The Pittsburgh Press (February 2, 1944)
Verbal battle rages –
State curbs barred from soldier vote
Southerner’s amendments killed; Senator assails Roosevelt
By John L. Cutter, United Press staff writer
Washington –
President Roosevelt’s plea to Congress for enactment of soldier-vote legislation embodying a federal ballot was attacked anew in both House and Senate today, but the Upper Chamber beat down a series of amendments designed to make state voting laws paramount in determining validity of service ballots.
Rep. John E. Rankin (D-MS) brought many members of the House to their feet with an impassioned 45-minute speech defending the so-called “states’-rights” soldier vote bill, passed by the Senate and pending in the House. He attacked the new Lucas-Green federal-ballot bill pending in the Senate as a communist-propagandized and unconstitutional measure.
‘Whipping boy’
In the Upper Chamber, Senator John A. Danaher (R-CT) accused Mr. Roosevelt of making Congress a “whipping boy” in attempting to push legislation through to enactment and in what Senator Danaher viewed as the President’s current attempt to persuade voters to elect the kind of Congress he wants.
Senator Danaher declared:
The President has played labor against the Congress, the Executive against the Congress, and now the servicemen against the Congress.
Always it’s the Congress he makes the whipping boy as he says to the American people. “You give me the kind of Congress I want and things will be different.”
‘People waking up’
But the American people are waking up to what’s going on and we Republicans have been picking up a few seats here and there in recent elections.
Rep. Rankin, applauded in the House, charged that the true author of the Lucas-Green-Worley measure was:
…one Herbert Wechsler down in the Justice Department who was a member of the National Lawyers Guild, legal arm of the Communist Party.
The first amendment defeated by the Senate would have provided that the validity of service ballots should be determined “in accordance with state law.” It was rejected 23–60.
It was the first vote on the bill since the Senate began debating it 10 days ago. Introduced by Senator John H. Overton (D-LA), the amendment was one of a series designed to guarantee state control over voting by armed service personnel.
It would have revised the section dealing with the validity of ballots. As written, this section proves that the proposed Federal War Ballot Commission will have no power to pass on the validity of ballot but that this determination shall “be made by the duly constituted election officials of the appropriate districts, precincts, counties, or other voting units of the several states.” The Overton amendment would have required that the validity determination be made “in accordance with state law” by the state voting units.
Second amendment
The Senate also rejected, by voice vote, a second Overton amendment which would have written into the law the stipulation that “qualifications of the voters shall be determined by state law.”
Mr. Overton’s third and last amendment was defeated 16–69. He said it was “aimed at tearing the heart out of sections one and two of the 1942 law.” Sections one and two of the 1942 Soldier Voting Act waived poll tax and registration requirements, notwithstanding any state laws, for soldier and sailor absentee voting for President and members of Congress.
The Senate adopted unanimously without debate an amendment by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI), instructing the Army and Navy to give state ballots the same transmission priorities accorded federal ballots as far as practicable without injury to the war effort.
Doubt as to effect
The Army and Navy said it would be difficult to handle state ballots, so there was doubt as to how much practical effect this amendment would have.
Meanwhile, the House continued to debate the soldier-vote issue in connection with a previous Senate-approved bill calling on the states to facilitate absentee balloting by service personnel. Final House action on the issue appeared unlikely before Thursday or perhaps Friday.