The Federalists are often overlooked as a part of the founding of America, with Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans (they were technically called “Republicans”, but they are retroactively labeled “Democratic-Republicans” to avoid confusion with modern Republicans) figuring much greater, and why shouldn’t they? They became the dominant party after the 1800 election up until the end of James Monroe’s presidency. However, the Federalists had a great deal of influence in politics nonetheless, and the dominant Democratic-Republicans ended up adopting numerous Federalist policies themselves, making them a massive-tent party. One of the major figures from the Federalist Party who is usually a mere footnote in history is Rufus King (1755-1827).

Although his father, Richard, had been a Loyalist, Rufus was a Patriot, and during the Revolutionary War he would divide his time between his studies and fighting. However, what happened to his father impacted the young King greatly: after the passage of the deeply unpopular Stamp Act of 1765, a mob, resentful of his Loyalist position as well as his wealth as a merchant, ransacked his home and destroyed most of the furniture, an act for which no one faced consequences, and the next year a mob burned down his barn (Ernst, 1-5, 209, 263, 377-78). He came to fear the possibility of mob rule greatly in his political thinking.

Elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1783, King would in 1784 be sent to the Confederation Congress. However, it was soon apparent that the United States under the Articles of Confederation was too weak, and in 1787 he attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where he was one of the most persuasive speakers for the adoption of the Constitution and was one of its drafters. The Constitution was ratified 187-168 by the convention. King had lived throughout his life in Massachusetts (although his neck of the woods, Scarborough, would become part of Maine), but was persuaded to move to New York, and this is where his career would continue, and he would, shortly after being elected to the New York State Assembly in 1789, be elected to the U.S. Senate.

He was a strong supporter of President George Washington, being in the Pro-Administration faction. King would join the Federalist Party upon its creation. King was strongly supportive of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s economic policies and backed the establishment of the First Bank of the United States, based on the Bank of England, a private corporation that both held the government’s money and operated for businesses and individuals. King would be one of the directors of this bank. The DW-Nominate scoring system puts him at a 0.575 based on his Senate voting record.

King also supported the highly unpopular Jay Treaty, and Jeffersonian critics condemned portions of the treaty as humiliating, but the Washington Administration saw this as the best arrangement they could get and the young nation had to avoid war with Britain. The Jay Treaty would be ratified with 2/3’s vote on a party-line vote. Both he and Alexander Hamilton would write defenses of the Jay Treaty under the pseudonym “Camillus” in New York newspapers (Muchowski). In 1796, he would resign the Senate to accept the post of envoy to Great Britain, a role he would serve in until 1803.

King saw the potential for an influx of Irish immigrants in the wake of the 1798 Irish Rebellion as dangerous, seeing the rebellion as inspired by the Jacobins in France. He opposed their entry on the grounds of protecting the United States from radicalism; there was a great fear at the time among Federalists that Jacobin ideology could spread to the nation and cause the same sort of disorder and bloodshed as seen in France. As envoy to Britain, he regarded the Irish as “ignorant, ill governed, oppressed, and wretched” (Sullivan, 31).

In 1804 and again in 1808, the Federalist Party would run Charles C. Pinckney and King for president and vice president respectively. And both times Pinckney-King got clobbered: they only won Connecticut and Delaware in 1804 and added Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in 1808, but even this degree of success was due to the unpopularity of the Embargo Act of 1807 in New England, a region hit particularly hard by the loss of trade with Britain and France.

On Slavery and Racial Discrimination

Although Rufus King had owned a slave as a young man, he came to strongly oppose the practice and was consistently opposed to expanding slavery. King was successful in adding to the Northwest Ordinance a prohibition on slavery in the Northwest Territories. He did accept the three-fifths compromise as necessary to secure adoption of the Constitution but came to back its repeal after the Louisiana Purchase, seeing in this acquisition high potential for spread of slavery. In 1820, King argued forcefully against the Compromise of 1820 because of Missouri’s admission as a slave state. The following year, he opposed eliminating the property requirement for voting but also opposed any difference in voting eligibility by race in New York, and on both points, he lost as although blacks could technically vote, they had to meet a high property ownership requirement that whites did not (Field, 35-36). I must comment that by today’s standards numerous people whose minds focus on equity and social justice would regard the property requirement itself as racially discriminatory as substantially more whites owned property than blacks. King’s belief was that slavery should be gradually ended by the states. In his state of New York, it would finally be completely ended in 1827.

Back to the Senate….and to Great Britain

In 1813, King was again elected to the Senate from New York, and unlike many Federalists, he supported the War of 1812, and he was not involved in the Hartford Convention that sent the Federalist Party into a death spiral. King was the last Federalist candidate for president in 1816 but didn’t actively campaign and only won 34 electoral votes from Connecticut, Delaware, and Massachusetts. Despite the Federalist Party being a dying entity federally and merely a party that had prominence in a few states, he won reelection as a Federalist in 1819.

King was the last framer of the Constitution to remain in politics, opting to leave the Senate in 1825. He was nominated Minister to Great Britain again by President John Quincy Adams, but his health permitted no more than several months of service. King’s poor health continued until his death in 1827.

P.S.: I will within a week be archiving 2019 and 2020 posts. Souped up versions have been and will be making it on to:

https://mikeholme.substack.com/

References

Ernst, R. (1968). Rufus King: American Federalist. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Field, P.F. (1982). The politics of race in New York: the struggle for black suffrage in the Civil War era. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Retrieved from

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Politics_of_Race_in_New_York/raFhDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq

Signers of the Constitution. National Park Service, 180-182.

Retrieved from

http://www.npshistory.com/publications/nhl/theme-studies/signers-constitution.pdf

Sullivan, W.A. (2005). The Rising of 1798 and the Political Foundation of Irish-American Identity. College of William & Mary.

