and that treating tribal land as separate nations was consistent with the history of treaties by the United States with the tribes. Chief Justice Marshall wrote the opinion of the court, holding that “the nations had always been considered as distinct, independent political communities, retaining their original natural rights as the undisputed possessors of the soil” (31 U.S. 515) Marshall conceded that the Cherokee had surrendered some sovereignty with treaties, that this was not sufficient for enacting such a law.

John Marshall

That was all well and good, except who was going to enforce it? Georgia refused to comply, and President Jackson refused to enforce the ruling. Although Jackson is famously reputed to have said to Brigadier General John Coffee, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it”, what he actually said was, “The decision of the supreme court has fell still born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate” (Garrison). Not as defiant, memorable, or smooth, right? After intense public pressure and criticism, the missionaries were pardoned the following year, and Indian removal would proceed in the coming years in what was infamously known as the Trail of Tears. That subject undoubtedly warrants a separate post.  Andrew Jackson would have greater appreciation of the Supreme Court, however, when it came to the Nullification Crisis, another subject that warrants a separate post in which South Carolina nullified two tariff laws as it found them unconstitutional, and Jackson proclaimed that South Carolina had no authority to determine constitutionality of federal legislation and that the Supreme Court had the ultimate authority on constitutionality (Rosen). The full stories of the Trail of Tears and nullification will be written about at a later date. Overall, it would be quite foreign and scandalous to us if a Supreme Court decision was actively defied and the White House would not enforce the ruling, indeed it would produce a Constitutional crisis. However, Worcester was not in vain and remains good law, thus it has served as a precedent for numerous Indian rights cases.

References

Garrison, T.A. (2004, April 27). Worcester v. Georgia. New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from

https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/worcester-v-georgia-1832/

Rosen, J. (2006, December). The Supreme Court – The First Hundred Years. PBS 13.

Retrieved from

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/history2.html

Worcester v. Georgia. Encyclopedia Britannica.

Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Worcester-v-Georgia

Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832). Justia.

Retrieved from

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/31/515/

Fascinating Politics

Warren Austin: Conservative Internationalist

In 1930, Senator Frank Greene died during an operation, and selected to succeed him by Governor John E. Weeks was Frank C. Partridge, a personal friend and longtime presence in Vermont politics. The following year, however, there was to be an election to finish out the term, and prominent attorney Warren Austin (1877-1962) of St. Albans was persuaded to challenge Partridge, announcing shortly before the end of 1930. Although incumbency is often an advantage, in Partridge’s case it was not; he had to attend to the Senate while Austin was free to campaign across the state, delivering 60 speeches (Mazuzan, 130). Austin’s age was also to his advantage as he was 15 years younger than the 68-year old Partridge, and he won the Republican nomination for the election to finish the late Greene’s term. In 1931, winning the Republican nomination was tantamount to election, as Vermont was the Wyoming of its day in Republicanism.

Austin became a quick study of the Senate, and he thought there was some room for procedural change, namely that his fellow senators had too much room to bloviate (Mazuzan, 130-131). He voted like a traditional Republican, with a wariness of a largesse in federal government, spending, and the powers of the executive. This translated to a strong opposition to FDR’s New Deal, with him voting against all major “first 100 days” legislation except the Economy Act. As Austin wrote to his mother, “I am very apprehensive of the arbitrary powers which are being placed in the hands of one man” (Mazuzan, 131). Austin was opposed to measures he saw as intruding on states and localities as well as on individuals, and saw this in the New Deal. In particular, Austin strongly opposed the cancellation of air mail contracts based on ultimately unsubstantiated charges of fraud and collusion, writing “However unfortunate may seem the material and intimate results of the cancellations of the air-mail contracts and the acts which have succeeded that, the poignancy of the event was the grave and serious doubt excited in the minds of men and women of the purpose of the “New Deal” which is neither Republican nor Democratic. Is it an emergency policy? Or is it a permanent departure from free institutions and a surreptitious establishment, without the knowledge or consent of the people of ideas of government which are in conflict with the breeding, the traditions, and the settled purpose of the American people” (Mazuzan, 134). However, the politics of old were under increasing fire, even in Vermont. Austin’s opponent for reelection in 1934 was Fred C. Martin, FDR’s IRS collector for the state, who ran as a New Dealer and challenged Austin’s record as well as touted areas of Vermont that were assisted by New Deal programs. In a portend of Vermont’s future, this message got a lot of traction, particularly in the state’s western portion. In response Austin touted Vermont’s traditions, regarded the administration as pushing “foreign doctrines and socialistic ideas”, and asserted that there was a need for an independent voice from that of the Roosevelt Administration (Mazuzan, 138-139). Although the election result of Austin winning reelection was “business as usual”, he only won with 51% of the vote, and three western counties had voted for Martin. He would not change his ways for the most part in his next term on domestic issues and in 1935 he voted against Social Security. Only seven other senators either voted or paired against. In 1937, Austin would participate in the drafting of the Conservative Manifesto, a ten-point document proposing alternative policies to the New Deal that emphasized private enterprise and state as opposed to federal authority (Moore). In 1939, he was elected assistant minority leader and would serve as acting minority leader while Oregon’s Charles McNary was running for vice president.

