All American workers are used to the idea that their taxes are withheld from their income rather than them having to worry about paying a big tax bill on tax day, that is if you are not an independent contractor. However, from 1913 until 1943 income taxes were indeed paid in this way…you’d be paying for your last year of income. By 1942, the US was in a total war economy and that year the Revenue Act of 1942 was passed, a massive tax measure to fund the war, and with this the income tax came to not be a mere class tax, rather a tax that hit taxpayers across the board. The tax revenue that came from this measure, even though a lot, was not enough to fund the war effort as noted by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau. The next revenue bill was going to be a sea-change in tax law as it was widely agreed upon that current-year taxation would be for the best. However, what would happen in the first year of implementation is that many people would get hit with taxes for both 1942 and 1943, making 1943 a really hard tax year for many. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bob Doughton (D-N.C.) lamented the difficulty of changing the tax system, “We are dealing with the most hateful, difficult problem that ever came along in the annals of mankind” (Time Magazine). Enter Beardsley Ruml (1894-1960).
Ruml was an economist and the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and he had an idea of how to mitigate the difficulty of this change: forgive 1942 tax liability. As you might have expected, Republicans embraced Ruml’s push, but Democrats, who had a Congressional majority, were opposed. This forgiveness would largely benefit upper income taxpayers, and providing such a benefit for upper income taxpayers went directly against the political ethos of President Roosevelt and New Dealers. Interestingly, Southerners by and large objected to the Ruml Plan, at least at 100% forgiveness. Doughton, for instance, was strongly opposed to 100% forgiveness, considering it “the biggest outrage ever attempted to be perpetrated upon the people of the United States” (Thorndike, March 24). However, he would prove willing to accept a lower level of forgiveness. After all, tax relief was popular among voters and Republicans knew it! House Minority Leader Joe Martin (R-Mass.), for instance, strongly pushed this measure, stating of the majority Democrats on this issue, “They’ll know they’ve been in a fight” (Time Magazine). On March 30, 1943, the full implementation, pushed by Rep. Frank Carlson (R-Kan.), was voted down 198-215 although Congress opted to shelve the Ways and Means Committee bill 248-168 on the same day, resulting in an impasse. The House eventually passed 60% forgiveness 313-95 on May 4, 1943, but the Senate had different ideas and on May 14th voted for the Ruml Plan 49-30. This was unacceptable for President Roosevelt, who wrote to Congressional leaders, “This cancellation would result in a highly inequitable distribution of the cost of the war and in an unjust and discriminatory enrichment of thousands of taxpayers in the upper income groups. Such groups would be enriched by the cancellation of taxes already owing by them” (Thorndike, March 24).
Resolution
A compromise version of what became known as the Current Taxpayer Act was adopted 257-114 on June 1st. The Senate agreed to the measure 62-19 the next day. President Roosevelt would sign the bill into law on June 9th. The final law forgave 75% of the lower figure of either 1942 or 1943 tax liability and instituted withholding of the income tax at 20% automatically. Interestingly, the matter that had the longest and most consequential impact was the least controversial of the issues in tax withholding and the most controversial thing was a matter that is easily forgotten. Also of note, although Ruml’s full plan was embraced mostly by conservative Republicans, Ruml himself was something of a political enigma. Although a registered Republican, he more often supported Democrats than Republicans for public office, and in 1952 he backed and helped raise funds for Democrat Adlai Stevenson over Republican Dwight Eisenhower (The New York Times). There likely isn’t a soul working today who knows a tax system before withholding, unless there’s a working 100-year-old out there who wishes to contradict me. Feel free to leave a message if so!
Beardsley Ruml, 65, Tax Planner, Dead. (1960, April 19). The New York Times.
Retrieved from
The Congress: Tax Soliloquy. (1943, March 22). Time Magazine.
Louisiana’s politics, like the South’s generally, had a considerable shift in the 20th century. One of the figures who proved among the more resistant to the state’s increasing shift to the right was James Hobson Morrison (1908-2000).
Morrison was an attorney by profession who frequently supported organized labor, including creating a union for strawberry pickers. As a young man, he made a critical connection with Huey Long, but Long was assassinated before he could win a major office. Morrison was highly ambitious, unsuccessfully running in the Democratic primary for governor in 1939 and 1944. However, it would be between these runs in which he would have his major successful race.
In 1942, Morrison defeated anti-Long incumbent Jared Y. Sanders, Jr., for renomination. This would be the start of a long career for him, and although he had a reputation over his career as a progressive populist, in truth his earlier record was a bit more mixed. His first Congress was the 78th, in which although Democrats maintained their majority, it acted much like a Republican Congress and Morrison sometimes voted with the Conservative Coalition, including some tax votes and in voting for the Smith-Connally Act to resolve labor disputes over President Roosevelt’s veto. This early vote on labor demonstrated he could be independent from his union background, much like his vote for the Hobbs Act in 1945. However, Morrison was at heart a union man and in 1946 he voted against the proposed Case bill as too harsh on labor. Morrison’s record on price control was mixed, supporting some limitations but supporting the general concept. Morrison also championed highway projects in his Baton Rouge-based district.
At the end of World War II, Morrison controversially sponsored a bill that provided for the relief of Sylvestro “Silver Dollar Sam” Carolla from deportation by making him a naturalized citizen. Carolla was the boss of the New Orleans crime family. This bill did not pass, and he was deported in 1947.
Morrison had a mixed record during the Republican 80th Congress. He voted for several Republican-pushed measures such as tax reduction legislation and the Reed-Bulwinkle Act during the 80th Congress but was also one of the few Southerners to vote against the Taft-Hartley Act. Morrison proved one of the more favorable Southerners to President Truman’s Fair Deal, but it would not be until the Eisenhower Administration in which he was firmly identified with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
Morrison proved second only to New Orleans’ Hale Boggs among Louisiana supporters of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, supporting most New Frontier and Great Society measures. He voted for accelerated public works, minimum wage legislation, public housing, anti-poverty legislation, federal aid to education, and Medicare. He even bent on an area in which tough to do for his region: civil rights.
Morrison had signed the Southern Manifesto and had not supported a single civil rights measure until his vote for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, being one of two Louisianans to vote for it. His vote for this plus his strong support of the Great Society made him a target for defeat for renomination as LBJ was not popular in his district, which had voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 (Western Washington University). This opened him up to a primary challenge from segregationist Judge John Rarick. Rarick was a staunchly conservative figure who had a history of racism, once telling a black lawyer who entered his courtroom, “I didn’t know they let you coons practice law” (Time Magazine). Morrison campaigned against Rarick by publicizing his ties with the KKK. Rarick denounced him as a candidate of the “black power voting bloc” (Webb). Morrison had an uphill battle as a strong LBJ supporter as much of his previous support was bleeding away. Rarick had also campaigned against Morrison as a “handmaiden to LBJ” (The Town Talk). The Democratic primary’s first vote resulted in a runoff, which Rarick won. Morrison never ran for public office again, resuming his legal career and raising money for Southeastern Louisiana University. He had agreed with the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 12% of the time from 1957 to 1966, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 64% of the time from 1947 to 1966, and his DW-Nominate score was a -0.28.
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
In 1934, Congress passed and FDR signed the Anti-Racketeering Act. This law, aimed at gangsters, contained an exemption for organized labor. The consequences of this would become apparent when members of the Teamsters Union sought to secure wages by rather unsavory means. As Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone wrote, “They [the members of the teamsters’ union], or some of them, lay in wait for trucks passing from New Jersey to New York, forced their way onto the trucks, and by beating or threats of beating the drivers procured payments to themselves from the drivers or their employers of a sum of money for each truck, $9.42 for a large truck and $8.41 for a small one, said to be the equivalent of the union wage scale for a day’s work. In some instances they assisted or offered to assist in unloading the truck and in others they disappeared as soon as the money was paid without rendering or offering to render any service” (The New York Times, 1942). The case against the union, Teamsters Local 807, made its way up to the Supreme Court as incidents had involved interstate commerce, and on March 2, 1942, they ruled 6-1 in United States v. Teamsters Local 807 that workers of the Teamsters Union had not been in violation of the Anti-Racketeering Act. The majority opinion being delivered by Justice James F. Byrnes, the majority’s holdings were:
“1. That the legislative history of the Act shows that it was intended to suppress terroristic activities of professional gangsters, and not to interfere with traditional labor union activities.