Retrieved from

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/235411488.pdf

The Founding of the Fed. Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Retrieved from

https://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/history_article.html

Uproar Over Senate Approval of Jay Treaty. United States Senate.

Retrieved from

https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/treaties/jay-treaty-approval.htm

Morrison Waite, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the time of the “corporate personhood” ruling.

One decision that has been rather unpopular over the past twenty years from the Supreme Court was Citizens United v. FEC (2010). Justice John Paul Stevens, who was in dissent, went as far as to call it one of the three worst decisions during his time on the bench. Numerous people have thought that this decision established that corporations are people. The truth is that Citizens United didn’t do this at all, and the concept has existed for much longer than that. What Citizens United did was it eliminated any spending limitations on corporations and unions on the grounds that such entities constituted a group of individuals, thus resulting in an avalanche of campaign spending from these entities using Political Action Committees. There are still limits to how much can be contributed to candidates per election, but this means that these committees can expand their reach of candidates they fund.

Background

The concept of corporations as people has a history that dates back to English common law in William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, in which Blackstone holds that corporations exist as “artificial persons” under the law “for the advantage of the public” (Holloway). This applies to for-profit and non-profit entities. The first corporation chartered in the history of the American colonies was none other than Harvard University. However, the legal foundation through the Supreme Court for corporate personhood came with the rise of the corporation.

In Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), the Supreme Court ruled 5-1 that the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution applied to private corporations. The Contracts Clause prohibits state governments from abrogating private contracts but allows prohibiting contracts violating public policy (example in present-day: you contract someone to be a slave). This began the growth of the corporation in the United States as well as the free enterprise system (Newmyer).

In 1873, the Supreme Court rejected on a 5-4 vote a 14th Amendment defense applying to business in The Slaughter-House Cases, holding that the 14th Amendment did not protect the defendants against interference by state law. Justice Samuel F. Miller ruled that the 14th Amendment didn’t restrict state police powers, substantially limiting the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Justice Stephen J. Field condemned the decision as rendering the 14th a “vain and idle enactment” (Constitutional Law Reporter).

Gradually in the United States, states were doing away with limited terms for corporations to attract more business, allowing corporations to theoretically exist in perpetuity as long as they file for renewal and if the market supports their existence, growing the power of corporations in the United States further.

1886: An Inadvertent (?) Watershed Decision

The decision in which corporate personhood became a concept did not even have the matter of corporate personhood as its central issue. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., the Supreme Court ruled that the state had wrongfully assessed taxes to the railroad, and in this decision the court reporter added a headnote, quoting Chief Justice Morrison Waite stating, “The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution which forbids a state to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does” (Syllabus in United States Reports). Interestingly, the court reporter was Bancroft Davis, a man who was at one time the president of Newburgh and New York Railway. This fact has caused a good deal of controversy given Davis’s past involvement in an industry that was directly impacted by this decision. However, Davis’s account is bolstered by a written exchange between him and Waite on May 26, 1886, to clarify his words. This read,

“Dear Chief Justice,

I have a memorandum in the California Cases Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific &c As follows. In opening the Court stated that it did not wish to hear argument on the question whether the Fourteenth Amendment applies to such corporations as are parties in these suits. All the Judges were of the opinion that it does” (Beatty, 172).

Waite affirmed his account,

“I think your mem. in the California Railroad Tax cases expresses with sufficient accuracy what was said before the argument began. I leave it with you to determine whether anything need be said about it in the report inasmuch as we avoided meeting the constitutional question in the decision” (Beatty, 172).

Although this was a note in a court decision, it became the first basis for corporate personhood. Author Jack Beatty (2007) found numerous questions about this occurrence, “Why did the chief justice issue his dictum? Why did he leave it up to Davis to include it in the headnotes? After Waite told him that the Court ‘avoided’ the issue of corporate personhood, why did Davis include it? Why, indeed, does he begin his headnote with it? The opinion made plain that the Court did not decide the corporate personality issue and the subsidiary equal protection issue” (173). However, in 1888, a more solid ruling was in Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, in which the court explicitly found that corporations were protected by the Fourteenth Amendment as “legal persons”. However, legal personhood has limits for corporations. For instance, in Braswell v. United States (1988), the court ruled 5-4 that corporations have no 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

References

According to the official court Syllabus in the United States Reports, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company 118 U.S. 394, 396 (1886).

Beatty, J. (2007). Age of betrayal: the triumph of money in America, 1865-1900. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Braswell v. United States. Oyez.

Retrieved from

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1987/87-3

Former Justice Stevens on the 3 worst Supreme Court decisions of his tenure. (2019, May 15). PBS News Hour.

References

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/former-justice-stevens-on-the-3-worst-supreme-court-decisions-of-his-tenure

Holloway, C. (2015, Fall). Are Corporations People? National Affairs, 57.

Retrieved from

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/are-corporations-people

Newmyer, R.K. (2001). John Marshall and the heroic age of the Supreme Court. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State Press.

Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U.S. 181 (1888). Justia.

Retrieved from

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/125/181/

The Fourteenth Amendment and the Slaughterhouse Cases. (2015, July 14). Constitutional Law Reporter.

Retrieved from

The Fourteenth Amendment and the Slaughterhouse Cases

Mike Johnson, despite some people’s thinking, is not the most conservative guy the Republican Party has ever elected speaker, with his DW-Nominate score at 0.566. That would be Frederick Gillett (1851-1935) of Massachusetts, who has a DW-Nominate score of 0.662. Although in 1892, Republican President Benjamin Harrison lost reelection, he did win in the state of Massachusetts, and this was the backdrop in which Gillett was first elected to Congress. During the Cleveland years, Gillett supported repealing the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, opposed tariff reduction, supported growth of the navy, and supported a literacy test for immigration for people 16 and older. He developed a respectable reputation among his colleagues.