Foreign Policy

Austin was well-versed in dissent, but this dissent was not confined to the ruling Democratic Party. Unlike most of his Republican colleagues before World War II, Austin was an internationalist. In 1935, he had voted for the US joining the World Court (one of FDR’s few policy defeats in his first term), and this debate largely portended the internationalist/anti-interventionist divide. Austin would vote for repealing the arms embargo in 1939, vote for the peacetime draft, be the Senate’s strongest supporter of Lend-Lease, and support permitting merchant ships to enter belligerent ports. He was even one of two Senate Republicans to oppose an amendment to the Lend-Lease bill striking aid for the USSR. He was interestingly at odds with his new colleague George Aiken both from right and left, as Aiken was significantly more liberal than him on domestic policy but was opposed to FDR’s foreign policy before World War II and more willing to permit age-based deferments to the draft. Austin strongly supported the creation of the United Nations, but kept national sovereignty in mind when he voted for the Connally Reservation, which excludes domestic disputes from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. During the 1940s, Austin also moderated somewhat on domestic issues, for instance supporting retaining the National Youth Administration in 1943 and his support (albeit limited) of wartime price control. On August 2, 1946, Austin resigned from the Senate as President Truman announced his appointment as Ambassador to the United Nations. Austin’s DW-Nominate score was a 0.106, which seemed to strongly reflect his internationalism given that his record was mostly oppositional to the New Deal.

UN Ambassador

As Ambassador to the UN, Austin became known as a forceful advocate of the West as a cold warrior. During this time, he allegedly gaffed, “I hope Arabs and Jews will settle their differences in a truly Christian spirit”, but his assistant who was present held that what Austin was communicating was that as a Christian he would be impartial towards Muslims and Jews regarding the creation of Israel (Traveling for History). In 1951, Austin presented to the United Nations Security Council a Soviet submachine gun found in possession of captured North Korean troops to demonstrate that the Soviets were providing arms to them.

He served until two days after the end of the Truman Administration, with President Eisenhower picking another New England internationalist who had served in the Senate to replace him in Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

Austin retired from public service after and was forced to curb his activities after suffering a stroke in October 1956. He died on December 25, 1962. Times have changed much in Vermont since he left office in 1946. For instance, his old Senate seat is held by none other than Bernie Sanders, a marked contrast to Austin’s anti-New Deal politics.

References

Austin, Warren Robinson. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/296/warren-robinson-austin

Mazuzan, G.T. (1971). Vermont’s Traditional Republicanism vs. the New Deal: Warren Austin and the Election of 1934. Vermont Historical Society, 39(2).

Retrieved from

Click to access WarrenRAustin.pdf

Moore, J.R. (1965). Senator Josiah W. Bailey and the “Conservative Manifesto” of 1937. The Journal of Southern History, 31 (1), 21-39.

Retrieved from

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2205008

Warren Robinson Austin: First UN Ambassador Representing US. (2022, May 8). Traveling for History.

Retrieved from

Warren Robinson Austin: First UN Ambassador Representing US
Fascinating Politics

RINOs from American History #20: William Lemke

It is not wrong to say that the parties have changed, but what people often don’t understand is that there was a flip of regions regarding what part of the Republican Party went to the left. From the late 19th century to the 1930s, the Midwest was the area in which there were more likely to be rebels to Republican conservatism. Think Senators George Norris and Robert La Follette, from Nebraska and Wisconsin respectively. These today are not thought of as the homes of progressive Republicanism. Norris and La Follette were liberal populists in orientation, and this brand of Republican could be readily elected to the Midwest. La Follette was one of two of these sorts of Republicans to run for president third party, the other was North Dakota’s William Lemke (1878-1950).

In 1915, Lemke joined the newly formed Non-Partisan League, serving as its legal advisor. Although like today, Republicans dominated North Dakota politics, the real parties were the two factions within the state GOP, which was the previously mentioned Non-Partisan League from the left and the Independent Voters Association from the right. Lemke was a hard worker and the brains out of the outfit, putting in at times 18 hours a day and he was regarded as “the political bishop” (BND). Lemke, however, made two mistakes during this time. Per the Bank of North Dakota,

 “Using money from the League’s Home Builders Association, Lemke built a house for himself and his family in Fargo that exceeded the HBA’s cap on public loans for private dwellings in North Dakota. That blunder became a symbol of League corruption and ineptitude. He also let himself be elected chairman of the Republican Party in North Dakota in 1916, Attorney General, a member of the critically-important Industrial Commission in 1920. This violated Townley’s [founder of Non-Partisan League] rule that League leaders would not stand for public office, to assure the farmer-citizens of North Dakota that their purposes were altruistic, not personal aggrandizement”.

