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IMMIGRATION POLICY IN THE : POLARIZATION AND PARANOIA

By

ROBERT WINSTON SCHARR

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2017

© 2017 Robert Winston Scharr

To my most loyal and friends

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My study of Congress began close to a decade ago, when my advisor, Dr.

Lawrence Dodd, instructed me on the inner workings of the institution. Dr. Dodd, together with Dr. Scot Schraufnagel, had begun a series of works linking legislative productivity to partisan polarization. Amidst the legislative gridlock of the time, I noticed an increasingly contentious discourse on policy both within and outside the institution of Congress. Having lived abroad before, and having dealt with the realities of being a foreigner, and having befriended countless immigrants visiting my own country, I have always placed a high value on advocating a fair treatment of immigrants.

Thus, I formed an interest in Congress passing reform that accommodates the millions of immigrants who contribute to American society, with, of course, the safeguards necessary to ensure the long-term viability of the U.S. immigration system. With this in mind, I began to explore why Congress was able to make progress with reform in previous eras, but unable to do so in the modern era.

I found my first major clue in the historical DW-NOMINATE trends put forth by

Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, which seek to measure ideology of individual members as well as the ideological distance between the two major parties. I soon noticed that each discriminatory law passed in , from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion

Act and its reauthorizations, to the 1917 and 1924 acts which systematically discriminated against minority groups, to the 1996 act which sought to exclude immigrants from accessing social service, passed during periods of partisan hyperpolarization. At the same time, the repeal of the of 1943, the substantial watering down of the 1924 act in 1952, and the broad liberalization of

1965 all passed in a relatively depolarized era. After years of research, I gained an

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appreciation for the evolving leadership structure within Congress and the crucial importance of the political center in reaching consensus on immigration matters.

I would like to thank Dr. Dodd, for having the patience and the fortitude to continue backing my efforts through the long history of this research project. Dr. Dodd, and my co-chair, Dr. Sharon Austin, as well as Dr. Kenneth Wald, have done much to guide me through difficult times, and have been influential in helping identify strengths and weaknesses not only within earlier drafts of this dissertation, but in my development as a scholar. Recognizing those, I now move forward in pursuit of important research on Congress and on the growing field of race, ethnicity and politics, and intend to make meaningful contributions to the discipline.

Professors Beth Rosenson and Badradine Arfi also expressed immense patience; Dr. Rosenson was responsible for introducing me to fundamental works in

American Politics, and studying under Dr. Arfi gave me an enhanced awareness of the roles of discourse and of foreign policy considerations.

Dr. Ann Wehmeyer is from the Languages, Literatures and Cultures department at UF, which is home to my undergraduate major of Japanese. Due to the experience of culture shock, my first months of studying in represent to this day the most trying ordeals of my lifetime; these challenges nearly prompted me to give up. During that period, Dr. Wehmeyer reached out to consult me on the things that truly mattered, and I found the resilience to continue studying in Japan, and from that I reaped the best of rewards in new friendships, new experiences, and new knowledge. Dr. Wehmeyer has studied he interaction of language and social outcomes, was of importance to me in

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completing this project (particularly with respect to the rule of nuance in debates), as it will be for future projects.

Formerly on my committee was Dr. Joseph Murphy, who also served as my undergraduate advisor. Dr. Murphy first instructed me in courses on Japanese culture and Japanese film, each course in many respects exemplified the intellectual rigor typically reserved for graduate seminars. Having taken those courses as a freshman, my prior preparation was sub-optimal, but his high expectations helped push me toward the pursuit of focused and bold inquiry, a standard I hope to have finally achieved. Dr,

Murphy retired from the academy prior to the completion of this project, but the impact from his courses was immeasurable, and I intend to seek his counsel in future endeavors.

Numerous others in the discipline, have also given me important, and sometimes crucial, direction. This includes UF professors Peggy Conway and Wayne Francis, who though retired some time ago, have both imparted words of wisdom, as well as professors Daniel A. Smith, Dan O’Neill, Michael Martinez, David Hedge and Stephen

Craig, who helped expand my intellectual curiosity during the formative years of my career. I also thank professors Mark A. Smith, Erik Wibbels, Susan Whiting, Anthony

Gill, Gary Segura and Don Hellmann, all of whom encouraged me to pursue while I was at the University of , and I also thank retired UW professors Masashi Kato, Michio Tsutsui, and Mary Coney for their unyielding support.

The APSA Asian-Pacific American Caucus on two occasions reviewed earlier drafts of this dissertation, and were helpful in steering this project in a tenable direction.

Professors Andrew Aoki and Karthick Ramikrishnan provided valuable feedback, while

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Pet-Te Lien, Janelle Wong, and James Lai have throughout stuck beside me as I found my way. I also extend sincere thanks to Anna Pardo of the University of Florida

Graduate Editorial Office for helping to make this document more accessible. But above all, the patience and unending encouragement of my committee cannot be understated; it ultimately paid enormous dividends in my acquisition of focus and discipline as a political scientist, and led to the completion of this project.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

LIST OF TABLES ...... 10

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 14

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... 16

ABSTRACT ...... 17

CHAPTER

1 OVERVIEW ...... 19

Introduction ...... 19 Dimensions of Cultural Politics ...... 22 Party Systems and Polarization ...... 27 Preview of Chapters 2-9 ...... 37

2 METHODS ...... 44

Introduction ...... 44 Overview of Legislative Trends ...... 45 Incorporating Qualitative Speech Data ...... 60 Conclusion to Chapter Two ...... 62

3 THE POST- ...... 67

Introduction ...... 67 History and Background...... 68 Analysis of Senate Vote on Chinese Exclusion Act ...... 83 Conclusion to Chapter Three ...... 90

4 THE AND ...... 102

Introduction ...... 102 History and Background...... 103 Senate Activity on of 1924 ...... 116 Analysis of Senate Floor Vote of 1924 Act ...... 133 Conclusion to Chapter Four ...... 136

5 WORLD WAR II AND ITS AFTERMATH ...... 148

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Introduction and National Political Backdrop ...... 148 (1943): Recognition of a Wartime Ally ...... 153 Immigration and Nationality Act (1952) ...... 158 Analysis of Roll Call Vote of 1952 Act ...... 163 Immigration and Nationality Act (1965) ...... 164 Analysis of Roll Call Vote of 1965 Act ...... 171 Conclusion to Chapter Five ...... 174

6 FROM REFORM TO REAGAN-BUSH ...... 190

Introduction ...... 190 The Making of IRCA...... 191 Analysis of Senate Floor Debate on IRCA, 1986 ...... 202 Impact and Aftermath of IRCA ...... 207 Analysis of Senate Roll Call Vote, IRCA 1986 ...... 209 Conclusion to Chapter Six ...... 213

7 HARSH RHETORIC AND PARALYSIS ...... 225

Introduction ...... 225 Debate and Passage of 1996 Act ...... 227 Analysis of Roll Call Data for the 1996 Act ...... 238 Formation of Modern Immigration Debate ...... 242 Analysis of Floor Votes in House and Senate, 2005 ...... 247 Conclusion to Chapter Seven ...... 249

8 TOWARD A NEW ...... 267

Introduction ...... 267 Congress Attempts Reform ...... 269 Return of Intraparty Conflict ...... 271 Re-emergence of the Reform Party Coalition ...... 273 Comparative Cases of Populist Insurgencies ...... 278 Analysis of Floor Vote of S.744 ...... 281 Conclusion to Chapter Eight ...... 283

9 CONCLUSION ...... 290

Productivity and Friction: A Reconceptualization ...... 290 Congressional Activity on Immigration ...... 295 Causes of Polarization ...... 299 Implications for Polarization and Immigration Reform ...... 306 Conclusion ...... 309

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 321

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 330

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LIST OF TABLES

Table page

2-1 Legend for letter codes corresponding to members' floor remarks and/or newspaper quotes ...... 65

2-2 Coding schedule for "orientation" variable ...... 66

3-1 Pearson correlation of DW-NOMINATE scores with Senate roll call vote on Chinese Exclusion Act on March 9, 1882 ...... 96

3-2 Pearson correlation of Senators' DW-NOMINATE scores with party ...... 97

3-3 Linear regression measuring effect of party on roll call vote in the US House .... 97

3-4 Coefficients for linear regression analysis ...... 97

3-5 Crosstabs of vote on final passage of Chinese Exclusion Act in US House by region ...... 98

3-6 Crosstabs of vote on final passage of Chinese Exclusion Act in US House by party ...... 98

3-7 Most popular themes in Senate during final debate on Chinese Exclusion Act (ten-year version) ...... 98

3-8 Senate roll call vote and remarks on Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (ten-year version, final passage) ...... 99

4-1 Classification table of observed/predicted values of party by senators’ DW- NOMINATE score by binary logistic regression ...... 140

4-2 Statistics for binary logistic regression (party is dependent variable) ...... 141

4-3 Crosstabs of party by yea/nay vote on passage of the 1924 conference report (Senate) ...... 141

4-4 Pearson correlation of party with yea/nay vote on passage of the Japanese exclusion amendment (Senate) ...... 141

4-5 Pearson correlation of senators' DW-NOMINATE scores with their votes on passage of the Japanese exclusion amendment ...... 142

4-6 Pearson correlation of senators' DW-NOMINATE scores with votes on passage of the conference report for act of 1924 ...... 143

4-7 Most popular themes raised in debate on final passage of 1924 act in U.S. Senate ...... 144

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4-8 Senate roll call vote and remarks on Immigration and Nationality Act of 1924 (conference report) ...... 145

5-1 Logit regression measuring effect of a Senator’s political party on his/her override vote of 1952 act ...... 178

5-2 Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on veto override is dependent variable) ...... 178

5-3 Most popular themes expressed in debate on veto override of 1952 act ...... 179

5-4 Pearson correlation of vote on S.500 by Party (1965) ...... 180

5-5 Pearson correlation of DW-NOMINATE scores with roll call vote on S.500 (1965) ...... 180

5-6 Binary logistic regression, dependent variable is roll call on passage of HR2580, independent variable is vote percentage difference between Goldwater and Johnson in 1964 election in that Senator’s state ...... 183

5-7 Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on final passage is dependent variable) ...... 184

5-8 Most popular themes expressed on the Senate floor in final debate on 1965 act ...... 184

5-9 Senate roll call vote and remarks on Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (veto override) ...... 184

5-10 Senate roll call vote and remarks on Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (final passage) ...... 187

6-1 Roll call vote on IRCA (S1200) by party, 99th Senate ...... 216

6-2 Roll call vote on S1200 by region, 99th Senate ...... 219

6-3 Roll call vote on S1200 in states on Mexico-U.S. border versus other states ... 219

6-4 Classification table for binary logistic regression measuring the effect of senator's party on senator's vote on S1200 ...... 220

6-5 Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on final passage is dependent variable) ...... 220

6-6 Classification table for binary logistic regression measuring the effect of the state's vote percentage for in 1984 on senator's roll call vote on S1200 (final passage) ...... 220

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6-7 Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on final passage) is dependent variable) ...... 221

6-8 Most popular themes expressed on the Senate floor during final debate on IRCA (1986)...... 222

6-9 Senate roll call vote and remarks on IRCA (1986), conference report ...... 222

7-1 Crosstabs of vote in the House on Final Passage of Conference Report of 1996 Act ...... 253

7-2 Pearson correlation of MC's Party with vote on 1996 conference report ...... 253

7-3 Binary logistic regression showing effect of Clinton's vote percentage in MC's district with MC's vote on conference report, 104th Congress ...... 254

7-4 Statistics for binary logistic regression (party is dependent variable) ...... 255

7-5 Crosstabs of vote on passage (by party) of 2005 Senate bill ...... 257

7-6 Logit regression showing effect of DW-NOMINATE score on vote for passage of 2005 Senate bill ...... 258

7-7 Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote is dependent variable) .... 258

7-8 Logit regression showing effect of party on vote for passage of 2005 Senate bill ...... 258

7-9 Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on passage is dependent variable) ...... 259

7-10 Roll call vote on passage of 2005 House bill, by party ...... 261

7-11 Most popular themes expressed on the Senate floor in final debate for immigration provisions in omnibus appropriations bill (1996) ...... 263

7-12 Senate roll call votes and remarks on omnibus appropriations measure containing IIRIRA (1996) ...... 264

8-1 Crosstabs of roll call vote on S.744 by party ...... 287

8-2 Classification table of observed/predicted roll call votes on S.744 by party via binary logistic regression ...... 288

8-3 Statistics for binary logistic regression (party is independent variable; roll call vote on S.744 is dependent variable) ...... 288

8-4 Classification table of observed/predicted roll call vote on S.744 by DW- NOMINATE score by binary logistic regression ...... 288

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8-5 Statistics for binary logistic regression (first dimension DW-NOMINATE score is independent variable; roll call vote on S.744 is dependent variable) ...... 289

9-1 Most popular themes in each landmark immigration debate, denoted by letter 319

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

2-1 Landmark immigration laws passed during eras of high, low, or medium polarization ...... 64

2-2 Flowchart synopsis of 1965 legislative sequence ...... 64

2-3 Flowchart of 2005 legislative sequence ...... 65

3-1 Map of US Senate membership by party and state, 1882 ...... 93

3-2 Map of votes on CEA in the U.S. Senate by state, 1882 ...... 94

3-3 Boxplot of Senate roll call vote on passage of Chinese Exclusion Act (Mar 9 version) by first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores ...... 95

3-4 Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 47th Senate (1882) .... 96

4-1 Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 68th Senate (1924) .. 140

4-2 DW-NOMINATE scores of senators, grouped by their vote on the floor amendment mandating Japanese exclusion ...... 142

4-3 DW-NOMINATE scores of senators, grouped by the roll call vote on the 1924 Conference Report ...... 143

5-1 Senators' DW-NOMINATE scores grouped by party in the 82nd Senate (1952) ...... 177

5-2 Senators' DW-NOMINATE scores grouped by their vote to sustain or override Truman's veto of 1952 act ...... 177

5-3 Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in the 81st Senate (1952) ...... 179

5-4 DW-NOMINATE scores in 89th Senate by Party. Outliers are Lausche (, #71) and Morse (, #74) ...... 181

5-5 Distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores in the Senate during the 89th Congress (1965) ...... 182

5-6 Roll Call vote on initial passage of HR2580, broken down by party (1965) ...... 183

6-1 Distribution of Senators' first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 99th Congress (1986) ...... 217

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6-2 Distribution of Senators’ first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 99th Congress, grouped by yea/nay votes on passage of IRCA ...... 218

6-3 Senators' first dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 99th Congress, grouped by party ...... 218

7-1 DW-NOMINATE scores of House members grouped by their vote on passage of 1996 Conference Report ...... 254

7-2 DW-NOMINATE scores in U.S. House grouped by party during 104th Congress ...... 255

7-3 Distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores among House members in 104th Congress (1996) ...... 256

7-4 Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in the 104th Senate (1996) ...... 257

7-5 DW-NOMINATE scores grouped by vote on passage of 2005 Senate bill, divided by party ...... 259

7-6 Overall first dimension DW-NOMINATE scores grouped by vote on passage of 2005 Senate bill ...... 260

7-7 Distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores in the 109th Senate (2005-06) ...... 261

7-8 DW-NOMINATE scores of members grouped by roll call vote on 2005 House bill ...... 262

7-9 DW-NOMINATE scores in U.S. House by party, 109th Congress (2005) ...... 262

7-10 Distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores in U.S. House, 109th Congress ...... 263

8-1 Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in the 113th Senate (including temporary appointments, 2013) ...... 287

9-1 Distribution of centrists (DW-NOMINATE scores between -0.1 and 0.1), moderates (within 0.2 of chamber mean), and stalwarts (greater than 0.5 from chamber mean) in Senate by era ...... 320

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

APA American Protective Association

DACA Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Enacted by President via .

DAPA Deferred Action for Parents of . Enacted by President Barack Obama via executive order.

DPP Democratic Progressive Party ()

DREAM Act Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act. This is a proposed law in the 2010s that would grant to certain illegal alien minors, provided they meet a certain set of criteria.

DW- Dynamic/weighted Nominal Three-Step Estimation. This is a NOMINATE multidimensional scaling method used to measure ideology in Congress. It was developed by Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal

IIRIRA Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996

IRCA Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

KMT , or Nationalist Party (Taiwan)

PRC People’s Republic of

ROC Republic of China (post-1949; used with reference to Taiwan and surrounding islands)

UKIP Independence Party

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Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

IMMIGRATION POLICY IN THE UNITED STATES: POLARIZATION AND PARANOIA

By

Robert W. Scharr

May 2017

Chair: Lawrence C. Dodd Cochair: Sharon Austin Major: Political Science

This dissertation investigates landmark immigration laws passed by Congress from 1882 to the present, and finds that hyperpolarization between the two parties either results either in the enactment of purely restrictive policies, or alternatively, legislative gridlock. The level of polarization has varied across time according to the evolution of the party system, and each instance of comprehensive immigration reform has occurred during periods of low or medium polarization. In contrast, hyperpolarized eras have yielded such restrictive laws as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the national origins act of 1924, or as more recently, no policy changes despite an enduring practical demand.

While the historical and political context of each era is addressed, this dissertation finds that comparatively lower levels of interparty conflict enable the types of coalition building necessary to systematically address the issue of immigration, which intersects both the economic and sociocultural dimensions as defined by Poole and Rosenthal. Recently, hyperpolarization has “locked in” most legislators to more extreme positions on both dimensions, and has lessened their availability to collaborate with other legislators who, though perhaps for different reasons, would be politically inclined to forward

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comprehensive reform. Bivariate logistic regressions used in this dissertation reveal that while most immigration reforms that achieved passage are bipartisan in nature, legislation in eras of lower polarization involved the totality of the immigration system, while more highly polarized eras are prone to competition between the two parties to protect their constituencies against supposed racial threats. This dissertation concludes with the position that any comprehensive attempt to reformulate national immigration policy will require the existing party system to be dismantled, or for the ideological rigidity of the party system to be greatly lessened, a process which now appears to be underway.

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CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW

Introduction

After the global financial crisis of 2008, the United States economy is still struggling to recover, with economic inequality persisting and the labor participation rate still down compared to other periods of economic recovery. While the most recent

Democratic president, Barack Obama, and his Republican predecessor, George W.

Bush, each employed the theme of unity in their initial campaigns, under their tenures legislators in Congress have found scant success moving forward substantive policy reforms, particularly with respect to immigration policy. On one hand, party polarization in Congress has been at historic highs for most of the current century, yet on the other hand, with the Republican Party’s nomination of for President (and his subsequent Electoral College victory), and with deep policy rifts between former

Senator and Secretary of State (D-NY) and her closest competitor, independent social democrat Sen. of , each of the two party coalitions now exhibit signs of immense internal stress.