During the McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft years he proved a strong supporter of the dominant conservative wing of the Congressional party, and backed Joe Cannon’s (R-Ill.) rule of the House, including opposing the successful effort in 1910 to limit the powers of the speaker. With the fall of the Republicans in 1912, Gillett found a president whose policies were most contrary to his own.

He was a staunch opponent of President Wilson, voting against the Federal Reserve Act and the Clayton Anti-Trust Act in 1914. In the leadup to American participation in World War I, Gillett voted for preparedness measures, including the “Big Navy” bill on June 2, 1916, and voted against an anti-trust investigation into foodstuff producers on February 28, 1917. Other votes he cast that placed him in a strongly conservative category included voting against raising the income tax to fund the World War I effort on May 23, 1917, and voting against an income tax for Washington D.C. on March 12, 1918. Gillett also voted against Prohibition, women’s suffrage, and criminalizing interracial relations in Washington D.C.

In 1918, the Republicans won control of the House in the midterms, and while House Minority Leader James R. Mann (R-Ill.) looked like the natural speaker in the upcoming session, he was found to have too close connections to Chicago meat packers, having received gifts including choice cuts of beef and a horse (Haines, 1). He was thus unable to get sufficient support for speaker after the midterms, so it went to the quiet, reserved, but respected Gillett. Although Gillett won, many Mann supporters remained in control of key committees, so Mann’s organization remained intact (Haines, 4). He would remain essentially the major power in the House until his death on November 30, 1922.

As Speaker, Gillett was strongly supportive of Presidents Harding and Coolidge. He faced a minor revolt in 1923 from the progressive wing of the Republican Party, which I have written about before and required multiple ballots to elect him speaker. In 1924, Gillett ran for the Senate at the behest of President Coolidge, who thought him best able to defeat Democratic Senator David I. Walsh, and Coolidge’s coattails brought him over the top. As a senator, Gillett voted his conservative line, and opposed continuing the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act. By 1930, he was nearly 80 years old, facing competition in the Republican primary, and facing a bad election year, so he opted to retire.

References

Haines, L. (Ed.). (1919, May). Mann and Gillett. The Searchlight, 4(1).

Retrieved from

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Searchlight_on_Congress/2G9lF6GuC4IC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=James+R.+Mann+Frederick+Gillett&pg=RA18-PA4&printsec=frontcover

Hill, R. Frederick Gillet[t] & the fight for speaker. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

Frederick Gillet & the Fight for Speaker

To Adopt H.J. Res. 200 [women’s suffrage amendment]. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/65-2/h69

To Agree to S.J. Res. 17…. [Prohibition Amendment] Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/65-2/h61

To Amend H.R. 4280….[Raise income tax for WWI]. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/65-1/h23

To Pass H.R. 1710 [Interracial relations ban in D.C.]. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/63-3/h236

1964 saw the loss of Barry Goldwater for the presidency, and that was the same year that Robert Bauman (1937- ) both was admitted to the bar in Maryland and attended his first Republican National Convention. His career gradually took off and the image he presented was as a model: a successful married father of four. Bauman was a conservative activist and had taken part in the founding of Young Americans for Freedom and the American Conservative Union.

In 1973, Congressman William Mills of Maryland’s 1st district committed suicide over the belief that he had run afoul of the law (he likely did not). This opened the door to Bauman’s run, and in Congress he became a star among conservatives, since with John Rousselot (R-Calif.) he became a master of parliamentary procedure as well as a compelling advocate for conservative positions and values. In terms of policing the Democrats for rules, he was essentially a successor to the legendary skinflint H.R. Gross (R-Iowa). On his conservatism, his modified Americans for Constitutional Action average score was a 94%. Conservative fundraiser Richard Viguerie regarded him as one of the top 10 conservatives of Congress (Polman). He was close with Ronald Reagan and National Review’s William F. Buckley Jr. Bauman was also known for his jabs: when Congressman Wayne Hays (D-Ohio), who was found to be having an affair with his secretary who he paid for doing no work, accused Bauman of knowing nothing about foreign affairs, he snapped back that Hays “had problems with affairs himself” (Polman). In 1979, he was one of the leaders of the House opposition to implementing the Panama Canal Treaty. The unpopularity of the Panama Canal Treaty would be one of the issues that would help Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign. By that year, he not only looked golden for reelection, but he also had plans to run for the Senate in 1982. However, Bauman had for many years been living a secret life.

Bauman’s first sexual experience he reported as being before the age of six with a 12-year-old neighbor (Romano). His sexual experiences were exclusively same-sex until he met his to-be wife, Carol. Bauman’s secret life would continue after marriage, and in one 1963 incident at Georgetown University, he was perusing for men and after picking up two muscular guys, they mugged and beat him. After Bauman would drive the babysitter for his young children home, he would go looking for men and was a known figure among the gay community in Washington D.C. Bauman wanted to maintain the lifestyle of a married man with four children, but his sexual tendencies were elsewhere.

Bauman Gets Caught

On October 3, 1980, Bauman was arrested for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old nude dancer in a Washington D.C. gay bar (Romano). He would before his election claim alcoholism as responsible for his behavior. Bauman would, however, also state that he had “homosexual tendencies” while denying he was a homosexual (Haskett). He was one of the few Republicans to lose reelection that year, and he would later admit that he was gay. Bauman stated on his realization, “Until 1980, I had never read extensively about homosexuality. I avoided it. I didn’t want to know. I was quite certain that it couldn’t include me in that category” (Romano) In June 1981, he and Carol would divorce.

Bauman would, years later, reflect on his experience, “What happened to me, stems from our society’s widespread ignorance. When someone like me, someone who got through Georgetown Law School, who got married and had four children, and attained the status of congressman, doesn’t know what he’s been confronting his whole life – there’s a lot of ignorance. We have to understand the suffering that flows from that. I still don’t like being gay. If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t be gay” (Polman).
Although many would keep their distance from him, he still had some help from friends. Edward Derwinski, who served as secretary of veterans’ affairs during George H.W. Bush’s presidency and was a former colleague of his in Congress, hired him for legal work. He has post-Congress mostly retained his conservative viewpoints although he did call for an anti-discrimination law for sexual orientation. Bauman’s specialty has been in offshore tax havens and has authored multiple books on the subject.

