SEX,
RACE, RELIGION AND PARTISAN REALIGNMENT
by Jo Freeman
Published in We Get What We Vote For ... Or Do We?: The Impact of Elections on Governing, ed. by Paul Scheele, Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, pp. 167-190.
Sex, race and religion are primary sources of partisan conflict in American
politics. Race and religion are themes of long standing. Their guise and
their proponents change from era to era, they coincide and collude with
sectional and economic cleavages, they emerge and recede as dominant topics
of public debate; but whatever form they take, race and religion have
been crucial components of our political conflicts since the country's
founding. Sex, more specifically the role of women and how it affects
relationships between the sexes, is a theme that emerges only sporadically
and manifests itself less directly than the other two. Since the rise
of the contemporary feminist movement in the late '60s, the importance
of sex has increased until in many ways it is a dominant, albeit understated,
theme in current partisan contests. This conflict has largely been one
of feminism versus antifeminism, seen most explicitly in the polarization
of the two major political parties around issues raised by the feminist
movement. However, sex as act as well as gender is also important as evidenced
by the acrimonious debates over abortion and homosexuality. Since attitudes
toward feminism strongly coincide with attitudes towards these issues,
and in many ways provide the ideological basis for the pro-choice and
pro-gay rights position, sex and feminism can be treated as a single theme.
Sex,
race, and religion are fundamental to politics for two reasons. First,
they define the communities in which people live. For race, and to a lesser
extent religion, these communities are homogeneous; those in them constantly
have their values and attitudes reinforced by others like themselves.
Common communities are conducive to political consistency. Since women
usually live with men, this is clearly not true of sex, though it is more
true of homosexuals. Sex is only a sporadic theme, emerging only when
structures or institutions are created which bring women together on a
regular basis. The emergence in the last 20 years of a gay and lesbian
community which is also politically conscious and willing to organize
to elect sympathetic public officials may give sex the permanence of race
and religion.
Second,
ideas about race, sex, and religion embody fundamental values, and consequently
are a source of conflicts over values even among members of the same race,
sex, or religion. These values go to the heart of what we mean by culture.
When they are threatened or attacked or even challenged the response is
far more ferocious and obstinate than in the "normal" politics
of who gets what, when and how. As a "nation of immigrants",
founded by religious dissidents and political malcontents who brought
many different cultures to our shores, our politics has often required
us to channel and contain cultural conflict, to "civilize" it.
Indeed some of our most exalted principles, such as the separation of
church and state, or "that government is best which governs least",
are the result of trying to keep cultural conflict out of politics. But
for most of our history cultural conflict has been an underlying theme,
whether it stays within the boundaries of electoral politics or spills
over into direct community conflict.
The
meaning of "race" has varied throughout our history. In today's
popular parlance race is used almost exclusively for "blacks"
and "whites," and sometimes "hispanics". "Racial"
issues are those of particular concern to African-Americans, or reactions
to African-Americans, though occasionally other groups identified as minorities,
such as Native Americans and Asian Americans, are included as well. Whites,
like blacks, are referred to as a single race, but this is of recent vintage.
Previously, groups we now call ethnics -- Irish, Italians, Jews, etc.
-- were viewed as distinct races. Here, race will mean what it meant in
the historical period referred to. Politically, the common element in
the attribution of race is community. Identifiable races live in common
communities where they share institutions, values, information, and viewpoints.
Members of these communities often practice the same religion and the
same politics. Over time, most "races" have integrated into
the larger American polity as their members dispersed geographically and
economically. The more they disperse, the looser the community ties, the
less important race is as a determinant of identity or political views.
Thus most of the "races" of the 19th Century are merely ethnic
groups today.
The
cultural and political impact of our three major religious traditions --
Protestant, Catholic and Jewish -- has not been equal or even. Each religious
group brought different values which were initially resisted then gradually
layered on top of that which came before. Our cultural foundation is Protestant,
the lasting legacy of the initial immigrants. (Herberg 1955, 94). The Irish
immigration of the 1840s and 1850s brought a fervent Catholicism, whose
building blocks did not sit well on the Protestant base. The Jewish wave
was last and smallest, adding decorative touches more than basic cultural
themes, except for New York City where the cultural influence is considerable.
Jews were met with intolerance as Catholics before them, but as they have
assimilated a subtle shift of belief has ensued from one that ours is a
Christian culture to one that it is Judeo-Christian. The impact of other
religions has not yet been widely felt.Religion
has always been a major source of community and identity for most Americans,
with important differences in religious practices, socio-economic status
and attitudes. Catholics were urban, voted Democratic, and joined labor
unions. Nineteenth Century Jews were merchants and voted Republican; those
who came or were born in the Twentieth Century shifted to the Democratic
column. Protestants were predominantly rural, and outside the South voted
largely Republican. (Herberg 1955).As
important as the three traditions have been as creators of values, the smaller
units were the crucibles of community. Protestantism in particular has always
been deeply divided by denomination, so much so that "religion"
will be used here to mean differences in denomination as well as tradition.
Indeed the black Protestant church is really a fourth tradition; the formation
of separate black churches, and then denominations, began after the Revolutionary
War and accelerated after the Civil War. (Niebuhr 1929, 253-259). The black
and white Protestant churches have diverged so widely that black Baptists
have more in common with black Methodists than with white Baptists.In
the post WWII era there has been a striking increase in secularism -- that
portion of the population that doesn't identify with any major religious
tradition, even when raised in one. There is no "secular" community,
and secularism by itself is not an equivalent identity to a religious one,
but "seculars" do share values as do members of religious bodies.
The rise of secularism has had major consequences for both religion and
politics.In
the Nineteenth Century men and women lived in separate worlds, even while
sharing their homes. As prosperity created a middle class, the number of
women grew who had sufficient leisure and education to work together in
many movements. By the end of the century women had created a vast network
of women's clubs concerned with individual and community improvement. The
community of women formed by these groups, and the attitudes and values
many shared, eventually made the movement for woman suffrage more than a
radical idea pursued only by a few. For much of the Nineteenth century,
the separate spheres of men and women created separate political subcultures,
in which men engaged in electoral politics and women that of moral reform.