In 1921, Lemke was recalled along with Governor Lynn Frazier due to poor economic conditions as well as widespread accusations that the Non-Partisan League government was Bolshevik in nature. Like with Frazier, this would not be the end of Lemke’s career.

The Great Depression helped the political fortunes of Lemke and other Non-Partisan Leaguers, and he was elected to Congress in 1932 as one of two at-large representatives, having defeated the more conservative Thomas Hall for renomination. He had supported FDR’s candidacy, and he backed most of the New Deal, including the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the National Industrial Recovery Act. Lemke also was a consistent defender of organized labor. In 1935, he made an exception by voting against Social Security, albeit from the left; he preferred the more expensive and mathematically challenged Townsend Plan. Lemke did, however, stick with traditional Republicanism in his opposition to the Reciprocal Trade Act in 1934. He also contributed to the New Deal through the Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act in 1934, limiting the ability of banks to repossess farms, the Supreme Court unanimously struck it down in Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford (1935) as in violation of the 5th Amendment, as creditors were denied their property rights. Another measure was enacted that instead of stopping foreclosures postponed them. After Roosevelt opposed efforts at a third Frazier-Lemke Act and the bill was defeated, Lemke ran for president under the Union Party ticket. He no longer supported Roosevelt, saying of him, “I look upon Roosevelt as a bewildered Kerensky of a provisional government. He doesn’t know from or where he’s going” (Simkin). Although Lemke was the presidential nominee, in truth he was not the focus of the campaign. The campaign was a coalition of populist influencers in preacher Gerald L.K. Smith, Father Charles Coughlin, and Dr. Francis Townsend. The venture was a complete and utter disaster, as Smith and Coughlin aggressively competed for dominance in the party and the former tried to poach Dr. Townsend’s followers from under him. Lemke was also pretty far from central casting as a presidential candidate; his appearance was unkempt and shabby, and he was an underwhelming public speaker (Jeansonne, 55). At the same time Lemke was defeated, he was reelected to his Congressional seat. He would continue his record of supporting New Deal measures but opposed any efforts that were seen by Roosevelt opponents as power grabs, such as the proposed 1938 reorganization plan, and he was, as other North Dakota federal politicians of the time were, an opponent of FDR’s foreign policy.

Attempt at the Senate and Continuing Congressional Career

In 1940, Lemke ran for the Republican nomination for the Senate, but the real contest was between incumbent Lynn Frazier and former Governor William Langer, which the latter won. He was able to return in the 1942 midterms, and around 1945 his record shifted a bit to the right, namely in his willingness to support federal government measures impacting the economy through price control and his willingness to support income tax reduction. However, Lemke continued to defend labor unions and in 1947 he voted to sustain President Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act. Americans for Democratic Action graded Lemke in 1947, 1948, and 1949, and his scores come out as 42%, 25%, and 33%. Had ADA counted his score for 1950 based on the votes and pairs he had, he would get a 67%. His DW-Nominate score is a 0.032, lower than any current serving Republican. Lemke would die in office on May 30, 1950.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Jeansonne, G. (1997). Gerald L.K. Smith: minister of hate. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.

Lemke, William. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/5602/william-lemke

Simkin, J. (1997). William Lemke. Spartacus Educational.

Retrieved from

https://spartacus-educational.com/USAlepke.htm

William Lemke. Bank of North Dakota.

Retrieved from

https://thebndstory.nd.gov/william-lemke/

Fascinating Politics

Cabinet Nominations That Lost a Senate Vote

President John Tyler, whose nominees were most rebuked by a vote of the Senate.

At first, the people president-elect Donald Trump announced he would nominate after being sworn in seemed like the sort of picks you’d expect, Marco Rubio for Secretary of State or Elise Stefanik for Ambassador to the UN. However, three of his recent announcements have provoked shock, doubt, and opposition. These are Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, RFK Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Tulsi Gabbard for National Intelligence Director. Gaetz has been a bomb-thrower in Congress for Trump and has made many enemies in the GOP for his leading role in the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), not to mention there was a House Ethics Committee report due to be released on his personal conduct before his resignation from the House. Kennedy has had a history of expressing many views that are out there, but most notorious have been his anti-vaccine stances. Furthermore, his personal record regarding marital fidelity makes Donald Trump look like a saint by comparison. Gabbard has in the past expressed support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has previously repeated Russian propaganda surrounding the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. These announcements have certainly given some who would otherwise be supporting Trump nominations pause. Leading Senate Republicans have pledged that Trump’s nominees will go through the regular Senate vetting process as opposed to recessing the Senate thereby allowing Trump to install his cabinet for a maximum of nearly two years without Senate scrutiny. Believe it or not, only nine people have ever been rejected for a cabinet post by a vote of the Senate.

