ChesusRice
Well-Known Member
When we look at the party vote in both houses of Congress, it fits the historical pattern. Republicans are more in favor of the bill:It was the Democrats who opposed the civil rights act of 1964. No, cheesdick does not know this. Martin Luther King was a Republican; cheesedick does not know that either.
Civil rights act of 1964:
By party[edit]
The original House version:[SUP][17][/SUP]
Cloture in the Senate:[SUP][18][/SUP]
- Democratic Party: 152–96 (61–39%)
- Republican Party: 138–34 (80–20%)
The Senate version:[SUP][17][/SUP]
- Democratic Party: 44–23 (66–34%)
- Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:[SUP][17][/SUP]
- Democratic Party: 46–21 (69–31%)
- Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%)
- Democratic Party: 153–91 (63–37%)
- Republican Party: 136–35 (80–20%)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
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Of course, it was also Democrats who helped usher the bill through the House, Senate, and ultimately a Democratic president who signed it into law. The bill wouldn't have passed without the support of Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana, a Democrat. Majority Whip Hubert Humphrey, who basically split the Democratic party in two with his 1948 Democratic National Convention speech calling for equal rights for all, kept tabs on individual members to ensure the bill had the numbers to overcome the filibuster.
Put another way, party affiliation seems to be somewhat predictive, but something seems to be missing. So, what factor did best predicting voting?
You don't need to know too much history to understand that the South from the civil war to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 tended to be opposed to minority rights. This factor was separate from party identification or ideology. We can easily control for this variable by breaking up the voting by those states that were part of the confederacy and those that were not.
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But what happens when we control for both party affiliation and region? As Sean Trende noted earlier this year, "sometimes relationships become apparent only after you control for other factors".
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republicans-party-of-civil-rights