2. The exception is not limited to those who had acquired the status of employees prior to the time when they obtained, or attempted or conspired to obtain, the payment.
3. The exception is applicable to an agreement by members of a city union of truck drivers, who, for the purpose of obtaining employment at union wages in connection with “over the road” trucks entering the city, agree to tender their services in good faith to each truck owner and to do the work if he accepts their offer, but agree further that, should he refuse it, they will nevertheless, for the protection of their union interests, require him to pay them the wages, even by resort to threats and violence.
The test of the applicability of the exception in such case is whether the objective of the conspirators was to obtain “the payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee,” and not whether the intent of the truck owner in making payment was to pay for services, rather than for protection.
4. Labor union activities such as those disclosed by the record in this case are not beyond the reach of federal legislative control, and the use of violence such as that here disclosed is subject to the ordinary criminal law.
118 F.2d 684 reversed” (315 U.S. 521).
Given that Justices Owen Roberts and Robert Jackson were not participating in the case, Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone was the sole dissenter. Dissenting even more on this decision was Congress.
This particular act of racketeering by Teamster members unfortunately reflected a wider problem, and Representative Sam Hobbs (D-Ala.) opted to act (Neeley). Hobbs was a close ally of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who specialized in law enforcement measures, responded by introducing legislation to apply the Anti-Racketeering Act to labor unions, thus prohibiting extortion and robbery in interstate commerce. American Federation of Labor President William Green opposed the legislation as “anti-labor” and argued that “there is no necessity for it” (The New York Times, 1942). The New York Times was for this measure, regarding it as necessary for the reputation of organized labor. Although Hobbs’ bill passed the House in 1943 by a vote of 270-107 (D 115-70, R 154-34, P 0-2, AL 0-1, FL 1-0) (yes there were five parties in the House at the time), it was not taken up in the Senate. Numerous Congressional allies of organized labor in Washington came out strongly against the Hobbs bill as overly broad. Representative Emanuel Celler (D-N.Y.), a frequent champion of liberalism, held that the bill’s definitions were “so broad that as to permit one to drive a coach and six through them” and Representative Luther Patrick (D-Ala.), one of the strongest of the Southern liberals, warned with this law “we are simply burning the house down…to get rid of a few rats” (CQ Almanac). However, there were some liberals who found merit in this measure as a way of improving the reputation of unions. Representative Jerry Voorhis (D-Calif.), normally a voice for liberalism, thought organized labor’s fears about the bill unjustified, stating, “when one attempts to read the bill with care it just is not possible to find in the bill the dangers that are alleged to be there” (CQ Almanac). In the next Congress, the key vote was to approve the rule for consideration, which was adopted 259-108 (D 113-93, R 146-13, P 0-1, AL 01). The Hobbs Act subsequently passed by voice vote in the House and Senate and President Truman found the provisions of this bill sufficiently acceptable to sign it into law the following year. With the exceptions of signing this measure and his bad-tempered push to draft strikers, he was known as a favorable president to organized labor for his pushing for increasing the minimum wage and his vetoes of the 1946 Case bill and the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. The Hobbs Act is a relevant law to this day.
H. Res. 406. Resolution Providing for the Consideration of HR 32 to Amend the Act Entitle “An Act to Protect Trade and Commerce Against Interference by Violence, Threats, Coercion or Intimidation.”. Govtrack.
The history of Congressional pushback against the Supreme Court for taking the side of the federal government over the states has a much more significant history than simply beginning with the Southern reaction to Brown v. Board of Education (1954). It was also the Supreme Court’s rulings that brought on the Tidelands Controversy after the discovery of oil off the California coast, the Supreme Court hindering the ability of states to enact anti-subversive laws, and it was a Supreme Court decision that resulted in Congress affirming insurance regulation as a state function.
In 1942, the Justice Department sued the South-Eastern Underwriters Association, a group of fire insurance companies in six Southern states, for allegedly being in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The South-Eastern Underwriters Association contested the suit on the grounds that insurance did not fall under federal jurisdiction, and they seemed to have a solid precedent to cite in Paul v. Virginia (1869), in which the court unanimously ruled that insurance regulation was the purview of the states. As the case was pending, 35 state attorney generals announced their opposition to insurance being under federal jurisdiction (Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, 1). This was a different Supreme Court, however, and it ruled 4-3 in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association (1944) that the insurance industry was covered by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 as they found insurance to be a form of interstate commerce. This overruled the Supreme Court precedent of Paul v. Virginia (1869), which ruled insurance was not interstate commerce and thus its regulation was the jurisdiction of the states. This decision was yet another Supreme Court move in maximizing what was interpreted as interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court had in 1942 gone rather far with the interpretation in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) when they ruled that even activities that have indirect impact on interstate commerce count as interstate commerce. The insurance decision attracted widespread opposition in Congress.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Hatton W. Sumners (D-Tex.) stated, “I do not propose to yield to the Supreme Court and destroy the greatest democracy in the world…I call upon Congress to assume its responsibility” and Representative Walter C. Ploeser (R-Mo.) charged that “power-hungry politicians” were trying to control the insurance business and that it would fall under the regulatory burdens of the Office of Price Administration (Springfield Weekly Republican, 6). Representative Francis Walter (D-Penn.) sponsored House Resolution 422 in response, which would make clear the Congressional intent that insurance be regulated by states. He condemned the court as having not only overturned a 75-year precedent but also having “contemptuously ignored the intent of Congress” and asserted that the insurance companies had been following the laws of their states (Springfield Weekly Republican, 6). There were, however, representatives who defended the Supreme Court’s ruling in Emanuel Celler (D-N.Y.) and Jerry Voorhis (D-Calif.). They expressed opposition to Congress undoing a Supreme Court ruling and Celler held that proponents of this measure were portraying the insurance industry as “pure as the driven snow” and accused insurance companies of playing a “heads I win, tails you lose” game with rate-fixing under federal and state regulations (Springfield Weekly Republican, 6).
On June 22, 1944, the House passed Walter’s resolution by a vote of 283-54 (D 118-51; R 165-1; P 0-1; AL 0-1). The Roosevelt Administration opposed efforts against this decision, but Congress was in an increasingly rebellious mood, evidenced by them overriding his vetoes of the Smith-Connally Act in 1943 and the Revenue Act of 1944, the latter the first time Congress ever overrode a presidential veto of tax legislation. However, the measure didn’t advance to the Senate that year, and the bill would have to wait until the next session. This bill, sponsored by Senators Pat McCarran (D-Nev.) and Homer Ferguson (R-Mich.) was one of the first priorities of the 79th Congress, and it again passed on a strong bipartisan basis, 315-58 (D 150-56; R 165-0; P 0-1; AL 0-1) on February 14, 1945. The Senate followed up two weeks later, passing the bill 68-8 (D 35-8; R 31-0; P 1-0) on February 28th. The vote far beyond the margin of President Roosevelt to veto, he signed the measure into law on March 9th. Interestingly, there was a revision to this law in recent years. In 2020, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act that subjected medical and dental insurance to federal anti-trust regulations in response to rising healthcare costs, and it was signed by President Trump on January 13, 2021.
P.S.: My 2022 content is going to be archived come Tuesday.