References

Haskett, M.E. (1980, October 24). Maryland Rep. Robert Bauman, charged with soliciting sex from… UPI.

Retrieved from

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/10/24/Maryland-Rep-Robert-Bauman-charged-with-soliciting-sex-from/8559341208000/

Kelly, J. (2008, April 5). Whatever happened to…Robert E. Bauman? The Baltimore Sun.

Retrieved from

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2008-04-05-0804050215-story.html

Polman, D. (1986, August 14). Out Of The Closet And Into An Abyss: Once A Darling Of The Political Right, Robert Bauman Fell Hard From Congress When It Was Revealed That He Was Gay. Philadelphia Inquirer.

Retrieved from

https://web.archive.org/web/20141211023853/http://articles.philly.com/1986-08-14/news/26065806_1_gay-bar-gay-political-groups-joe-mccarthy

Romano, L. (1986, August 6). Bob Bauman, After the Fall. The Washington Post.

Retrieved from

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/08/06/bob-bauman-after-the-fall/8dbf0791-1cf3-4aa2-87eb-2f5e1339bbf2/

People may wonder why, aside from the weaponization of the law narrative, a significant number of Republicans may be still willing to vote for Donald Trump even if he is convicted of any of what he is charged with. Part of it is in truth just a core reality of life: that principles, rules, and other matters of importance can be waived for someone if enough people like them. Today, I present a smaller example of someone who maintained the loyalty of his voters despite running afoul of the law.

On October 19, 1941, Congressman Lawrence J. Connery of Massachusetts dies of a heart attack, merely four years after his predecessor, his brother William, died of an illness brought on by food poisoning (The New York Times). Elected in his place is State Senator Thomas Joseph Lane (1898-1994), and Lane would stick around. For the most part, he voted as a pretty standard Democrat overall, being a supporter of New Deal programs and supporting organized labor. Lane did, however, support higher tariffs, a position traditionally associated with Old Guard Republicans, as this served to benefit his industrial Lawrence-based district, which was experiencing a decline in jobs. He was thus indeed representative of the people of his district. In the 1942 election, Lane had been elected without opposition. Even in 1946, a tough year for Democrats, he’d pulled off over 60% of the vote. However, on March 5, 1956, Lane was indicted for tax evasion between 1949 and 1951, leaving the government out of a total of $38,542 in taxes (Langeveld). Caught dead to rights, Lane pled guilty on April 30th. In pleading for leniency, he stated to the court, “Deep down in my heart I know there has never been a willful evading of the tax law” (Langeveld). He was sentenced to four months in prison and a $10,000 fine. Despite this development, Lane filed for reelection while in prison, and the voters were receptive. He easily won renomination, and in the 1956 general election, he won with over 68% of the vote. Although this was a reduction in popularity from the 1954 midterms, in which Lane drew no opponent, this showed that the voters continued to appreciate their representative. Lane had no cult of personality on his side, rather just a district loyal to party in which most voters liked their representative. This made Lane only the second person in American history to be elected to Congress after serving time. However, this didn’t mean Lane was invulnerable, as another factor brought his elective career to an end.

Final Defeat

Lane’s political defeat didn’t come about due to his tax evasion, rather by that old time-honored practice named after Massachusetts’ own Elbridge Gerry, gerrymandering. The 1960 census had yielded a two-seat loss for Massachusetts, and Lane’s district was merged with that of Republican Brad Morse’s Lowell-based 5th district. This served to separate Lane from his base of power, and Morse, a moderate liberal, prevailed by 15 points (The Washington Post). See, redistricting isn’t all bad, folks. Subsequently, he would from 1965 to 1977 serve on the Governor’s Council for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In contrast to his predecessors to Congress, both who died in their forties, Lane lived to be 95, dying on June 14, 1994.

References

Deaths. (June 18, 1994). The Washington Post.

Retrieved from

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1994/06/18/deaths/e831c7c9-672b-4c47-9749-18f9fa16a22c/

Langeveld, D. (2020, November 5). Thomas J. Lane: Jailhouse Incumbent Overcomes Tax Evasion Conviction. The Downfall Dictionary.

Retrieved from

http://downfalldictionary.blogspot.com/2020/11/thomas-j-lane-jailhouse-incumbent.html

W.P. Connery Jr. Dead in Capital. (1937, June 16). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

The 1982 midterms didn’t go so well for Republicans in the House. Thanks to an effective strategy by Democratic Congressional Committee chief Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), they lost 26 seats. The more Democratic House was oppositional to Reagan in many ways and sought to further limit the Reagan tax cuts, restrict military spending, restrict Reagan’s support for the Contras in Nicaragua and for the government of El Salvador in its efforts to defeat a communist rebellion backed by the USSR, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Weapons development and procurement is also a prominent issue, with votes included on the B-1 bomber and MX missile. Americans for Constitutional Action in this Congress strongly supported Reagan’s policies in Central America, supported school prayer, supported retaining the Reagan tax cuts, supported keeping tax brackets adjusted for inflation.

Curiously, ACA had nothing to say about the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday despite ACU and ADA both counting the vote on their scorecards and didn’t count the House vote on the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1984 despite ACU and ADA counting it. This is a marked contrast to the organization’s stance in the Great Society Congress, in which they counted four major civil rights votes in the House. They once again counted raising the debt limit and the closest thing they had anything to an opinion on abortion was their opposition to the 1983 vote on the Equal Rights Amendment, in which a proposal for an “abortion neutral” amendment was the centerpiece of the debate. President Reagan improves his numbers in this Congress over the last in the Senate and has a slight downturn in the House. His House and Senate scores for 1983 and 1984, respectively, are: 89%, 83%; 80%, 92%.