This state of affairs closely reflects public discourse, and the most prominent partisan figures continue to boast solid support among their core constituencies, yet draw ire outside of them; President Obama, together with both of the 2016 major party nominees for president, each closely reflect this divide. It is thus no surprise that in the

2010 congressional elections, liberal Democrats continued to dominate solidly

Democratic areas (the Pacific Coast, and much of New England) and conservative

Republicans reclaimed nearly all of the inland rural and suburban districts that they had lost during the anti-Bush wave elections of 2006 and 2008. The moderate “Blue Dog”

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Democrats saw their numbers in Congress roughly halved, most of whom were replaced by Republican hardliners. Not even the inevitability of Democrats losing their majority in the House and six seats in the Senate in the 2010 midterms was enough to compel the Democratic caucuses to produce the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and

Education for Alien Minors), which was a limited package of reforms for young adults born to immigrants without documentation, in the lame-duck session. In its place, the lame-duck session saw the extension of the Bush cuts of 2001 and 2003, and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy against gays and serving in the armed forces, which, while hardly insignificant achievements, might have been considered modest initiatives in more legislatively productive times. The 2014 elections then produced a Republican majority in the Senate along with a historic Republican majority in the House, emboldening restrictionists and effectively stopping immigration reform efforts in Congress for the balance of Obama’s tenure, and what policy outcomes the 2016 election will yield may be contingent on a handful of Senate races and individual state contests for electoral votes in the presidential race.

Elites on both ends of the left-right spectrum share certain commonalities with respect to electoral strategy. Each has an easily mobilized base of voters who routinely tune in to the same sources for information, most of whom seldom look at sources commonly associated with opposing ideological viewpoints. Each side warns that

America’s vulnerabilities will persist unless their legislative agenda is realized. Each side constructs their political narrative in terms of the middle class versus the “others;” whether these “others” refer to foreign powers, the top “one percent” of income-earners, or the undocumented immigrant population residing within the United States. It is not

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new, however, for political elites to utilize these divisions; historically, prominent ideologues in Congress such as James Blaine, , Eugene McCarthy,

Spessard Holland and James Sensenbrenner all rhetorically depicted these cleavages as demonstrating the need for their preferred forms of legislative action. For a presidential candidate seeking office, or for a contestant seeking statewide office in a closely divided “swing” state where literally every vote could matter, it is not difficult to see why a populist rhetorical strategy targeting (among other things) the non-voting

“other” often proves too enticing for a campaign to forego.

Amidst the polarization, current U.S. immigration policy presents a quandary.

Millions have surreptitiously entered the United States due to uneven enforcement of existing laws, yet for now more than twenty years, immigration advocates in Washington cannot be said to have been even remotely successful in getting passed comprehensive reform making definitive accommodations for undocumented migrants, yet systemic legislative efforts to remove them have consistently stalled. Major obstacles have thus far effectively stymied both Obama’s immigration reform proposals and efforts by conservative Republicans in Congress, and while members on both sides say publicly that the status quo is unpalatable, but rather than risking the perception of acquiescence, leaders in both parties largely prefer to leave the situation unresolved.

Meanwhile, millions that have come to the United States for opportunity now live under the radar, seeking employment where the legal ramifications for the employer are vague and uncertain. Even state governments that are more inclined to offer help to poor immigrants are limited in their actions without assistance from the federal budget, but restrictionists and liberalization advocates continue to engage in a national dialectic

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weighing the against humanitarianism, with no immediate signs of breakthrough.

However, it has not always been the case that such rhetoric puts the policymaking process in paralysis. This dissertation argues that has always existed in America, yet has not always precluded Congress from acting to extend opportunities for others to come here. Congress has been guilty of not only failing to act where it must, but also of acting at times with its eyes closed to the potential consequences of its actions. Assimilation is neither a simple nor an instantaneous process, and “top-down” elite-driven efforts toward this end have the potential to backfire; otherwise we would not see the ethnic strife we now do in , the West

Bank, or in the disputed lands of Tibet and Xinjiang, where the People’s Republic of

China continues to assert sovereignty in spite of frequent demonstrations against Han- dominated communist governance. As with the rest of the world, the questions of which groups should be excluded, which should assimilate, and how they should assimilate, have together played a continuous role in shaping the American national identity and political metanarratives, all while galvanizing support amongst some communities while creating discord amongst others.

Dimensions of Cultural Politics

The inherent inability of the to resolve these problems definitively rests in part on constraints imposed by bicameralism and power structures within each chamber, notwithstanding the perennial electoral considerations to which each of its members are subject. Differing voter constituencies elect their own “issue entrepreneurs,” who have harnessed voter angst over cultural issues (Leege et al.

2002) more easily than they have engaged voters on a broad, systematic overhaul

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congruent to . Only a small segment of the voting population responds to comparatively esoteric economic issues (minutia of trade policies, measures taken by the Federal Reserve, and so forth) and as a result a vote choice based on the economy tends to be a performance evaluation on the incumbent party’s handling of “the economy.” Most voters, however, know well their own feelings about race relations and which ethnic groups they would like to see more or less of, and along with them, their feelings about who the United States should let in and keep out.

Leege, Wald, Krueger, and Mueller (2002, 5) consider the post- era to epitomize “cultural politics,” which most closely corresponds to questions of racial, religious, gender, generational or some other aspect of identity; these questions have often been placed on a dimension separate from the economic issues of taxation, spending, tariffs, business regulations, and so forth. While the authors make no claim that cultural politics did not exist prior to the New Deal (to be sure, cultural politics was paramount in the formation of the nation’s early immigration laws), the 1960s indeed saw a smorgasbord of cultural issues that had not previously become campaign issues.

African Americans and other racial minorities began to gain overdue legal protections from the federal government through the advocacy and sacrifices of Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr. and like-minded community leaders. On top of the hard-fought social changes on racial equality, the 1960s also saw the debate gain national salience, and the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision remains today a major point of contention between differing sub-cultures in the United States. Likewise, the gay rights movement began in earnest in the 1970s; it too, was fueled by passionate advocacy and assisted by generational change; though the Supreme Court settled the same-sex

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marriage question in 2015, fears still persist (warranted or not) regarding religious liberty for businesses who object to serving patrons in same-sex relationships. Even the questions of alcohol consumption and substance use, though now having been the purview of the federal government for more than a century, are still without a unified national consensus; modern descendants of the early twentieth-century prohibitionists

(advocacy groups in the form of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and financiers such as

Sheldon Adelson) have thus far preserved a de facto national drinking age of twenty- one and have steadfastly opposed medical marijuana legalization efforts surfacing across various localities. Of these cultural issues, race relations appear to have maintained the highest salience; while Jim Crow and legal segregation of blacks and whites would disappear in the , these issues were replaced with less overtly racialized, but still highly salient race-related issues such as , rules of engagement for police (giving rise to Black Lives Matter and their foremost rhetorical opponents in Blue Lives Matter), and so forth. And judged amongst issues of race, questions of immigration continue to achieve relatively high salience in the public sphere.

Scholars disagree on whether anti-immigration sentiment is more mass-driven or elite-driven, but this aspect, too, has varied according to context. Leege et al (2002, 30) offer an elegant compromise between the two viewpoints, writing, “…cultural tensions may be widely ‘available’ as potential lines of political cleavage, but they are not made manifest unless someone first takes concrete actions to place them on the national agenda.” Indeed, for each of the laws discussed in this dissertation, elite involvement has been necessary, but not sufficient for effecting policy change, and the precise roles

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elites have played in immigration policy has not been uniform. In some instances, administrations (Truman in 1952, Kennedy and Johnson in the 1960s, and Reagan in

1986) responded to demands from the business community and advocacy of religious and civic organizations and placed high priority on reform, and generally favored a more liberalizing type of reform than did many of their fellow party members in Congress. In other instances, lawmakers and administration officials respond to narratives put in place previously by other elites, as Coolidge signed into a law a bill that represented an outgrowth of the movement and the “one hundred percent Americanization” campaign waged by . In other instances still, shrewd political entrepreneurs mindful of worrisome economic conditions correctly recognize immigration as a relatable issue that can be easily used to mobilize labor and nativist groups- but even among these actors, distinctions must be drawn; some have used overt racist rhetoric to mobilize against immigrant groups ( in the ) or have instead relied more on a generalized economic that, by extension, has elicited long-standing racialized sentiment among fringe elements within some constituencies (Donald Trump in 2016).

While at times elites have taken the lead role in enacting reform and at other times have served as conduits for lingering public disaffection, cultural politics has been consistently defined by racialized divisions. The institution of , though now a relic of the past, has ensured that racial divisions remained prominent in the discourse of our Republic. Not until later in history was the non-black, non-white “other” brought to of divisive racial discourse. Until the powerful wave of the civil rights movement swept away barriers to entry on account of race, particularly for the African

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Americans who have been part of America for many generations, Asians, and on a perhaps smaller scale, Latinos and southern Europeans, were barred from and along with it the right of civic engagement, with few political repercussions for the governing, so-called “native stock” regime. Despite the efforts of liberal Republicans, predominantly from the northeast, who sought to engage and incorporate new Asian immigrants and other nonwhites into local civil society, they were eventually drowned out by the “conservative” wing supported by “disapproving middle- class laity who felt threatened by the embrace of new groups” (Leege et al. 2002, 67).

Neither can the religious aspect of immigration politics be discounted. Though it may appear far removed from modern conflicts, the Catholic-Protestant divide displayed high relevance in the 1960 election, with large numbers of Protestant Democrats

“crossing over” to vote for (Leege et al. 2002, 205). Going back further still, Burner (1968) details how the 1928 Democratic nominee , an anti- prohibitionist Catholic notable for his accent, was anathema to too many in his own party for him to be successful in the general election. While today, Catholicism has been largely normalized and no longer stirs controversy in modern American politics, the religiosity of candidates is a major consideration among voters; conservative stances on abortion rights and are typical of Republican candidates in the South and Midwest, yet having similar stances on cultural issues puts candidates in the northeast and on the West coast at a major disadvantage. At the same time, the of religion with immigration has often established a crucial independent variable in influencing political actors, whether they act in resistance to religious minorities perceived by some to threaten cultural homogeneity, or out of a

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faith-based humanitarianism toward new immigrants seeking political refuge or economic stability.

Party Systems and Polarization

Thus, as this dissertation argues, the identity questions ensconced within the realm of cultural politics have always played some role in the immigration policy debates, even as they have been routinely accompanied by considerations of hard economic numbers and, at times, further complicated by volatile circumstances in international affairs. When the crucial moderator variables of party systems (temporal paradigms concerning which political party is dominant nationally, where each party is dominant regionally, and which constituencies support them) and institutional power structures (the relative power of the Presidency versus the Congress, or the distribution of power within Congress) are introduced, the picture grows more complex, yet fortunately, patterns can still be discerned.

The nation’s resulted from a schism between the elite

Federalists (among them and Alexander Hamilton), who themselves were resistant to the idea of a party system, and the populist Democratic-

Republicans of . During this time, the government proved itself no better equipped to resolve the question of which peoples of the world should be allowed to immigrate than they were in resolving the other issues of race, namely slavery and the lack of full personhood for . Congress produced the Naturalization

Act of 1790, which provided merely for the eligibility for “free white persons” to become naturalized citizens of the United States; the statute, though it embodied racist principles of the time, did not address the specific question of who could not immigrate and be naturalized, nor did it address the question of what “whiteness” entailed.

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The , which saw the formation of the Whig Party to challenge the newly dominant Democratic-Republicans of , did not provide further clarification or codification of immigration policies. Part of this resulted from a lack of sectionalism on the part of both parties (Bibby and Maisel 1998, 25), where each party competed on a national level and attempted to accommodate discordant constituencies of both labor and business interests, nativists and immigrants, and both Catholics and Protestants. In other words, the second party system was a highly “responsive” system, whereby the parties actively attempted to serve voter constituencies regardless of social divisions, and much less a “responsible” system, which is characterized by parties’ development and forceful pursuit of an ideologically distinct agenda. The lack of predisposition of either major party to move toward definitive resolution on race issues prompted the promulgation of third parties, which included the antislavery Liberty (formed in 1940) and Free Soil (formed in 1948) parties, and the nativist, anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Party. None of these parties achieved much success at the federal level, though the Know-Nothings were the strongest, took most of their support from former Whigs (Bibby and Maisel 1998, 27), greatly contributing to the collapse of the Whig Party and the emergence of the Republican

Party, which under successfully prosecuted the Civil War against the pro-slavery Confederacy and decided the slavery issue in abolitionists’ favor.

The legacy of Reconstruction, under which the unionist Republican federal government under Ulysses S. Grant installed “radical” Republicans to govern prior

Confederate states, yielded a third and hyperpolarized party system whereby

Democrats reigned nearly unchallenged in the South, and Republicans mostly remained

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strong in the more populous North. Memories of and Reconstruction produced vastly different attitudes on racial equality vis-à-vis whites and African Americans.

While the sense of egalitarianism of Northern Republicans made many disinclined to pass discriminatory immigration legislation, demand for exclusion of cheap foreign labor was palpable among populists, primarily poor farmers and laborers who would coalesce into the People’s Party. Importation of Chinese immigrant labor on the West coast inflamed populist rhetoric which would morph into , and was capitalized upon by agitators such as Denis Kearney, who founded the Workingmen’s Party. The threat of the Kearney movement produced a split in an otherwise cohesive Republican Party between most northeastern Republicans, along with Republican Presidents Hayes,

Garfield and Arthur on one side, and on the other side, issue entrepreneurs such as

James Blaine, a presidential aspirant seeking to guard against further populist defections and to politically incorporate Western states at any cost (Gyory 1997). At the urging of Blaine and his allies, which included Republican incumbents in Western states, the Republican Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act and eventually gained the acquiescence of President Arthur. This permitted Republicans to remain strong in and Oregon, while populists in other Western states and in the

South were reabsorbed into the Democratic coalition under the candidacy of archpopulist (Bibby and Maisel 1998, 31), which created a lasting aversion among business interests to Democrats and marked the end of the third party system.

Whereas the third party system had been competitive for most of its duration, the was largely Republican-dominant; the exception at the presidential

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level was the Wilson coalition; it was created in 1912 incorporating unprecedented numbers of immigrants (Burner 1968) in the face of the Republican split between the traditional conservatives for Taft and the Progressive forces attempting to return

Theodore Roosevelt to office. Agrarian and labor interests, which were key Progressive constituencies, strongly favored new restrictions on immigration, while the Republican leadership in Congress was much more guarded in their support and appeared to propose new restrictions primarily to mollify possible defectors to the Progressive insurgency, especially in the case of the 1924 election cycle. Polarization in Congress was very high for most of the fourth party system, though it declined rapidly after the mid-1920s as the transition to the fifth system commenced.

The brought to the fore the responsible for

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential victories, which brought together culturally disparate groups, each of whom faced severe economic challenges during the Great Depression.

Eventually, intraparty rifts among Democrats re-emerged, most notably along the North-

South divide. Party platforms only had nuanced differences from each other, and intraparty cohesion (and by extension, party polarization) reached historic lows; with respect to immigration, each party broadly worked to liberalize immigration policy as the nation emerged from the Great Depression, though conservative committee chairs preferred to liberalize at a slower speed than did their more liberal counterparts from the northeast. The New Deal Coalition lost most of its potency in the 1960s; the rightward shift of the Republicans under led to a landslide for Democrats in 1964, but was countered by an equally potent leftward shift under liberals Humphrey and

McGovern, both of whom lost their presidential races to Richard Nixon.

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Few suggest at this juncture that the United States remains in a party system contiguous with the fifth system that started in the 1930s and solidified in the 1970s.

Such a suggestion would be untenable for multiple reasons. First, each previous party system was well-defined in terms of geographic and constituency-based support for the two parties, and in this regard, while the congressional newcomers of the 1970s were broadly reflective of their party’s overarching ideological trajectory, the process of liberal reformers gaining prominence over conservative committee chairs was gradual, and had not fully transpired until late in the 1980s; likewise, small numbers of moderate to conservative Democrats in the South remained until as late as the early 2000s. And secondly, the interaction in the 1970s between the two parties in Congress, not least with respect to polarization (and certainly with respect to parties’ positions on immigration), bears no resemblance whatsoever to the modern day.

The major obstacle to demarcating the exact end of the fifth party system is that previous party systems began and ended with the “critical elections” detailed by V.O.

Key (1955), which were themselves indicative of what each party’s coalition would consist of for the next several cycles. But there is no obvious candidate among presidential elections since the 1970s to be designated as “critical;” both the lopsided initial victories of Reagan and Obama produced snapback in the congressional midterm elections that followed. Were one to insist that some semblance of the fifth system continues to persist today, subdivisions for the “textbook” era of the 1940s-1960s, the

“reform” era of the 1970s-1980s, and the era that started in the early 1990s should be noted; this dissertation demarcates the late twentieth-century party system accordingly.

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Other factors (certainly inclusive of technological advances) have impacted the speed and direction of the partisan composition in the electorate and in Congress.

Around the time of Dodd’s 1995 piece, the internet was beginning to undergo a transformation from being an entity to which only government officials and high-tech firms had access to a household item that would profoundly diffuse into wide use in

American households. Dodd cites the “telecommunications revolution” as possessing a role in the “new politics” that was taking shape in America, and to be sure, one cannot dismiss out of hand the plethora of ways in which the internet influenced political discourse. Though the internet’s exact reach might not have been foreseen in 1995, the ability of activists, interest groups and policymakers to interact on social media has facilitated communication in an unprecedented way. As people became flooded with information on the internet, the discourse had to constantly outdo its own hyperbolic nature to remain within the public’s increasingly short attention span. Targeted direct mail may have proven abilities to reach voters during a competitive election, but it cannot compare to the efficiency of social media when promoting a national cause. The easy incorporation of large numbers of voters and small donors likely inflated these interest groups’ perceived support among the public, and made members all the more intimidated by the consequences of breaking pledges they may have made to these groups, either on issue positions or other matters.

Dodd also suggests that term limits, now popular among Tea Party activists, are responsible for electing new legislators without the “seasoned awareness” required to make well-conceived policy decisions; yet as we saw in 2010 and 2012 Senatorial primaries (particularly in the cases of Republicans of Robert

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Bennett of ) no longer does a long and distinguished career in Congress, or the seniority that it brings for that matter, gain a legislator currency with an often restive partisan base. Even in areas where term limits are not mandated, many congressional candidates (mostly Republicans) feel compelled to make a term limit pledge in order to gain the trust of suspicious base voters and activist groups convinced that the political culture of Washington irreparably corrupts. While incumbent candidates have in specific circumstances have successfully avoided keeping a term limit pledge they had previously made, the breaking of such a pledge gives fodder for an incumbent’s enemies to use against him, whether in the primary or general election.

In accordance with this process, the success of groups like NumbersUSA in making the word “amnesty” a legislative non-starter is testament to their ability to compel legislators into walking in locked step with the aims and goals of such groups.

They have, through talk radio and conservative blogs on the internet, mobilized enough support to appear to be on the side of most populists and conservatives in the electorate, and have helped preserve the status quo despite the practical need for the system to process millions of laborers and undocumented youth. At the same time, diehard legalization advocates in the House, such as Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and

Henry Waxman (D-CA) come from overwhelmingly Democratic districts that in most circumstances Republicans would have no chance to carry; meanwhile, their allies in the Senate such as (D-CA) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are only slightly less safe electorally. Each are seldom reached by pressures of anti- immigration activists, and are not compelled electorally to answer to them. While

Rosenthal (2013) holds that there are more significant causes of polarization than

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redistricting, current legislative districts do pose an impediment for differing discourses on cultural issues to compete within their boundaries, giving far less incentive (or even opportunity) to legislators in electorally “safe” jurisdictions to moderate their positions.