References
House Exempts Insurance Firms. (1944, June 29). Springfield Weekly Republican, 6.
When we talk about the “party switch” it is very important that we realize what this means, lest we think this means that the parties switched left-right ideologies, or that everything switched in 1964. It means a gradual shift in political philosophy in demographics and regions. Mississippi at one time elected liberal populists such as James K. Vardaman and Theodore Bilbo, men who were committed to white supremacy as well as taking on big businesses and helping poor whites. The career of William Meyers Colmer (pronounced “Calmer”) (1890-1980) is a prime example of the shift of politics in Mississippi and the Deep South as a whole. He was in Congress from the Roosevelt to Nixon Administrations, and the Colmer of 1972 seemed to bear little resemblance to the Colmer of 1932. Indeed, when he was elected in the Roosevelt wave, he was a New Dealer. Mississippi at the time was enamored with FDR, and one of its senators, Pat Harrison, was a key supporter of his first term agenda. Later in life, Colmer readily acknowledged the contrast of his earlier years, telling a friend, “You may not believe it, but I came to Washington as something of a liberal” (Hill). Although even in the first Congress of the Roosevelt Administration there was some foreshadowing of the state’s future with three members of Mississippi’s delegation voting against the National Industrial Recovery Act, Colmer was not among those representatives; he was on board with most of FDR’s agenda, and was the only representative from Mississippi to support the Bituminous Coal Act in 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 (minimum wage). He would also, like most Southerners, be supportive of FDR’s foreign policies.
Colmer in 1940.
In 1939, Colmer was tapped to be on the powerful Rules Committee, but it would not be long before his record would increasingly move towards conservatism. This was in keeping with the increasing conservatism of his district based in Biloxi (Finney). The South overall had come to dislike how strong unions had become since the Wagner Labor Relations Act of 1935 and were strongly opposed to the staunchly left-wing Congress of Industrial Organizations. It certainly didn’t help matters that this union was racially integrated. The last time in which Colmer was sort of cooperative with the national Democratic Party was in the 80th Congress, in which he voted against a good number of Republican-backed positions. But even there, he was far from the strongest of partisans, with him agreeing with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action’s (ADA) positions in 1947 and 1948 73% and 55% of the time respectively. In 1947, Colmer ran for the Senate to succeed the late Theodore Bilbo, but he was defeated by John C. Stennis and did not try to move up again. After the 1948 election, in which he backed the State’s Rights Party (Dixiecrats) he would be among the most dissenting of Democrats within the party with low ADA scores.
Colmer played a key role in the consideration of legislation in the Rules Committee, which from 1955 to 1967 was chaired by fellow conservative Democrat Howard W. Smith of Virginia, who was a master obstructionist. Liberal legislation would often die in his committee as he, Colmer, and the four Republicans would vote it down, with the committee getting a 6-6 deadlock. Although he was now conservative on the bulk of issues, he did stick with some of his old New Deal positions on agriculture and public power. He opposed efforts by the Eisenhower Administration to institute flexible price floors on agriculture as opposed to rigid and high price floors, and opposed efforts to curb the Tennessee Valley Authority. Colmer was, consistent with the sort of politician his state would elect at the time, a segregationist who signed the Southern Manifesto against school desegregation and opposed all civil rights measures of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Despite this, Colmer was not a racial demagogue and prided himself on having “never made an anti-Negro speech in my life” (The New York Times, 1961). In 1960, Colmer sided with his state in supporting the candidacy of Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia for president, much to the consternation of Democratic leadership as well as many of his fellow Southerners who had stuck their necks out for Kennedy (Finney). This was the second time he had bucked the national Democrats and it threatened to complicate things for Colmer as Kennedy won the election. The following year, Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-Tex.) made his displeasure with Colmer clear and let it be known that he thought of him as “a very inferior man” (Finney). Rayburn attempted, without success, to get Colmer reassigned. What ended up happening was that the Rules Committee was expanded to add two Democrats and one Republican by a vote of 217-212 on January 31st. Although the majority was on paper 8-7 liberal, there were still some defeats that occurred on the Rules Committee as a person or two in the liberal majority would break off. In the next Congress, this expansion was made permanent and was helpful in passing Great Society legislation.
Chairman of the House Rules Committee
In 1966, Chairman Smith lost renomination, and Colmer was next in line. Since he was a think-alike to Smith, liberal Democrats initially thought that his chairmanship of the powerful committee would be like his, but this wasn’t the case. Colmer did not exercise his power further than persuasion through votes to bottle legislation in the committee, and all members appreciated his Southern courtliness and his sense of fair play. This was particularly demonstrated when he made sure that Bella Abuzg (D-N.Y.), very much his political opposite, would get her say in a House debate (Finney).
Mentoring a Prominent Successor and Retirement
Colmer with Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, April 1971.
In 1968, Colmer hired young lawyer Trent Lott as an administrative assistant, and mentored him in the ways of Washington D.C. to the point that when he decided to call it quits in 1972, he endorsed him as his successor despite him running as a Republican. The party affiliation did not matter for him, as by this time he had been voting with conservative Republicans for many years. It was widely agreed upon that Colmer, at least in his postwar years, was a conservative. He had only sided with ADA 10% of the time from 1947 to 1972 and sided with the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 86% of the time from 1957 to 1972. Colmer’s DW-Nominate score was a 0.052, which was high for a Democrat. In 1974, Lott would state of his predecessor, “If they’d listened to Bill Colmer 25 years ago, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today” (Hill). He would reach greater heights in the Republican Party than Colmer had reached as a Democrat, serving as House Minority Whip from 1981 to 1989 and as Senate Majority Leader from 1996 to 2002. However, he would resign from the post in a 2002 controversy regarding a speech he delivered for Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday, in which he said something similar to what he said in 1974 regarding Colmer. In 1976, Colmer again endorsed a Republican candidate when he supported Gerald Ford for president, holding that he had “moral integrity” while the Democrats were pushing “socialist” ideas (Hill). He was far from the only former Democratic representative from Mississippi to back Ford. His colleagues Thomas Abernethy, Charles H. Griffin, and John Bell Williams did so too (Hill). Colmer’s principal political concern in retirement was inflation. He stated, “I do not think we can go on indefinitely with deficit spending without bringing down the house of inflation on us. We must either stop inflation or we are going to lose our cherished form of government” (Hill). For most of his retirement, Colmer appeared to remain in good health, and his demise was mercifully quick compared to many people, dying only a month after the start of his decline on September 9, 1980 at the age of 90.
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
Although the year 1964 is often portrayed as the year the so-called “party switch” happened, it does have significance. While the South didn’t decisively move to the GOP that year, it did make the GOP an actual competitive party in the region. Republicans won an open seat in Georgia, won five of eight of Alabama’s seats, and won one of Mississippi’s seats with chicken farmer and one-time member of the Fish and Game Commission Prentiss Lafayette Walker (1917-1998).