(Baker 1984) However, in the 1880s, and particularly in the 1890s, women
began to move into political parties, aiding men in the election of candidates.
Their organizations were separate from men's, but not their politics. After
the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, women's groups went in different
directions and were often bitter opponents. For many reasons, feminism slid
from the public agenda. It was revived in the late 1960s and 1970s, when
a new feminist movement emerged and painstakenly created new organizations
and communities of women (and some men) to alter women's role and enlarge
their opportunities.Party Systems and Electoral Realignments
In
its 200 year history many different political parties have been active in
one or more of the United States. But, with occasional exceptions, there
has always been a national two party system. Contenders for public office
have organized themselves into two competing ideological traditions."Each of the two ideological traditions has given rise to a series of major parties in American national politics; [one] to the Federalists, National Republicans, Whigs, and modern Republicans, and the [other] to the Antifederalists, Democratic-Republicans and modern Democrats."
Political
scientist Jim Reichley calls the first the party of order because it prioritizes
"public order and economic growth" while the latter is termed
the party of equality because it favors "economic and social equality."
(Reichley 1992, 4-6).Although
concerns with order and access (equality) have been constants in party history,
concerns about the role of government have not been. Until the civil war,
the party of equality was dominant nationally though not in every region;
between the Civil War and the New Deal, the Republican Party prevailed as
the vehicle through which economic growth and public order was sought; since
then, the Democratic Party has mostly governed. In each of these three eras
the dominant party favored stronger national government. Whichever party,
or tradition, is in power, is the one which favors the institutions through
which it exercises power. The
two ideological traditions have always incorporated many communities, interests
and associations within them, some as active participants in the parties
and some only as voters. They have not always been the same ones. Different
interests, or blocks of voters sharing similar characteristics and views,
emerge, grow and decline. The size of the effective electorate changes as
the eligible population increases and voting rates rise or fall. Sometimes
a voting community moves from one party to the other. These shifts, when
permanent, alter a party's base -- the coalition of interests on which it
depends and which write its fundamental policies. Alterations in voting
patterns may lead to an electoral realignment -- that is a shift
in which party wins elections, or some elections, in different locales.
(Sundquist, 1983, Chapter 1). Sometimes the electorate realigns gradually
and sometimes quickly; some realignments have been durable and some only
temporary. (Campbell 1966; Burnham 1970; Sundquist 1983). These realignments
may cause a redistribution of power between the parties, reinforce and solidify
an existing distribution, and/or give rise to new parties, but they do so
within one of the two main traditions. Realignments
occur when new cleavages in the electorate attain political saliency,
or when changes in the size and composition of the electorate alter the
impact of existing cleavages. Our pluralistic polity always has cleavages,
but not all are important to everyone, and not everyone votes. Realignments
reflect changes in major cleavage patterns. Generally new cleavages are
superimposed on old ones, with some otherwise identical voters voting the
new and some the old lines of partisanship. Many decades later, old cleavages
fade from importance.A
durable distribution of partisan power is called a party system or electoral
system. Political scientists generally agree that there have been at least
five such systems in our national history, but disagree about further ones.
(Burnham 1970, 135). The breaking points between these five party systems
were roughly: 1828-32, 1856-60, 1892-96, and 1928-36. The transition between
national party systems has usually been sudden, taking place over one or
two "critical elections", though there is some disagreement on
exactly how many elections are necessary to complete a transition. (Key
1955, 3-4, Kleppner 1987, 18, Burnham 1970). Because no critical election
marked the end of the fifth party system, while the others ended abruptly,
no consensus exists on whether or when it ended. There was also no critical
election between the first and second party systems, though there is agreement
that a seismic shift occurred.A Brief History of the First Five Party Systems
The
first party system was more one of factions among the founding elites
than a true party system. Nonetheless, the "revolution of 1800"
as Jefferson called it, marked the emergence of parties in American
politics. (Sisson 1974, 11). Initially parties were driven by issues
and events, rising and falling with electoral crises and displaying
little institutional continuity. While meetings and caucuses selected
candidates, participation was limited to "respectable" men
and organization was from the top down. The "spirit of party"
radiated a suspicion of corruption. This period also saw the decline
of the Federalists as a national party, leaving the Democratic Republicans
as the dominant -- sometimes the sole -- party outside of New England.
(Formisano 1981).
Serious
competition reappeared in the 1820s, initially within the one major
party. By the 1930s the extension of suffrage through the abolition
of property qualifications and the addition of several new states led
to the formation of mass parties with complex and continuing organizations.
The public attitude toward parties softened. During the second party
system, lasting from roughly 1828 until the eve of the Civil War, partisan
competition became the accepted way to elect public officials, and party
conventions, local and national, became the primary means of selecting
party candidates. Although several parties ran candidates in the 1830s,
by the 1840s the traditional division had reasserted itself; groups
allied in two major coalitions (Whigs and Democrats) contested elections
in all states but one. Nationally there was a two-party system; organizationally,
parties remained state and local affairs. Even after the Democrats elected
the first national party chairman in 1844 and the first national committee
in 1848, their primary task was to elect the party's ticket; the national
officers did not run the party between elections. (McCormick 1966. Formisano
1971, 1981, 67. Shade 1981).
In
the first party system, region, religion, and to a lesser extent race,
were the major sources of party loyalty. Region often coincided with
economic interests, but those interests were particular to the region
rather than a reflection of the relative wealth of those within a region.
Most voters followed their racial and religious peers in deciding their
party allegiance, though these allegiances were affected by local politics
and might differ from state to state. Congregationalists and Episcopalians
were Federalist, as were Quakers except in New England; Methodists,
Baptists and Presbyterians were not. Older immigrants, e.g., the English,
generally favored the Federalists while the newer ones, e.g. Germans
and Scots Irish, did not. (Formisano 1981, 60-66. Shade 1981, 102. Reichley
1985, 177-82).
The
second party system was shaped by the new immigrants. "[M]ost,
being social and economic outsiders, were attracted, at least at first,
to the party of equality. The great majority of Irish Catholics, as
well as other Catholics and most Germans, Lutherans, and Reformeds became
Jacksonian Democrats." Competition for jobs fanned an existing
anti-Catholic prejudice, which, fed by "Protestant intellectuals
and divines," frequently erupted in nativist violence. This persuaded
some Protestant religious groups to shift to the party of order. (Reichley
1985, 183-8. Shade 1981, 102).