Other approaches, such as Facchini and Steinhardt (2011), have tried a purely economic approach to discerning members’ policy preferences, suggesting that whether a favors more restrictive or liberalizing immigration laws depends on the proportion of skilled to unskilled labor in that member’s district. The limitations of their approach are significant. Their study only covers roll call votes in the period between 1970 and 2006; all of the “landmark” immigration bills (save the Immigration

Reform and Control Act, or IRCA, in 1986) were passed well before this period. They criticize Milner and Tingley (2010), who find only a modest relationship between the prevalence of labor interests in a member’s district and that member’s voting record, for including too many bills in their analysis as opposed to only those that “necessarily have an impact on the district’s factor supply” (735). However, the suggestion that it is possible to dichotomize neatly between laws that have an impact and laws that do not is dubious.

More important, however, is that any attempt to pinpoint the causes of a member’s roll call vote that ignores the roles of culture, national discourse, and idiosyncrasies of individual members can at best provide us with only very narrow insights, especially with regard to an issue that pertains to national identity as closely as does immigration. Under such a model, the stark contrasts between senators sharing the same state and party (consider the unequivocally anti-immigration tone of Spessard

Holland and the more conciliatory tone of , both Democrats of Florida,

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to name one of many examples) in their rhetoric and voting behavior go unexplained.

Nor can the structural hierarchy within each chamber be ignored; it is unwise to neglect the power relationships between Presidents, committee chairs, rank-and-file members, and so forth.

For these reasons, this dissertation eschews a purely economic model in favor of one that takes discourse and the self/other dynamic fully into account. In eras of high polarization and inter-party conflict, elite portrayals of “who we (their party) are” and

“who they (the other party) are” are more clear and consistent, despite the fact that few among the mass public are tightly constrained by an overarching ideology (Converse

1964). Even when there is consensus that the immigration system (or other systems, such as infrastructure and entitlements) is not functioning optimally and that remedies are needed, a strictly “responsible party” government tends to overlook this, dedicating itself to achieving new purposes (Dodd 2012). In the case of the modern Democratic

Party, the purpose might be to fundamentally redefine the rules of immigration to the

United States (and also changing the collective national identity); for the Republicans, the purpose might be for the party’s base to remake the national demographics in their own image. Under such a discourse, the need to reform basic functionalities of immigration law is of low relevance in comparison to a narrative that often presented as a “clash of civilizations” as described by Huntington (1996).

Figure 1-1 reveals a readily discernible pattern with respect to the major immigration reforms that have achieved passage. With each line demarcating the passage of a landmark immigration law, it is evident that during times of higher polarization, only restrictive laws have passed, and during eras of lower polarization,

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only liberalizing laws have passed. During eras of moderate polarization, in which Dodd and Schraufnagel explain that legislative productivity overall is at its highest, more comprehensive approaches are the norm, as with the cases of IRCA in 1986, and the

Immigration Act of 1990.

This is not to suggest that the trend should be accepted prima facie. Figures 1-2 and 1-3, while overly elegant in their own right, provide the necessary context within eras that a statistical model alone cannot explain across eras. Using the 1965 law as an example, the division between liberal and conservative Democrats gave then-

President Johnson a means to piece together a coalition of Republicans and some

Democrats to pass a sweeping law sought by his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. The low level of polarization likely represented good conditions for coalition building, but events specific to the time were instrumental. Aspects of the prevailing political discourse, namely political drive to preserve the late Kennedy’s legacy, the intensity of the Civil Rights Movement, or the long-standing relationships that Lyndon Johnson formed with conservative Democratic committee chairmen when he was Majority

Leader, cannot be captured by one statistical model seeking to measure the polarization of Congresses across time.

In the same way, the underlying context of the rest of the laws should not be ignored. Consider the attempt to pass comprehensive reform in 2005. While the DW-

NOMINATE scores of the era point to difficulty in coalition building, the effects of bicameralism, which Binder (2003) says can be insurmountable impediments to deal- making, could not be overcome by the reform effort’s leading advocates. Likewise, the

1986 act, five years in the making, nearly failed to become law and was revived on the

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eve of the midterm elections from a last-minute pitch by the Reagan administration to the Democratic House leadership and the negotiations of Rep. (D-NY), but again, such details are not captured by any statistical model.

If too many of these details are discarded in favor of parsimony, a simplistic formal modeling approach cannot convey time-specific events that often prove decisive.

Accordingly, though periods of low polarization appear to make more legislators available for negotiation and tend to facilitate coalition-building, that is not to suggest that the negotiations must not still take place or that legislative hurdles must still not be cleared. It is better to deduce that low party polarization levels, while neither completely necessary nor alone sufficient, still provide liberalization advocates the possibility of succeeding with sufficient efforts, whereas most often during eras of higher polarization, efforts fail in spite of vigorous lobbying and public relations outreach. With this in mind, each chapter of this dissertation discusses the fundamentals of the party system against the backdrop of key specific events.

Preview of Chapters 2-9

Chapter 2 discusses the methodological approach; foremost, it discusses the origins and significance of Poole and Rosenthal’s DW-NOMINATE, the primary metric for polarization used in this study. Next, it details the use of floor speeches and remarks to two major national newspapers as a means to shed additional light on members’ motivations for supporting or opposing immigration measures debated before Congress.

Chapter 3 discusses congressional action on the various iterations of the

Chinese Exclusion Act during the zenith of the third party system, with two quasi- regional parties each seeking to incorporate California within their electoral coalition. To facilitate the nation’s westward expansion, rapid development of railway infrastructure

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was needed, and with China, which promised the added labor necessary to achieve rapid development, were negotiated over multiple administrations. The increased supply of labor threatened lower wages and lesser living standards of white laborers, who in turn successfully exploited the ethnic and cultural differences between whites and the Chinese and persuaded Congress to bar Chinese workers from entry and to make Chinese ineligible for naturalization, over the objections of the administration and a sizable northeastern bloc of Republican legislators. This process revealed a , but important, split within the House and Senate Republican conferences in an era where party-line voting in Congress was otherwise common.

Chapter 4 details the continuing move toward restriction in the early twentieth century amidst persistently high partisan polarization. New arrivals from Japan on the

West coast, and of southern European- and predominantly Catholic- migrants in urban areas laid bare new cultural dissimilarities with more established communities descended primarily from Nordic peoples. Influenced by the eugenics movement, which advocated keeping races ethnically “pure,” legislators in both parties collaborated to decrease the influx of these newer arrivals with the 1924 act and, additionally, to extend the entry bar on Chinese to Japanese immigrants. As California continued to be a state of major strategic importance for each party, and also continued as a major site for nativist sentiment, both parties pursued an immigration policy tailored to nativist demands, over the objections of President Wilson, and to a lesser degree, President

Coolidge. Here, the Progressive/conservative split within the Republican Party prompted movement and accommodation of northeastern Republicans such as Sen.

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David Reed of and Senate Majority Leader and

President from .

Chapter 5 concerns the postwar “textbook” era of Congress, which featured an enlarged, but fractured, Democratic coalition which included both supporters and opponents of the ambitious Roosevelt agenda. Equally important, the wartime discourse had provided an environment for a permanent campaign against foreign and domestic enemies (Leege and Wald 2002), and most explicitly concerned ideology instead of race. Moreover, this mobilization was not to be restricted to within the national borders.

If the Americans were to be assured that the Chinese would remain with them, the

Americans needed a symbol representing how they were with the Chinese. The

Magnuson Act was one such symbol, and marked the beginning of the end of restrictionist policies targeting Asian immigrants.

However, in the following decade, the abatement of the march toward blanket exclusionism did not bring with it an end to nativism or paranoia. Though the intense party polarization had disappeared, the propensity for political actors to instill fear of the

“other” in the minds of the public had not diminished from wartime. In this respect,

Higham (1955, 331) sees commonality between the early twentieth century and the

1950s, writing, “I had chosen [to write about hysterias] of the early twentieth century, directed against immigrants and foreign ideas, for they seemed significantly yet obscurely connected with the hobgoblins of my own day…What, for example, could I say about the McCarthyites who raged against Ivy Leaguers as carriers of alien ideas?”

The beginning of the in the 1950s made the latent potential for hysteria clear with McCarthyism- not least in the debates surrounding the Immigration and

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Nationality Act of 1952. A precursor to the 1965 act, it was on balance a liberalizing bill, for the 1952 law sponsored by Sen. Pat McCarran (D-NN) and Rep. Francis Walter (D-

PA) was responsible for eliminating all of the race-based barriers to citizenship written in immigration law back to 1790; it also gave U.S. citizenship to people born in

Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands after December 24 of that year. But the law was vetoed by President Truman (the veto was overridden) for the so-called subversion provisions, which subjected aliens to a litmus test inspired in large part by McCarthyism.

The conflict between the parties at that time was modest in comparison to the conflict within the Democratic Party itself, which among many other things pitted McCarran,

Walter, McCarthy, and sizeable cross-section of the Democratic caucus against Truman and Truman allies such as Herbert Lehman (D-NY) and (D-MN) on matters of immigration and foreign policy. This historical episode exemplifies the prominence of discourse, and how the prevalence of hysterical discourse can obscure the substance and letter of the law.

Committee chairs like Pat McCarran (D-NN) assumed greater control of the legislative agenda; under this paradigm, Congress first forwarded a series of piecemeal measures to aid , then passed a broader overhaul that took modest steps toward liberalization. Opponents of McCarran’s efforts included President Truman and northeastern Republicans, who favored more rapid liberalization, as well as southern restrictionist Democrats who wanted no liberalization at all. Later, President Johnson, in conjunction with liberal Republicans and a growing number of liberal

Democrats, completed the removal of the last restrictionist vestiges of the 1920s; they too, were opposed by a small but solid block of southern restrictionist Democrats. This

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era, though it lacked ideologically coherent parties, was both the most productive and the most progressive of all the eras explored with respect to immigration reform.

While the framework of immigration law has seen very significant revisions since, it was the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act that established what remains the basic framework for U.S. immigration policy. From this instance onward, every law that has since passed has sought to regulate or restrict further immigration by ethnic groups already present in U.S. communities which have been in the process of becoming politically incorporated into the national citizenry. Against this backdrop, mass media has afforded highly vivid, albeit often somewhat distorted perceptions of various ethnicities even to less affluent, more culturally insulated, and generally more ethnically homogenous communities. By way of contrast, prior revisions to immigration policy were in most cases meant to restrict a barely known quantity, an “alien” race of

“Asiatics” with too few assimilated constituents concentrated in too few states to avoid attaining a national reputation that, while vague, was pejorative enough to scare ordinary citizens into believing that admitting any more Asians would lead to the ultimate subversion of the Republic. Recently however, these mass perceptions of Asian/Pacific

Americans had been replaced by a far different “model minority” that characterizes them as docile, hard-working and socio-politically submissive beings which, as long as they are kept to their current numbers, do not pose a material threat to the existing social order.

Chapter 6 explores the immediate post-reform era, which saw the beginnings of a sustained ideological and geographic shift within the Democratic Party. Younger, more liberal Democrats were rapidly displacing previous generations of Republicans in

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the northeast, while the Republican Party began to demonstrate a previously unprecedented level of strength in the South. Increasingly, the partisan divide yielded two ideologically sorted parties, though there remained enough cross-party collaboration to build the necessary coalitions to pass major reform, which culminated in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Both restrictive and liberalizing, the

1986 act was accompanied in this era by the liberalizing, but much narrower acts of

1980 and 1990; neither of these acts faced significant partisan opposition.

Chapter 7 discusses congressional activity after the “” of

1994. By this time, the geographical and ideological sorting of the two parties was nearly complete, and congressional Republicans put forth a restrictive plan facilitating deportations for immigrants with criminal records, and dramatically reducing the eligibility of immigrants for public assistance. Clinton and most other Democrats were on the political defensive and approved the plan as part of a broader omnibus appropriations measure containing numerous other Republican agenda items. Later, during the second term of the George W. Bush presidency, Senate Republicans passed a mixed measure containing an amnesty provision and increased patrolling of the southern border with Mexico, and had the near-unanimous backing of liberal Senate

Democrats. At the same time, the House Republican conference was even more restrictionist, passed an enforcement-only measure, and attempts at compromise were staunchly opposed by Speaker (R-IL) and Rep. James Sensenbrenner

(R-WS), resulting in no further policy change.

Chapter 8 concerns the Obama presidency, which marked the start of a new transformation to the party system. The financial crisis and the parties’ responses to it

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gave rise to burgeoning populist movements within each party. While polarization in this era has persisted across most policy areas, namely the environment, healthcare, and tax cuts, Obama and the Republican leadership have begun to closely collaborate on neoliberal economic reforms such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other trade deals and spending agreements over the objections of populist subsections of both the Republican and Democratic parties, leading to the insurgent candidacies of

Donald J. Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Though Clinton was successful in securing the Democratic nomination, populists now wield more influence in each party than they have in a century; the impending rearrangement of party coalitions may facilitate long-delayed progress in revising federal immigration statutes.

Chapter 9 concludes the dissertation by retrospectively examining the development of the party system since the 1950s, and assesses the effects of the late- twentieth century “responsible” party system with respect to immigration policy. It maintains that comprehensive, non-nativist immigration reforms require a viable political center whereby concerns of security, economics, and culture can be negotiated with fluidity, and that the lack of consensus brought about by the “responsible” party structure has served to decimate efforts at fostering the kind of cross-party, cross- constituency collaboration typical of previous legislative successes. It also suggests possible avenues of future research that may ascertain the ideological trajectories of the parties, and by extension, prospects for future immigration reform.

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CHAPTER 2 METHODS

Introduction

In this dissertation, the congressional immigration debate is divided into six distinct eras; each era is distinguished from the others in terms of time-specific electoral coalitions that have determined the fate of immigration reform. The data used here are the fruits of previous scholars, such as Dodd and Schraufnagel (2009), with their work on the relationship between Congressional polarization and policy productivity, and

McCarty, Poole and Rosenthal (2007) with their foundational work on polarization.

The work of Downs (1957) and Riker (1962) arrived in era where parties alone were inadequate indicators of how legislators voted, and Converse (1964) posited that individual voters did not possess an ideology sufficient so as to determine their positions on issues given a set of known positions; nevertheless, just as Downs sought to discern to place individual voters on a spatial continuum with their own unique points alongside which other voters would reliably fall “left” or “right,” Riker argued that party coalitions would rationally form a “minimum winning coalition” to achieve their desired policy ends.

This scholarship brought forth numerous applications in the “rational choice theory” vein of inquiry.

Seeking to measure ideology at both the institutional and individual member’s levels, Poole and Rosenthal created D-NOMINATE (Dynamic Nominal Three-Step

Estimation) and later W- (Weighted) NOMINATE and DW- (Dynamic/Weighted)

NOMINATE as a way to pinpoint the ideological positions of each member of Congress.

Using this series of metrics, they devised two dimensions along which to place legislators, the economic liberal/conservative dimension (used in this dissertation for

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statistical analysis) and the sociocultural second dimension. While it is conceivable to propose additional dimensions (perhaps not least an isolationist/interventionist foreign policy dimension to ascertain the position of Donald Trump and to other

Republicans), these two dimensions are used to give vertical and horizontal coordinates to legislators, placing them on a two-dimensional space, or a map-like plane. In a highly polarized session of Congress, the legislators are neatly divided into their own partisan clusters on this two-dimensional space with little or no overlap between the parties.

Therefore, by definition, an inverse relationship exists between the level of polarization and the presence of overlap between the Democratic and Republican parties’ ideological makeup according to DW-NOMINATE scores.

DW-NOMINATE has become the predominantly used iteration of this metric (and the first, or “economic” has been shown to be the most informative) and a very large cross-section of congressional studies literature has been built upon it. While it may not always be advisable to “black box” and take as given any metric without examining the inner workings of the algorithm from which it is produced, for the sake of parsimony, this dissertation focuses on the relationship between the economic liberal/conservative score and immigration roll call votes.

Overview of Legislative Trends

With the inclusion of time-specific context, this dissertation examines the question of the locus of the impetus from which immigration law originates. As immigration is an issue now handled exclusively (insofar as the Supreme Court declared immigration to be a patently federal issue1) by the federal government, and

1 See Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U.S. 275 (1875)

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given that the executive and judicature are reliant upon Congress to produce legislation, what happens in Congress necessarily becomes the research focus. Furthermore, as an institution, Congress has an intricate web of rules, norms, relationships between members, and the presence of innumerable distinctions (yet nearly as many discernable patterns) among members make Congress a logical focal point for the consideration of the forces mobilizing on behalf of, or against, immigrant groups.

This dissertation’s primary methodology does employ DW-NOMINATE trends and regression models. But whereas the numerical data speak to how polarized

Congress is at a given time, each time period poses a different set of obstacles for enactment of immigration policy; each landmark immigration law had a specific historical context that made its passage possible (or not possible). Yet there are consistent themes across eras as well. For instance, since politicians have re-election as their primary self-interest (Mayhew 1973), the mechanisms by which political elites position themselves in a way they deem advantageous (so as to appear on the side of his constituencies which will deliver him electoral victory) do not vary much across time.

They do this within the context of social unease, which they may choose either to take as a given and adapt to it, or they may actively use it to facilitate legislative aims

(Hofstadter 1965). Often, political elites do this through their self-portrayal of voters’ ontological security, whether ethnic or some other type of social conflict be involved

(Mitzen 2006; Arfi 1998; Jervis 1976) and conduct this supposed defense through language power, forging a linguistic weapon to be used against the “other” in political discourse (Mattern 2005). The potential arrival of the “other” from overseas, namely

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tens of thousands of refugees seeking to escape the Syrian conflict, shows the extent to which domestic politics has international sources (Gourevitch 1978).

This collection of processes is typically marked by periods of higher polarization

(as measured by intra-party cohesion and inter-party conflict, which ebbs and flows across time; Poole et al) until an exogenous event happens. Dodd and Schraufnagel

(2009) have shown that this degree of polarization has major effects on legislative productivity. The presence of an imminent threat posed by an “other” provides a convenient vehicle through which governments can fulfill new purposes with a reduced emphasis on core institutional functions as traditionally understood (Dodd 2015), with political parties staking out stronger, less ambiguous and better-defined positions on threats to voters’ ontological security. The phenomenon Leege and Wald (2002) identify as “cultural politics” often provides an avenue through which race-based issue entrepreneurship can run its course, and an often highly salient and easily identifiable one from the vantage point of most voters.

It must be noted that even with the rich literature on Congress and the close scrutiny that the issue of immigration has received, in times both past and present, there is still no definitive answer as to what causes our legislative body to afford or restrict entry to an immigrant group. To be sure, a single answer may not be possible to attain, primarily because legislative coalitions are in a constant state of metamorphosis; the party system might be likened to a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces shift against each other much as Earth’s tectonic plates do against one another. Thus while the broader picture might not remain the same for long, the individual pieces can potentially remain for ages onward.

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The early chapters of this dissertation give increased emphasis to the debate over Asian immigration, while the later chapters focus on immigration more broadly.

The first laws Congress passed to address immigration subsequent to the Civil War concerned a specific ethnic group (Chinese), which include the original Chinese

Exclusion Act, its two subsequent renewals, the (most notable for its imposition of a test as well as a “barred zone” excluding the rest of the

Asia-Pacific Triangle, in addition to the Japanese exclusion amendment as part of the

Immigration Act of 1924. The acts of 1943, 1952 and 1965 each reversed various parts of the existing legal regime barring Asian immigrants, while from the 1965 act onward,

Congress passed systematic reforms designed to accommodate various groups in tandem with geopolitical interests of the United States, only to reverse sharply to a more restrictionist tone with the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility

Act (IIRIRA). Subsequently, Congress has engaged in multiple unsuccessful attempts to balance business interests seeking a steady supply of skilled and unskilled immigrant labor alongside the objective of achieving a system whereby the bulk of actual immigration occurs through formalized, legal channels.