Something to understand about Mississippi is that the state had been in rebellion against the national Democratic Party since 1960, when its voters elected an uncommitted slate of electors who cast their votes for conservative segregationist Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia. Thus, Kennedy was unpopular in Mississippi and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, doubled down on the national Democrats’ unpopularity in his signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson’s signing of this law and Senator Barry Goldwater’s vote against it was all the convincing Mississippi voters needed to give the Republican contender 87% of the vote. Congressional Democrats were fortunate that Republicans ran only one candidate that year, as he toppled Democrat W. Arthur Winstead, the first Republican to win a Congressional election in Mississippi in 82 years. There was nothing to indicate that Winstead was any friendlier to civil rights than Walker, and his record was conservative. It was purely a backlash against the national Democratic Party that brought Winstead down. A campaign ad of Walker’s in The Magee Courier of October 29, 1964, read, “Prentiss Walker Promises To Work Toward: 1. Repeal Of The Civil Rights Bill. 2. Stopping Import Of Foreign Beef. 3. Stopping Foreign Aid To Communist Countries. 4. Conservative States Rights Government. 5. Local Control of Schools. The Democratic Party Is Dead! If You Have Truly Had Enough, Go To The Polls Tuesday And Vote for Prentiss Walker” (12). For many Mississippi voters, the Democratic Party was indeed dead, at least in 1964. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan would relate Walker’s humorous story regarding this campaign at a Jackson, Mississippi fundraiser, “He dropped in on a farm and introduced himself as a Republican candidate. And as he tells it, the farmer’s eyes lit up, and then he said, “Wait till I get my wife. We’ve never seen a Republican before.’” [Laughter]
And a few minutes later he was back with his wife, and they asked Prentiss if he wouldn’t give them a speech. Well, he looked around for kind of a podium, something to stand on, and then the only thing available was a pile of that stuff that the late Mrs. Truman said it had taken her 35 years to get Harry to call “fertilizer.” [Laughter] So, he stepped up on that and made his speech. And apparently he won them over. And they told him it was the first time they’d ever heard a Republican. And he says, “That’s okay. That’s the first time I’ve ever given a speech from a Democratic platform.” [Laughter] (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum).
In Congress, Walker voted as he ran, as an ultra-conservative. The conservative Americans for Constitutional Action found nothing wrong with how he voted in the Great Society Congress and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action found nothing right. Walker’s DW-Nominate score was a 0.516, one of the highest of the representatives in the Great Society Congress. Practically every measure supported by the Johnson Administration had his vote of disapproval, including Medicare and the Constitutional amendment for presidential succession. Walker, like every other Mississippi politician, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In an early speech, he defended his state while admitting that most Mississippians were conservative and stood for segregation, stating that changes in opinion in the public on such matters would have to come gradually (The Enterprise-Journal). One cause he pushed aside from opposition to civil rights was another issue that he emphasized on his campaign: opposition to foreign aid to communist nations. In 1966, Walker sponsored an amendment to deny funds for communist nations (aimed at Poland and Yugoslavia at the time) under the Food for Freedom Act. Although his proposal got the votes of all but six Republican representatives, it failed in the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress on June 9th, 157-200. At the time, Walker looked like a real start for the Mississippi GOP.
The 1966 Election: Walker Takes a Shot at Big Jim
In 1966, Walker tried to do something bold: run against Senator James Eastland, often known by his opponents as “Big Jim” for his power, perceived and actual. Walker ran on a platform of Eastland being too friendly to the Johnson Administration and Bobby Kennedy. However, he had been in the Senate since the 1940s and had a long history of using his post as chairman of the Judiciary Committee to bury civil rights legislation. For instance, the Senate had to vote to bypass his committee to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. Despite Walker running to Eastland’s right and as a segregationist, many newly registered black voters saw Walker as preferable. Dr. Douglas Conner of Starkville, Mississippi, stated that “He represents something disgusting to the Negro. It is his image as a great white father, the white plantation owner. It is unthinkable that a Negro would vote for Eastland” (Glass). However, there were a few contradictions surrounding Walker himself. Eastland pointed out that he had attended a meeting of the Americans for the Preservation of the White Race (a KKK front) and that “Walker can’t run as a racist. He appointed a Negro to the Air Force academy. We have the proof” (Glass). However, Walker’s path to victory was a rather difficult one. As columnist Holmes Alexander (1966) pointed out, “To score over Eastland, Walker, an ardent white racist, would have to be the fusion candidate of the Klan, the NAACP, the Goldwater right-wingers, the Nixon middle-roaders, and the AFL-CIO laborites” (4).
In one final ad for the Senate, Walker’s campaign gave its pitch. It touted Walker as in opposition to the “no win policy” in Vietnam, an opponent of the Great Society, an opponent of the “War on Poverty” as giving money to political bosses and civil rights demonstrators rather than the poor, and foreign aid while condemning Eastland for voting for Justice Abe Fortas (which was a unanimous voice vote) and citing multiple votes against anti-communist amendments on foreign aid (Simpson County News). There was truth to the latter, as Eastland had voted against Senator Jenner’s (R-Ind.) amendment to retain bans on trade with communist nations in 1957, opposed the Republican effort to ban stop wheat sales to the USSR and Hungary in 1963, and opposed Senator Tower’s (R-Tex.) amendment to bar Export-Import bank funds for sales to communist nations in 1964. Senator Eastland’s campaign emphasized in its ad the narrative that Mississippi had voted for Goldwater because he was more conservative than Johnson rather than a big shift to the Republican Party and pointed out that Goldwater had delivered a speech in which he stated that Republicans accepted integration while only Southern Democrats were against and that Walker had not said a word against it (The Newton Record). Most of Walker’s charges of Eastland being insufficient, however, relied upon his personal connections with LBJ, and only the anti-communist amendments were votes of substance he could use against Eastland and ultimately, he flew too close to the sun.
“Big Jim” had huge institutional advantages in Mississippi and Mississippi voters just weren’t buying the “Eastland the friend of the liberals” narrative. He regularly bombed in his ratings with Americans for Democratic Action and Americans for Constitutional Action found him conservative on enough issues to satisfy Mississippians, even as they rated Walker a perfect 100% for his whole term. The truth is, Walker didn’t have that much room to move given the disparate groups that he needed to cater to in order to win and he would have likely been better off trying to hold on to his Congressional seat. On most substantive issues, he and Eastland were on the same page, and Walker was hoping that the Republican vote in Mississippi would extend beyond 1964, but old party loyalties held strong, and he lost by nearly 40 points. Although he made no effort to get the black vote, he won a considerable amount of it, but this is because many black voters were dying to cast a vote against Eastland. Worse yet for Walker, the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which was not pleased with outright segregationist candidates, did not pour resources into this election, only giving him token support (Evans and Novak, 35). In 1968, Walker attempted to win back his old seat, but the district was pleased enough with his successor, Sonny Montgomery, and he only got 30% of the vote. That year, to highlight his continued segregationist stance, he had endorsed George Wallace rather than his own party’s nominee, Richard Nixon (Hattiesburg American). Walker would not be the transformational figure in Mississippi politics for the GOP, rather Thad Cochran and Trent Lott, both first elected to Congress in 1972, succeeding retiring Democrats, would serve this role. Walker’s last race for political office was in the 1972 Senate race as an Independent, but he gained little traction. Today, a lake near Walker’s hometown of Mize is named after him. To me, Prentiss Walker represents lost potential. Had he not opted to challenge Eastland, would he have won reelection to the House? And if so, would he have proved in the long run to be a more politically complex figure than his Great Society Congress self like Alabama’s Jack Edwards, Bill Dickinson, and especially John Buchanan, all who voted to sustain the Philadelphia Plan only four years after voting against the Voting Rights Act? Would this chicken farmer have been the guiding light for the GOP in the state like Florida’s Bill Cramer? We will never know.
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
Among the states, Louisiana is one of its most colorful and known to foreigners, but it also has a historical reputation for corruption that rivals Illinois and New Jersey. A man who was both colorful and corrupt in the modern history of the state was its longest serving governor, Edwin Washington Edwards (1927-2021).
Edwards’ public service began in 1954 when he was elected to the Crowley City Council and in 1964 he was elected to the State Senate. However, he wasn’t there long as in 1965 Congressman T. Ashton Thompson was killed in a car accident. Edwards was easily elected in the 1965 special election to succeed him, as Louisiana was solidly Democratic at the time. His voting record was more moderate than that of numerous other Democrats in the state, although he toed the Southern line on race in his voting until the Nixon Administration. In 1970, Edwards voted to extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for five years. During his time in Congress, he sided with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 23% of the time, the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 58% of the time, and his DW-Nominate score was a -0.232. Edwards was as slick as grease and known for his zingers, and this helped him greatly. His theme of “let the good times roll” also appealed to the people of Louisiana, and he was well-positioned to run for governor.