The
second party system collapsed into Civil War; the third party system
was built upon its ruins. Slavery split both major parties in the 1850s,
but the Whigs did not survive.
"The Whigs' underlying problem was that their alignment with the moral program of northern Protestantism, a principal source of the political dynamism they briefly enjoyed in the 1840s, brought them into collision with the institution of slavery, thereby antagonizing and alienating their own southern wing," while the Democrats managed to unite all of the outsiders -- cultural, religious and sectional. (Reichley 1992, 107).
This opportunistic alliance allowed the Democrats to survive, but shifted
the balance of power to the party of order. The new Republican Party,
founded in 1854, elected its first President in 1860 and dominated national
and northern politics for the next seventy years.
The
Civil War fractured traditional alliances. Many Protestants who had
supported the Democratic Party's egalitarian emphasis left because it
would not take a stand against the evil of slavery. The new party they
helped form combined support for economic growth with a strong stand
for moral order and saw government as a means to attain both of these
ends. The third party system created some strange alliances. The party
of equality ruled in the South, where it was the defender of white supremacy,
while the Republican Party brought under its banner both the champions
of industrial capitalism and those of social justice. Partisanship was
still a function of region, religion and race, but these had shifted.
The sectional cleavage dominated. In the South, the freed slaves were
gradually disenfranchised and with them the Republican Party. The rest
of the country had a slight Republican majority but it was not evenly
spread throughout. In three New England and four Midwest states the
Republican Party dominated; in the rest statewide elections were closely
contested with wide variations within each state. The primary cleavage
outside the South was religion; Catholics were Democrats, most Protestants
were Republicans. (Kleppner 1981, 124). Partisanship was strong and
many state and national races were very competitive; outside the South
75 percent of those eligible to vote did so -- more than in any era
before or since.
The
third party system was not static; it was molded by Reconstruction and
then retrenchment in the South and immigration, externally and internally,
elsewhere. The puritans who had been Federalists in New England took
their values with them as they pushed the frontier further west and
brought more states into the Union. Where they settled the Republican
party flourished. As the puritans moved west, European immigrants replaced
them in the major cities of the East and Midwest. (Kleppner 1979, 198).
They could become citizens after five years but could often vote before
that; many states wishing to increase their population allowed the foreign
born to vote upon filing a declaration of intent to become a citizen.
(U.S. Bureau of the Census 1975, 1068).
"Immigrants from each European nation generally joined the party advocated by earlier immigrants of their nationality, the Germans, Scandinavians and Italians usually allying themselves with the Republican party, and the Irish, Greeks and other southeastern nationals with the Democratic party." (Catt and Shuler 1923, 1926, 161. Kleppner 1981, 132).
During
this period the country was undergoing vast economic changes, industrializing
and pushing the frontier of development further West each year. While
the major parties fought at the national level over free trade versus
the protective tariff, the most bitter political battles were local
ones over the schools, use of English, the control of liquor, Sunday
blue laws and other cultural issues. Minor parties flourished in the
third party system because the major parties, whether in one or two
party states, did not articulate many of the interests which the conflicts
of the day generated. Indeed it was the inability of the third party
system to channel conflicts between economic groups, by providing clear
programs and choices, that led to the populist revolt and the critical
elections of the 1890s. (Kleppner 1981, 127. Burnham 1981, 152).
The
third party system ended with a crash -- literally. The Democrats had the
misfortune to be in control of the White House and both Houses of Congress
when the economy collapsed in the Spring of 1893. Northern voters punished
the party as the "party of hard times". (Kleppner 1987, 97-107;
Burnham 1981, 160; Sundquist 1983, 149). Even before the Crash of '93, distressed
farmers of the West and South had organized a new People's Party (populist)
to articulate their demands. It recruited from the Democrats in the South
and the Republicans in the West to protest the exploitation of agricultural
producers by the industrial capitalist barons of the Northeast. When William
Jennings Bryan was nominated by the 1896 Democratic convention, and then
by the Populists the next week, the Democratic Party's Eastern wing bolted.
Bryan's agrarian radicalism and "free silver" campaign drove the
urban Democratic voters into the arms of the Republican Party. Although
Bryan tried to draw a new faultline between the "monied interests"
and the "common people", industrial workers did not identify their
economic needs with those of agricultural producers. Even New York City
voted Republican for the first time. (Goldschmidt 1972, 520-532). The votes
the Democrats gained in the sparsely populated West were more than offset
by the losses in the urban East and Midwest. (Kleppner 1987, Chapter 4).
Furthermore, the gains were temporary, the losses were permanent.The
fourth party system saw growing one-party dominance everywhere and Republican
party dominance nationally. Sectionalism flourished, involving "the
virtual destruction of the Republicans as an organized political force in
the ex-Confederate states and a parallel and almost as complete a destruction
of the Democrats throughout large areas of the North and West." (Burnham
1981, 164. Schattschneider 1942, 113, 115). Democratic national elites disintegrated,
leaving power in the hands of state organizations and urban machines. While
the national parties continued to debate the tariff, changes in the role
of women, control of alcohol use, the use of law to regulate working conditions
and political parties were fought out on the state level.As
the cities grew, the conflict between the urbanizing East and the rural
West and South which precipitated the fourth party system became an urban/rural
conflict that was intra- as well as inter- state. Increasingly populated
by immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, the cities were perceived
as an alien presence in need of control. This polarization had religious
overtones. The frontier churches of the previous centuries -- Methodists,
Baptists, Disciples of Christ, were now the religious homes of the rural
population while the churches of the earlier elites -- Episcopal, Congregationalist,
Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Unitarian -- had urban congregations. The immigrants,
coming from eastern and southern Europe, were mostly Catholic (and Jewish
in New York City), but they mostly did not vote. Nor were they represented
in the state legislatures. It was 1964 before the Supreme Court required
that legislative districts represent "one person, one vote." As
the cities grew, members of the state legislatures increasingly represented
acreage rather than people. Thus while there were many battles between urban
and rural interests, especially over the use of tax dollars, they were not
necessarily partisan ones. The
fourth party system ended as it began -- with a crash. The 1929 drop of
the stock market, and the resulting Great Depression, caused voters to turn
on the ruling Republican Party in 1932 as they had turned on the Democrats
almost forty years before. But these voters were not the same voters who
had voted Republican in previous decades. The Depression and the Roosevelt
candidacy mobilized new voters who had been ineligible or uninterested in
voting during most of the fourth party system. The first decade of the century
had seen the largest wave of immigration ever known; by 1930 most had become
citizens and their children had reached voting age. When foreign immigration
was restricted after World War I blacks and poor whites continued to migrate
from rural, especially Southern, areas to more urban manufacturing centers,
though not to the same ones. (Andersen 1979. Henri 1975, 50-59, 68-69).