Thus, legislative eras are demarcated as follows: the Post-Reconstruction Era

(1875-1909) which included the original Chinese Exclusion Act and its renewals, the

Progressive Era and Great Depression (1910-1938), which saw the imposition of a for new immigrants during a time of public sensibilities which favored a

“eugenics” movement sympathetic to continued immigration from and antagonistic toward most other groups, World War II and the Civil Rights movement

(1939-1973), which encompassed successive, albeit somewhat uneven, attempts to

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broaden the pool of countries from which immigration would be permitted and encouraged. Next, the “reform” Congress and its departures from the “textbook” era

(1974-1994) represented bipartisan efforts (though partisanship was increasing from historic lows amidst a new urban/rural realignment and liberal Democratic efforts to restore a coherent agenda within their party) to accommodate refugees and further systematize handling of both legal and illegal immigration, culminating in the passage of

IRCA and its 1990 expansion. When partisanship reached new highs against the backdrop of the “Republican Revolution” and the corresponding realignment (1995-

2008), Congress struggled to arrive at the necessary consensus to continue modernization of the legal immigration system and instead passed a narrow effort squarely aimed at ensuring those in the United States illegally could not access most social services. The current era (2009-present), noted not only for continued hyperpolarization but a concurrent lessening of consensus not only between parties, but also within the Republican Party itself, and has seen no legislative progress. As outlined, the findings of this dissertation suggest that “” of similar legislation generally lie within each of these eras, so one chapter will be devoted to each (with chapters for introduction, generalized discussion of previous literature and methodology, discussions of hypothesis tests, and implications for future research).

For each of the laws covered in depth in this dissertation, identical versions were passed by both the House and Senate, and polarization in the Senate, with minor deviations, more or less mirrors the level of polarization in the House (Theriault 2008), though circumstances unique to the current era now appear to make the House somewhat less hospitable towards liberalization or comprehensive reform. In addition,

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for the sake of parsimony, focusing on the Senate enables statewide generalizations from elected officials representing the entire state as opposed to (oftentimes in the

House) someone who represents just a tiny geographic portion. Moreover, the trends in polarization in the Senate have mirrored those in the House in direction, even while not entirely identical in intensity. In this respect, the Senate and House are not analogous to an “apple” and “orange” which are not commensurable, but are more akin to “Red

Delicious” apple and a “Macintosh” (Theriault 2008), easily comparable albeit with slightly differing characteristics. Thus, the Senate can provide adequate clues about institutional polarization and most of the pertinent evidence in regional divides in roll-call voting.

For this dissertation’s main contribution, three main hypotheses are presented.

Each of them employs different explanatory and dependent variables. The first hypothesis, along with the two-part second hypothesis, concerns cycles of legislative change, while a third hypothesis is considered globally. The initial hypotheses are as follows:

• Hypothesis 1: Legislation favorable to immigrants is more likely to pass in eras of low polarization than it is in eras of high polarization. • Hypothesis 2a: Roll call votes on immigration reform are an accurate reflection of how polarized the parties are. In an era of high polarization, a roll call vote would be much closer to a party-line vote than it would in an era of low polarization. • Hypothesis 2b: Congressional floor debates are more likely to contain nuanced views on immigration in eras of low polarization than they are in high polarization. • Hypothesis 3: Wartime “self versus other” discourses strongly affect the likelihood of immigration reforms passing.

Prompting consideration of this hypothesis are the stark differences between what the legislative outcomes were between 1882 when the original Chinese Exclusion

Acts passed, and 1943 when they were formally repealed by way of the Magnuson Act.

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To be sure, the United States has now formally accepts in sizable numbers various groups of immigrants, many of which had been previously barred altogether. But the path toward this end has not been unidirectional; between 1882 and 1943, numerous other immigration acts were passed that either barred more non-Western “others” from entering the United States or aimed to make life difficult for those already here. Yet from 1943 onward, a slew of bills liberalizing immigration were passed, up to and including the , with the legislative agenda reverting back to a more restrictionist tone with the arrival of as Speaker. With only a couple of exceptions out of nearly two dozen (and these exceptions, the 1952 and 1986 bills, were very mixed in that they had both major liberalizing and restrictive components to them), immigration bills passed during times of lower party polarization (as measured by

McCarty, Poole and Rosenthal’s DW-NOMINATE scores) were liberalizing reforms, and those passed during high polarization were overwhelmingly restrictive in nature.

Dodd and Schraufnagel (2009) have done much research on the relationship between party polarization in Congress and congressional productivity, and find that extremes in either direction (high or low) for polarization do not bode well for legislative productivity, and that a moderate level of polarization makes for the best environment for meaningful legislation to get passed. However, the normative implications that these patterns reveal depend on the audience. While Binder (2003) and Sinclair (2005) generally lament the institutional constraints (bicameralism, senate rules, and so on) in that they stifle progress, in these times especially, stalemate is hardly the most catastrophic outcome for immigrants. As Mayhew (1993) argues in Divided We Govern, important legislation can falter during periods of unified government as it can in divided

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government, which may work to the advantage or disadvantage of either liberals or restrictionists in blocking legislation they oppose; as one instance, despite a hyper- partisan atmosphere and unified GOP control under George W. Bush, a Senate-cleared comprehensive approach would be stifled by House Republicans’ demands for more straightforward crackdowns on illegal immigration, resulting in no policy change.

Further congressional efforts at reform met stalemate, with a brief period of activity in

2013 in the Senate surrounding the -approved “Gang of Eight” immigration bill with Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and (R-FL) among its key backers, but the House declined to act. Binder herself was wise in noting, “To be sure, the notion of ‘fixing gridlock’ can be troubling. One person’s stalemate is another’s preferred legislative outcome.” (Binder 2003, 131)

Of course, alternative methods of demarcation between congressional eras

(“Democratic” versus “Republican” eras, “weak president” versus “strong president” eras, “textbook” versus “post-reform” eras, and so forth) are often used. While these other classifications do not altogether go unmentioned in this project, they are treated as departure points for future research. In short, analysis in each chapter generally corroborates the first hypothesis with its own degree of strength; a negative relationship between intra-party cohesion and liberalizing aspects to immigration reform is shown to exist.

Considering the second hypothesis, this dissertation holds that at certain times, potential may exist for ideologically disparate members to form legislative coalitions.

However, in recent years the parties have developed strong positions on immigration within their platforms; historically, sometimes this has been the case, and sometimes it

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has not. To be sure, there have been standouts in the comparatively “anti-immigration” party that have argued for a path to legalization for undocumented aliens. These immigration “mavericks” have included President George W. Bush and Sen. John

McCain (R-AZ). But cases such as these have become increasingly rare, and even the two men themselves have tempered their pro-immigrant positions. In his post- presidential years, Bush has expressed very little interest in influencing the policy process; for his part, McCain had vacillated on the issue, no doubt partly in response to the 2010 posed by anti-immigration commentator and former Rep.

J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ). With Donald J. Trump becoming the Republicans’ standard- bearer in 2016, and with his runner-up, Sen. (R-TX) espousing similar views on immigration, liberalization advocates within the Republican Party (despite having controlled the White House just eight years earlier) shrunk to a small minority, and a starker contrast in approach with the opposing party almost could not be drawn.

Data collected for testing H2a includes member names, their states, their parties, and their votes on final passage of the legislation. This dissertation uses such information with relation to the original Chinese Exclusion Act, the Immigration Act of

1924, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the Immigration Act of 1965, the

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the Illegal Immigration Reform and

Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, and the failed House and Senate immigration bills of 2005. Of the laws that passed, the 1882, 1924, 1965 and 1986 laws were the most demonstrably far-reaching; for these laws, the content of senators’ remarks on the floor is displayed on tables by way of a coding schedule, as seen in Table 2-1.

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To test this hypothesis, for all of the relevant immigration laws, this dissertation uses a binary logistic regression to examine the effect of party (and in some cases also the breakdown of the presidential vote in that member’s state/district) on roll call votes, and then compares those results to their overall first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores.

The findings of this dissertation reveal confounding factors- foremost among them, election-year politics.

For both the 1882 and 1924 laws, the Republican administrations issued one veto threat after another, but ultimately gave their signatures over the objections of what was then their party’s base- liberal, northeastern Republicans- because the electoral map of the 1924 election necessitated that a national campaign secure California’s electoral votes in order to attain victory. Thus, Presidents Arthur and Coolidge found themselves on the same side as the opposition, , who had few reservations about excluding nonwhite races. The political calculus was nearly mirrored for the 1996 law, where had voiced numerous objections to major provisions of the Republican-driven bill but acquiesced to guarantee his electoral success. Though favored for re-election, Clinton (in addition to California Sen. and some other Senate Democrats who were in tight races of their own) was nevertheless determined not to risk being perceived as being soft on illegal immigration, and gave his approval to a purely restrictive bill that was panned by liberal Democrats and liberal media outlets such as .

The immediate strategic considerations of a re-election campaign are often idiosyncratic and cannot be generalized across all regions or all time periods. But remembering that immigration intercepts more than one policy dimension, one might

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expect regional factions within parties to emerge and reveal intraparty rifts that are not exposed though other economic issues. As this dissertation finds too much intraparty divergence regardless of how polarized the parties may be at any given time,

Hypothesis 2a is rejected.

Concerning Hypothesis 2b, this dissertation illustrates how many of the most prominent public figures espousing particular views have not always been noted for their nuance. Hypothesis 2b aims to address whether this trend has been uniform across time.

In many cases, nuance can be said to reflect careful thought and deliberation, while passionate rhetoric may serve to exacerbate polarization and dividedness in public opinion. Informed policymaking takes into account all factors, both pro and con, including those that might not be neatly congruent with an actor’s broader policy agenda. Many view it as also conducive to (and often indicative of) the prevalence of reason over emotion, it is by extension a potential reflection of broad, consensus-based policymaking. The presence or absence of nuance is therefore of interest to those of us who maintain that there is a relationship between political polarization and legislative productivity.

In the legislative context, floor speeches that include thorough consideration of pros and cons, namely whereby a member supports a bill but expresses reservations about it, or opposes a bill even while recognizing that some of its components and/or the bill’s overarching aim have their virtues. The more members that say they support a bill despite only getting some of what they wanted in it, the less likely it is that one side or the other was overly dominant in shaping the bill- instead, a compromise has taken

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place. It is in this way that nuance and compromise are connected. “A good compromise,” President Obama once remarked, “a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‘Huh.

It works. It makes sense,’” implying that it does not perfectly align with the demands of any one constituency.

Other times, nuance is contraindicated. It is nowhere to be found, for instance, in either Senate Majority Leader ’s (D-NV) or former Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) characterizations of the Patient Protection and of 2010 (colloquially known as “Obamacare”), or even those of any other senators, for that matter.

Americans seldom heard from proponents that Obamacare had any substantive downsides to it, nor did they ever hear from opponents that the law was anything other than bad throughout; even Sen. (R-MA), whom once elected, would create one of the most moderate voting records in the Senate, yet campaigned on flamboyant opposition to the healthcare law, pledging to be the “forty-first vote against it.” It may not be a coincidence that the Senate vote on the healthcare law’s passage was divided exactly on party lines, epitomizing in itself party polarization, especially in the Senate.

Specifically in the context of immigration, a lack of nuance might be marked by a vilification of the opposing party, or outright denial that there is any problem that needs to be solved through legislation. As we will see, history is not unfamiliar with a lack of nuance manifesting itself in racially charged discourse, in which a legislator describes a population as categorically inassimilable or for some other reason as belonging to an inferior race.

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Testing H2b employs a balanced quantitative-qualitative approach, with the unit coding of variables posing a more intricate problem than with H2a. Roll call votes by themselves may be our most reliable cue, but they are not themselves sufficient to describe a member’s sentiments of a bill; content analysis is therefore necessary.

Thus, for the most far-reaching legislation (with the 1924 act being the most restrictive law and the 1965 act constituting the broadest liberalization), this dissertation uses a variety of sources in order to do a thorough reading of legislators’ sentiments related to the immigration bills being debated- these sources include the itself, statements in the news media (The New York Times for all eras, along with The

Wall Street Journal for the 1920s and all subsequent eras). With the individual member as the unit of analysis, other dependent variables are examined, such as the arguments each member used in the record to justify his vote. For example, the letter “A” would be assigned to the statement “Current law is unjust and discriminatory” and a “0” would be recorded if the member did not say so in their floor remarks or and a “1” in the case that he did.

This method of coding content from floor speech does not represent the content of a floor speech as precisely as the text or delivery of the floor speech itself; it can, however, succinctly capture the contents of the arguments put forward.

For the eras examined, the findings of this dissertation severely undermine H2b and point toward its null, because distance between the parties does not by itself appear to determine the overall level of nuance in the immigration debate. While as would be expected, few in the 1920s took more nuanced views on immigration policy in their floor speeches, the same is true in lower polarization eras such as the 1960s.

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Some senators did express a mixture of inclinations for or against liberalization, but most did not and expressed themselves strictly for one side or the other. Succinctly, the failure of H2b serves to illustrate that while nuance and party polarization may be in some way related, the relationship is far from uniform. It may further suggest that because immigration usually cuts across the cultural values dimension just as it does the economic dimension, a party’s movement on immigration may more reliably predict not the party’s current position, but rather its overall policy trajectory in two-dimensional space.

Finally, for Hypothesis 3, as concrete as its human implications often are, war is highly discursive. While a war itself produces a national narrative, wars rely on pre- existing narratives even to commence, just as a war’s outcome will in turn produce its own new narrative. Members of Congress express this narrative on the floor and through the media; and the narrative, in at least three major historical instances (1943,

1965, and 1980) appears to have itself shaped congressional behavior on a massive scale. The 1943 and 1965 instances relate directly to reversing previous policies passed in the early 1920s; the emergence of a wartime ally in the form of the Chinese

Nationalists necessitated this reversal- first as the official mainland government in the

1940s, and then in the form of the Taiwan-backed China Lobby in the 1950s-60s. In the case of 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed amidst a bare minimum of resistance, with members repeatedly citing the U.S. need to demonstrate solidarity with an ally. Whereas the 1943 repeal had little effect in terms of hard numbers (China was still subject to an annual quota of 105 immigrants), the 1965 law saw the end of the quota system amidst pervasive Cold War rhetoric.

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Because of the scarcity of data points, testing Hypothesis 3 requires an almost exclusively qualitative approach. Surely, the 1943, 1965 and 1980 acts were created in direct response to strategic conditions during or in response to the war. However, no substantive immigration bills have passed since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and controlling for what the precise effects on immigration policy would have been (in the absence of the attacks) is a job for alternate historians, not political scientists. As it is impossible to prove what conditions would be under any counterfactual, and because immigration proponents showed themselves to be in an equally weak position from where they were before the attacks, it is hence difficult to ascertain deterministically how much the “Global War on Terror” has influenced the immigration debate, or whether it played the decisive factor in stopping attempts at reform. For this instance, and for other instances in which the United States was not engaged in a large-scale military conflict, Hypothesis 3 does not necessarily apply. For other instances, however, there are compelling shifts in congressional behavior, particularly within the context of the

Cold War.

This dissertation holds that the effect wartime discourses have on immigration policy outcomes is often palpable, with the caveat that its exact manifestation is highly contingent on context. With the small number of instances where the entire national population was engaged in a war effort, it cannot yet be determined whether wars writ large facilitate or impede reform efforts. Instead, wars are to be treated as more exogenous than endogenous, even though the events leading up to them may have been in part endogenous themselves.2

2 Relations between the U.S. and Japan soured long before Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese exclusion amendment of the was a major sticking point in U.S.-Japan relations.

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Incorporating Qualitative Speech Data

Tables are compiled according the to the final Senate debate of each landmark law discussed in this dissertation. As seen in Table 2-1, a “letter indicator” appears next to a senator if that senator made floor remarks about the final version of the bill, or as reported by The New York Times (for each law) or The Journal (for all laws excluding the act of 1882). Letters “A” through “M” signify an inclination toward liberalization, and letters “O” through “X” indicate a restrictive posture. Whether the letters “N,” “Y,” and “Z” denote preferences for liberalization or restriction is contingent upon the bill under debate. While admittedly, coding such variables into unitary letters is in part subject to the coder’s interpretation, such a measure is useful in creating a holistic and thorough appraisal of an immigration debate while maintaining a desirable level of parsimony.

As one instance, a quote from Sen. (R-NY) with respect to accommodating Cuban refugees, “I pledge myself to continue to work indefatigably for the future well-being of Cuban refugees. I feel they are entitled to the same rights as are the many other categories of immigrants covered in the immigration law” (The

Congressional Record 1965, 25615), warrants a letter “A” for Javits’s remarks, as here he speaks in favor of giving one group of immigrants (in theory, if not in practice) the same favorable treatment as other groups. Though this quote references a specific group, such a reference to any other immigrant group, or an expression that all immigrants be treated fairly would likewise be noted by the letter “A.”

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To provide another example, the letter “N” denotes the argument that the bill should move forward, no matter what the legislator’s personal feelings may be about it.

This is true of the remarks of Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY), the chief architect of the 1986

IRCA bill. His remarks read in part, “…in any event, this is not a perfect bill. There are some things in there that pain me…[but] you see, by doing nothing we perpetuate a status quo which we all, every single one of us, agree is reprehensible and repugnant”

(The Congressional Record 1986, 33209). While it is expected that a bill’s primary sponsor would use such nuanced rhetoric to move the bill forward by appealing to the other side, other senators with similar nuances also are likewise awarded the letter “N.”

“Orientation” signifies the strength of support an individual member has for the underlying bill, and uses the scale shown in Table 2-2. While this measure is not analyzed statistically within the reach of this dissertation, it does provide useful insight into the strength of legislators’ preferences beyond a simplistic, binary “yes” or no.”

In instances where a member cast a “yea” or “nay” vote but did not give extensive remarks on the final version of the bill (and was not reported by The New

York Times or as having a specific orientation), the “orientation” variable is left blank. For instances whereby a member did not cast a “yea” or “nay” vote, but were reported by another member to have held a position, that member is categorized as “favors” or “opposes;” this outcome occurs more frequently for earlier laws than for later ones.

One example of this metric’s application is the coding of Sen. Dennis DeConcini

(D-AZ), who vigorously opposed IRCA but did not cast a vote on the conference report.

DeConcini remarked, “I believe that we do have a problem in this country with our

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inability to control illegal immigration, but I am convinced that it is not as big a problem as many would have us believe…in southern , we have created a culture that has integrated two cultures and two peoples” (The Congressional Record 1986, 33208).

Overall, the full text of DeConcini’s remarks indicates a strong disinclination to support the bill, and his abstention on the floor vote alone does not capture this. Even with his acknowledgement that the bill aimed to solve what was recognized as a legitimate problem, his vehement opposition to the bill points to a coding of “strongly opposes.”

This categorization method is handled somewhat differently for the act of 1996, no stand-alone roll call vote is available; for that law, the roll call vote corresponds to the member’s “yea” or “nay” vote on the underlying omnibus bill which contained the act of

1996, whereas the “orientation” variable specifically pertains to a member’s support specifically for the immigration provisions. Hence, whereas for all other cases, positive values for roll call vote universally correspond to positive orientation values of varying strength, members may have opposed the 1996 immigration act but supported the omnibus appropriations bill, or vice versa.