In 1972, he was elected governor of Louisiana over Republican Dave Treen by 15 points due to a multiracial coalition as he capitalized on Cajun and newly mobilized black voters. Edwards also happened to be the first Cajun to be elected governor, being sworn into office on May 9, 1972. One of his earliest acts in office was appointing his wife, Elaine, to the Senate as a placeholder after the death of longtime incumbent Allen J. Ellender. Edwards’s accomplishments as governor included making Louisiana’s government more efficient, opening up the Democratic Party to minorities, and overseeing the completion of the Superdome sports arena (Heil). He also made significant changes to spending and taxes, such as raising oil and gas taxes, which resulted in a massive influx of revenue for the state when oil had a boom throughout the decade. Edwards used this revenue to increase funding for numerous educational programs and to raise teacher salaries. He also instituted some key changes to state government. In 1973, Edwards succeeded in initiating a constitutional convention to update and simplify the state’s 1921 constitution, which was an unwieldy document with hundreds of amendments. Louisiana is currently governed under the 1974 constitution. He also reduced the number of elections in an election year from three to two. Instead of a state primary, a runoff, and then the general election, he simply made Louisiana an open primary state. Edwards proved to be so popular that Republicans didn’t bother fielding a candidate against him in the 1975 election. He and Louisiana also benefited from rising oil prices in the late 1970s. Although quite popular, numerous allegations started to surface of corruption and he would be subjected to six federal and three state grand jury investigations, but none of these produced an indictment. He also came to be regarded as a womanizer, a reputation he would joke about. Ironically, Edwards was ineligible to run for reelection to another consecutive term in 1979 due to the terms of the state constitution he pushed, he was succeeded by his 1972 rival, who won in a squeaker of an election, prevailing by less than a point.
Break Time and Back Again
Dave Treen was the first Republican governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction, and although he was an honest man who sought to reform government and expand upon including blacks in government, he lacked the charisma and the leadership skills that Edwards possessed, gaining a reputation for indecisiveness. Furthermore, Louisiana was not spared from the recession impacting the nation and budget deficits soared. In 1983, Treen was up for reelection and Edwards was raring to come back. The election really was no contest. Edwards commented upon the reality of this election, stating that he could only lose if he were “caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy” (McFadden). Treen also proved no match for Edwards’ zingers on the debate stage as he poked at him for allegedly being dumb. He said that he was so slow that “It once took Dave Treen an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes” (Finley). Edwards prevailed with over 62% of the vote, winning all but two parishes. Although successful in his comeback, he would find his third term considerably tougher than his first two.
In 1985, Edwards was indicted for allegedly scheming to award hospital construction permits for healthcare corporations in which he secretly had stock (Brightbill). In addition to this indictment, the price of oil slumped and this resulted in hard times for Louisiana’s economy, and the major budget shortfall that came from it forced Edwards to enact an unpopular tax increase. While voters were willing to handwave allegations of corruption while the economy was booming, an indictment along with a poor economy soured many voters on him, and this opened the door to a challenger in Congressman Buddy Roemer.
Defeated…But Not Done
Congressman Roemer, at the time a conservative Democrat, ran for change and accused him of turning the state into a “banana republic” (McFadden). Ultimately, the savvy Edwards conceded the election to Roemer after he came in second on the first vote, realizing that he was licked. However, he was only temporarily licked! Edwards’ withdrawal was strategic, as it served to deny Roemer an electoral majority, thus denying him a governing coalition and mandate. The 1985 indictment did not result in a conviction, so he was free and clear to make yet another attempt at governor.
The 1991 Election: Vote for the Crook: It’s Important
In the late 1980s a charismatic figure started making his way through Louisiana politics. Many whites were enthused by him and his populistic conservative messaging, such as his appeals against affirmative action, welfare dependency, and crime. This man was David Duke, a former member of the American Nazi Party and former Grand Wizard of the KKK who pretended that he had left his past behind. However, numerous white voters either bought his story, did not care, or were good with his past. The Republican establishment had hoped that Buddy Roemer’s party switch to Republican would help them, but this didn’t work out. Despite the opposition of the Republican organization as well as President George H.W. Bush, Duke managed to win the Republican primary for the Senate in 1990, losing the election but coming within 10 points of victory. He then managed to get in the top two for the runoff for the 1991 gubernatorial race, facing Democrat Edwin Edwards. Both Roemer and former Governor Dave Treen endorsed Edwards.
Edwards was on his game in this election, saying, “The only thing we have in common is that we both have been wizards beneath the sheets” (Finley). However, Duke gave Edwards something of a run for his money on charisma and did well in the first debate. Edwards gained a lot of prominent endorsements and received big campaign funds to defeat Duke as many large interests feared the impact on business should Duke win. Those who would otherwise not have endorsed Edwards had a rather funny bumper sticker, “Vote for the Crook: It’s Important”. Edwards got up on his game in his second debate and he made his case, “While David Duke was burning crosses and scaring people, I was building hospitals to heal them. When he was parading around in a Nazi uniform to intimidate our citizens, I was in a National Guard uniform bringing relief to flood and hurricane victims. When he was selling Nazi hate literature as late as 1989 in his legislative office, I was providing free textbooks for the children of this state” (Avoyelles Today). Although many voters believed that Edwards was corrupt despite his acquittal, 61% voted for his return rather than face Duke as governor.
The Third Term and Waterloo
Although Edwards had secured a fourth term, his fourth go-around would end up being his downfall. He had called for expanding gambling in the state, including one land-based casino in New Orleans as well as with riverboat casinos. However, he also accepted bribes of over $1 million to secure riverboat casino licenses, and rampant Medicaid fraud plagued his administration. Edwards opted not to run for a fifth term.
In 2000, Edwards was convicted on 17 charges of racketeering, money laundering, and conspiracy and especially devastating to his case had been the testimony of former 49ers owner Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., who testified that he had bribed him $400,000 (Pellegrini). Sentenced to ten years in prison, he served eight. During his prison term, he divorced his second wife and married a woman fifty years his junior, and had a fifth child with her. In 2013, Edwards and his wife Trina had their own reality TV show, The Governor’s Wife.
Edwards’ Last Stand and Death
In 2014, at the age of 87, Edwards made one final run for public office, trying to make a comeback to Congress, running against Republican incumbent Garret Graves. However, in addition to 2014 being a good year for Republicans the state had moved far away from him and his politics, and he lost by 24 points. Edwards died on July 12, 2021, in Gonzales, Louisiana at the age of 93.
What to Make of Edwards?
In Edwin Edwards there was a strange mix of good and ill. He was a natural born politician, was undoubtedly the most important figure in transitioning Louisiana politics in a “New South” direction, and modernized the state in many ways, including in its fundamental legal framework. However, his corruption overwhelmed his legacy. As Professor Robert Mann of Louisiana State University wrote of him, “He had eloquence, creativity, a razor-sharp mind, executive abilities that many lacked and leadership skills that many envied. He could relate to crowds better than almost any politician I ever knew. He had everything, and yet squandered it by devoting much of his time to enriching his friends. I’ve rarely seen a wider chasm between the promise for greatness and reality” (McGill).
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
I recently found a most interesting source on the 1960 election, and it is Congressional Quarterly’s breakdown of the election by district, which tells a fascinating story of the politics of the day. The politics of 1960 stand as a great contrast to contemporary politics. The parties were far more ideologically diverse, although Democrats still got more of the black vote than Republicans, Republicans could still get a significant minority, and both parties were trying to appeal to the white South. Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat John F. Kennedy compared records during the campaign to make their cases of who was the most experienced. Today, experience is often seen as a liability in Washington, as voters regularly clamor for outsiders. Only two candidates who were perceived as establishment rather than outsiders won presidential elections since 1976: George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Joe Biden in 2020, and neither of them served a second term. This was a remarkably close election, and victories could be seen for both parties in all regions of the nation. Kennedy’s top three states paint a varied picture in Rhode Island, Georgia, and Massachusetts. Richard Nixon won in some areas that are out of bounds for Republicans today, such as Portland, Oregon. Although San Francisco was Democratic, it was not as Democratic as it is today, and one of its two House seats was held by a Republican with Nixon coming close to winning that district.