Southern blacks went North, and Southern whites went West. These states
didn't have the high barriers to voting common to the Southern states. The
consequence of high foreign immigration and high birth rates before World
War I and rapid internal immigration afterwards was that the American population
shifted from one living on farms to one living in small towns and large
cities. Most of the new voters in 1932 lived in cities. (Lubell 1956, 31-42).The
dominant cleavage of the fifth party system was class. Class had not been
absent from previous party systems. By and large, the Democratic Party had
spoken for the working man while the Republican Party articulated the ideals
of the growing middle class. But the Depression elevated class consciousness
over other divisions. "Put crudely, the hatred of bankers among the
native American workers had become greater than their hatred of the Pope
or even of the Negro." The major policy clashes were over the use of
federal law to regulate business practices, the protection of labor unions
and the right to organize, and the creation of and payment for various welfare
programs. With Roosevelt's encouragement, labor unions increased their influence
every decade and class consciousness "suppressed racial and religious
antagonisms." (Lubell 1956, 49). Even blacks saw their loyalty to the
party of Lincoln fade in favor of the party that addressed their economic
concerns.During
the fifth party system the Democratic Party became even more a coalition
of cultural, ethnic and economic minorities, especially those living in
cities. Catholics remained Democratic, Jews became more so, while additional
Protestants shifted to the Democratic column, especially unionized industrial
workers in the cities outside the South. (Burnham 1970, 59; Sundquist 1983,
214-224). Outside the South the Republican electoral base remained in the
small towns and rural counties, particularly among Protestants, the better
educated and the wealthy. The shift of working-class white Protestants into
the Democratic fold was not uniform throughout the nation. White Protestants
in the Northeast were more likely to stay Republican than elsewhere. At
the same time Catholics moving into the middle class and the suburbs began
to vote Republican. Nonetheless, the great partisan divide between Catholics
and Protestants continued until at least the 1960s though the regional and
class cleavages left the Republican Party with only a minority of the regular
voters in most states. (Ladd and Hadley 1978, 54-57).The
politics of class created the fifth political system and the politics of
race ended it. This transformation was not as sudden as prior ones. Political
scientists didn't even notice when the fifth party system ended, steeping
themselves in debate over why there was no critical election, and whether
this lack meant a realignment had or had not occurred. Only with hindsight
did the changes that happened between 1964 and 1972 become evident, and
it was among political elites more than among the electorate that a partisan
realignment occurred. (Wilson 1985)Elite Realignment
Electoral
realignments are not the only kind. Elite realignments occur when political
elites, particularly elected officials, change their votes, or their
positions on issues, so that the partisan distribution of issue positions
changes as well. "Elites" refers to those persons occupying
influential roles or offices in our political system. A change in voting
patterns does not necessarily mean that specific individuals changed
their votes or their views, though it may. It may also mean that new
people are elected to important positions who hold different views,
or at least vote differently. It may also mean that individual office
holders changed their parties rather than their views. Whatever the
cause, elite realignments result when the partisan distribution of votes,
or positions, on clusters of cognate issues changes significantly among
political elites.
Elite
realignments are much more frequent than electoral realignments. Elites
(at least the ones who vote in the legislatures and write the party
platforms) make many decisions on discrete issues and make them directly.
Voters make few decisions -- only about which people will occupy which
positions in the political elites -- and their impact on policy is indirect.
Many factors go into a voter's decision on whom to support for each
office, but it is unusual for any single issue, or even a cluster of
issues, to be definitive. Mass realignments require issues that are
very simple, highly salient, and sharply polarized by party. This is
rare.
Elite
realignments can have major effects on public policy. Like electoral
realignments, significant changes in partisan voting patterns by those
entrusted with the power to make policy shape the policies that result.
Even when the major parties do not have strong disagreements over the
general direction of a proposed policy, which party takes the lead affects
the outcome because the Democratic and Republican Parties have distinct
political cultures. Each party culture is partially derived from its
separate tradition and the priority it gives to order or equality. And
it is partially dependent on the groups in its coalitional base, which
shift over time and may change with new party systems. (Freeman 1986).
These cultures shape activity within each party, as well as the policies
each propounds. Thus which party supports what issues and how it does
so is significant for the development of public policy in any given
policy arena.
Elite
realignments have received little attention because the conventional
wisdom among both political practitioners and political scientists in
the middle of the 20th century was that differences between the Republican
and Democratic parties were no more than tweedledum and tweedledee.
Each party sought to appeal to the center because that was how to get
elected; public office was viewed as an end in itself, not a means to
effect policy changes. (Schattschneider 1942, 86). This search for the
center was reflected in the national platforms which, while they differed
occasionally, generally followed each other's lead in supporting issues
that seemed successful in a previous election. (Polsby and Wildavsky
1984, 258-59). While competition for the center was disparaged by some
as depriving voters of a real choice, others realized that it
reflected the centrist position of most voters themselves. Indeed studies
regularly showed that party activists held positions "further out"
than party voters. (McClosky, et. al. 1960, 406-27). Elected officials,
on the other hand, were assumed to vote the way their districts wanted
them to vote, most of the time.