Conclusion to Chapter Two

This project identifies the level of party polarization (directly related to inter-party conflict, and inversely intra-party conflict) as being a decisive factor as to, first, whether parties cooperate to produce comprehensive reform, and second, in the absence of broad cooperation across most issues, what types of reform, if any, are able to gain passage. It is maintained here that comprehensive and more inclusive reform is possible in periods of low-to-medium polarization, and that eras of high polarization either produce deadlock or purely restrictive and exclusionary immigration measures. In the case of high polarization, which of these outcomes is realized depends on

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contextual factors such as national elections, presidential aspirations of prominent political actors, personal relationships between legislators and the executive, and wartime self/other portrayals of minority groups (as investigated through Hypothesis 3), and so forth. It also shows that generally high polarization in a given era is not always reflected in specific votes on immigration, nor is a general tendency toward more nuanced rhetoric necessarily present among legislators in depolarized eras.

That the question of immigration is economic (but not purely so) calls for at least a consideration the first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores. For most eras, at the individual member level, there are at least some number with high positive ideological scores, at least some with high negative scores, and at least some (however few) that gravitate toward zero, or the center. But rather than focusing on the ideological rigidity of individual members, this dissertation speaks primarily to the degree of institutional polarization. Across all cases in this dissertation, low levels of institutional polarization assist political elites in assembling the type of legislative coalition necessary to enact reform, especially when there are enough members “on the fence” to be persuaded. In contrast, in more polarized eras, by harnessing populist angst, immigration opponents are able to create a bulwark of votes that either controls the immigration agenda outright, or remains cohesive enough to block further liberalization attempts. Through this dynamic, the pattern outlined by Hypothesis 1- that liberalizing laws do not pass during eras of high partisan polarization, is sustained throughout this dissertation.

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Figure 2-1. Landmark immigration laws passed during eras of high, low, or medium polarization

Figure 2-2. Flowchart synopsis of 1965 legislative sequence

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Figure 2-3. Flowchart of 2005 legislative sequence

Table 2-1. Legend for letter codes corresponding to members' floor remarks and/or newspaper quotes

Letter Remark Indicator A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory B Existing (or newly proposed) immigration restrictions would damage U.S. standing in the world C The U.S. needs skilled workers D The U.S. needs unskilled workers E U.S. workers will not be displaced by immigration F Immigration laws must be humanitarian, not draconian G Immigrant family reunification must be prioritized H “Immigrants are God’s children too” I Immigrants have proven their worth in U.S. communities J The U.S. is “a nation of immigrants” K The U.S. must assist oppressed peoples around the world L Immigration levels are sustainable and do not constitute a “flood” M The U.S. will be greater and more prosperous with this reform N “Let’s just get on with the bill” O Proposed liberalization is an assault on U.S. laws P Immigration proponents pander to minority special interests Q The U.S. has (or will have) too many immigrants R Immigration will displace U.S. workers S Immigration will cause overpopulation in the U.S. T Immigration will diminish U.S. natural resources U Assimilation is not possible for certain groups V U.S. immigration policy should not be tailored to demands of foreign governments W The U.S. already has the most liberal immigration policies in the world X Immigration will exacerbate crime Y “My constituents want this bill” Z “My constituents do not want this bill”

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Table 2-2. Coding schedule for "orientation" variable

Value Orientation

-2.0 Strongly Opposes

-1.0 Opposes

0 Neutral

1.0 Favors

2.0 Strongly Favors

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CHAPTER 3 THE POST-RECONSTRUCTION ERA

Introduction

From the Garden of Eden to 1984, no age or society seems wholly free from unfavorable opinions on outsiders.

-John Higham Strangers in the Land

In the early nineteenth century, there arose a demand for cheaper labor from business interests, especially in light of challenges in food production and in infrastructure construction as westward expansion ensued. A potential solution was to import cheaper labor from abroad, namely Chinese, and with railroad companies eager to cut costs, the importation of new able-bodied workers to the as of yet sparsely populated Western states became a plausible solution. This led the United States to appoint Rep. (R-MA), who had previously been appointed as ambassador to China by Abraham Lincoln, to negotiate a with China in 1868 that would grant China “Most Favored Nation” status and encourage immigration and closer cooperation between the two nations (The Congressional Record 1882). But the relationship would go sour once nativist sentiment took over, and leaving the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Though the act was renewed twice, once in 1892 and again in 1902, the initial act is of the utmost relevance since it is the first law of its type to target a specific ethnic group, and due to its overall historical significance. For those reasons, the Chinese Exclusion Act is the focal point of the analysis in this chapter.

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History and Background

Coinciding the first wave of Chinese immigration arrived in California in 1852,

(Hutchinson 1981) immigration bills were being considered by Congress, albeit ones that did not address the Chinese question specifically. The first motion to address immigration during the 33rd Congress was in 1854 by Sen. Hamilton Fish (Whig-NY), whose main priority was addressing the humanitarian issues involved in transporting migrants via steamship (Congressional Globe 1854, 1). Fish, who would in the future play a major role in constructing boundaries against anti-immigrant lawmaking both as

Senator and later as Secretary of State under Grant, called for the formation of a select committee “to consider the causes and the extent of the sickness and mortality prevailing on board of emigrant ships on the voyage to this country.” The committee reported that sicknesses, namely typhus, ship fever, cholera, and smallpox were the most prevalent among the passengers on steamships, and recommended legislation for better passenger protections to guard against conditions that were posing a threat to the health of the passengers. (Congressional Globe 1854, 1082) After some maneuvering through the Senate Commerce Committee, Fish, who had the support of President

Pierce (Hutchinson 1981), saw his efforts culminated in the act of March 3, 1855, which set minimum requirements for passenger space, ventilation, hospital equipment and food supplies on ships.

The focus on humanitarian concerns on immigration legislation1 would continue, but only for about another decade. 2 While 1856 marked the first resolutions offered in

1 Hutchinson (1981) writes, “In justice it should be recognized that even after the brief period of encouragement, congressional concern with immigration was not exclusively regulatory and restrictive. Much congressional thought and legislative effort went into attempts to ensure the welfare of the migrants at sea and to protect them from abuses after arrival.”1 Although, like Hutchinson, I do not doubt the good

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the House and Senate concerning the trade; the resolutions called for an inquiry into the practice, though they were not yet framed as to indicate a desire to exclude anyone on account of their race. Accordingly, when a bill prohibiting the coolie trade- the Senate struck out the phrase “against their [] will and without their consent,”

(Congressional Globe 1862, 555) to allow for a broader and unambiguous of the coolie trade in general- reached the President’s desk, Lincoln, who was President at the time, gave the bill his signature on February 19, 1962. At this point in time, the emphasis continued to be on the humanitarian cause of preventing servile labor, even though anti-Chinese sentiment in California was beginning to simmer.

Lincoln left no ambiguity with regard to his position on whether immigration was to be encouraged. In his December 8, 1863 address, Lincoln remarked, “I again submit to your consideration the expediency of establishing a system for the encouragement of immigration…there is still a great deficiency of laborers in every field of industry…tens of thousands of persons, destitute of remunerative occupation, are thronging our foreign consulates, and offering to emigrate to the United States, if essential, but very cheap, assistance could be afforded them” (Congressional Globe 1863, A1-2). During the ensuing session, Lincoln shepherded a bill through what was left of a functioning

Congress that encouraged immigration and established a Commissioner of Immigration, who was to be appointed by the president and who would answer to the Secretary of

State.

intentions and the sincerity of some legislators in caring for the safety of migrants en route to American shores, he contradicts himself in saying such acts that address this problem were not regulatory. By definition, they were. Furthermore, if such regulations have any net effect on the number of arriving immigrants, it would not result in an increase.

2 Hutchinson (1981) goes into a more detailed summary; see pp.42-51.

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As the initial wave of Chinese immigration ensued, hostile discourses emerged with respect to the Chinese laborers: stories of everything from the laborers’ antipathy towards Christianity to their devious plans to undermine American democratic institutions, to alleged sexual transgressions against white women. Individual incidents were portrayed as rampant and widespread, and the incidents themselves became ascribed to the race of their perpetrators. Hostile sentiment accumulated, and within twenty years, a racialized populist discourse would overwhelm the bilateral legal regime with China set forth by the administration. The strength and prevalence of this discourse had enabled foes of Chinese immigration to decimate whatever longevity the iterations of the Burlingame Treaty may have had.

Amidst a continuation of the condemnation of the coolie trade and a desire among most in Congress to afford protections for the migrants involved, the first formalized anti-Chinese motion in Congress was brought by Rep. James Johnson (D-

CA) on December 12, 1867. This came in the form of a resolution, which read, “That the Judiciary Committee of the House be hereby directed to inquire whether the

Congress can by legislation prevent the immigration and importation of Chinese and

Mongolians into our country, and to report by bill or otherwise” (Congressional Globe

1857, 4362). From this point onward, while the consideration of bills concerned with giving protections to immigrants would otherwise continue to be the norm through the

1870s, a chorus of anti-Chinese sentiment would grow in Congress, with the focus steadily moving toward exclusion, and efforts to accept them, such as the effort by

Sens. (R-MA) and (R-IL) to extend the naturalization laws to all persons without regard to color, would fail.

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The harbinger of future legislation aimed at curbing the influx of Chinese laborers came by way of the act of 1875, sponsored by Rep. Horace Page (R-CA). On its face, the law might be interpreted as a protection for laborers, as Section 2 reads, “That is any citizen of the United States, or other person amenable to the laws of the United

States, shall take, or cause to be taken or transported, to or from the United States any subject of China, Japan, or any Oriental country, without their free and voluntary consent…shall be liable to be indicted…” (18 Stat. 477, 8 U.S.C.) The third section of the law was similarly narrow, barring the importation of prostitutes from these countries.

Though the law did not include an outright ban on Chinese laborers, and therefore did not violate an existing treaty, it was passed amidst a vociferous call for action by the

Chinese Exclusion League, which had just begun to mobilize on the west coast in the immediate years prior. (LeMay and Barkan 1999) Cahn, Schockman and Shafie (2001,

15) illustrate the emerging anti-Chinese discourse among certain elements of the working class:

Xenophobia has been a common political feature in California since 1877. In September 1877, Denis Kearney formed the Workingmen’s Party in , which was not only the first official opposition to the railroads but also one of the first organized xenophobic movements. The Kearneyites turned to the streets for mob action, denouncing not only the Big Four [the four individuals who planned the construction of the transcontinental railroad] cartel, but invoking the more potent rallying cry that ‘the Chinese must go.’

In the modern day, Donald Trump is seen by some as a political entrepreneur stoking the angst among organized labor and Republican voter base with respect to unease concerning uncontrolled illegal immigration, and has been criticized for speaking in generalities about minorities and treating groups with unfairness. Though the Trump and Kearney constituencies to some degree fit a similar profile (often white laborers with

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low-to-middle income) Kearney went much further in his rhetoric. On Dec 28, 1877,

Kearney said, “We intend to try and vote the Chinamen out, to frighten him out, and if this won’t do, to kill him out, and when the blow comes, we won’t leave a fragment for the thieves to pick up.” (LeMay and Barkan 1999). Such remarks are, by any measure, egregious, inhumane, and on a level not seen among elites today. Equally pertinent is

Kearney’s appraisal of the two parties; at the same event, he continued, “If the

Republican robber and the Democratic thief cheat you at the election, as I know they will, shoot them down like rats.” This would ultimately mirror much of the same sentiment in the Progressive Era and with the modern day; it exemplifies serious discontent with both major parties in that both, even with the vast ideological distance between them, were not being sufficiently responsive to the labor constituency.

Congressional action toward Chinese exclusion underwent a renewed push in early 1879. There were, however, some notable obstacles in the way of these efforts becoming law. On March 1 of that year, President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed the first bill specifically aimed at curbing Chinese immigration. The bill, while not barring

Chinese laborers from entry, would have set a low limit on the number of Chinese on a given vessel. In the veto message, Hayes held that first, the law would undermine the

Burlingame Treaty as negotiated with the Qing dynasty; second, the immigration situation was not serious enough to warrant unilateral abrogation of the treaty, and third, if the treaty were to be abrogated, such would be done by the president’s office itself; one occurrence to the contrary would constitute an infringement on the authority of the president to negotiate any treaty. (Hutchinson 1981, 72)

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Likely knowing that he would find few in Congress sympathetic to the best interests of incoming laborers, Hayes instead chose to frame his veto in the context of what was in the national interest. For now, not only must they have considered the potential displacement of native-born laborers on the West coast, but the government also had to be mindful of the American missionaries and merchants in China who might have potentially faced reprisal were the Congress to enact a Chinese exclusion bill. It simply was not in the national interest, Hayes believed, for the nation to commit a slight against another nation which promised as many economic opportunities as did China.

Hayes’s veto did not subdue the demands of Kearney and his acolytes; by the

47th Congress (1881-83), the fervor over Chinese immigration had reached an unmanageable state. The pressure on Congress to pass bills to regulate and restrict immigration became so pronounced that the first session lasted a full eight months so that all of the bills could be debated, as opposed to the usual three months. (Hutchinson

1981, 77) Not only were labor unions beginning to express grievances, but most other major political actors in the Western states also began to advocate halting Chinese immigration in spite of the treaty. Though the administration sent Burlingame back to

China to renegotiate the treaty so that it would now read the United States could

“regulate and suspend, but not prohibit” immigration from China, in 1882 even the renegotiated document would be nullified by the Chinese Exclusion Act, which sought to block further immigration from China for twenty years. (Hutchinson 1981, 77)

The Chinese Exclusion Act, was explicitly aimed at all ethnic Chinese, irrespective of their actual country of origin. The influx of “coolies” (Chinese mine workers) had depressed wages, prompting complaints from unions, but even more

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significantly, it had generated a virtually unprecedented amount of alarmism from the white Protestant population, who leveled seemingly every imaginable charge at the

Chinese immigrants, suggesting that they were not capable of supporting a democratic government or capable of believing in God, or capable of integrating into American society in any fashion. To address these grievances, the act in its original form made all

Chinese ineligible to be naturalized, sought to prohibit any future Chinese immigration for twenty years, and required all Chinese already in the states to obtain and carry an alien registration card containing their personal information. It would be vetoed by

President Chester Arthur, but Arthur would later sign a modified ten-year version. 3

While the renegotiation would have supposedly cleared the way for a Chinese exclusion bill, the next attempt at enacting the law, which would have put into place a twenty-year suspension on Chinese laborers was blocked by Arthur. In his , 1882 veto message, Arthur explained that while the treaty as renegotiated did in fact permit a suspension, neither the U.S. executive nor the Chinese government, even upon revisiting the treaty, ever could have envisioned a suspension period for as long as twenty years. Much like his predecessor, Arthur again cited executive authority to abrogate a treaty, and maintained the situation still did not call for such a move.

Furthermore, differentiating himself ideologically from the populists, President Arthur

3 Andrew Gyory (1997) provides the most exhaustive account available as to what had been going on in the years leading up to the passage of the 1882 Act. Grory’s account is highly emotive; he pulls no punches in his rhetoric, and few in this day and age would blame him. There are, however, occasional signs of overreach within his work, and a melodramatic tone rarely seen in academic work can be found throughout his entire book. He deemphasizes the role of labor in pushing for Chinese Exclusion, saying it was “nonexistent” (p.1) and thus attributes the law’s passage to the general sense of racism and pressure from California elites. He goes on to describe the CEA as “changing forever the nation’s image as a beacon of hope, a refuge for the poor and the oppressed the world over” (p.1) and says that the act “still casts a long, dark shadow over America’s immigration policy” (p.2) when in fact the beacon had already been tarnished by racism (and fought perhaps its bloodiest war to date because of it), and he does not even allude to the millions of refugees- many from Asian countries- that had joined the American community since he penned his work. That being said, the analysis and level of detail he provides are first-rate, and my book would not have been possible in its current state without them.

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also voiced objections to the section four of the bill, the provision requiring registration on the Chinese immigrants as it was written in the bill, saying:

The classes of Chinese who still enjoy the protection of the Burlingame Treaty are entitled to the privileges, immunities, and exemptions accorded to citizens and subjects of the most favored nation…I think it may be doubted whether provisions requiring personal registration and the taking out of passports which are not imposed upon natives can be required of Chinese…A nation like the United States, jealous of the liberties of its citizens, may well hesitate before it incorporates into its polity a system which is fast disappearing in Europe before the progress of liberal institutions. (The Congressional Record 1882, 2552)

Arthur’s veto message made reference to section four, which read:

[the collector of customs shall make] a list of all such Chinese laborers, which shall be entered in registry-books to be kept for that purpose, in which shall be stated the name, age, occupation, last place of residence, physical marks or peculiarities, and all facts necessary for the identification of each of such Chinese laborers, which books shall be safely kept in the custom-house; and every such Chinese laborer so departing from the United States shall be entitled to, and shall receive, free of any charge or cost upon application therefor, from the collector or his deputy, at the time such list is taken, a certificate, signed by the collector or his deputy and attested by his seal of office, in such form as the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe, which certificate shall contain a statement of the name, age, occupation, last place of residence, personal description, and fact of identification of the Chinese laborer to whom the certificate is issued, corresponding with the said list and registry in all particulars.

Arthur also warned that the national interests would not be served if the Chinese were to be alienated, as it would merely cause China to forge friendly trade relations with other countries in lieu of the United States. After the bill was returned to the

Senate, supporters of the legislation tried to override the veto but failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to do so. Hence, the bill died and had to be overhauled if it were to be resurrected. Before the law was enacted shortly thereafter, some

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adjustments were made to get more GOP support for the bill, most notably, the twenty- year suspension of Chinese immigration was cut down to ten years.

The confrontation between the president and Congress on this issue is important.

First, it shows that both the Congress and the Presidency viewed their interpretation of the Burlingame Treaty as the correct one, suggesting a war of authority between the two entities. Second, it shows the emergence of increased partisanship, as the

Democratic congressional majority had achieved solid support for the measure whereas the Republicans were at best divided on it, yet the Hayes and Arthur vetoes (in conjunction with the objections of northeastern Republicans) had limited success in watering down the final measure. But most importantly, it shows us a contrast between what the balance of power was between the president and Congress at the time, and how it came to be for much of the twentieth century.

With the president having such weak leverage, some senior Republicans in the

Senate opposed to the exclusion bill resorted to their own tactics. In this instance, the

“institutionalization” of Congress Polsby (1970) discusses was in its infancy, but manifest, underscored by the way that Sen. (R-OH), who vehemently opposed the bill, sought to kill the bill after it had passed the House by referring it back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for reconsideration. This attempt initiated a tense exchange between Sherman and Sen. Thomas Bayard (D-DE). Sherman, urging caution and prudence, said, “…this bill, I am bound to say, is the result of passion and feeling. I do not say that passion and feeling do not spring from a just and true foundation. I have no doubt the people of California and the Pacific coast have suffered from the evils that have grown out of Chinese immigration, but they are sensible

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American citizens, and they ought to feel that in passing laws for them we ought to pass such laws as will not disgrace our statute-books…” (The Congressional Record 1882,

2610). Bayard, in critique of Sherman, remarked, “But you speak of twenty years.

What is twenty years in the life of a nation? What is twenty years for discovering the true results and effects of a policy? It has taken you nearly twenty years to find out that the Burlingame Treaty was a curse instead of a blessing” (2615).