Although one must acknowledge the complexities of politics in 1960 that we don’t see today, such as a substantial contingent of Southern Democrats voting more or less conservative, one sees a considerable difference between Nixon’s electoral performance and the Republicans down ticket. This was highly noticeable in the South, and there were numerous Southern districts that were overdue for a flip to the GOP. Some were predictive of future elections; Alabama’s 9th district (Birmingham), represented by George Huddleston Jr., was the only district Nixon won in the state, and in 1964 the district would flip to the GOP. Same goes for Arkansas’ 3rd district based in Fort Smith, in 1966 that district would flip to the GOP and do so for good. In Florida, Voters in half of its Congressional districts voted for Nixon, but the only House Republican elected was William Cramer of St. Petersburg. Although North Carolina voted for Kennedy, 7 of 12 of its House districts would have elected a Republican if the district vote was the same for president and Congressional candidates, while in reality only Charles Jonas of the 10th district was elected. In Tennessee, 5 of 9 of the districts voted for Nixon as did the state, yet only the standard two Republicans from the 1st and 2nd districts were elected to Congress that year. Republicans were gaining strength in suburban areas of the South, while Democrats retained their large advantage in rural areas. For instance, in Florida’s 3rd district, constituting the state’s western panhandle, Kennedy got the highest percentage of the vote of any of the districts. This area was the most culturally Deep South of any of Florida’s districts, and it would elect Democrats until 1994. This also happens to be the area that Matt Gaetz represented until last year. Among Southern states, Georgia was a great exception to the South being a battleground area, as Kennedy was spectacularly popular in the state, having an even better performance there than in his home state of Massachusetts and winning all districts, putting him narrowly over the top in the Southern vote. Indeed, the Southern vote came out 51-49 for Kennedy. This would make Georgia’s vote for Barry Goldwater in 1964 all the more jarring. However, something to note is that the black vote for Kennedy was considerably stronger than the Southern vote, which was informative for the Democratic Party as to where its future was, with him winning 68% of the demographic. A Democrat getting a figure as low as 68% in the black vote is now unheard of.
This map is also roughly predictive of where Kentucky and Oklahoma are now. In the former, Democrats only won two districts, the 1st based in Paducah which came the closest in the state to seceding during the War of the Rebellion, and the 7th, represented by liberal Carl Perkins. In the latter, only the 3rd district with Carl Albert, known as “Little Dixie”, voted for Kennedy. Yet, both states only sent one Republican to Congress from the House, although Kentucky strongly voted to reelect Republican Senator John Sherman Cooper, a popular maverick. On the state level, Missouri was strongly Democratic with both its senators and 9 out of 11 of its representatives being Democrats, but Nixon won 7 of 11 of its districts, only losing in the districts based around St. Louis and Kansas City.
In the West Coast, Nixon outperformed down ticket Republicans in California and in Oregon, winning all districts in the latter. However, Oregon’s status as a Republican state was going downhill, as President Eisenhower’s land use and private power policies were not popular among the state’s voters. Even though the state’s voters went for Eisenhower twice, Republicans in the state took a beating for it, and they since haven’t gone back to the level of power they had before the Eisenhower Administration. Washington, on the other hand, sent a curiously mixed delegation to Congress: 5 of its 7 representatives were Republican yet both of its senators were Democrats, and the state narrowly pulled the lever for Nixon. Republicans outperformed Nixon in the state, but this wouldn’t last, and by 1968, the state would be down to two House Republicans and Nixon would lose it.
Former House Speaker Joe Martin (R-Mass.), who hung on despite Kennedy winning his district on account of his status as an institution in his district.
Although Nixon outperformed Republican candidates in the Midwest and Border States and especially the South, Congressional Republicans outperformed Nixon in eight states: the aforementioned Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, prominent moderate Republican William Scranton would be elected from the Scranton-based 10th district while Nixon lost. Nixon way outperformed Republicans in the South, as voters were used to the idea of splitting their tickets. In Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy won in all of the Congressional districts and the state was his third best, but this did not translate into any defeats in the 6 House seats Republicans held nor did it result in the defeat of moderate Republican Senator Leverett Saltonstall, whose politics were pretty much perfectly calibrated for a Republican in the state; conservative enough to not tick off the GOP base but also liberal enough for him to have considerable crossover appeal. Another example of a successful Republican in the Bay State was former Speaker of the House Joe Martin, who had been in office since 1925 and who was holding on in a district that had been starting to vote Democratic as he was an institution, the many favors he had done for his constituents, and his increasingly moderate voting record. The performance of John F. Kennedy in 1960 in Massachusetts can be seen as predictive for the long-term of the state, which since 1997 has had an entirely Democratic delegation to Congress save for 2010-2013, when Republican Scott Brown served in the Senate. The only states in which Kennedy had a better performance were Georgia and Rhode Island, which reflects the highly dual nature of the Democratic Party at the time. Indeed, both candidates sought to appeal to black and Southern white votes. The House leadership team was Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas and Majority Leader John W. McCormack of Massachusetts in what was known as the “Austin-Boston Connection”. Delaware was an interesting case, as although it gave Kennedy a victory, Republican Cale Boggs defeated Democratic Senator J. Allen Frear for reelection, but at this time Boggs was viewed as more liberal than Frear, who had often frustrated Democratic leadership with his conservative voting record. Delaware’s sole Congressman, liberal Democrat Harris McDowell, was reelected. Nixon also handily won Vermont, which at this time had the longest streak of voting for Republicans for president, but it should be noted that this would be broken in 1964 and neither its senators nor sole representative were of the conservative wing of the party.
The Strange Cases of Alabama and Mississippi
The South was competitive ground in the 1960 election, but there was a complication: the State’s Rights Party. They ran uncommitted slates of electors in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Although not enough traction was gained for a difference to be made in Louisiana, they had impact in Alabama and Mississippi. Although they were far from the only Jim Crow states, they were the most disaffected by the civil rights movement and this impacted how the states were voting this year. Alabama had the single strangest way of voting of any state that year, as people who voted Democratic were clearly voting for a slate of electors, with some pledged for Kennedy and others not pledged, for president. The percentage of the vote tabulated in Alabama thus doesn’t technically go to Kennedy, rather Democratic electors. The Democratic electors won, and Alabama’s electoral vote was split 6 for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia and 5 for Kennedy. A controversy remains to this day as to whether Nixon could be said to have won the popular vote in a plurality in Alabama because of this split.
Mississippi was the only state that year to not cast electoral votes for either Nixon or Kennedy, with the state being won by “unpledged electors”, who cast their votes for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. Kennedy got the lowest percentage of the vote here of any state, and Mississippi would go even further in its rejection of the national Democrats in the 1964 election with 87% of its voters (at the time nearly all white) voting for Goldwater. Kennedy’s Catholicism in many areas of Mississippi was seen as suspect, and they were generally aware that he was a liberal, which didn’t play well there.