The first cabinet nomination in the history of the United States to be rejected was none other than Roger B. Taney, who would be most known as chief justice from 1836 until his death in 1864. Much like Trump is proposing to do, Andrew Jackson used a recess appointment to confirm Attorney General Taney as Secretary of the Treasury. However, as Treasury Secretary Taney was Jackson’s point man for the destruction of the Second Bank of the United States, which included advising transferring funds out of the bank and into state banks and authored a lot of President Jackson’s veto message (Encyclopedia Britannica). In retaliation, the Senate rejected continuing him in this position 18-28 in June 1834.

John Tyler’s Nominees

John Tyler has the dubious distinction of having the most cabinet nominees rejected by a vote of the Senate, with four getting rejected. This is certainly a least in part attributable to him considered by his party to be a rogue president. Indeed, him assuming the presidency instead of simply serving as acting president was considered questionable in his time, and some saw him as illegitimate. Yet, this precedent stuck. As a Whig, Tyler was dissenting on a lot of Whig policy, including vetoing restoring the Second Bank of the United States and vetoing two tariff increases. The defeated were Caleb Cushing for Secretary of the Treasury (who was voted on three times as Tyler stubbornly resubmitted his nomination twice), David Henshaw for Secretary of the Navy, James M. Porter for Secretary of War, and James S. Green for Secretary of the Treasury. The defeats of these candidates can broadly be attributed to President Tyler’s unpopularity.

Henry Stanbery

In 1866, the Senate confirmed Henry Stanbery as Attorney General for the Johnson Administration without fanfare or drama. However, relations between the Senate and Stanbery soured. He had backed President Johnson’s Reconstruction policy that gave no focus on rights for freedmen, and he had helped draft Johnson’s veto message of the first Reconstruction Act and on March 12, 1868 he resigned his post to join the defense team for President Andrew Johnson in the Senate’s impeachment trial. After Johnson was acquitted by one vote, he renominated Stanbery for his old post. The Senate, however, wasn’t having it, and his nomination was rejected 11-29 on June 2nd.

Charles B. Warren

In 1925, President Coolidge nominated Charles B. Warren to replace Attorney General Harlan F. Stone, who had been confirmed to the Supreme Court. Something to be understood about the Republican Party at this time was that although conservatives were strongly in the majority in the party, there was a staunch progressive wing and this wing in particular had clout in the Senate as they were able to team up with Democrats to oppose many policies of the Republican administrations of the 1920s. Warren was seen as too friendly to business interests, especially the “sugar trust”. The vote on this was going to be close, and Vice President Charles G. Dawes was going to be needed. Dawes thought he had time to take a nap at the Willard Hotel as he was told by the Senate leadership that a vote wouldn’t be held that day. However, the Senate abruptly decided to proceed to the vote…while Dawes was napping. Although Dawes was awoken and rushed to the Capitol to cast the tie-breaking vote, it was too late by the time he had arrived, as a senator had changed his mind to opposition with the vote failing 39-41. However, when the vote was held again on March 16th, it was rejected 39-46. President Coolidge was quite put off indeed by his vice president. This is also the last time that the Senate ever voted to reject a president’s nominee when the president’s party was in control.

Lewis Strauss

This rejection is the one that certainly has had the most public attention lately, given that it figured in the film Oppenheimer. Indeed, Strauss’s role in pushing of Oppenheimer out contributed to his defeat. However, there were other factors. Strauss’s competence was not in question, rather it was his polarizing personality that had become clear when he was a member and later chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission…while he had the full confidence and friendship of President Eisenhower, he made numerous enemies. Time Magazine (1959) described the variance of the views on him thusly, “Strauss, by the extraordinary ingredients of his makeup, is one to arouse superlatives of praise and blame, admiration and dislike. In the eyes of friends, he is brilliant, devoted, courageous and, in his more relaxed moments, exceedingly charming. His enemies regard him as arrogant, evasive, suspicious-minded, pride-ridden, and an excessively rough battler”. One of these enemies was Senator Clinton Anderson (D-N.M.), who led the charge against Strauss’s confirmation. Anderson made sure that committee hearings on Strauss went on for weeks, and he admitted that this was a strategy, “I thought if the committee members saw enough of him, he would begin to irritate them, just as he has me” (Time Magazine). Another factor was that Strauss, a staunch conservative, had repeatedly worked against public generation of power, supporting instead private industry. Although his nomination survived in committee by a vote of 9-8, this did not translate to confirmation, especially not in the strongly Democratic Senate. Strauss was rejected on a vote of 46-49, with 15 Democrats in support, and 2 Republicans in opposition. Strauss’s high level of defensiveness, an insistence on addressing every point of contention instead of admitting to a few errors, also harmed his nomination (Time Magazine).