Sherman’s particular effort failed by a vote of 19-32, but today, an efficient way to stop undesired legislation is to send it back to committee for adjustment- especially if the bill has already passed the other chamber, which means that even if the bill does pass the Senate, the House will have to pass the identical version or yet another conference committee would have to be called. These tactics would become increasingly relied upon in the future with the rise of committee government in the textbook era, but served as no match for the urgency in Congress with respect to the

Chinese question.

Instead, bleak projections were more prevalent and more dominant. The sentiment was more or less embodied by the earlier words of Rep. John C. Sherwin (R-

IL), who remarked, “The Chinese could never unite with us. This has been demonstrated wherever they have touched the Caucasian race; and when that is shown

I think the question is really settled” (The Congressional Record 1882, 2207-8). Such rhetoric is consistent with what Richard Hofstadter (1964) describes as being the

“paranoid style of American politics,” which at the time faced no established opposition from immigrant advocacy groups, leaving its dominance unchallenged. Hence, in spite of the Burlingame Treaty’s foreign policy significance, the politics of paranoia caused

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the masses and most in Congress to view the treaty as a burden, and not as a window of opportunity.

The relative weakness of the executive branch then probably meant that an unsympathetic president had neither the clout nor the regulatory leverage to stop all iterations of this bill. Granted, Arthur’s veto proved pivotal in influencing the legislative outcome; imposing a ten-year sunset was a significant feat in itself; the Senate, on the question of overriding Arthur’s veto, voted 29-21 to override, falling five votes short of the votes needed among the fifty senators present. However, that the ten-year act, otherwise completely intact, was passed so shortly after a presidential veto is testament to the power of Congress to control the agenda. This contrasts heavily with the assertiveness of the modern executive and the regulatory state introduced in large part by FDR. Through this power structure, vetoes themselves have become rare, leaving even fewer opportunities for overrides, namely due to the inevitable role the president now plays in the legislative process, using both his own stature and his surrogates in

Congress.

In hopes of a future president sympathetic enough to tighten immigration standards, leaders in Congress did take a minor step toward empowering the executive with the act of March 3, 1891, seen by LeMay and Barkan (1999) as “the crucial one whereby the federal government established its decisive role in immigration affairs,” not least because the law created a superintendent of immigration and gave that office some enforcement mechanisms. Like the Chinese Exclusion Act, the law had no liberalizing aspects, but was intended move toward restriction of immigration in general.

Section I of the act reads, “…All idiots, insane persons, paupers or persons likely to

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become public charges, persons suffering from a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, persons who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime…” among other so-called undesirables. (130 U.S. 581-611, 1889). and future presidents all used this power to varying degrees, but never to the extent demanded by the most vocal of restrictionists.

As indicated by this effort, Chinese migrant workers were far from the only target of nativist resentment. According to Higham (1955, 6), “Catholic traditions continued to look dangerously un-American partly because they did not harmonize easily with the concept of individual freedom embedded in the national culture.” Higham (78) designates the People’s Party, or Populists’, base as the strongest source of anti-

Catholic rhetoric. While the Populists never posed a serious threat to the caucus numbers of the major parties in Congress, the Populists drew their voter base from both parties- mainly from southern Democrats, but also among West coast Republicans.

Since potential voters were at stake for both major parties, who then in turn became fiercely competitive in attempting to reabsorb these constituencies. Since both major parties happened to be competing for the same pivotal group of voters, both parties naturally converged towards that group’s preferred position on immigration. As an

Andover Review article stated, “In the general uncertainty about domestic questions…and the hopeless groping about for something definite to stand on, the members of Congress have rushed pell-mell through any door of escape into a foreign field. The result has been that both parties have outdone each other in an attempt to take the most extreme positions and use the most violent language…” (76-7)

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Restrictionists had another agent in the American Protective Association (APA).

The APA, with anti-Catholicism being one of its leading stated objectives, gained the strongest footholds in the cities, with modest spillover into the urban areas. (79-81)

Perhaps not coincidentally, the cities were where most Catholics resided; as with the

Chinese immigrants, pre-established communities in close proximity to the “other” became more subject to alarmism. The APA were somewhat limited in their appeal as

Higham writes, “Southerners were generally apathetic toward anti-Catholicism and viewed the APA as a Republican tool.” This suggests, since was the GOP so uncompetitive in the South at that time, that guilt by association was assigned to the

APA for ties to Northern and Midwestern Republicans, demonstrating the deep distrust the South had for the Republican Party, while at the same time curtailing the APA’s appeal. Summarily, Southern Democrats may have been ambivalent on the message, but they knew they did not relate to the messenger.

With a policy trajectory on the Chinese question put in place, but with continued economic turmoil, the late 1880s and early 1890s saw the immigration debate centered around whether to impose a requirement that each person over the age of fourteen be able to read and write at least their own native language. While the proposed literacy test was on its surface much less broad and racialized than the Chinese Exclusion Act, its design to keep poorer and unskilled immigrant workers out was clear, and support for it was vocal from nativist groups. Higham (1955) credits the Republican Party in general, and Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) in particular, for advancing the cause of this act on Capitol Hill, but the differences in approach between Congress and the executive were again laid bare; with McKinley’s narrow victory over William Jennings

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Bryan (with strong immigrant support for McKinley making the difference), non- restrictionists were for a time able to retake control of the political narrative. Lodge got the literacy test passed in the Senate, but he could not override the veto of outgoing

President Cleveland. Cleveland explained in his veto message:

“I can not believe that we would be protected against those evils by limiting immigration to those who can read and write in any language twenty-five words of our Constitution. In my opinion, it is infinitely more safe to admit a hundred thousand immigrants who, though unable to read and write, seek among us only a home and opportunity to work than to admit one of those unruly agitators and enemies of governmental control who can not only read and write, but delight in arousing by inflammatory speech the illiterate and peacefully inclined to discontent and tumult.” 4

While on one hand, since President-elect McKinley was widely thought to be more sympathetic than Cleveland to the idea of a literacy test, it made intuitive sense for

Lodge not to press with more urgency and simply wait till the next session to try again.

On the other hand, whatever urgency Lodge lacked to forward the law, the public, along with the rest of Congress, lacked it much more. By the next session, all the momentum behind the measure had vanished, due in part to a now galvanized opposition from

German immigrants and major newspapers, a new farm labor brought out by the economic resurgence, and the disintegration of nativist groups like the anti-Catholic

APA. While the improved economy at least indirectly had much to do with what appeared to be a collective sigh of indifference toward resumed southern European immigration, a discourse of “jingoism” had completely overtaken the one of nativism; this was evident in the end of the APA even though the United States happened to be at war with a predominantly Catholic Spain. With this instance and with many others, we

4 From Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Vol. 13 (New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., 1897) 6189-93 vie LeMay and Barkan (1999)

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can see that a national discursive tone, though at times discordant and difficult to define, can prove much more deterministic than hard economic numbers as to which pieces of legislation gain traction and which ones do not. After Lodge’s failed attempt, it would be fully sixteen years before any literacy test became federal law.

Such a long hiatus can be attributed to changes in the national discourse.

Whereas previously in the 1880s, labor distinguished between voluntary and induced immigration, but now in the 1890s, this distinction was fading away in the public consciousness. (Higham 1955, 70) This shift came despite large portions of union membership themselves being foreign-born. The labor movement in the 1890s was therefore swept into the nativist tide, and was not actively working to advance the cause relative to other actors. The nativism of the 1890s, while it did not fully disintegrate, was overshadowed specifically by jingoism, a type of extreme patriotism seeking strategic dominance for the United States on the world stage. On one hand, jingoism and nativism worked to feed each other, as the stranger from abroad would now be viewed as posing a threat within the context of world politics, and not just in the context of competition for a declining availability of work. On the other hand, jingoism became the more dominant discourse of the two. As Higham (1955) notes, “Continuous involvement in larger movements of has meant that nativism usually rises and falls in some relation to other intense kinds of national feeling.” (70)

Meanwhile, the newly dominant discourse of nationalism, combined with factionalism at the APA, downgraded the group’s influence by 1894. According to

Higham (1955), the economic downturn of the mid 1890s set forth a struggle to get by for both the industrial North and the adjacent farming regions (68) and these economic

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anxieties brought with them a fear of the stranger. The idea of broad, economic prosperity “seemed lost” to monopoly, and with the gold reserve at Treasury, the federal government was ill-equipped to provide for the relief of struggling urban workers and farmers. Large swaths of businesses collapsed and thousands were laid off, bringing a few major trade organizations around to the idea of modest immigration restriction measures. (70) Others were unmoved, such were many southern members seeking to address their farm labor shortage, and called for continued free immigration. But as the recession persisted, more and more municipal Chambers of Commerce fell into line behind a literacy test for new immigrants, themselves now convinced that rendered new arrivals more of a burden than a benefit. Still, in large part due to successive business-friendly administrations, no new policy changes would be made before the end of the century.

Analysis of Senate Roll Call Vote on Chinese Exclusion Act

In examining the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, it is important to take into account the divisions that characterized Congress at the time, both by party and by region. We start with analysis of the vote in the Senate in 1882.

Figure 3-1 shows which states elected their U.S. Senators from which parties; and as has been the case with most of the history of Congress, we can see a clear trend of regionalism; Republicans had their strongholds in the Northeast and Midwest, while Democrats were strong in the South. The newly admitted West coast states were split, underscoring the competitiveness between the two parties in that region. In terms of the actual roll call vote, it is much harder to discern a regional trend as clear as the one we find with party; many states with at least one non-vote on the matter are

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scattered about the map. Nevertheless, upon closer inspection, region does matter.

Figure 3-2 shows the votes by state.

The above maps show that while there may have been a tenuous relationship between partisanship and support for the bill, region seems to be a much more reliable predictor of how a senator would cast his vote. On one hand, clearly the Deep South, then the bastion of the Democratic Party, was not at the time oriented toward racial egalitarianism. With the exception of (whose Senate Democrats voted “nay” and “absent”), every Democratic state that cast votes on the issue voted in favor of the bill. Yet somewhat ironically, one of the most significant reasons for the mass importation of Chinese labor was to replace the slave labor (Kim 1999) once occupied by the now-freed blacks, undermining claims that rejection of Chinese immigration was purely economics.

Of equal importance is how the GOP was divided on the issue, especially given all of the accusations some Democrats had leveled at previous Republican Congresses for preventing a bill of this type to be debated, and given the massive losses the North had incurred just two decades earlier to restore power to African-Americans. While the three states whose senators both voted against passage (Iowa, Massachusetts, and

Vermont) had two Republican senators, several other Republican strongholds

(, , New York and ) and some split states (namely and

California) each had at least one Republican senator vote in favor of the exclusionary law. So in this case, the mere fact that a senator was a Republican cannot be used as a reliable predictor of how a senator voted on the bill. Again, region appears more relevant; the closer a state was to the Deep South or to the West coast, the more

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pervasive the anti-Chinese discourse was. This is where the “racial threat” hypothesis, originally put forth by V.O. Key (1949), merits consideration. According to the concept, the closer in proximity minority communities (or some evidence of influence by them) are to the established and theretofore insulated racial majority, the more likely it is that the majority will perceive a threat or a crisis from these minorities, and will likely take measures, sometimes hasty and radical, to eliminate the perceived threat. Key’s hypothesis has the potential to explain part of the reason why the areas of the country with the highest concentrations of Asian immigrants also happened to be the areas which led the way in supporting these discriminatory laws; the figures here only tell the story of the votes in Congress; they do not speak to the petitions to Congress from citizen groups, nor all of the state laws (passed either by legislatures or by initiative) or all of the civil unrest that happened in areas with a high population of migrant workers.

The racial threat hypothesis holds here, as does Mayhew’s electoral connection.

Mayhew (1973, 68) argues that a Congressman might engage in issue entrepreneurship should it be the case that standing solely on his older issue positions would not secure him re-election. So, as the Chinese immigration issue was a relatively new one, it is worth considering whether a Congressman’s participation in the passage of (or intense exhibition of opposition to) came from an electorally weak position from that member. In other words, did the Chinese Exclusion Act make a critical difference for any endangered Members of Congress? Did anti-Chinese sentiment do for some in

Congress what the issue of did for Joseph McCarthy in 1950? Moreover, according to Hofstadter (1964, 29), “All political behavior requires strategy, keeping oneself in sync with sentiments of paranoia at home.” Hofstadter continues, “What

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distinguishes the paranoid style is not…the absence of verifiable facts (though it is occasionally true that in his extravagant passion for facts the paranoid occasionally manufactures them), but rather the curious leap in imagination that is always made at some critical point in the recital of events” (37).

The ideological nature of the vote is clearly represented in the boxplot in Figure

3-3. All of the “no” votes on the Chinese Exclusion Act were partisan Republicans save for Republican (and later independent) David Davis, plus former Republican “scalawag”

Democrat Joseph Brown of Georgia. Most of the “yea” votes came from Democrats with reliably partisan voting records, but western pro-exclusion Republicans added to the complexity of the picture, putting themselves distinctly at odds with much of the rest of their party.

The partisan division in the Senate, as Figure 3-4 and Table 3-1 both reveal, was not restricted to this one issue; to the contrary, it was much more pronounced on other issues. There is an extremely well-defined gap between left and right, with just one senator occupying the middle ground, a condition not matched even in more recent highly polarized environments. Moreover, as Table 3-2 shows, first-dimension DW-

NOMINATE scores correlate extremely closely with party, faring better than p<.001 significance. Thus, while the votes of Republican senators in particular on the Chinese

Exclusion Act fell in large part on regional divisions, most other votes in the era reflected parties coalescing around discrete agendas pertinent to the North/South divide.

Next, the vote in the House of Representatives is discussed. Because of the larger number of legislators voting in the House as compared to the Senate, the House votes lend themselves better to regression analysis. The linear regression analysis in

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Tables 3-3 and 3-4 shows how party was very significant in predicting a member’s likelihood of voting for or against the act, even at p<.001.

The crosstabs shown in Table 3-5, display two important patterns. Whereas foes of Chinese immigration were successful across most subgroups by region and by party, they only managed to get large minorities of Republicans and representatives from the

Northeast to vote in favor of the bill (though Northeast support for the bill in the House was much greater than it was in the Senate). At first glance, the difference belies the norm Mayhew discusses, whereby position-taking is more salient for Senators, and

House members rely more on particularized benefits. (Mayhew 1973, 73) And while the

Chinese population was concentrated enough in certain areas of California to constitute a “particularized benefit” in stopping further immigration, such was not the case in the northeast at the time. On the other hand, the Senate is more often aligned with the president than the House is (at least if the Senate leadership and the president share the same party), and since the administration’s major concern was maintaining diplomacy with China, the difference in support between the two chambers is not entirely unexpected.

Conversely, it is likely not possible to pinpoint each member’s position based on their “yea” or “nay” vote on passage. As Mayhew (1973) tells explains, a congressman may vote recommittal and the other on final passage, leaving it unclear just how he stands on a bill. Members who cast identical votes on a measure may have different reasons for doing so. (65) And besides members making decisions based on their political constituencies, some were likely engaged in political calculus for their party.

According to Dailey (in Zelizer 2004) political elites, like the layperson, had grave fears

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about what repercussions Chinese integration would have for society, but the elite’s concerns related more how the political status quo could be altered. Sen. Cornelius

Cole (R-CA) said that the enfranchisement of Chinese immigrants would “kill” his party, giving an example of how demagoguery is sometimes used as a means for self- preservation of not just members themselves, but the party to which they belong.

Another such example was Rep. Norton Townshend (D-OH), who was quick to claim that years down the road, his party should assume all credit for passage of the bill, and by his logic, the security and well-being of Californians:

[The bill] passed the Senate and was placed before the Republican President, who had it in his power by a stroke of his pen to make it the law of the land. What did he do with it! He vetoed it, and our efforts were in vain and the hopes of the people were disappointed…you will find that all who voted against it there was but one Democratic Senator, and of those who voted for it there were but eight Senators on the Republican side…the evidence discloses the fact that this is in reality a Democratic measure. (The Congressional Record 1882, 2212)

In one sense, Townshend’s claims are well-supported by the roll call data;

Democrats were near-unified in favor of this bill. There were rare instances of

Republicans who opposed the bill, at least in their rhetoric, on purist, ideological grounds, claiming to be standing up for egalitarianism. Rep. William Moore (R-TN) had said, “I confess to utter incapacity to see how we on this side of the House can reconcile a vote for this dangerous bill with any principle of Republican consistency.” And Rep.

Charles G. Williams (R-WI) said, “My sentiments in regard to this bill compel me to express the hope that as one President vetoed the other, so may another President veto this” (The Congressional Record 1882, 2212). Yet for other Republicans, partisan and populist calculations proved more pressing. Rep. George Hazelton (R-WI) could be said to have run the full populist-nationalist gamut. “Emigration must be

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homogenous…[there is] no room for servile labor…Immigrants must be citizens…The

American home must not be imperiled…Chinese civilization is not our civilization…the

Chinese coolly does not know our home…liberty and labor are inseparable allies” (The

Congressional Record 1882, 2212).

Beyond partisan and strategic considerations, Table 3-7 shows the themes raised in the Senate on the final, brief debate before the bill was signed into law. Final overtures were made to displaced workers, with backers of the bill promising that the law would alleviate the problem of depressed wages on the West coast. Reaffirmations of national sovereignty were made in the face of opposing arguments that the United

States was not fulfilling in good faith existing treaty obligations with China. Opponents recognized the moral and ethical problems behind singling out one race for exclusion, though were unable to stop the bill from passage.

The large number of “absent” votes are not representative of the modern context, and would be counter-intuitive, given the hysteria emanating from regions beyond the

West coast (anti-Chinese petitions were being made to the Senate from all over the country- not just from organizations on the West coast, but also states like ,

Wisconsin, West , Ohio, and even Massachusetts. The steady flow of petitions from unions and other organizations in all corners of the country suggests that Chinese immigration was a bona fide “nationalized” issue, a phenomenon that serves to galvanize party platforms, strengthen party discipline and benefit party leadership.

(Brady, Cogan and Fiorina 2000) But in this case, while the “absent” votes signal a few strategic abstentions, regularly attending roll call votes was a more challenging task without the transportation infrastructure present today. The announcements of vote

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pairings and necessary absentia in Table 3-8 suggest a more partisan vote than the official tally; all Republicans who did not cast a vote but took a position opposed the

Chinese Exclusion Act, while all Democrats who missed the vote but took a position would have voted to pass the bill. Moreover, some of the bill’s staunchest and unequivocal backers, such as Bayard of , were ultimately not present to cast a vote in favor.

Conclusion to Chapter Three

This dissertation’s main argument (Hypothesis 1), which suggests dim prospects for any liberalization in immigration policy in highly polarized eras, is well-supported; there were demonstrably strong ideological differences between the two parties in this era, and there were no liberalizing aspects to the Chinese Exclusion Act, either in its original or renewing iterations. More minor legislative achievements during this era also contained no liberalizing aspects. To be certain, formulating policy with the specific aim of encouraging an increased level of immigration might have been difficult in this era, as the only major prior legislation was the Naturalization Act of 1790, and efforts to systematize overall immigration did not begin in earnest until the very end of the nineteenth century. Summarily, immigration policy during this period was already as liberal as it would ever be in United States history, and there was no shortage of newcomers.