Alternative Scenario: Presidential and Down Ticket Votes Mirror Each Other
An interesting conclusion can be drawn if we present an alternate scenario in which the Republican Party down ticket is just as popular as Nixon: Kennedy would have faced a Republican House with Republicans getting 227 seats as opposed to the Democrats’ 207, although what happens in Alabama and Mississippi in this scenario is quite disputable. While the Senate would have stayed Democratic given the drubbing Republicans suffered in 1958, but they would have gained four seats instead of two. This would have made Kennedy’s presidency more difficult. The popularity of down ticket candidates for the Democratic Party can be attributed to there being many Democratic voters willing to split their tickets. Indeed, ticket splitting was far stronger in 1960 than it is today, although this is because we have what are called ideologically responsible parties with a lot less ideological wiggle room. Furthermore, back in 1960, Democrats had a 17 million voter registration advantage, far more than they have today. I have also included below a sheet that makes the data a bit easier to read than CQ’s source. Bold italics indicate Republican Congressional winners while D and R designations indicate the presidential winner of the district. Alabama is asterisked due to its unique way of counting Democratic votes, thus percentages reflect votes for Democratic electors rather than Kennedy.
On September 16, 1961, longtime Democratic Congressman Overton Brooks died in office. Brooks had been in office long enough to be among the legislators who shifted from supporting FDR’s liberalism to being of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, Joe Waggonner (1918-2007) of Plain Dealing had already planned on challenging him in the 1962 primary over what was seen as insufficient conservatism. Waggonner was a leader in the state’s White Citizens Council and had refused to support John F. Kennedy in 1960, instead serving as an elector for the State’s Rights Party which was backing Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd. One key point of contention for Waggonner was Brooks’ 1961 vote to expand the Rules Committee, thus weakening the obstructive power of conservative chairman Howard W. Smith (D-Va.). However, with Brooks six feet under, Waggonner had a clear path to run to succeed him, and his opponent would be oilman Charlton Lyons, who had only the previous year switched from Democrat to Republican. Both were in truth highly similar men differentiated mostly in party affiliation. Both were strongly conservative, and both were outspoken segregationists. Party affiliation won the day in Louisiana, with Waggonner prevailing by 10 points in the special election. Lyons’ 45% of the vote was, however, a strong showing for a Republican in that day, and it was the closest contest of Waggonner’s career.
Waggonner vs. National Democrats
Although a Democrat, as I mentioned before, Waggonner was strongly anti-Kennedy, and on most questions of importance, he voted with conservative Republicans. He even voted against some of the most popular proposals backed by Kennedy, such as educational television and job training programs. Indeed, in his first full year of Congress, Waggonnner got a 100% from Americans for Constitutional Action and a 0% by Americans for Democratic Action. The only major Kennedy measure of ideological salience that he backed was his tax reduction legislation. Waggonner likewise proved a strong opponent of President Johnson and the Great Society, voting against most key measures. However, in 1966, he did oppose multiple Republican efforts at budget reduction in certain departments in 1966, 1967, and 1968. He saw himself as something of an ambassador of conservatism in Congress, and by his own account spent a good deal of time trying to persuade liberals to see things his way. He stated, “The trend to socialism is not accidental, but reflects the attitude of the majority, or it would not be the prevailing trend. I spend all of my time talking to the liberals in Congress, doing all I can to persuade them of the rightness of our views, not to conservatives who already share our philosophy” (Minden Press, 1). Waggonner was not without positions on foreign policy, and on April 5, 1966, he voiced support for Ian Smith’s minority white government in Rhodesia and commented, “Three generations ago, a group of resourceful white men went into the jungle of what is now Rhodesia and carved a civilized land by the sheer force of their brains and management ability. The lesson of history was crystal clear then as it is now: the natives were not capable of producing any semblance of what we call civilization. Now that the white man had led them out of savagery, the Socialist, left-wing camp is up in arms to turn the country back to them. This is, of course, a not too subtle way of building a Socialist bridge from Democracy to Communism” (Lake, 119). He was of course uncompromising in his opposition to the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. Waggonner was not just an ideologue, however, he also was able to secure federal funds for his district, for instance for getting Interstate 49 between Lafayette and Shreveport constructed (WAFB 9).
Waggonner having a chat with Wernher von Braun.
New President, New Day
Although Waggonner had not gotten on with Kennedy and Johnson, he got on exceptionally well with Richard Nixon and was often of assistance even if at times he thought Nixon was too friendly to civil rights. In 1970, Waggonner cosponsored Gerald Ford’s (R-Mich.) resolution to impeach Justice William O. Douglas, in part as a retaliatory move for the Senate rejecting Supreme Court nominees Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell. However, this failed to gain traction. He marshalled Southern Democrats to support much of Nixon’s agenda, strongly supported him on the Vietnam War, and even became a personal friend. Waggonner’s stances on civil rights during this time seemed to ease up a bit since, being a savvy politician, he sensed the changing times. The Shreveport Times (1978) noted that by the early 1970s most people were not associating Waggonner with his earlier strong segregation stances, and that unlike some of the old segregationists, his popularity increased with time (16). One of the great elements of his success was not just his savviness, but also his attentiveness to his constituents. As The Shreveport Times (1978) noted upon Waggonner’s announcement of his retirement, “Rarely, if ever, did a letter from a constituent go unanswered. If a favor could be done for a voter, it got done. For thousands of people, he has been a very personal line to the top level of government” (16).
During the summer of 1974, Nixon looked to him to give reports on where Congressional support stood on impeachment on the Democratic side, and a motivating factor for him to resign was Waggonner reporting that his support was crumbling among Southern Democrats. The Shreveport Journal (1976) noted, “On a personal level, he was among Richard Nixon’s closest friends and shared some of his most dramatic and emotional last experiences in the White House and he has continued that close relationship. During the past weeks, Waggonner has traveled to San Clemente for a long personal discussion with the former president” (13). He would also be a friend and political ally of Gerald Ford’s, although not quite as close as he was with Nixon.
A Scandal That Changed the Rules
Like his fellow Louisianan Otto Passman, Waggonner faced a scandal in 1976, although it was not for alleged bribery. The 1970s were an interesting time in political journalism, since before the press was willing to cover for politicians carrying on affairs, but with multiple political sex scandals making the news, this cover has since been gone. In June 1976, The New York Post revealed that Waggonner was arrested for solicitation of sex from an undercover female officer earlier in the year. He claimed entrapment, and because members of Congress had been immune from prosecution for misdemeanors in Washington D.C. for a century, Waggonner had not been prosecuted. In July 1976, this non-prosecution policy was scrapped. Waggonner was also in something of a difficult position that year, as he was clearly far more in alignment on policy with President Gerald Ford than Jimmy Carter, but the Democrats had more power to deny seniority for those who broke party line. Despite the aforementioned difficulties, he easily won reelection.
Waggonner’s Last Term
Joe Waggonner’s record on Carter was quite similar to his record with the previous Democratic president. In January 1978, he was interviewed and one of the subjects was on his stance on segregation. Waggonner did not disavow his previous political positions on segregation or on his votes against the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. He continued to express his opposition to the Voting Rights Act as it was, but expressed that if the law was applied throughout the nation rather than just the South and certain counties, he would support it (Flournoy). The year 1978 constituted a bit of an end of an era in the South, as numerous prominent legacy politicians were not running for reelection, such as Senators John Sparkman of Alabama and James Eastland of Mississippi, Congressmen Bob Poage and George Mahon of Texas, and Waggonner joined them. However, he didn’t do so before securing the construction of a new General Motors plant in Shreveport (The Shreveport Times, 16). In the Democratic primary for his successor, he endorsed Buddy Leach over future Republican Buddy Roemer over the latter’s criticism of the Red River navigation program. Although Leach would win in 1978, the other Buddy would win the 1980 primary. In his career, Waggonner sided with ACA 83% of the time and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action a mere 3% of the time. His DW-Nominate score didn’t seem to reflect this, as he got a 0.015, which is high for a Democrat.