John Tower

In 1989, President Bush nominated John Tower to serve as Secretary of Defense. Tower had served in the Senate from 1961 to 1985 as the first Republican to represent Texas since Reconstruction, and he had become an expert on national defense, serving as the chairman of the Armed Services Committee from 1981 to 1985. He had also served as the lead negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the USSR and chaired the Tower Commission on Iran-Contra, which had issued a strongly critical report of the Reagan Administration. Tower was not known to suffer fools, and this made numerous senators on the Democratic side less than sanguine about his nomination. However, an unexpected opponent of his nomination came to testify before the Senate in Heritage Foundation’s Paul Weyrich. Weyrich opposed his nomination on the grounds of his moral character, stating, “I have encountered the senator in a condition lacking sobriety as well as with women he was not married to”, and adding to this Tower’s second wife, Lila Burt Cummings, alleged “marital misconduct” in her divorce filing (Los Angeles Times). The nomination became a highly partisan issue, and on March 9, 1989, Tower was rejected 47-53, with three Democrats (Dodd of Connecticut, Heflin of Alabama, and Bentsen of Texas) voting for, and one Republican voting against (Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas). The odd man out in support was Dodd, who although he denied it, it seems likely that he had Tower’s vote against his father’s censure in 1967 in mind. Tower’s defeat by vote of the Senate is the only one to have happened at the start of a president’s time in office.

I find it possible that the Senate rejects one Trump nominee in a vote, but more likely that a far more common event occurs: the nomination is withdrawn, either by Trump or the nominee him or herself. Indeed, there is a long list of announced nominations that were withdrawn during the first Trump Administration, including Andy Puzder for Secretary of Labor and Patrick M. Shanahan for Secretary of Defense. Count on some of those rather than a series of dramatic Senate rejection votes.

References

Conservative Tells of Seeing Tower Drunk: Senate Panel Hears Activist Oppose Defense Nomination. Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved from

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-01-31-mn-1492-story.html

Kelly, R. (2017, February 7). A Nap Got in the Way of the Last Tied Cabinet Vote in the Senate. Roll Call.

Retrieved from

https://rollcall.com/2017/02/07/a-nap-got-in-the-way-of-the-last-tied-cabinet-vote-in-the-senate/

List of Donald Trump nominees who have withdrawn. Wikipedia.

Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Donald_Trump_nominees_who_have_withdrawn

Presidents Have Failed 8 Times to Win Cabinet Confirmations. Deseret News.

Retrieved from

https://www.deseret.com/1989/2/24/18796378/presidents-have-failed-8-times-to-win-cabinet-confirmations/

Roger B. Taney. Encyclopedia Britannica.

Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roger-B-Taney

The Administration: The Strauss Affair. Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6827665/the-administration-the-strauss-affair/

Fascinating Politics

The 12th Amendment: A Controversial Constitutional Correction

The 1800 election marked some firsts in American history. For one thing, it was the first time a president lost reelection and the smooth transfer of power in this case was an important precedent in American as well as world history. However, there was a significant complication that could have derailed the public’s will in electing Thomas Jefferson.

Background

When the Constitution was adopted in 1788, the Founding Fathers were largely of the belief that political parties were to be avoided. President George Washington, who never identified with a party, certainly thought so. However, factionalism developed from the beginning with groups we retroactively call the Pro and Anti-Administration factions. The Pro faction of course sided with George Washington and was also supportive of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and Vice President John Adams, believing in the use of federal power to grow the nation through the funding of internal improvements to grow commerce and imposing tariffs to finance such developments. The Anti faction sided with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who idealized an agrarian society of the people and disliked the Hamiltonian system of government of protective tariffs to fund internal improvements. However, because the Constitution had it that the winner would be president and the runner-up would be vice president, it created a situation in which the president would have a political foe in the vice presidency, as happened with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. By the 1796 election, America’s first two parties had developed in the Federalist and Republican parties. For the purposes of avoiding confusion, however, historians and others call the latter the Democratic-Republican Party, as today’s Republican Party traces its lineage to the Whigs, which traced their lineage to the Federalists. Despite the wishes of many Founders, the seeds for political parties had been planted from the very beginning. Although both Adams and Jefferson had their picks for vice president, the tickets were not official and the results made it so that under the Constitution Adams was president and Jefferson was vice president, creating a rather awkward situation in the White House. Imagine this applied to recent politics in addition to the greater role of the vice president, and you can imagine how well this would go over. Electors cast two votes each, but there was no distinction as to president and vice president in these votes.