More importantly, however, as both an economic and cultural issue, the immigration debate in the post-reconstruction era exemplified racial politics, cultural politics, and specifically, “other” politics at nearly its worst, and accordingly, the Chinese

Exclusion Act was a broad and absolutist solution to a localized problem- labor displacement on the West coast. Its formation involved a hysterical discourse that, as

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Hofstadter notes, would reverberate in subsequent generations, and it targeted a medium-sized population that had no pre-existing political rights, impacting the development of the Asian American community for numerous generations. While the law itself may not have been preceded by restrictive bills, in terms of its historical impact, it was the most restrictive immigration bill ever passed by Congress.

Hypothesis 2a supposes that roll call votes on immigration reform will closely match how polarized the parties are across the issue spectrum. But the evidence here shows otherwise; whereas at other times in this era party unity would be strong and roughly equal on each side, the case of the Chinese Exclusion Act involved a unified

Democratic caucus and a fractured Republican conference, with a geographically- defined bloc of Republican opposition. Thus, Hypothesis 2a is not supported, and evidence in this chapter may tentatively suggest its inverse.

Hypothesis 2b, which would predict a lower prevalence of nuance in Congress if the parties are polarized, is not undermined here, though the debate on the final ten- year bill was extremely brief, and few spoke on the floor about it, limiting our ability to generalize. As described, racialized rhetoric was the norm from most Senators who did speak (either on earlier iterations of the bill or on the final version) save some northeastern Republicans, and most Republicans that did oppose passage cited the need to maintain treaty obligations, while most made no moral defense of continued

Chinese immigration. While one senator, (D-FL) expressed deep reservations about the law’s ambiguous definition of illegally “aiding and abetting” the transportation of Chinese migrants could lead to the denial of due process for good

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Samaritans to be tried and convicted, Call, like most of other Democrats, used race- based justifications for voting “aye.”

Hypothesis 3, which speaks to the influence of wartime narratives on the immigration debate, is less applicable to the Chinese Exclusion Act. While the United

States did engage in armed conflicts during this period, chiefly the Spanish-American

War, the discourse surrounding the Chinese Exclusion Act was divorced from that associated with the foreign policy of the time. Moreover, the United States was neither at war with China, nor was China specifically aligned with or against Spain or America’s other state antagonists at the time. Indeed, the discourse against Chinese immigrants was built on a racialized populism that originated from a perceived invasion on the west coast and resonated with southerners with racial anxieties. But it was not born out of congruence with U.S. military objectives; only three decades later did military considerations begin to demonstrate a visible influence on immigration policy.

This was the era, however, when groups such as the APA mobilized against Catholics, and by extension, southern Europeans, and their advocacy would eventually culminate into policy changes by the early 1900s; this topic is further explored in the following chapter.

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Figure 3-1. Map of US Senate membership by party and state, 1882

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Figure 3-2. Map of votes on CEA in the U.S. Senate by state, 1882

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Figure 3-3. Boxplot of Senate roll call vote on passage of Chinese Exclusion Act (Mar 9 version) by first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores

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Figure 3-4. Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 47th Senate (1882)

Table 3-1. Pearson correlation of DW-NOMINATE scores with Senate roll call vote on Chinese Exclusion Act on March 9, 1882

DW- Roll Call Vote NOMINATE on Chinese (first Exclusion Act dimension) (final passage)

DW-NOMINATE Pearson Correlation 1 -.472** (first-dimension)

Sig. (two-tailed) .000

N 79 72

Roll Call Vote on Pearson Correlation -.472** 1 Chinese Exclusion Act (final passage)

Sig. (two-tailed) .000

N 72 76

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Table 3-2. Pearson correlation of Senators' DW-NOMINATE scores with party

Party DW-NOMINATE (first dimension)

Party Pearson Correlation 1 -.966**

Significance (two-tailed) .000

N 85 79

DW-NOMINATE (first dimension) Pearson Correlation .966** 1

Significance (two-tailed) .000

N 79 79

Table 3-3. Linear regression measuring effect of party on roll call vote in the US House

Model Sum of df Mean F Sig. Squares Square

Party Regression 35.180 1 35.180 63.691 .000**

Residual 156.315 283 .552

Total 191.495 284

Table 3-4. Coefficients for linear regression analysis

Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig. Coefficients Coefficients

B Std. Beta Error

1 (Constant) -.717 .063 -11.390 .000

Party .715 .090 .429 7.981 .000

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Table 3-5. Crosstabs of vote on final passage of Chinese Exclusion Act in US House by region

Region Total

South Midwest Northeast Mountain Pacific

Roll Call, Final Yea 69 52 37 2 5 165 Passage

NV 20 17 20 0 0 57

Nay 3 26 34 0 0 63

Total 92 91 2 5 285

Table 3-6. Crosstabs of vote on final passage of Chinese Exclusion Act in US House by party

Party Total

Democratic Independent Republican

Roll Call, Final Yea 99 10 56 165 Passage

NV 34 0 23 57

Nay 4 0 59 63

Total 137 10 138 285

Table 3-7. Most popular themes in Senate during final debate on Chinese Exclusion Act (ten-year version)

Frequency Most Popular Themes Invoked in Debate (1882) Supporters 2 R Immigration will displace U.S. workers 2 V U.S. immigration policy should not be tailored to demands of foreign governments Opponents 2 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory 2 B Existing (or newly proposed) immigration restrictions would damage U.S. standing in the world

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Table 3-8. Senate roll call vote and remarks on Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (ten- year version, final passage)

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks John T. Morgan (D) AL Yea Strongly Favors PRV James L. Pugh (D) AL Yea Augustus H. Garland (D) AR Yea James D. Walker (D) AR Yea James T. Farley (D) CA Yea John F. Miller (R) CA Yea N George M. Chilcott (R) CO Yea Nathaniel Hill (R) CO Yea Orville H. Platt (R) CT Nay Joseph R. Hawley (R) CT Nay Thomas F. Bayard (D) DE NV Strongly Favors Eli M. Saulsbury (D) DE NV Favors Charles W. Jones (D) FL Yea Favors Wilkinson Call (D) FL Yea Favors ELOU Benjamin H. Hill (D) GA NV Joseph E. Brown (D) GA NV William B. Allison (R) IA Nay James W. McDill (R) IA NV Opposes David Davis (I) IL NV John A. Logan (R) IL NV Daniel W. Voorhees (D) IN NV (R) IN Nay John J. Ingalls (R) KS Nay A Preston B. Plumb (R) KS NV James B. Beck (D) KY Yea John S. Williams (D) KY Yea William Pitt Kellogg (R) LA NV Opposes Benjamin F. Jonas (D) LA NV Henry L. Dawes (R) MA Nay George F. Hoar (R) MA Nay Strongly Opposes A James B. Groome (D) MD NV (D) MD NV Favors William P. Frye (R) ME Nay (R) ME Yea Thomas W. Ferry (R) MI NV Opposes

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Table 3-8. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Omar D. Conger (R) MI Nay Samuel J. R. McMillan (R) MN Nay (R) MN NV Opposes Francis M. Cockrell (D) MO NV George G. Vest (D) MO Yea Lucius Q. C. Lamar (D) MS NV Favors James Z. George (D) MS Yea Matt W. Ransom (D) NC NV Favors Zebulon B. Vance (D) NC Yea Alvin Saunders (R) NE Yea Charles H. Van Wyck (R) NE Yea Edward H. Rollins (R) NH NV Henry W. Blair (R) NH Nay John R. McPherson (D) NJ NV Favors William J. Sewell (R) NJ NV Opposes John P. Jones (R) NV Yea James G. Fair (D) NV Yea Elbridge G. Lapham (R) NY Nay Opposes B (R) NY Yea George H. Pendleton (R) OH Yea Favors ARV John Sherman (R) OH Nay Strongly Opposes (D) OR Yea James H. Slater (D) OR Yea J. Donald Cameron (R) PA NV John I. Mitchell (R) PA NV Henry B. Anthony (R) RI NV Opposes Nelson W. Aldrich (R) RI NV Opposes Matthew C. Butler (D) SC Yea Wade Hampton III (D) SC Yea Isham G. Harris (D) TN Yea Howell E. Jackson (D) TN NV Favors Samuel B. Maxey (D) TX Yea (D) TX Yea John W. Johnston (D) VA Yea (RD) VA NV George F. Edmunds (R) VT Nay B Justin S. Morrill (R) VT Nay (R) WI NV

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Table 3-8. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Angus Cameron (R) WI Yea Henry G. Davis (D) WV Yea

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CHAPTER 4 THE PROGRESSIVE ERA AND GREAT DEPRESSION

Introduction

With Denis Kearney’s successful efforts (Grory 1997) in persuading Congress to exclude Chinese laborers, and with the Chinese Exclusion Act’s indefinite renewal in

1902, priority and attention ultimately went to other immigration matters; of particular salience was the desire to devise a systematic and selective approach to admit enough

European immigrants to satisfy business demands, while filtering less desirable groups of individuals. The jingoism of the time gave priority to screening out potential subversives (namely those sympathetic to the Bolshevik revolution in ), while the burgeoning eugenics movement signaled a desire to keep American communities ethnically pure by restricting immigration primarily to applicants from .

While most immigrants were unduly targeted with , Higham (1955, 225) states many of the poorer Russian immigrants were indeed sympathetic to the

Bolshevik revolution in their motherland, and that most American communists did have an immigrant background. Yet in addressing this threat, Congress acted incrementally at first and began to legislate broadly in the face of mounting electoral pressures. This era witnessed the enactment of the Immigration Act of 1917 (which included a literacy test and the exclusion of all peoples from an “Asiatic Barred Zone”), the Emergency

Quota Act of 1921 (which provided temporary 3% quotas on all countries based on the

1920 census), and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1924, which together ensured above all a near-total exclusion of Asians, even as other groups such as southern

Europeans and Russian Jews were targeted with lesser measures.

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These policy changes occurred in Higham (1955) describes as an era of

“Americanization”- a double-edged sword of compassion and coercion, in bringing newcomers to America into the “American” identity. Like other forms of nativism, it aimed to emphasize English usage in immigrants’ daily lives, and to demand a contribution that newcomers to the United States be as patriotic as everyone else, particularly with regard to the war effort. This type of nativism was different from most though in that it sought to incorporate rather than exclude. The passing of hysteria, following the return of confidence in the new age of American military adventurism, according to Higham (1955), enabled a discourse centered around exclusion to fade, and for this new discourse, that which sought to eliminate hyphens before the American label, to set in in its place, to be of particular importance during the wartime years of

1915-1920. In terms of the era, national unity against the outside “other” gave foreigners (at least, though who were successfully assimilating) a reprieve from hostility. Nevertheless, the national discourse pointed decidedly toward a discontinuation of what had been, with important exceptions, an open-door policy.

History and Background

Unprepared for the increasing flow of immigrants into ports, with the act of

February 14, 1903, Congress removed authority over immigration matters from the

Treasury and reassigned it to the Department of Commerce and Labor (32 Stat. 625; 8

U.S.C.). The following month, a major overhaul codifying immigration laws, increasing the head tax and exclusion of so-called “anarchists” was signed into law. (32 Stat. 1213;

8 U.S.C.; 32 Stat. 1222, 8 U.S.C) 1906 saw another substantive overhaul. The Basic

Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906 provided a comprehensive set of regulations under which any new immigrants would be admitted or naturalized. It gave federal courts the

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exclusive ability to naturalize new citizens. Among other things, the law also laid out the time frame within which applicants could apply for naturalization, required most aliens to speak English in order to become naturalized citizens, and established penalties for aliens using forged documentation (34 Stat. 596). Incremental reform continued in

1907. The act of February 20, 1907 further boosted the head tax, added to excluded classes, and created a special commission to study immigration, which would be chaired by Sen. William P Dillingham (R-VT) (34 Stat. 898; U.S.C.). The report of the

Dillingham Commission would finally be released in 1911. Higham (1955, 189) characterizes the Immigration Commission’s report as “moderate” restrictionism; most of its recommendations were technical, but it did endorse some major steps, including a literacy test and a reduction in the supply of unskilled workers, and included a wealth of socioeconomic data contrasting northwestern and southeastern European immigrants that had arrived in America at some point prior.

On one hand, during the 1900s and 1910s the literacy test aimed at poorer

Europeans did fail numerous times before it was passed over Woodrow Wilson’s veto, and legislation concerning European immigration was narrowly aimed at keeping radicals and subversive elements out. But even though different immigrant groups will likely have different paths when assimilating to a new culture, Congress saw a path too troublesome for southern Europeans and no path at all for Asians, and the “100%

Americanization” campaign left no alternative to complete assimilation except removal.

Additionally, as with the 1880s, it was once again the high degree of political polarization- combined with continued discourses of national anxiety and intense competition between the two parties for the electoral votes of states that were nativist

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strongholds that enabled nativists and isolationists in Congress to pass their agenda, even against the will of unsympathetic presidents like Wilson, Harding, and later,

Coolidge.

The emerging party system of the 1910s is in many respects comparable to that of the 1880s. Higham (1955, 176) details a looming ideological split of the Republican

Party, with the public perception of President Taft shifting from a bold leader sympathetic to populist reformers to a maintainer of the status quo. The more the

Progressives succeeded electorally, the stiffer the conservative opposition became.

The Socialists carved out a more significant proportion of the vote at all levels of government in 1912. All of this comprised the perfect recipe for a new “anti-radical nativism” in the 1910s. As president, vetoed another attempt at a literacy test just before leaving office in 1913. For his part, Woodrow Wilson first vetoed a stand-alone literacy test in 1915. In his veto message, Wilson expressed an ideological desire to keep the country’s doors open, and wrote, “If the people of this country have made up their minds as to limit the number of immigrants by arbitrary tests and so reverse the policy of all the generations of Americans that have gone before them, it is their right to do so. I am their servant and have no license to stand in their way. But I do not believe that they have” (The Congressional Record 1915, 2481).

The enactment of the Immigration Act of 1917 occurred against the backdrop of election-year politics. Wilson unreservedly vetoed the law in 1916 (and was later overridden), which established the Asiatic Barred Zone as well as the literacy test, and reinforced provisions of earlier laws aimed at keeping out undesirable elements. Wilson crusaded against “hyphenism” (a split identity among immigrants whereby they saw

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themselves as less than one-hundred percent American), and while Congress overrode

Wilson, they postponed the override vote until after he was safely re-elected. Wilson’s repeated vetoes of these measures reveal an important ideological distinction between

Wilson, who emphasized “one-hundred percent” Americanism and demanded that all immigrants assimilate, versus the nativists, who rejected the premise that all immigrants could assimilate, and consequently rejected along with it all non-restrictionist approaches (Higham 1955, 203).

Populist-leaning state governments and citizenries unsatisfied with the speed at which Congress was operating on immigration turned to the initiative to forward state-level legislative measures. While historical evidence is mixed1 as to whether direct legislation measurably helps or hurts minority interests, it is important to note that the ballot initiative was employed against prospective immigrants, namely Asians. For those Asian immigrants that had already made it stateside, state governments passed a multitude of laws to make it more challenging for these immigrants to establish themselves. The state of California led the way, passing a series of laws to discourage

Chinese (and later, Japanese) from migrating to the state. While many state-level laws would be struck down in court as encroaching on federal authority, these attempts nevertheless presaged the massive overhaul the federal government would be pressured to undertake.

1 Many of us who have kept an eye on the policy changes direct legislation has brought about in various U.S. states have familiarized ourselves with the debate as to whether having direct democracy is a good way to protect minority rights, or if it is I fact detrimental to minority rights. Some authors such as Frey and Goette (1998) decisively posit that minorities are winners most of the time under direct legislation, while others such as Gamble (1997) condemn the process as providing an avenue for more setbacks in civil rights issues to surface. Others who are nearly as pessimistic as, yet nevertheless far more nuanced than Gamble (Bowler, Nicholson, and Segura 2006) fall much more closely into line with the patterns that I pick up in my research.

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Due in large part to the dominance of jingoism over nativism around the turn of the twentieth century, nativist discourse aimed at Asians would abate after the Chinese

Exclusion Act was passed, but before long the demand for cheap farm labor in

California bought over a new population of migrant workers- the Japanese. “The Alien

Land Act of 1913, designed to prevent Japanese competition, and the Commission on

Immigration and Housing, empowered to supervise immigration to the state, also won labor support, probably for less than noble reasons. Labor in San Francisco was a major proponent of Asian exclusion.“ (Deverell and Sitton 1994, 69) The law at its core, though it did not prohibit Asian immigrants from purchasing land, did prohibit them from passing it down to their children, so that when immigrant landholders died, their property was forfeited to the state. Before long, the economically-motivated drive2 to protect labor spread to racist and nativist realms; although the original Alien Land Law was passed in 1913, Allswang (2000) argues that anti-Japanese discourse became so strong that a statewide movement to pass a new, stronger Alien Land Law became a priority, and that it attracted more voters than did any other ballot initiative, up to and including that point. This reflected a state of mass paranoia; Allswang’s account can easily be tied back into Hofstadter, for Allswang writes “As with the national going on in the United States at the time, facts and rational arguments had little weight.”

The final vote tally revealed strong support for the 1920 Alien Land Law among most California voters. Many religious groups had opposed the measure; importantly, it

2 The fact that Japanese crop production was able to surpass that of other white-owned farms also generated a source of resentment. For example, by 1941, even though Japanese only harvested 2.9% of the total cropland in California, about half of the west-coast truck crops originated from Japanese-owned farms (Yale Law Journal 1947)2. This data is confirmed by Allswang2, who says that the fact that Japanese only owned about 2% of the farmland made them decidedly easier to squelch in the public sphere, and any public protests they launched were easily ignored.

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was these same religious groups, namely Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish organizations, that had also opposed the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act (The

Congressional Record 1882), and evidence suggests a gender gap in the vote total, as those who voted in favor of the community property initiative (which received strong support from women) were also much less likely to support the land law- but even with much weaker support from those groups, the measure passed by a margin of 75-25 percent, making it the most heavily supported initiative that year. As with the case with west coast support for the Chinese Exclusion Act, the sponsorship and success of anti- immigration ballot initiatives at the state level demonstrates support for V.O. Key’s

“racial threat” hypothesis; the areas of the country with the highest concentrations of

Asian immigrants also happened to be the areas which led the way in passing these discriminatory laws, whether it was through votes in Congress, through legislation at the state level, or via the ballot initiative.

As significant as ballot initiatives were in serving as an outlet for public anger

(some deeply rooted, some manufactured), they presaged Congress passing landmark legislation in the form of the Immigration Act of 1924. The 1924 law was an attempt to broaden and make permanent what the 1921 had put in place- annual quotas that capped the number of immigrants that could come from each country. However, rather than just extend the 1921 law, the 1924 debate addressed numerous other issues, including the introduction of the visa certificate (which has remained in use ever since), proposals for ending Japanese and Mexican immigration, some basic protections for immigrants on newly-arrived ships, and preferences for farm laborers over other immigrants. As a design to protect the so-called “native stock” of

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the country and to minimize immigration of Russians, Jews, and Southern Europeans, the 1890 census, instead of a more recent census, was used as the basis for the quota for each country; any given national origin was now allowed to add through immigration just two percent of the numbers that were already present within the United States in

1890. Some members proposed a higher or lower percentage through amendments, and some proposed using the 1910 census instead of the 1890 census as the basis, which would have been more favorable to countries with an increased proportion of recent arrivals to the United States. Since both the liberalization and restrictionist camps found the debate over the census to have fundamental implications for the real effect of the law, it proved a contentious question for each side, and was probably reinforced by a blossoming eugenics movement.