When
one looks at the votes of those elected officials since World War II,
however, party competition for the center, at least on issues of race
and sex, is revealed as illusory. In fact, the parties were switching
sides. Throughout the third, fourth and most of the fifth party systems,
the Republican Party was the party of racial progress. For all five
party systems it was also the party of women's rights -- much more receptive
than the Democrats to women enhancing their role in society. In part,
Democratic votes were weighed down by the South, which was always more
conservative on issues of "sex" as well as race. And in part
they were determined by its class and religious components, which were
also more conservative on these issues than those of the Republican
Party. But the social bases of both parties were changing. After WWII
the children of the working class went to college, acquiring more liberal
attitudes on issues of race and sex, while orthodox members of all religious
traditions began to look to the Republican Party for leadership. In
the 1960s party votes in Congress converged on race and in the early
1970s they converged on sex; then they diverged in the opposite direction.
The
most documented case of elite realignment was done by Carmines and Stimson
who analyzed party platforms and Congressional votes on racial issues
over a 40 year period. During WWII black civil rights was put on the
national agenda. In response to organized pressure, anti-discrimination
clauses and Fair Employment Practices provisions began to see legislative
light in bills and Executive Orders. Because of Southern Democratic
opposition, Republicans collectively were more likely to vote for these
provisions than were Democrats. Sometime in the late 1950s partisanship
began to decline; the votes taken during the early sixties did not appear
to follow a party line. However, by the late sixties party once again
becomes a predictor of how an MC will vote on racial issues, but this
time it is Republicans who are more likely to be racial conservatives.
(Carmines and Stimson 1989).
Why
and how this switch occurred is too complex to discuss here; the Republicans
did not become segregationists as the Southern Democrats had been and
all of Congress voted more liberally on racial issues. (Carmines and
Stimson 1989, 117). But the fact that the issues had changed, as well
as many of the MCs who voted on them, does not obscure the fact that
on this highly salient issue, the political elites had realigned. The
Democratic Party, including the Southern bloc, became the home of racial
liberals.
A
similar switch happened with sex, but it is harder to chart because
there were fewer relevant roll-call votes and they were taken over a
longer period of time. However, the Equal Rights Amendment is one of
those few. There were three clusters of recorded Congressional votes
the ERA. The first cluster occurred in the Senate in 1946, 1950 and
1953. The 1946 vote was a simple yes or no, and the record shows more
Republicans in favor than Democrats. (2 Congressional Quarterly,
July-September 1946, 568).
| 1946 ERA vote | ||
| Yes | No | |
| Republican | 23 | 10 |
| Democrat | 15 | 24 |
In
1950 the simplicity of the issue was clouded by opposition maneuvering
which added a rider that gutted the Amendment. In 1953 the same rider
was added. Members of both parties voted for the ERA, knowing that it
would be recommitted to committee. Nonetheless, even with the rider,
many Democrats still voted against the ERA; indeed all but one "no"
vote on the ERA was by a Democrat. (6 C Q Almanac 1950, 539.
9 CQ Almanac 1953, 386).
| 1950
ERA With Hayden Rider |
1953
ERA With Hayden Rider |
||||
| Yes | No | Yes | No | ||
| Republican | 30 | 0 | 42 | 1 | |
| Democrat | 33 | 19 | 31 | 10 | |
The
ERA stayed in committee for almost 20 years. When it was voted on again
in 1970 some of the Democrats who had fought it in the 1950s continued
to vote and speak against it. They were few in number, but because they
had so much seniority they could speak loudly and carry big sticks.
Again crippling amendments were added and the ERA allowed to die, but
it was revived the following year and passed in the next Congress. More
important, the votes in all three years -- 1970, 1971 and 1972 -- did
not show a partisan pattern. (27 CQ Almanac 1971, 68-9 H. 28
CQ Almanac, 1972, 17-8 S). The final votes were:
| 1971
Final House ERA Vote |
1972
Final Senate ERA Vote |
||||
| Yes | No | Yes | No | ||
| Republican | 137 | 12 | 37 | 6 | |
| Democrat | 217 | 12 | 47 | 2 | |
The
third set of ERA votes occurred in 1978. After only 35 of the 38 states
necessary to ratify it had done so within the seven year limit, Congress
voted to extend the deadline. There were several votes in both houses
on amendments and cognate issues. All showed a partisan pattern, but
it was clearest in the final vote which passed the extension. (34 CQ
Almanac 1978, 64-5 S. 34 CQ Almanac, 1978, 176 H).
| 1978
Final House ERA Vote |
1978
Final Senate ERA Vote |
||||
| Yes | No | Yes | No | ||
| Republican | 41 | 103 | 16 | 21 | |
| Democrat | 186 | 85 | 44 | 15 | |
The
party platforms show a similar convergence, cross-over and polarization
on issues relating to sex. Until 1972, the Democratic and Republican
party platforms manifested similar attitudes toward women, but the Republican
party tended to lead in adopting a feminist position on new issues.
For example, the ERA was endorsed by the Republicans in 1940, but the
Democrats delayed doing so until 1944. The ERA was removed from the
Democratic Party platform in 1960, deliberately by its foes, but inadvertently,
due to lack of attention, from the Republican Party platform in 1964.
In 1968 the GOP gave "sex" an honorable mention in a plank
expressing concern for the disadvantaged; the Democrats left women out
altogether. Women reappeared in both party platforms in 1972, with similar
statements, including support for the ERA. By 1976 the parties diverged
again when the Republicans opposed a woman's choice (to have an abortion).
By 1980 the divide widened as the ERA was removed from the Republican
Party platform. Since then the parties have polarized sharply on all
issues touching on women, sex and the family. Instead of seeking the
center, the national parties are staking out distinct ideological territories.
Endorsements
by party leaders also switched sides. The first major party Presidential
candidate to support the ERA was Thomas Dewey in 1944. The first three
sitting Presidents to endorse it were Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford. In
the Presidential primary races of 1968 every major party candidate except
Robert Kennedy supported the ERA, though none campaigned for it. Carter
was the first Democratic President to publicly declare his support;
by 1976 it was impossible to seriously run for the Democratic nomination
if opposed to the ERA. By 1988 no serious Republican candidate could
support it.