The 1800 Election

In the 1800 election, the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties officially selected president and vice president. Jefferson’s running mate was New York’s Aaron Burr and Adams’s running mate was South Carolina’s Charles C. Pinckney. In that election, the tides decisively turned against John Adams, with the Administration being unpopular due to numerous factors, including their support of greater relations with Britain, their tariffs, and the Alien and Sedition Acts, now widely regarded as an unconstitutional overreaction to fears about the influence of revolutionary France. Thomas Jefferson won with 60.6% of the vote as opposed to Adams’ 39.4%.  The problem was that in the casting of electoral votes, the electors gave Jefferson and Burr 73 electoral votes, and because the electoral votes didn’t distinguish between president and vice president a Burr presidency was now possible! The Adams electors had been careful about this; his VP nominee Charles C. Pinckney received one less electoral vote than Adams, but this didn’t matter as the ticket hadn’t won. The conundrum had to be resolved by Congress, and the Federalists initially sought to make life difficult for Jefferson by voting for Burr and producing a stalemate, resulting in 35 ballots without a winner. Because state delegations were what mattered in the voting for president, this had the result of giving Delaware’s single representative, the staunchly Federalist James A. Bayard, the same power as the considerably more populous Democratic-Republican state of Virginia in determining the president. Burr, ever ambitious and far from the most ethical politician the US has ever had, was during this time accused of campaigning for himself being president as he did not rule himself out as a candidate for president. As a consequence, Burr would be completely frozen out of the Jefferson Administration’s inner circle. However, Alexander Hamilton realized that Jefferson was the preferable president. He didn’t like the idea of Burr being an instrument of the Federalists throughout his career. In 1804, Hamilton’s opinion on Burr reflected his views on him in 1801, asking, “Is he to be used by the Federalists, or is he a two-edged sword, that must not be drawn?” (Thomas Jefferson Monticello) He managed to convince some Federalists to switch their votes to Jefferson, and on the 36th ballot, Delaware’s Bayard cast his vote for Jefferson, thus producing the intended outcome of the people. An election being decided in the House of Representatives is, to say the least, not ideal as Americans would find out in 1824 (the election of the alleged “corrupt bargain”) and 1876, the only time in which a presidential candidate lost who got the majority, as opposed to the plurality, of the popular vote. Thus, Jefferson and his party proposed the 12th Amendment to the Constitution regarding the elections of the president and vice president. This amendment distinguished electoral votes for president and vice president, held whoever should have the greatest number of votes for vice president would be the vice president, and prohibited electors from a state for voting for more than one candidate from their state. The latter has had some relevance in decisions surrounding presidents; in 2000, Dick Cheney had to legally change his residence from Texas to Wyoming to still be Bush’s running mate, and this issue certainly factored in Trump declining to pick Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his running mate this year. In a close election year, it is best not to risk loss because Florida’s electors can’t vote for the ticket if there are two Florida residents. The Federalist Party strongly opposed this proposal, as they saw it as a way to benefit Jefferson and his party and to further reduce their influence in politics. Senator Samuel White of Delaware argued that “we have not given it a fair experiment,” that “we should be cautious how we touch it”, and cautioned that the measure had potential to increase corruption, holding that the result would be to “more than double the inducement to those candidates, and their friends, to tamper with the Electors, to exercise intrigue, bribery, and corruption…” (Alder).

However, the Federalist Party was quite weak in representation and the Senate voted for the amendment on December 2, 1803, by a vote of 21-10, with all Federalists opposing and one Democratic-Republican joining them. On December 8, 1803, the House voted to ratify the amendment 84-42, or with 2/3’s of the vote. All Federalists and five Democratic-Republicans voted against, but the Jeffersonian majority was strong enough to ratify. Among the opponents was future President John Quincy Adams.

The 12th Amendment, it is true, did serve Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party, but it also adjusted to the reality of the existence of political parties, which with 20/20 hindsight just seems inevitable. That being said, Federalists were understandably self-interested in their opposition to the 12th Amendment, trying to stave off their long-term decline. The 1804 election turned out to be a cakewalk for the popular Jefferson, who had a new running mate in New York’s George Clinton and won in a massive landslide against South Carolina’s Charles C. Pinckney, who only won Connecticut and the staunchly Federalist outpost of Delaware. The Federalist Party would gradually die out, but it would ironically technically outlast the Democratic-Republican Party. The Federalist Party was finally dissolved around 1828 while the Democratic-Republican Party fell victim to its own success as the party’s tent had become far too big and it was split over the candidacy of the populistic General Andrew Jackson, dissolving around 1825. That partisan politics didn’t end with the “Era of Good Feelings” that characterized James Monroe’s administration should be demonstrative that the “end of history” will not come without the end of humanity itself.

References

Alder, C. (2016, March 3). A Far Superior Method – the Original Electoral College. In Search of the American Constitutional Paradigm.

Retrieved from

https://www.freedomformula.us/articles/a-far-superior-method/

Election of 1804. Thomas Jefferson Monticello.

Retrieved from

https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/election-1804/

The Twelfth Amendment. National Constitution Center.

