The Pittsburgh Press (February 8, 1944)
SENATE PASSES FEDERAL SOLDIER VOTE BILL
States’-rights group beaten in showdown
Administration forces, however, face another fight in House
Washington (UP) –
The Senate today approved the administration’s federal ballot soldier vote bill after rejecting repeated last-ditch efforts by a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats to impose at least restrictive amendments.
The measure was sent back to the House, where a similar coalition succeeded in defeating a federal ballot plan last Thursday.
The federal ballot provision was written into previous House and Senate soldier vote legislation by a Senate vote of 46–40, on motion of Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY).
Taft’s plan defeated
Mr. Barkley’s motion carried after the Senate rejected, 45–41, restrictions on federal ballot use proposed by Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH) and the Republican-Democratic coalition.
The Taft amendment would have authorized a federal ballot only for absentee voters whose home states failed to make available, upon application, a lightweight state ballot.
After the adoption of Mr. Barkley’s motion, Mr. Taft made another attempt to keep his amendment alive by moving that it be taken to conference between the House and Senate. He lost again, by the same vote of 45–41.
House must act
With the defeat of this motion, Senate action on the federal ballot plan – in the form of an amendment to the varying state ballot plans passed by both Senate and House – was automatically completed without further votes. It was an unusual thing for the Senate to amend a bill it had previously passed, but the parliamentarian ruled it could be done.
The House now must act on the Senate federal ballot provisions. In view of last week’s overwhelming vote for state ballots, it will presumably reject the Senate plan and throw the matter into conference.
Separate bill approved
However, to guard against the possibility that the House would kill the federal ballot provisions in the pending measure, the Senate also put its federal ballot provisions into an entirely new and separate bill. This was passed, 47–38.
The new measure also goes to the House, where the administration hopes to keep it on tap as a final resort to keep federal ballot legislation alive. No federal ballot legislation can become effective without affirmative House action on the Senate provisions in one bill or the other.