Elite
realignment also manifests itself in changes in party affiliation by
party leaders and elected officials. Some very prominent Southern Democrats
became Republicans, including Strom Thurmond, John Connally, and Phil
Gramm, as did Ronald Reagan, but before he ran for office. Abortion
had an even stronger realigning effect on politicians' positions than
race or the ERA. George Bush once supported Planned Parenthood; Jesse
Jackson and Bill Clinton were pro-life until they got the Presidential
bug. They changed their positions to court voters in their parties.
Politicians who were no longer running for office were less likely to
change positions. For example, Barry Goldwater remained pro-choice;
abortion was not on the public agenda when he ran for President in 1964.
On
racial issues, the cross-over point in Congressional voting was 1964,
the year a milestone Civil Rights Act became law. Republicans and Democrats
worked together to pass this law, but the Republican Party candidate
for President, Barry Goldwater, opposed it. He was not a segregationist;
he believed in less government regulation, especially federal government
regulation. African American voters never forgave him, voting heavily
for Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and more heavily for subsequent Democrats.
On
sexual issues, the cross-over point was between 1970 and 1972. There
were no roll call votes in Congress on women's issues between 1953 and
1970, so an earlier change would be harder to identify, though there
may have been illuminating votes in state legislatures. The addition
of "sex" to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was done
by a teller vote of the House in a Committee of the Whole. However,
Rep. Martha Griffiths (D. Mich) told an interviewer many years later
that the "yes" votes came from Southerners and Republicans
-- the latter apparently saw it as a surrogate for the ERA. (Brauer
1983, 51. Freeman 1991). There were many votes on bills to improve the
status of women after 1970. Without going into the details, the initial
votes lacked obvious partisan leanings, but they diverged radically
by party over time.
One
of the most divisive issues of the last 25 years has been abortion.
Republican commentator William Kristol wrote in 1997:
... abortion is today the bloody crossroads of American politics. It is where judicial liberation (from the Constitution), sexual liberation (from traditional mores) and women's liberation (from natural distinctions) come together. (Kristol 1997, 32)
Party
polarization on abortion can be charted through Congressional votes.
Adams' examination of 176 House and Senate rolls calls from 1973 through
1994 shows that in the Senate Democrats became more pro-choice over
time while Republicans became more pro-life. Unlike the Senate, Democrats
in the House were already more pro-choice than Republicans in 1973;
they became more so over time. One cannot see the crossover in partisan
voting patterns because there were no Congressional votes on abortion
prior to the crossover years for issues of "sex" (1970-1972).
However, an examination of state legislative votes in the 1960s, when
states were debating liberalization of abortion, might well show a greater
Republican affiliation for the pro-choice position. (Adams 1997).
The
answer to why party elites change positions before the voters that elect
them is to be found in the internal dynamics of each party. Between
elites and masses is an important strata of party activists, who donate
time and money to elect their candidates, and are particularly active
in the primaries and caucuses which select each party's candidate. This
cadre is often interested in issues and involved in interest groups
and social movements. They push politicians to support their causes,
and push into becoming politicians those who share their views. Surveys
of delegates to party nominating conventions have shown that their views
diverge from the center more strongly than party elites or voters. It
is this internal cadre that has provoked elite realignment. (McClosky
1960, Wilson 1985, Freeman 1993, 1998).
The
Sixth Party System
During
the time that elites were realigning, the voters were also changing,
but not as dramatically as they had in 1928-32. Political scientists
noted that fewer and fewer were identifying with either major party;
they tended to vote for persons rather than party, particularly at the
top of the ballot. Thus a search for the expected electoral realignment
resulted in questioning of the entire theory of realignment, at least
as something that reoccurred periodically, and to an attempt to understand
why the voters were dealigning. (Shafer 1991)
My
own interpretation of this is that there was in fact a change in party
systems in the sixties and seventies. The fifth party system, in which
class was the major line of cleavage, gave way to the sixth, in which
race, or more specifically views on racial issues, was the dominant
division. Like previous cleavages, it didn't replace class, but was
superimposed on top of it. Political elites were in the vanguard of
this change, signaling to their followers as much as following their
direction. The result was a rolling realignment, which started at the
top, and in some sections of the country, slowly worked its way down
through the electorate. (White 1985).
Even
though this realignment was not like the big three, one can still describe
the characteristics of the sixth party system. Its chief attribute was
ticket splitting, in which voters tended to vote Republican at the top
but continued their habitual votes for Democrats at the bottom. However,
this habit was waning. More and more voters declared themselves to be
independent, and many began to vote differently than their parents did.
While traditional ties to party loosened everywhere, this was particularly
evident in the South. The 1968 Presidential candidacy of George Wallace
served as a transition for Democratic voters to the Republican Party.
As the years wore on more and more conservative Democrats voted Republican
further and further down the ballot. At the same time, more educated
voters were switching to the Democratic Party; since education correlates
with income this confounded the tendency of the more wealthy to vote
Republican. A gender gap appeared in which women, particularly unmarried
women, voted Democrat, while white men leaned to the Republicans. African
American voters continued to vote Democratic, but women were more likely
to do so than men. Since the Civil Rights Movement and the Voting Rights
Act brought them back into the Southern electorate from which they had
been largely excluded during the 20th Century, they swelled the ranks
of the Democratic Party, replacing Southern white elites who were moving
into the Republican Party. The movement of Southern whites into the
Republican Party made their voting patterns more like those of Northern
whites; as the sixth party system matured, the Civil War cleavage was
closing.
Seeds
of the Seventh
In
the meantime other lines of cleavage were opening up: sex, or more specifically
attitudes toward sex, gender and family, was emerging as a major source
of partisanship. So was religion. However, the new line of religious
cleavage was not between Protestants and Catholics, but between traditionals
and progressives with the latter significantly augmented by seculars
who don't practice any religion. To a great extent groups holding similar
views on issues of sex and religion coincide. Traditionals on one are
also traditionals on the other, as are progressives. While this is not
surprising, what was new was the politicization of sex, the repoliticization
of religion, and the polarization of the parties along these lines.