After Congress
Waggonner was a man who wore multiple hats while in Congress, and he was highly knowledgeable on Social Security. President Ronald Reagan thus appointed him to be part of the commission to investigate the long-term feasibility of Social Security. The commission’s recommendations informed the legislation passed in 1983 to save Social Security, or at the very least buy it time. In his later years, Waggonner expressed opposition to Louisiana conservatives moving into the Republican Party, but he nonetheless would at times back Republican candidates for public office, such as Bob Dole for president in 1996. In 1994, Waggonner attended Richard Nixon’s funeral. He would join Nixon in death in October 7, 2007 at the age of 89.
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
In October 1917, 22-year-old South Dakotan Clinton Presba Anderson reports for duty to serve his nation for World War I. What he didn’t know was that he was suffering from advanced tuberculosis, and this was diagnosed by the army doctors, who gave him 6 months to live. Since antibiotics hadn’t been discovered yet, it was a common practice of those who suffered from tuberculosis to move to a hot and dry climate to recover or die, and he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, spending time in a sanitarium. Initially, it looked like the army doctors were going to be right, as Anderson’s lungs were hemorrhaging, and the doctors gave him less than five days to live. However, five days passed by, and he was still holding on. Then six months passed by, and he had still eluded the grim reaper. In nine months, Anderson (1895-1975) was well enough to start a career in journalism, and by 1919 he had recovered, but he would often struggle with his health throughout his life. While a journalist, Anderson developed a passion for politics in New Mexico. Republicans held the governorship from 1917 to 1923, and Anderson didn’t like how they were running the state, so he joined the Democratic Party and during the 1920s the party started to see significant successes; in 1922, they won the governorship, and in 1924 they won a Senate seat and maintained their hold of the governorship. Anderson was also involved in public health, having worked for the New Mexico Public Health Association starting in 1919, where he sought to improve the public health system, and in 1923, he entered the insurance business, starting his own firm in 1925. Given his health difficulties as well as his background in public health and insurance, it makes sense that his later career would be characterized by pushing for the expansion of health insurance. In 1928, Anderson became the head of the state’s Democratic Party, and they made long-term gains during the Great Depression, which were completed after the death of progressive Republican Senator Bronson Cutting in an airplane crash in 1935. Ultimately, from 1935 to 1962 there would be no federal Republican officeholders. In 1933, Anderson was elected Treasurer, and in 1934 he became the head of the state’s relief administration.
In 1940, Congressman John J. Dempsey was deprived from running again due to a dispute within the Democratic Party, and in his place, Clinton Anderson was elected. Although without doubt a supporter of FDR and backing numerous key policies such as Lend Lease, his voting record was not staunchly liberal, rather moderately liberal. In 1945, Anderson headed up a committee to investigate food production in postwar United States, and President Truman was so impressed with his report and recommendations that he nominated him to be his Secretary of Agriculture, a post in which he sought to move the US agricultural economy from wartime to peace time as well as addressing the food shortage in the postwar world. Anderson was one of the key people, working closely with President Truman and former President Herbert Hoover, in getting people in war-torn areas fed. Hoover would craft plans, and Anderson would implement them. However, in 1948, by which time the postwar food situation was stable, he resigned to run for the Senate after Carl Hatch announced his retirement. The Republicans picked former Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley, but this year was good for the Democrats, and Anderson prevailed by 15 points. In the Senate, he strongly supported President Truman’s agenda. Although Republicans were starting to make gains in New Mexico, most notably with the election of Ed Mechem as governor, Anderson was more than capable of hanging on, and in 1954, he won reelection against Mechem by nearly 15 points. Republicans would only get within single digits of defeating him in 1966, and that was a backlash election against the Johnson Administration.
Anderson and Eisenhower
As Secretary of Agriculture, Anderson had come to believe that flexible price floors were the right approach for agriculture and thus supported Ezra Taft Benson in his efforts to push agriculture more to a market-based system, which was not popular in rural areas. As a New Mexican, he supported the oil industry and in 1950 and 1956 he voted for legislation prohibiting the Federal Power Commission from regulating the price of oil. Anderson also supported maintaining the 27.5% oil depletion allowance. However, there were ways in which he waved his partisan flag. For example, Anderson had come to strongly dislike Lewis Strauss when he headed the Atomic Energy Commission. A key issue that the men fought on was public power generation and distribution; Strauss opposed, Anderson supported. Strauss had also once insulted Anderson when he said that he, the chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, had “a limited understanding of what is involved” in Cold War atomic energy policy (U.S. Senate). Although Anderson never forgave Strauss for that insult, he initially decided to put politics out of the way when in 1958 President Eisenhower made clear that he wanted him to be Secretary of Commerce. However, this was not stuck to as in the 1958 election Democrats won 12 seats, the issue of Strauss’s involvement in the revoking of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance came up, and Strauss came off badly in hearings as arrogant, combative, and condescending to the Senate. On this matter, he was his own worst enemy, and Anderson now put his full energy into calling for his nomination to be voted down, and it was, 46-49, on June 19th, Strauss being one of the few cabinet nominees in history to be voted down by the Senate. This event is notably portrayed in the 2023 film Oppenheimer. He was also known during his time in the Senate as a scholarly figure who had a hobby of collecting and reading old books about the American West, and this resulted in him having one of the finest personal libraries in New Mexico.
Anderson and Civil Rights
Although Senator Anderson generally supported civil rights and backed the major laws on final passage, he also supported Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Tex.) in his successful efforts to water down the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 to ease them for passage. Indeed, he sponsored with Senators George Aiken (R-Vt.) and Francis Case (R-S.D.) the amendment striking 14th Amendment implementation from the 1957 law. Anderson can be seen as both a supporter of civil rights but also a Senate institutionalist.
Advocacy for Medicare
Senator Anderson was one of the principal politicians, along with Albert Gore of Tennessee and Representative Cecil King of California, to push for the adoption of Medicare. President Kennedy had specifically designated Anderson as the leader of adopting the measure. Anderson would write on his role, “Perhaps a man who has spent much of his life fighting off the effects of illness acquires…an understanding of the importance of professional health care to all people” (U.S. Senate). Although the Senate rejected Medicare proposals in 1960 and 1962, in 1964, Anderson succeeded in getting the Senate to adopt a Medicare amendment to the pending Social Security legislation. However, in the course of doing so, he strained his health and found himself managing the measure from his hospital bed. Because the House and Senate could not agree upon a final version of the Social Security measure, Medicare would have to wait until the next Congress, which had more of the president’s supporters elected to the Senate and especially the House. After Anderson managed to get Medicare passed in the Senate in 1965, President Johnson invited him to the signing ceremony in which former President Truman and his wife, Bess, were given the first Medicare cards. Medicare would not be the only cause in which he specialized, as he also was the Senate’s leading advocate for wilderness conservation. Anderson wrote on the matter, “There is a spiritual value to conservation, and wilderness typifies this. Wilderness is a demonstration by our people that we can put aside a portion of this which we have as a tribute to the Maker and say–this we will leave as we found it” (Wilderness Connect). Anderson also supported most other Great Society proposals, but he proved more conservative on law-and-order issues. He supported several proposals to weaken the impact of Supreme Court decisions on criminal defendant rights, but did not support the Nixon Administration’s efforts to enact “no knock” warrants for drug cases. Anderson also supported efforts to withdraw from the Vietnam War, including the Cooper-Church Amendment in 1970 and the Mansfield Amendment in 1971. Despite his support for withdrawal, he tended to support increasing military spending for key missile delivery systems as well as taking a hardline stance on the USSR.
By 1972, Anderson’s health was clearly declining, and he chose not to run again. Throughout his Senate career, he agreed with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 66% of the time, the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 23% of the time from 1955 to 1972, and his DW-Nominate score was a -0.201. In retirement, he continued his hobby of collecting and reading old books on the American West. Anderson was wise to have opted to retire, as on November 11, 1975, his 58-year streak of eluding the grim reaper came to an end with a massive stroke at the age of 80.
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 