Retrieved from

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xii/interpretations/171

To Adopt a Resolution, Reported by the Committee, Amending the Constitution. (P. 209-210). Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/8-1/s16

To Concur in the Senate Resolution to Submit for Approval to the Legislatures of the States, an Amendment to the Constitution Regulating the Election of the President and Vice President. (Speaker Voting in the Affirmative). Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/8-1/h24

Fascinating Politics

The 2024 Election Outcome: Donald Trump and the Seven States


The 2024 election was an electoral college sweep for Donald Trump, as he won all seven swing states. It turned out that the fear from Democrats on Republicans having a lot more of the early vote was justified. Since the Senate and House are determined to be in Republican control, it is time to look at what has happened. First, how did I do on predictions?

Presidential

I predicted 5 of the 7 swing states, and in that prediction was also a Donald Trump victory, which occurred. The states I thought would go Harris were Michigan and Wisconsin. I also regarded Michigan as the sick man of the swing states, but that was actually a designation that should have gone to Wisconsin, where Trump had his worst swing state performance. I certainly beat the Google AI prediction of a Harris win and her winning 4 of the 7 swing states (she didn’t get Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina per AI). I never doubted North Carolina would go to Trump, same for Georgia. Nevada was a very close call for me, but I’m glad that I went against the conventional wisdom of Jon Ralston. I pat myself on the head in particular for judging this based on his prediction bias. Some facts and figures that were predictive of this election were that Gallup found this year that there were more self-identified Republicans than Democrats for the first time since it started asking the question, that Republicans led in voter confidence on the top election issue (the economy) per Gallup, that most sitting vice presidents historically don’t succeed the president, and that prediction markets were predicting a Trump win. History has only defied the Gallup voter confidence metric once, and that was in 1948. Furthermore, the prediction markets since 1916 have only been wrong three times. Alan Lichtman’s keys to the presidency has broken whatever way you see it. This election certainly gives weight to Nate Silver’s criticism of a number of his keys as subjective. Another portend I saw for this election that turned out to be valid was that Democratic incumbent senators in swing states were highlighting what they had in common with Trump in their ads. Their internal polling must have indicated something that much of the public didn’t know. After all, if the numbers had been good for Harris, they would have connected themselves with Harris in their ads.

The Senate

I am proud to report that my prediction for the Senate was 100%. I again outperformed the Google AI prediction, which predicted that Republicans would get 51 seats. I predicted that Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and Jon Tester of Montana would lose reelection to Republicans Bernie Moreno, Dave McCormick, and Tim Sheehy respectively and they did. The interesting thing about all three is that they had defeated Republican incumbents in 2006. It is a testament to the political skills of these men, especially in the case of Tester given the nature of his state, that they held on for three terms. For Brown, the state’s politics shifted from under his feet.

Although popular as governor in his state, Republican Larry Hogan couldn’t defeat Democrat Angela Alsobrooks. For Marylanders, the attitude towards Hogan for national office amounts to “nice guy, wrong party”.

Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan came very close, but didn’t quite make it as enough Trump voters split their tickets to put Democrat Elissa Slotkin over the top.

Republican Eric Hovde in Wisconsin came within a point, but Tammy Baldwin’s greater knowledge of farm issues likely put her over the top.

If Republican Sam Brown in Nevada had more buy-in earlier in his Senate race, perhaps he could have toppled Democrat Jacky Rosen, but then again, she did have some crossover appeal among Trump voters.

Republican Kari Lake of Arizona is a bad candidate and GOP primary voters should not choose to run her for a statewide office again; Trump won the state and all of the state’s Congressional Republicans won their reelections, in districts that were mapped out by an independent redistricting commission, but Lake couldn’t win hers.

Democrat Colin Allred, although certainly an appealing candidate, couldn’t cut into Texas’s Republicanism nearly enough to beat incumbent Ted Cruz.

The House

In the name of contrariness, I suppose I muffed this one by predicting Democratic control. However, the House has been close, and although Republicans gained or kept important ground in some places, they have lost in others.

Republican Flips

Gabe Evans toppled incumbent Yadira Caraveo in the truly swing 8th district of Colorado.

Tom Barrett defeated Curtis Hertel to win Michigan’s 7th district, held by outgoing Democrat Elissa Slotkin, now senator-elect.

Due to partisan redistricting, Republicans gained three seats in North Carolina. The new members are Addison McDowell, Brad Knott, and Tim Moore. This setup may change for the 2026 midterms.

Ryan Mckenzie defeated Susan Wild for reelection in Pennsylvania’s 7th district.

Robert Bresnahan defeated Matt Cartwright for reelection in Pennsylvania’s 8th district.

Democratic Flips

Court-ordered redistricting in Alabama resulted in the creation of a new 2nd district, a second black-majority district. Shomari Figures was elected to this seat.

George Whitesides defeated Republican Mike Garcia for reelection in California’s 27th district.

Court-ordered redistricting in Louisiana resulted in the creation of a new 6th district, a second black-majority district. Cleo Fields, whose last term in Congress ended in 1997, made a comeback.

In New York, Democrats so far have made their most impressive showing, winning three seats. Their party organization was in a sorry state in 2022, but this is clearly no longer so.