In 1983, the following legislators did no wrong by ACA standards:

House

Norman Shumway (R-Calif.)
Chip Pashayan (R-Calif.)
Carlos Moorhead (R-Calif.)
David Dreier (R-Calif.)
Dan Lungren (R-Calif.)
Larry McDonald (D-Ga.)
Larry Craig (R-Idaho)
George Hansen (R-Idaho)
Barbara Vucanovich (R-Nev.)
Thomas Hartnett (R-S.C.)
James Hansen (R-Utah)

Senate

Bill Armstrong (R-Colo.)
Steve Symms (R-Idaho)
Jesse Helms (R-N.C.)
John Porter East (R-N.C.)

In 1984, the following legislators did no wrong by ACA standards:

House

Norman Shumway (R-Calif.)
Chip Pashayan (R-Calif.)
Carlos Moorhead (R-Calif.)
David Dreier (R-Calif.)
William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.)
Dan Lungren (R-Calif.)
Dan Schaefer (R-Colo.)
Larry Craig (R-Idaho)
George Hansen (R-Idaho)
Phil Crane (R-Ill.)
Dan Crane (R-Ill.)
Dan Coats (R-Ind.)
Danny Burton (R-Ind.)
Gerald Solomon (R-N.Y.)
Bob McEwen (R-Ohio)
Denny Smith (R-Ore.)
Robert Walker (R-Penn.)
Phil Gramm (R-Tex.)
Bill Archer (R-Tex.)
Jack Fields (R-Tex.)
James Hansen (R-Utah)
Howard Nielson (R-Utah)
Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.)

Senate

Jeremiah Denton (R-Ala.)
Pete Wilson (R-Calif.)
Steve Symms (R-Idaho)
Jacob Hecht (R-Nev.)
Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.)
Jesse Helms (R-N.C.)
John Porter East (R-N.C.)
Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.)
Jake Garn (R-Utah)
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
Bob Kasten (R-Wis.)

Some names you might know today scored thusly, including the president and the top two Senate Democrats today. I must note that these ACA scores, as has been noted in previous postings on this subject, are modified to include pairs for and against legislation. I see it as a more complete assessment of ideology. The people and scores:

Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz.

1983 – 77
1984 – 90

John McCain, R-Ariz.

1983 – 81
1984 – 85

Joe Biden, D-Del.

1983 – 26
1984 – 17

Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

1983 – 85
1984 – 90

Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

1983 – 15
1984 – 19

Bob Dole, R-Kan.

1983 – 74
1984 – 88

Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

1983 – 11
1984 – 10

John Kasich, R-Ohio

1983 – 86
1984 – 95

Al Gore, D-Tenn.

1983 – 42
1984 – 25

Ron Paul, R-Tex.

1983 – 63
1984 – 65

Note: Paul’s score takes a bit of a beating given the emphasis on issues surrounding the military.

Dick Cheney, R-Wyo.

1983 – 96
1984 – 85

The Criterion Used for Determining ACA Scores:

1983 House:

1983 Senate:

1984 House:

1984 Senate:

Some time ago I wrote about politicians who were absentee, those who saw being a representative either as another status symbol or as a mere springboard to something else. Such folks include William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, and William Sharon. Today, however, I cover the opposite, someone who was always present for votes and always at work. While many people may think Congress consists of a bunch of bums, this could not be said for Democrat William Huston Natcher (1909-1994) of Kentucky.

Something that is not remembered so well about Kentucky, today the state of Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, is that it was once a predominantly Democratic state. Such was especially the case with the state’s second district, based in Bowling Green, one of two House seats that didn’t go Republican when the Hoover landslide swept Kentucky in 1928. Natcher was serving as Kentucky’s attorney for the Eighth Judicial District when on April 30, 1953, his district’s representative, Garrett Withers, died unexpectedly. He was nominated and won a special election that year. Natcher would prove so popular that he would face no opposition in the 1954 midterms. He was a man dedicated to his work for his district and would not accept campaign contributions; what few campaign expenses he had, came out of his own pocket. Natcher spread the word of himself as a representative by personally traveling around his district and talking to people, and this in-person approach worked wonders. President Bill Clinton called him a “citizen legislator”, and there’s nothing I’ve read about him so far that contradicts this label. Natcher’s philosophy was simple, and he described it in 1992, “When we got to Washington we talked about the assignment and we decided we’d try to do it right. And that’s the way I’ve done, I’ve tried to do it right” (Modlin). Natcher indeed followed this approach sitting on the Appropriations Committee, and over the years became an expert on budgetary issues, including being able to memorize portions of budgets.

Ideology

Natcher was very much a traditional Democrat: pro-New Deal and looking out for his district, namely through his support for infrastructure projects, including the cable bridge between Indiana and Kentucky ultimately completed in 2002. Sometimes he clashed with others in his support for highway projects, including Washington D.C. officials as chairman of the D.C. subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee for insisting that certain highway projects be funded before Metrorail funds (Barnes). He also tried to get the proposed Three Sisters Bridge over the Potomac River authorized for construction before any release of Metrorail funds, but this effort was thwarted by a group of representatives after massive public opposition from D.C. and Congress narrowly voted to fund Metrorail over his objections on December 2, 1971 (Eisen). He also was a strong supporter of federal funding for libraries. Natcher was most notable for never having missed a vote from his first day in office to March 3, 1994, having cast a total of 18,401 consecutive votes (Barnes).

Natcher on the Issues

Natcher was supportive of JFK’s New Frontier and LBJ’s Great Society programs, although he did oppose federal aid for mass transit. However, on some social issues Natcher proved conservative, such as his support for school prayer. He was also supportive of spending on the military, including for funding the B-1 Bomber and MX Missile. This translated to Natcher being, on net, a moderate liberal – his ACA scores ranged from an 8% in 1961 to a 59% in 1969. On environmental issues, he had a mixed record, with the League of Conservation Voters giving him a 45%.