Partisan
polarization is following the "realignment of American public culture"
described by Hunter in Culture Wars (1991). As a sociologist
who studies religion, Hunter documented the development of the "pragmatic
alliances" being formed between the orthodox wings of Protestantism,
Catholicism and Judaism on the one hand and the progressive wings of
these "faith traditions" on the other in their effort to influence
public culture. The "orthodox and progressive factions of the various
faiths do not speak out as isolated voices but increasingly as a common
chorus. In this, the political relevance of the historical divisions
between Protestant and Catholic and Christian and Jew has largely become
defunct." The progressive wing of organized religion has been joined,
and often led, by a growing group of secularists, who, while often raised
in a particular faith, as adults adhere to none. "[They] are disproportionately
well educated and professional and are found most commonly in the larger
cities of the Northeast and West." Their growth was fed largely
by the enormous expansion of higher education after World War II. By
1982, they were 8 percent of the population. (Hunter 1991, 47, 75, 105).
The
roots of this cultural realignment can be traced back many decades but
until the 1960s it was confined to intellectual elites. The social movements
and events of the 1960s radicalized the generation then attending or
just out of college. Their experiences taught them to "question
authority" -- a popular slogan of the sixties -- and this questioning
in turn made them receptive to progressive and secular ideas. By the
1970s a backlash was gathering steam, stimulated by policies which it
found reprehensible, such as busing and abortion, and behavior it deemed
subversive and unAmerican, such as opposition to the Vietnam War. Those
who adhered to traditional practices, values and morals slowly allied
in opposition to those who would change them.
According
to Hunter,
The central dynamic of the cultural realignment is not merely that different public philosophies create diverse public opinions. These alliances, rather, reflect the institutionalization and politicization of two fundamentally different cultural systems. Each side operates from within its own constellation of values, interests, and assumptions. At the center of each are two distinct conceptions of moral authority -- two different ways of apprehending reality, of ordering experience, of making moral judgments. Each side of the cultural divide, then speaks with a different moral vocabulary. (1991, 128. Italics his).
During
the 1980s the cultural divide became a partisan divide, at least on the
national level. Feminism was not the cause of the cultural divide though
it contributed a great deal to its growth. However, it was the driving
engine of partisan polarization. While race was the lead mare of the progressive
team, sex was the wicked witch that spurred the opposition. Abortion in
particular was a realigning issue because it merged concerns about changing
sex roles and the consequences of sex acts and gave them a political basis.
The 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing most abortions shifted the
weight of governmental authority away from what religious conservatives
felt to be the morally correct position. (Sullivan 1998, 49-50). By 1980
feminism had put on the public agenda issues which in 1960 had not been
considered political and it had compelled the major political parties
to take (opposing) stands on issues which in 1970 had not been considered
partisan. It did this by redefining the scope of the political. As Thompson,
Ellis and Wildavsky pointed out in their book on Cultural Theory:
the type of behavior or institution that is deemed political, or whether a boundary is even drawn at all, is itself a product of political culture. ... the study of political culture ... should pay special attention to the ways in which the boundary between political and non political is socially negotiated. (Thompson, Ellis, and Wildavsky 1990, 215)
Contemporary
feminism declared that "the personal is political." This became
a frame of reference which redefined the boundary of politics. Its value
was soon recognized by women who were part of the highly educated, progressive
culture, and they persuaded the men in that culture. Once the personal
was acknowledged as political, feminism could expand beyond ending legal
and economic discrimination into enhancing women's autonomy and addressing
how women were treated inside the family. In effect, this expansion of
the political legitimated as proper concerns of public policy practices
which had traditionally been considered non political or relegated to
the jurisdiction of the family. The growth and partisanship of the right
wing was a response to this threat.
Four
events have been identified as triggering the political organization of
social conservatives and Christian evangelicals, two of which were explicitly
feminist issues, and another of which involved sex. (Zwier 1982, 23-27).
The first was the January 22, 1973, decision by the Supreme Court which
legalized most abortions. Some pro-life groups had existed prior to Roe
v. Wade in states with liberalized abortion laws, but the Supreme
Court's stamp of approval on a woman's right to privacy on the grounds
that a fetus was not a person under the Constitution was so repulsive
to a particular stratum of American citizens that it crystallized opposition
all over the country.
The
organization of the religious right capitalized on the framework created
by the right-to life movement but not until after its leaders were themselves
convinced that political action was necessary. Ironically, it was the
successful candidacy of a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, himself a born-again
Christian, which accomplished this by legitimating political activity
for Protestant evangelicals who had traditionally thought of politics
as corrupt. When Carter subsequently supported efforts by the IRS to remove
the tax-exempt status of private religiously oriented schools unless they
were racially integrated it created a storm of protest. This furor persuaded
Congress to deny the IRS funds for implementing its order and convinced
evangelical ministers such as Jerry Falwell of the efficacy of organized
protest.
A
third triggering event was the growth of the gay rights movement in the
seventies. One organization in California, Christian Voice, was created
to oppose a 1978 ballot proposal to protect homosexuals against discrimination.
Because the IRS threatened the tax-exempt status of their churches if
they engaged in political activity, several ministers formed a separate
political organization.
The
fourth triggering event was the Equal Rights Amendment, the opposition
to which also provided an organizing framework on which the New Right
could capitalize. Phyllis Schlafly is often given credit for single-handedly
stopping the ratification of the ERA, thought a "sure thing"
when it emerged from Congress in 1972. However, Schlafly could not have
so rapidly mobilized an opposition had not an infrastructure of sympathizers
already existed. The language of the ERA is quite tame -- "equality
of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged ... on account
of sex" -- but its implications were not. Social conservatives read
into the ERA everything they feared about the emerging women's liberation
movement, and what they feared most was women's autonomy from the traditional
patriarchal family, which they held to be the basic institution of society.
These
triggering events persuaded practitioners of evangelical denominations
that they could not ignore politics. One result was the formation of the
Moral Majority in 1979, the largest and best known of the New Right religious
organizations, at the urging of secular conservatives such as Richard
Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, Howard Phillips and Terry Dolan. They convinced
Jerry Falwell to form a political organization to mobilize Christian evangelicals
for Ronald Reagan through the use of mass mailings and the electronic
church. (Zwier 1982, 9-10, 27-32. Viguerie 1982, Chapter XI).