In the 4th district, Laura Gillen defeated Republican Anthony D’Esposito for reelection.

In the 19th district, Josh Riley defeated Republican Marc Molinaro for reelection.

In the 22nd district, John Mannion defeated Republican Brandon Williams for reelection.

In Oregon, the state’s Republican delegation can once again hold their party caucus in a phone booth, as in the 5th district, Janelle Bynum defeated Lori Chavez-DeRemer for reelection.

Unresolved races include Alaka’s At-Large district, in which Republican Nick Begich is leading over Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola.

Republicans John Duarte and Michelle Steel of California’s 13th district and 45th district may lose reelection when counting ends.

Maine has a ranked-choice system, and Democrat Jared Golden of the 2nd district will almost certainly win reelection.

Overall, I did pretty well this time in predicting the presidential winner and all of the Senate races. The House did stay Republican, but some vulnerable incumbents went down, and the GOP’s current numbers make a Democratic majority in the House quite obtainable from the 2026 midterm elections.  

There are overall several takeaways from this election.

  1. President Biden should never have tried for reelection. The Democrats didn’t hold a proper primary, and simply anointing Vice President Harris given the lack of time is a mess the Democrats got themselves into. The seeds of the 2024 defeat were planted in 2020. This being said, dumping Biden was the best of their bad options at that point.
  2. Although certain economic indicators on the surface were good, the purchasing power of many Americans went down under the Biden Administration, and certain policies did the opposite of helping with inflation, namely the American Rescue Plan. Furthermore, the measure that the Biden Administration put forth as combatting inflation, the Inflation Reduction Act, primarily consisted of spending more money on green energy.
  3. The border was a major issue, and whatever measures taken by the Biden Administration to try and clamp down on the situation now, the American people remember that the Biden Administration enacted multiple policies undoing Trump Administration policies on the border, which in sum effectively meant an open border policy, prompting a surge.
  4. Harris was to say the least not a good candidate. She had to consistently dodge based not only on being part of an unpopular administration but also had one of the most left-wing Senate records. The positions she staked out when running for the Democratic nomination in 2020 she also had to walk back, and I believe the 2024 walking back by Harris of her 2020 stances to be as genuine as Obama claiming he was against same-sex marriage when he ran for president in 2008.
  5. Abortion was not the major issue that certain left-wing or left-leaning press outlets were pushing. The shock of the Dobbs decision seems to have worn off after two years and numerous state referendums on abortion policy, so many voters who may have otherwise been motivated on the subject were simply able to vote on the subject in their own state. Unless Republicans should foolishly push for a national abortion ban, this issue is off the federal table save for the matter of federal government funding of abortions.
  6. This election was a referendum on the Biden-Harris Administration, and although Trump certainly figured in people’s minds the voters didn’t forget that he wasn’t the incumbent. The Democrats could run away from Biden, but they could not run away from the fact that they were the incumbent party. The Republicans should not, however, read this as Trump suddenly becoming very personally popular among the American public. Trump was picked by the voters despite having lower personal likability numbers than Harris.
  7. Kamala Harris responding to Sunny Hostin’s question about what she’d do differently than Biden and having no difference of substance was damaging, and I didn’t think that this would be ignored during the election.
  8. Donald Trump had an excellent campaign manager in Susie Wiles, who mostly was able to keep him on focus. Picking her as chief of staff is on point.
  9. J.D. Vance was a far better VP pick than most people thought at the time, and his performance at the VP debate did much to combat portrayals of him as “weird”. Furthermore, he was better at arguing for Trump than Trump was.
  10. Harris probably chose the worst of her options when she picked Tim Walz. By the way, both times Democrats have run women for president they have picked balding upper-middle aged men named Tim from light blue states!
  11. This is the election of the podcast. Podcasts are proving more influential media than declining mainstream media outlets with their packaged thinking talk programs, and as demonstrated by Trump’s appearances on podcasts with young male audiences, most notably the Joe Rogan Experience.
  12. Although this was a secondary factor, far left social issues figured against Democrats, such as “defund the police”, certain trans policies (trans women in women’s sports, state-subsidized sex-change operations, puberty blockers and sex change operations for minors), and racial identity politics.
  13. Trump won the image war. His campaign PR stunts such as his serving food at the drive-thru of a McDonald’s and as a garbageman may be disregarded by some as disingenuous, not real, or unimportant, but everyone knew they were PR stunts, and they were good ones. Furthermore, his narrow brush with death produced a photo that is iconic in American history.
  14. Give the pollsters a break. The outcomes of these elections were well within the RCP poll average margins of error. Some pollsters got it more wrong while others were more on the mark. This is why you look at poll averages to see about where the race is.
  15. Trump’s win in this election changes the narratives about him as well as narratives about where our nation’s politics are at. Grover Cleveland no longer stands alone, to say the least.