Natcher and Civil Rights

Congressman Natcher was on civil rights very much a man of his region in the 1950s and 1960s. While he supported certain voting rights measures such as the 24th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he opposed the McCulloch-Celler Amendment for federally appointed voting referees, joined all but one member of the state’s House delegation in opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and voted against fair housing. However, he curiously voted to strengthen the 1964 act’s anti-employment discrimination enforcement through the proposed Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1966. Natcher would ultimately go along with the Democratic leadership on most civil rights questions in later years, including opposing an anti-racial quota and an anti-affirmative action amendment in 1978. Natcher also voted for the Equal Rights Amendment in 1971 and 1983. He did, however, maintain opposition to busing as a means of desegregation.

At Long Last…Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the End

Although Natcher served for a long time, he had the misfortune of having people ahead of him in seniority for the House Appropriations Committee: the man immediately senior of him, Appropriations Chairman Jamie Whitten of Mississippi, would serve in Congress for 53 years, while Whitten’s predecessor, George Mahon of Texas, had served in Congress for 44 years. Natcher’s chance finally came in 1992; Chairman Whitten, who like Natcher was an octogenarian, suffered a stroke in February 1992 and was months later persuaded to step down. Although being chairman was the pinnacle of his career, his time would only be long enough for the start of the Clinton Administration, for by 1994 his health was failing. On March 6th, he was brought into the House on a gurney connected to tubes and an oxygen tank to cast his last votes. Natcher died of heart failure on March 29th, with the only votes he ever missed being on account of his final illness. President Clinton attended his funeral. Political Science Professor Ed Yager of Western Kentucky University assessed his legacy thusly, “He was an absolute expert on parliamentary procedure and he was also an expert on the budget and had many parts of the budget memorized. And so this professional competence was extremely important. But on the other hand he also had the personal qualities which were extremely important to getting things done in the House of Representatives. He was civil. He thought of himself as an American first, and as a Democrat second” (Modlin).

Although he holds the record for most consecutive votes, believe it or not, he’s not Kentucky’s longest serving representative. That goes to Republican Hal Rogers, who has served in Congress since 1981. Kentucky’s move from Democratic to Republican state was occurring about the time of Natcher’s death, and although in 1992 Natcher had won reelection by over 60% of the vote, his successor was Republican Ron Lewis, who won by over 10 points. The 2nd district has been represented by a Republican ever since. Natcher came from a different era of Democratic politics, coming to Congress in the age in which the New Deal coalition was still alive and well and the Austin-Boston Connection (named for Speaker Sam Rayburn of Bonham, Texas and Majority Leader and later Speaker John W. McCormack of Boston, as well as for Speaker Tip O’Neill of Boston and Majority Leader Jim Wright of Fort Worth) was effective.

References

Barnes, B. (1994, March 31). Rep. William H. Natcher Dies at 84. The Washington Post.

Retrieved from

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1994/03/31/rep-william-h-natcher-dies-at-84/0d130e54-9fef-4cc0-8bff-90ea6a168290/

Eisen, J. (1971, December 3). House Releases District Subway Funds. Washington Post. 

Modlin, D. (2010, June 7). Influential Kentucky politicians series: William Natcher. WKMS.

Retrieved from

https://www.wkms.org/2010-06-07/influential-kentucky-politicians-series-william-natcher

Representative William Natcher (D). League of Conservation Voters.

Retrieved from

https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/william-huston-natcher

Connecticut seems to be just out of reach for Republicans. Although George Logan came close to winning a Congressional seat last year, the state hasn’t elected a Republican governor or member of Congress since 2006. Those who won office were of a distinctly moderate to liberal variety: Chris Shays was the last Republican ever elected to Congress from the state and he was often thought of as a RINO, but more so than him was his predecessor, Stewart Brett McKinney (1931-1987).

A businessman primarily focusing on cars, McKinney was well placed in the community of Fairfield, Connecticut to run for public office. Although his first effort at running in 1965 as a town selectman was unsuccessful, the following year his political career kicked off, being elected to the Connecticut State House. His chance to move up came soon, as in 1970 Congressman Lowell Weicker ran for the Senate, with McKinney going for his seat in the 4th district. Both men won their races, with the latter winning by 14 points. Indeed, the 4th district was consistently represented by a Republican from 1969 to 2009.

Congressman McKinney: A Liberal Reputation

In the House, Congressman McKinney developed a record that was supportive of social welfare measures, including government-run childcare and extending the Economic Opportunity Act in 1971. He also was supportive of organized labor, voting against amendments prohibiting food stamps for households that need assistance because the head of household is on strike. McKinney defied the Nixon Administration multiple times on Vietnam, supporting a defined pullout date. However, he also had a mixed record on busing as a means for school desegregation, supported anti-subversive legislation, and backed the B-1 Bomber. In 1973, McKinney supported the Crane (R-Ill.) proposal legalizing the private ownership of gold, but also supported raising the minimum wage over President Nixon’s veto and foreign aid. That year, he drafted the D.C. Home Rule Act, which granted D.C. residents the ability to elect their own mayor and city council. Indeed, McKinney was so passionate in his advocacy for D.C. that the district’s non-voting delegate, Democrat Walter Fauntroy, regarded him as “my vote on the House floor” (Specter & Pearson). McKinney’s modified ACA-Index scores ranged from 15% in 1977 to 54% in 1971. The American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime score of 27%.