While
Jerry Falwell abandoned the Moral Majority in 1987, it was soon replaced
by the Christian Coalition, built by televangelist Pat Robertson from
the supporters of his losing 1988 Presidential bid. Aided by a $64,000
grant in 1990 from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, by 1994
the CC claimed 450,000 members in a thousand chapters in all 50 states.
Using what former executive director Ralph Reed, Jr., described as "stealth"
tactics to avoid the stigma attached to religious activism, by 1994 it
had taken over the state Republican Party in eighteen states and exercised
substantial influence in another dozen. (Persinos 1994, 22-24).
The
strength of the Christian Coalition in the Republican party was based on
growing support from evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics
for the Republican Party. Throughout the sixth party system many voters
in both groups were switching their votes from Democrats to Republicans.
In 1960 most had been Democrats -- especially those living in the South
or in the lower SES ranks. By 1992 a majority were Republicans, and a super
majority of those regularly attending church. Catholics, who at one time
were virtually all Democrats, were also switching. Barely a majority were
Democratic identifiers in 1992; less among those regularly attending church.
On the other hand, mainline Protestants still identified with the Republican
Party but by 1992 were more likely to vote Democratic. Those professing
no religious allegiance (seculars) were also moving into the Democratic
fold. As Kellstedt, et. al., said in 1993 "these trends suggest that
a new kind of party alignment may be in the making: a division between religious
and non-religious people rather than disputes between religious traditions."
(Kellstedt 1993, 2, citing Green and Guth 1991, 207).These
changes can particularly be seen in the shift in party identify by attitudes
toward abortion, as revealed in the annual General Social Survey from 1972
to 1994. Adams found that the Republican masses had more liberal attitudes
than Democrats toward abortion prior to 1988 and less so afterward. (Adams
1997). The move of pro-lifers to the Republican Party followed that of elites
by several years, consistent with White's concept of a rolling Republican
realignment, and with the active efforts of Christian evangelicals to mobilize
their followers into the Republican party. (Green 1999)The
Congressional elections of 1994 reflected a cumulation of many of these
trends. Overall, the gender gap was eight percent; more women voted Democratic
and more men voted Republican. This was augmented by marital status; the
gap was four percent between married women and men, and 14 percent between
the unmarried. Blacks and Hispanics strongly favored Democratic candidates,
women more so than men; whites less strongly favored Republicans. As expected,
the Democratic Party commanded a majority of votes among the less educated
and those with lower family incomes, but also among the most highly educated.
This combination reflects both the class cleavage of the fifth party system
and Democrats' newer gains among the most educated voters. The gender gap
was sharpest at the extremes; women were more likely than equivalent men
to favor the Democrats at the lowest and highest educational levels. Those
identifying as born again Christians voted Republican by 76 to 24 percent.
A majority of Catholics still voted Democratic, but at 52 percent it was
the lowest Democratic vote in over a decade. (New York Times, November
13, 1994, 24). By
1996, the outlines of a seventh party system were taking shape. The Democrats
kept the Presidency and the Republicans kept the Congress, with many voters
unwilling to commit to either party wholeheartedly. The gender gap widened
to 11 percent; men and women essentially chose different Presidents. Even
among blacks, who are still the most Democratic of voting groups, there
was a decided gender gap. The gap was biggest among independent voters,
and between unmarried men and women, but present as well in Democratic and
Republican party identifiers, and married couples. Sex differences in voting
patterns spread to other elected offices. (New York Times exit poll
analysis, November 10, 1996, 28). Although the Democrats staged a slight
comeback in 1998 -- unusual in a non-Presidential year -- these outlines
did not change. The overall gender gap in House races was seven points,
it was larger among blacks than whites, and nonexistent among hispanics.
Class, as seen in family income, is still a partisan divide but it is mitigated
by education, and enhanced by union membership. White Protestants (but not
black) lean Republican while Catholics lean Democratic and Jews are second
only to blacks in their Democratic loyalties. The gender gap remained large
among the young and the unmarried, but narrowed somewhat between independents.
(New York Times exit poll analysis, November 9, 1998, A:20). After
several elections it has become evident that sex, like race, has become
an established electoral cleavage. But it is not only the fact of sex and
race, but attitudes towards sexual and racial issues, which constitute the
real divide.While
it is not clear which, if either, party will be dominant in the seventh
party system, the coalitions are solidifying and the issues over which major
battles will be fought are crystallizing. With the demise of the cold war
foreign policy issues are less partisan. Economic concerns are still important,
but social issues are the most divisive. (Sullivan 1998, 48). The sharpest
conflicts are those which combine economic and social issues. While the
extent of government regulation motivates some political elites, it is who
is regulated for what purpose that motivates ordinary voters. Fights over
welfare policy and affirmative action have some economic characteristics,
but they are really about race and sex.The
composition of the two major parties has changed, but not drastically; each
has retained its basic flavor. However, the changes that did occur have
accentuated differences that were submerged in the fifth party system when
class concerns were dominant. The Democratic Party is still the party of
minorities and marginal groups, but it is particularly the party of racial
minorities and of those who espouse feminist views on women, the family,
and the regulation of sexual activity. It is no longer the party of Catholics,
though it is still of Jews. The Republican Party is still the party of order,
and still overwhelmingly Protestant, despite the presence of more Catholics.
But it has completely forsaken its Progressive tradition. Instead it has
become the party of traditional "family values" as expressed by
the practitioners of evangelical denominations. While these practitioners
are still a minority of the national party, they are strong enough to veto
who can be on the Presidential ticket, and thus what views Republican nominees
espouse. They can also determine the Republican nominees in many state and
Congressional districts. In each party groups reflecting sharply polarized
views on "feminism" and "family values" are strong enough
to veto party policy. (Freeman 1993, 1998).After
two decades of party polarization, the "culture wars" have become
"party wars". Consequently, the seventh party system promises
to be very acrimonious. Partisan competition is being transformed from a
mere fight for office into a surrogate civil war. Each party, and its candidates,
are carriers of a conflicting cluster of values in which the winner gets
to decide the role of government, or each of the many governments in our
federal system, in promulgating those values. The partisan politics of the
Twenty-first century will be more like the Nineteenth than the Twentieth.
Culture, not class or economics, will define the great debates. (Shafer
1985)REFERENCES
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paper given at the 1993 APSA convention.
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