The Pittsburgh Press (February 4, 1944)
Taft proposal is turned down, 46–42
Bulletin
Washington –
The Senate today rejected, 46–42, the substitute Taft plan for soldier voting which would have restricted use of a federal ballot in the coming election. The plan called for a federal ballot only in event the voter’s home state failed to certify by June 1 that it would be able to provide, 45 days before the Nov. 7 election, a regular state ballot weighing not more than 1.2 ounces.
Washington (UP) –
The administration’s fight for a special federal ballot for absentee voting by servicemen concentrated in the Senate today after undergoing a stunning defeat in the House of Representatives.
The House climaxed an 11-hour marathon session last night by passing, 238–69, a bill to leave the balloting process almost entirely up to the states – the same bill denounced by President Roosevelt last week as a “fraud.”
At his news conference today, Mr. Roosevelt was reluctant to discuss the House rebuff. He said the situation is now more up to Congress than to him.
The measure, originally approved by the Senate Dec. 3, thus went back to the Upper Chamber, carrying only minor House amendments. It promised to complicate still further the soldier-vote debate in the Senate which is considering whether it should reverse itself and provide at least limited use of a federal ballot.
The administration’s defeat in the House was administered by a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats. They not only upset administration strategy – to stall House action until the Senate acted in a compromise measure – but also accepted President Roosevelt’s challenge to “stand up and be counted” by name.
The coalition defeated an administration motion to recess without a final vote. It defeated, 215–164, an attempt to substitute the administration-approved Worley federal ballot bill for the states’ rights measure. It defeated, 155–104, a compromise substitute which would have provided limited use of a federal ballot.
Margin never close
The 51-vote margin in those two tries was as close as the administration ever came to stemming the tide.
Then, with victory at hand. House Republican Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA) announced to the chamber that his party was ready to accept the President’s challenge. He called of a roll call vote on a Republican-sponsored motion to recommit the bill to committee. The motion was defeated, 224–168.
A moment later, Mr. Martin clinched his victory. He obtained a “stand up and be counted” roll call on final passage of the state’s rights bill. Rather than be counted as voting against any form of soldier vote legislation, administration supporters swung over in droves and the final tally was 328–69.
‘It’s not hopeless’
Senator Scott W. Lucas (D-IL), co-sponsor of the federal ballot bill which the Senate has been debating for two weeks, said after the House action that the situation still “certainly is not hopeless.”
He was not certain by what parliamentary method the Senate could inject a federal ballot provision into a measure which had been passed by both Houses without it, but he was certain it could be done.
Otherwise, many Congressional observers believe that if the bill reaches the President without substantial change, he will veto it.
The bill approved by the House provides that members of the Armed Forces, the Merchant Marine, the American Red Cross, the Society of Friends, the Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots or the USO outside the United States, and eligible to vote in any primary, special or general election, shall use the absentee balloting procedures of their home states.
It recommends that the states accept applications for absentee ballots which have been prepared under the 1942 Soldier Voting Act and which would be distributed by the Secretaries of War and Navy and the War Shipping Administrator.
Upon receipt of such applications, the secretaries of states should forward them to the voter’s home county or local election official who would then mail the proper ballot to the individual. The bill suggests that the states waive any registration requirements.
As a substitute for the state ballot method of absentee voting, the administration on Jan. 24 began a fight in the Senate for a special federal ballot, to be issued every qualified voter without application, allowing space for a “write-in” vote by either name or party designation for President, Vice President, Senator and Congressman.
In the Senate, as in the House, the opposition consisted of a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats. The Senate coalition stalled action in that chamber until after the House acted, upsetting administration strategy and throwing the whole issue into a parliamentary tangle.