During the 95th Congress, McKinney served on the Committee on Assassinations, and agreed with the majority conclusion that there was a fourth shot coming from the grassy knoll in the JFK assassination based on a Dictabelt recording, but this turned out not to have been a recording from Dealey Plaza (Sabato). In 1979, he led the drafting of the Chrysler bailout, and this wouldn’t be the last time he’d be involved in business bailouts. In 1984, there was a run on the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Co., and as Congress was conducting hearings on a bailout package, McKinney stated, “We have a new kind of bank. It is called too big to fail. TBTF, and it is a wonderful bank” (Ryssdal & Hollenhorst). His use of “too big to fail” popularized the now commonly used term.

McKinney and Reagan

Although Congressman McKinney backed a number of Reagan’s budget and tax reduction proposals, he would be one of the most visible dissenters within the GOP, including on social issues and on military spending. In 1983, he voted for the Equal Rights Amendment and against funding the MX Missile and the B-1 Bomber. It was also during this time that he would have his last achievement in the Homeless Assistance Act, which he sponsored with Representative Bruce Vento (D-Minn.). This established aid programs for the homeless and would be signed into law by President Reagan on July 22, 1987.

Personal Life and End

Although a married man with children, McKinney was bisexual and had relations with multiple men. He also struggled with his health over the years, including needing to undergo multiple-heart-bypass surgery in 1979. In 1985, McKinney was diagnosed with HIV, and on April 22, 1987, while being hospitalized for pneumonia he would be diagnosed with AIDS, dying on May 7th. McKinney’s physician Dr. Cesar Caceres stated, “I believe that Mr. McKinney contracted the disease from the many blood transfusions he received while undergoing multiple-heart-bypass surgery in 1979. This was during the period between 1978 and the spring of 1985 when no testing of blood donors for [HIV] was done” (Specter & Pearson).

References

Rep. Stewart McKinney. American Conservative Union.

Retrieved from

http://ratings.conservative.org/people/M000527

Ryssdal, K. & Hollenhorst, M. (2023, April 13). The history of “too big to fail”. Marketplace.

Retrieved from

https://www.marketplace.org/2023/04/13/the-history-of-too-big-to-fail/

Sabato, L.J. (2013, November 21). Is there more to JFK assassination? CNN.

Retrieved from

https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/15/opinion/sabato-jfk-assassination/index.html

Specter, M. & Pearson, R. (1987, May 8). Rep. Stewart B. McKinney Dies of AIDS Complications. The Washington Post.

Retrieved from

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/05/08/rep-stewart-b-mckinney-dies-of-aids-complications/19f9f106-7bde-49e7-b987-b3011d7d7915/

I have written about this subject before, namely that I regard the narrative that Nixon of being a liberal as a myth, rather that he was moderately conservative, but there are some greater details I’d like to delve into, namely how he fared with the top two interest groups that issued ratings based on liberalism and conservatism: Americans for Democratic Action and Americans for Constitutional Action. Some takeaways:
Ideologues were not pleased with Nixon’s first two years. For conservatives, the complaints included that under his administration there was the largest expansion of the federal government since 1945 (Kotlowski). However, like I’ve covered before, some of these changes such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act amendments, received consensus support to the degree that such votes are rendered worthless for ascertaining liberalism and conservatism among legislators.

If Nixon was counted by ACA and ADA scorecards based on the positions he took on their votes, this is how it would come out:

Years	ADA (S)	ADA (H)	ACA (S)	ACA (H)
1969	13	17	22	30
1970	21	44	75	67
1971	17	8	55	91
1972	14	29	100	55
1973	11	11	100	80
1974	33	17	89	60
Average	18	21	74	64

The scores regarding Americans for Constitutional Action can be searched on this website under Americans for Constitutional Action Project: An Update. For Americans for Democratic Action, the votes counted can be looked up on Voteview’s website for Nixon’s positions. However, the vote count is incompletely presented for 1970 and 1974 on ADA’s website, so I have filled in the blanks. The 1970 ADA file available consists of interim ratings designed to influence voters for the 1970 midterms, which ADA regarded as of the utmost importance. The complete version, released later, had 25 House votes rather than 18 and 32 Senate votes rather than 20.

The missing roll call votes for 1970 in the House, with the pro-ADA position, are: 335, Yea; 382, Nay; 383, Nay; 400, Nay; 404, Yea; 410, Yea; 439. Yea.

The missing roll call votes for 1970 in the Senate, with the pro-ADA position, are: 483, Yea; 496, Yea; 501, Yea; 503, Yea; 553, Yea; 559, Nay; 571, Yea; 596, Yea; 608, Yea; 623, Yea; 642, Yea; 647, Yea.

The missing roll call votes for 1974 in the House, with the pro-ADA position, are: 699, Yea; 701, Yea; 707, Nay; 739, Yea; 776, Yea; 779, Nay; 796, Yea; 861, Yea; 862, Yea; 863, Yea; 874, Yea; 897, Nay; 933, Yea; 947, Nay; 971, Nay; 988, Nay.

The missing roll call votes for 1974 in the Senate, with the pro-ADA position, are: 671, Nay; 713, Yea; 750, Yea; 784, Yea; 799, Yea; 804, Yea; 806.

1969 provides a fascinating contrast between how liberals and conservatives saw Nixon: both groups thought he was bad news but for different reasons. Of particular note is how low he scores with Americans for Constitutional Action, which was achieved by him only siding with them on three of ten issues in the House and two of nine in the Senate. Nixon’s sins from a conservative perspective included:

Accepting too high raises of the debt ceiling.

The Family Assistance Plan.

Compromising with Republican liberals on the issue of busing as a means of desegregation.

Leading otherwise conservative Republicans into taking more liberal positions to be in line with the president.

Supporting increases in foreign aid.

Supporting extensions of anti-poverty programs without their functions being transferred to states.

Supporting farm subsidy payments.

1970 strangely has Nixon moving in a rightward direction from ACA but a leftward direction from ADA.

ADA’s problems with Nixon were many, but among some more notable ones:

His support for Supersonic Transport, which ACA didn’t regard as sufficiently indicative of conservatism to count in their ratings.

Vietnam War policy.

His support for altering the Voting Rights Act to make application nationwide as well as his opposition to a voting rights extension over the inclusion of an 18-year-old vote provision. Although it is true that Nixon signed into law an extension of the Voting Rights Act, he did that in spite of the 18-year-old vote provision, which was struck down by the Supreme Court and thus necessitated a Constitutional amendment.

Nixon does better by ACA in both Houses in 1970, and afterwards did much better. After being reelected, he looks downright princely in the Senate by ACA standards and just okay in the House. Overall, Nixon figures as a moderate by ACA standards in the House and as a moderate conservative in the Senate. By ADA standards, he figures as a conservative in the Senate and as a moderate conservative in the House. I have noticed that when looking at historic figures for liberalism, a standard that seems akin to that of radical conservatives Kent and Phoebe Courtney, whose 1961-1962 ratings I have covered, is often used. Such a standard ought to cause them to blush, were they still alive, and it doesn’t account for where conservatives and liberals were standing at the time. ACA itself was already considered very conservative, yet by their standards Nixon doesn’t do too shabbily.

References

Kotlowski, D.J. (2002, June 9). Was Richard M. Nixon a closet liberal? The Baltimore Sun.

Retrieved from

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2002-06-09-0206080271-story.html

Senator Charles Sumner (R-Mass.), most noted as an abolitionist, was also a supporter of the proposed Christian Amendment to the Constitution.

Lately, we have heard some GOP showhorses talk about the United States as a “Christian nation”. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, for instance, said last year that she was “tired of this separation of church and state junk – that’s not in the Constitution”, while adding that “The church is supposed to direct the government” and not the other way around (Dress). Non-Republicans lament of what the GOP has become over such a sentiment and others, seeming to believe that the GOP was once a more secular party. The Senate GOP’s 29-3 vote for a school prayer amendment to the Constitution in 1966, which I have covered before, says otherwise. Although the latter part of Boebert’s statement about church directing government is completely off as to the intentions of the Founding Fathers, she is on solid ground with holding that government is not supposed to direct the church as well as the first part as the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution, rather Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. Her sentiments on religion and state also have more in common with founding figures of the Republican Party than such non-Republicans think. From the adoption of the United States Constitution, there were those who saw the absence of God in it as a deficit, and during the 1860s a number of Republicans saw fit to do something about it.

Proposing the Christian Amendment

In 1861, eleven representatives from Protestant denominations met and saw the War of the Rebellion as a form of divine punishment for failure to include God in the Constitution, and proposed to alter the preamble to mention God. The following year the National Reform Association was founded to push this amendment and proposed it to President Lincoln, who was noncommittal. The proposed amendment would add, “We, the people of the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler among the nations, His revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government, and in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the inalienable rights and the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to ourselves and our posterity, and all the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America” (Allison). Prominent supporters included such big names in the early Republican Party as Senators Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Zachariah Chandler and Jacob Howard of Michigan, B. Gratz Brown of Missouri, John Sherman of Ohio, and Justin Morrill and George Edmunds of Vermont.

Despite this promising start of support, the War of the Rebellion was consuming the time of government, and the assassination of President Lincoln further disrupted any push forward this amendment might have had. There was also some growing hesitation among its supporters. Charles Sumner, for instance, grew concerned about how his Jewish constituents would respond (Allison). The proposed amendment suffered a great blow when Lyman Trumbull (R-Ill.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, regarded the amendment as unnecessary in 1865 and cited examples of the Constitution indirectly supporting the notion of God, including public oaths for office and a right for free exercise of religion. Trumbull then asked for the Judiciary Committee to be discharged from the duty of consideration of the amendment and it was agreed to (Allison). Efforts persisted, with petitions being presented by numerous members of the House and Senate. Senator Richard Yates (R-Ill.), stated in his support,

“So far as I am concerned. I must say that this nation is too much indebted to the Christian religion for its national superiority for it to ignore Christianity. This is the religion which aroused our fathers in the old country and caused them to migrate to this continent and to lay here the foundations of religion and freedom. It crossed the ocean with our Pilgrim fathers; it has carried our institutions to the distant frontier; it has erected temples dedicated to the true God. The spirit of its philanthropy has filled our land with colleges and school. Its benevolence has established institutions for the relief of the disabled and the diseased, and for the amelioration of our race. And now, sir, nine-tenths of the people of my State demand that there shall be an amendment to the Constitution by which the supremacy of God shall be acknowledged by this great nation to that Being to whom we are indebted for all that we are — for our successes in many wars, and for the establishment of equal rights and liberty throughout the land” (Allison).

The amendment was not without its opponents, including Senators Francis P. Blair (D-Mo.) and Carl Schurz (LR-Mo.) who objected to consideration with the latter citing petitions from over 10,000 people in opposition. No action was taken over concerns that the amendment had potential to impair free exercise of religion.

The nation that existed when this amendment was proposed was an overwhelmingly Protestant one, with Protestantism being taken as a given with Catholic and other religious schools being regarded as “sectarian”. There have been periodic efforts since to amend the Constitution to make it more of a Christian document, with the most recent example being school prayer, which I have covered before. Although the school prayer amendment is on its face neutral and could potentially be neutral in application, the motivation for it comes from Protestants who want prayer in the classroom, as it existed in many American schools before the 1962 Supreme Court decision Engel v. Vitale.

References

Allison, J. (1998). The NRA (National Reform Association) and the Christian Amendment. The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State.

Retrieved from

https://candst.tripod.com/nra.htm

Dress, B. (2022, June 28). Boebert says she is ‘tired’ of separation between church and state: ‘The church is supposed to direct the government’. The Hill.

Retrieved from

Boebert says she is ‘tired’ of separation between church and state: ‘The church is supposed to direct the government’

Vile, J.R. (2009, January 1). Christian Amendment. Free Speech Center.

Retrieved from

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/christian-amendment/