As such, the 1924 debate contained additional layers of complexity; it overlooked the larger absolute numbers of immigrants and was more directly concerned with “who,” and not necessarily just “how many,” to admit. Therefore, it is not possible for this era to neatly dichotomize between “anti-immigration” and “pro-immigration” Senators3, especially since much of the debate revolved around which countries to which the U.S. should give preferential treatment. Many members were effusive in their praise of one group, while at the same time openly expressing sharp against other groups.

That the Senate itself in 1924 included a small cohort of immigrants yielded additional potential division lines over the law; (The Congressional Record 1924, 6617) Sen.

Magnus Johnson (D-MN) immigrated from , Sen. James Couzens (R-MI) a former Canadian, and Sen. Frank Gooding (R-ID) was from England. Johnson (MN)

3 There were exceptions to this rule; some senators wanted total immigration suspension, while on the other side, Colt never uttered as much as a word on the floor against any group of immigrants.

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was particularly against the 1890 quota, saying that he did not want to discriminate against any European, and was very much opposed to the bill in its final form. At the same time, none of these senators were particularly passionate defenders of other groups, namely Japanese.

President Calvin Coolidge warned against any legislative alteration of the

Gentleman’s Agreement, which provided that there would be no further Japanese exportation of labor to the United States mainland for an indefinite period of time, but that the United States government would not impose a formal or permanent entry bar on

Japanese nationals. Notably, the agreement got its name for having never been submitted to the Senate for (although this would become more common in later eras), and accordingly, the deal’s legitimacy was questioned by many in the

Senate. The Japanese government, the White House claimed, had kept its promise not to send additional Japanese laborers to American shores, and that according to official figures, there was actually a net decrease in the number of Japanese males in the period from 1908 through 1923. Japanese women migrants continued to arrive, however, stemming primarily from the importation of the “picture brides” for the laborers already in the United States, and that practice had reportedly continued until early 1921.

4

Electoral politics was another factor, as 1924 was an election year for both countries. The incumbent Prime Minister, Kiyoura, led the incumbent government and favored the status quo with respect to relations with the United States, and was

4 As reported on Mar 28, 1924 in the New York Times, p. 10.

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reportedly watching the California presidential primaries5, strategizing to prevent complete exclusion from taking effect. Kiyoura was challenged by the Kato-aligned opposition, which favored a more aggressive and militaristic foreign policy. As detailed in this dissertation, the Japanese exclusion amendment could not be stopped, benefiting the Kato faction, who ultimately won the election.

On the American side, Coolidge faced two major challengers in his bid for a full term: he faced Democratic nominee John Davis, and Progressive (formerly Republican)

Robert La Follette. While Davis might have been to the left of Coolidge on some economic issues, Coolidge’s differences with La Follette on immigration and other

Progressive priorities were even more pronounced. Davis’s hold on most of the

Southern states appeared strong, and La Follette was threatening Coolidge throughout the Midwest and West coast. If Coolidge had carried his bastions in the northeast but faltered west of the , it would have become likely that no majority would be achieved in the Electoral College, which in turn would leave Congress to decide the winner. Furthermore, although his party had nominal control over both chambers of

Congress that year, he aimed to pad his majorities well enough to offset what would be the frequent defections from Republican voters more sympathetic to La Follete.

In such an environment, President Coolidge faced a difficult choice. Unwilling to risk further defections to either of his rivals, he reluctantly signed the bill after having made numerous veto threats. The Progressives in particular embraced the eugenics movement, wanted to keep America “pure,” and without relenting, managed to force the

Republican establishment from the northeast (namely the Senate GOP leadership) into

5 As reported in the New York Times on May 7, 1924, p.3.

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supporting their cause. And although Coolidge would handily defeat both his

Progressive (nominally Republican) and Democratic opponents in the Electoral College, his victory would be at the cost of a major policy concession.

Though unenthusiastic about the quota structure, Coolidge voiced particular distaste for the Japanese exclusion amendment, calling it “unnecessary and deplorable,” and voiced that he would have certainly vetoed it had it been a stand-alone measure.6 In fact, Coolidge had at one time successfully persuaded the conference committee to delay the start of the exclusion measure until March 1, 1925. But

Coolidge’s request was later abandoned in another conference after an uproar from the

California congressional delegation and activist groups.7 Nevertheless, Coolidge defended his assent to the bill, citing the need for a comprehensive approach to reform.

In practical terms, the need was real, since the 1921 stopgap measure, which the 1924 law was designed to replace, was set to expire that year. The visa certificates needed to be systematized, and the 1924 law accomplished this; whereas before the 1924 law

European immigrants would make the trip to with the possibility of being turned away by the agents there, under the new law the primary inspection would take place at the U.S. consular office abroad. There the visa certificate would be issued to the prospective immigrant, and he could then have a reasonable expectation that he would be admitted to the United States before he made the voyage across .

This system was designed to reduce to a minimum the number of immigrants turned away at the port, and had been a priority both for Congress and the administration

6 As reported in a special feature on p. 1 of the New York Times on May 27, 1924.

7 As reported in a special feature of the New York Times on May 8, 1924, p. 1.

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responsible for managing it. Of course, Coolidge also had to tolerate the broader effects of the law, which included cutting the total immigration from Europe in half overall, and allocating the vast majority of visas to countries like Britain, Holland, and

Germany, instead of to countries like and .

By the next presidential cycle in 1928, both the Democratic and Republican party platforms espoused restrictive positions on immigration, albeit with some nuance. The

Democratic platform called for existing immigration restrictions to be “preserved in full force,” with the caveat that legal provisions separating immediate family members were inhumane and should be remedied. The more detailed Republican platform called for continuing to restrict immigration in the name of maintaining fair wages for American workers, but so did it call for Congress to correct “defects” in the law that separated immediate families.8 Likewise, both , the Republican nominee in the

1928 presidential election, and Al Smith, the Democratic nominee, were nuanced in their acceptance speeches, with each man calling for continued restriction but for immigrants and prospective newcomers to be treated humanely.9 While at this point, overall ideological distance between the parties was rapidly diminishing, the Catholic, anti-prohibitionist, Tammany-aligned Smith sharply contrasted in persona with Hoover, a traditional Republican. Ultimately, Smith won a divisive primary on the strength of the urban immigrant vote, but proved unable to reassemble the electoral coalition necessary for victory in the general election (Burner 1968).

8 Found in LeMay and Barkan (1999). Original citation: Congressional Record Press, as quoted in the Foreign Language Information Service, Interpreter Release Clip Sheet, 5, 15, July 5, 1928.

9 Found in LeMay and Barkan (1999). Original citation: Quoted in the Foreign Language Information Service, Interpreter Release Clip Sheet, 5, 16, August 29, 1928.

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By 1932, urban Catholics and most immigrants had become part of Franklin

Delano Roosevelt’s successful New Deal coalition. But while the 1930s saw some minor legislative development on immigration, the enactment of broad reforms during the prior decade combined with the pressing domestic economic situation precluded any major efforts; only laws that narrowly tailored toward specific groups of people seeking to be naturalized were actually passed. A 1931 law enabled people who had lost their U.S. citizenship from being naturalized in another country to be naturalized again in the United States, and also allowed for the naturalization of American-born women who were married to aliens considered ineligible for citizenship. (46 Stat. 1511;

8 U.S.C. 397) In 1934, an act was passed to accommodate the status of children born to U.S. citizens while abroad (48 Stat. 797) and in 1935, Congress permitted alien of World War I, including veterans of Allied armies, to be naturalized (49 Stat.

395). A 1937 law extended citizenship to people born in the Canal Zone as long as at least one of their parents was a U.S. citizen. (50 Stat. 1917) The final law of the decade was symbolic; this law dubbed the third Sunday of May Citizenship Day, and was aimed at fostering patriotism and “to dignify and emphasize the significance of citizenship” (54 Stat. 178).

Summarily, the 1930s saw a series of successive laws aimed at correcting humanitarian defects to existing laws, as Congress’s orientation turned from restriction toward liberalization. FDR did call for an Alien Registration Act in 1940 (which did not pass) and issued Executive Orders 2523 (which placed restrictions on people entering or exiting the U.S. during wartime) and 2525 (the infamous order that placed Japanese

Americans in camps). Aside from these executive measures which were

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done in the name of national security, the restrictionist movement would see no further legislative successes for decades to come.

However, of all products of the era, the 1924 act had the farthest-reaching implications not simply for institutional reforms in the executive branch, but also for the legislative development of immigration policy over the next forty years. Conditions for such a bill’s conception were, after all, ripe. The call for assimilation reflected a degree of urgency to either keep out the “other,” or to quickly redefine the other and make them part of American nationalism. Yet during this period, even as civic and humanitarian organizations worked to incentivize assimilation by fighting for the safety of immigrants in the workplace, their education, and their opportunity for upward mobility, their work did not reach all immigrant groups; coinciding with these efforts were laws passed to exclude broad swaths of the world from immigrating. Importantly, the Woodrow Wilson- backed crusade for Americanization during the first two decades of the twentieth century was that despite a somewhat more subdued national mood against the “other” than in the 1880s, and with a discourse aimed more against “hyphenism” than against immigration writ large, there was little discussion of encouraging those who could immigrate, and plenty of legislation aimed at keeping out who could not.

In sum, the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 was heavily path-dependent, driven by the demands of nativist Democrats and restrictionist Republican Party factions

(who were unsatisfied by previous lesser measures such as the literacy test) who successfully worked to pull their leadership in Congress, and eventually the president himself, towards their positions. While emphasis is devoted to the 1924 act’s most exclusionary aspect (that which was directed at Japanese immigrants), the final product

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also codified the visa system, established a regulatory regime for ports of entry (as opposed to previously attempted piecemeal efforts which sought to regulate ship transport) , refined the makeshift quota system established three years prior, and linked these quotas to the census of 1890 so as to favor continued immigration from Western

Europe as opposed to other regions. In effect, the 1924 act was Congress’s first enacted effort to address immigration comprehensively; once this law was passed, there was no further significant congressional activity on the subject of immigration until the 1940s.10

Senate Activity on Immigration Act of 1924

This dissertation primarily concerns broad, far-reaching immigration laws and the conditions that led to their enactment, and no other laws passed during this era approached the 1924 act in overall significance, as the law put into place an administrative structure that endured for four decades. Accordingly, the 1924 law’s legislative coalition becomes a key point.

From textual analysis of Senate floor speeches, members who spoke can be clustered into distinct groups with respect to their issue positions. Some preferred a complete suspension of immigration. Others preferred no additional restrictions at all.

Others, such as the Republican leadership, recognized the White House’s need for a permanent immigration system, but placed higher priority on their conference’s re- election prospects over policy minutiae.

10 The Filipino Repatriation Act of 1935 sought to clarify the status of Filipino nationals, whose homeland was to gain independence from the United States, but this neither included any effort from the federal government to forcibly remove any Filipino nationals residing on the United States mainland, nor did the law address any

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Thus, leadership expressed flexibility and nuance for most of the debate. For instance, the Senate’s very first Majority Leader, Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA), attempted to differentiate between what made a law “restrictive” and what made it “selective.” He asserted that with the exception of the literacy test11 all previous immigration laws were

“selective” rather than restrictive (The Congressional Record 1924, 5467). At the same time, some of what Lodge espoused suggested a nuanced view; he was one of the few in the Senate who preferred to aim for a policy based on the 1920 census, and said that this would eliminate any lingering doubt as to whether the law would discriminate against one group or another. (The Congressional Record 1924, 5568) Lodge, together with Sen. David Reed (R-PA), often played devil’s advocate in defense of the administration, yet upon passage, Lodge remarked he would have preferred Congress have gone further toward restriction.12

Initially, Senators LeBaron Colt (R-RI), David Walsh (D-MA) and Royal Copeland

(D-NY) were all stalwart opponents of broad, systematic restriction. Colt, having chaired the Senate immigration committee from 1919 until his death, was a reliable (and at times the sole) voice of protest against some of the more restrictive provisions debated on the floor. This made Colt a target for populist colleagues, who attempted to marginalize him, and reserved for him some of their most scathing language on the

Senate floor. Whereas so many other senators would spend their floor time discussing the problems of getting immigrants to assimilate, Colt pushed for a system to relieve congestion for immigrants while they were processed at Ellis Island (The Congressional

11 …versions of which vetoed by Cleveland, Taft, and Wilson; the Wilson veto was overridden.

12 It is important to consider and question the motivations of Lodge’s public position-taking in the context of the public discourse, Lodge’s position as GOP leader, and his prior support of liberal immigration.

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Record 1924, 5412), and Colt was among the few who suggested a three-percent quota to replace the proposed two- or one-percent quotas and absolute suspensions. Fearing the ramifications of , Colt warned on the floor that the way the quotas would be applied to southern and would be sowing the seeds of

“discontent and bitterness” in that region.

Walsh mostly concurred, and said that the 1921 law was a departure from

American tradition amidst the “unusual conditions” of “a great influx of persons seeking to escape the economic disorder in Europe” (The Congressional Record 1924, 6354)

While he sought to keep the 1921 law intact, Walsh objected to the 1890 census basis on the grounds that it was too restrictive. He praised the immigrants who had “taken possession of the abandoned farms of New England,” and remarked “the vilification of whole races does not produce a very pleasant mental state in that part of our population who happens to be foreign born” (The Congressional Record 1924, 6354) Despite his reluctant “no” vote on the committee amendment that would have precluded Japanese exclusion, Walsh may have been second only to Colt in his opposition to nativist sentiment on the floor of the Senate.

Despite his eventual acquiescence on the Japanese question, Walsh was among the few who openly decried the racialized motive of exclusion proponents. He directly addressed a dynamic whereby each time a previously unrepresented race of immigrants came to American shores, there were calls to exclude them; first the “other” was the Dutch, then the Irish, then the Germans and Scandanavians, Walsh explained.

“Thus, all down the years, history records this haughty spirit asserting itself again and again whenever a new race of people dared to seek peace and protection in America,

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but happily this attempted control based on the accident of birth, wealth or privilege has never made any great progress, for such unholy and inhuman prejudices can never prevail in this democracy” (The Congressional Record 1924, 6354-8) Walsh even suggested that it was not the immigrants’ fault that they were slow to assimilate, but it was rather the fault of U.S. society that forced them to accept cheap labor and live together in slums.

In the same spirit, Colt urged Congress to accommodate immigrants of lower economic status, saying “For what reason is it proposed to go back to the census of

1890? The reason is the desire to exclude southern and eastern Europeans. If you are going to do that, do it openly.” In the same speech, he warned against the United

States emulating Germany’s predominant discourses on ethnicity, saying “It is proposed to drift from broad American nationalism to radicalism; it is proposed to adopt, so far as our foreign born are concerned, the policy of Germany. It was the racial feeling of

Germany that Germans were a superior race in the world that led to their downfall” (The

Congressional Record 1924, 6542).

Pro-immigration advocates also had a reliable (if less vocal) ally in Copeland. On the Senate floor, Copeland, referencing a visit to Poland, declared a need for the United

States to be an asylum for those Polish displaced from the conflict with Russia. In line with Colt’s preference, he offered a floor amendment that would have set the quota at three percent instead of two, which failed. (The Congressional Record 1924, 6538)

Concerning quota levels, Copeland debated Sen. Frank Willis (R-OH), who proposed reducing the quota for all countries from two percent of their U.S. population in 1890 to one percent. Copeland voiced his opposition, saying that it would amount to

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nearly a total exclusion of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Willis also suggested restricting immigration from Mexico, which Copeland also objected to unless the quotas were restored from two percent back to three percent. (The Congressional

Record 1924, 5825) Officially, Willis offered an amendment that would have set the quota at 1% based on the 1910 census, but the amendment failed. Overall, while Willis spoke favorably of absolute suspension in principle, he strategically attempted to forge consensus around major across-the-board reductions, for which legislative prospects appeared more tenable. In this respect, his role mirrored that of Copeland, who was not inclined toward restrictionism in general, but proposed moderate restrictions with the goal of achieving consensus.

Their bargaining approach was eschewed by Southern members openly dissatisfied with any remedy other than a complete shutdown. Democratic Senators

Ellison Smith and Nathaniel Dial of , along with William Harris of Georgia, and James Heflin of Alabama, were population alarmists and expressed a desire to temporarily shut down all immigration. (The Congressional Record 1924, 6313) Harris offered a floor amendment to suspend all immigration for five years, and it was voted down with sixteen in favor and forty-six opposed, with thirty-four senators not voting.

For his part, Heflin offered a floor amendment to exclude all immigrants for two years.

This was final amendment considered to the bill, and was rejected without a recorded vote. (The Congressional Record 1924, 6649) Dial was more nuanced; he too preferred a complete halt to immigration, but short of that expressed a tolerance for the 1890 census as the basis for any quotas. (The Congressional Record 1924, 5941)

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The southern members were mostly alone in openly calling for complete suspension, but others were concerned with keeping specific groups out, namely the

Japanese. In keeping with the predominant anti-Asian discourse on the West coast,

California’s two senators, Samuel Shortridge (R) and Hiram Johnson (R), each placed major importance on enacting complete Japanese exclusion. Johnson was absent for most of the floor proceedings, which coincided with his presidential campaign. While

Johnson took his anti-Japan populist message nationally, Shortridge worked to implement it legislatively by advancing a Japanese exclusion amendment. The original proposal in the Senate, as reported out of committee, did not actually contain any provision for Japanese exclusion. Reed (PA)13 remarked on the floor on April 3 that the committee regarded the exclusion sanctions “as an unnecessary affront to a friendly nation, and because we think that the amount of immigration now coming in from Japan is negligible” (The Congressional Record 1924, 5475) But within days, the legislative dynamic shifted with diplomatic developments.

From the debate’s outset, Shortridge and his allies sought exclusion for

Japanese and all other “Orientals,” and he touted the support of the American

Federation of Labor (AFL), the , the National Grange and the Native

Sons of the Golden West (The Congressional Record 1924, 5415) for his position. On

April 7, Shortridge introduced a floor amendment that formally excluded all aliens ineligible to citizenship. In his opening remarks, Shortridge said, “And right here let me say that this particular Empire of Japan, a little swollen up with pride, almost unto

13 There were two men with the surname Reed serving in the Senate, Republican David Reed of Pennsylvania and Democrat James Reed of . For this reason, I will henceforth explicitly identify each senator by their state.

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bursting with vanity, should pause and remember that she has done and is doing exactly what we propose to do. In her wisdom Japan excludes the Chinese from Japan.

Why? She has a perfect right to do so” (The Congressional Record 1924, 5746).

Shortridge also invoked the name of one-time GOP presidential nominee and former Sen. James Blaine (R-ME) when he argued that the influx of Japanese was forcing upon the nation a choice between the civilization of Christ and the civilization of

Confucius. Shortridge paid homage to Blaine for having lifted “what was said to be a local problem into a national problem,” and Shortridge disputed the official 1920 census count, which put the Japanese population in California at 72,000, and claimed that there were a full 100,000 based on “authoritative sources.” Hiram Johnson, who was briefly back in the Senate from his presidential campaign, backed Shortridge, said he wanted to eliminate the Gentleman’s Agreement while in Congress, and suggested it infringed on Congress’s constitutional powers. (The Congressional Record 1924, 5802). The agreement had been considered central to the maintenance of cordial relations with an expanding Japanese empire by Roosevelt and every subsequent administration, but as it was never a formalized treaty and hence not subject to Senate ratification, and as reports persisted of “picture brides” being imported by existing Japanese residence to skirt the agreement, Johnson and many others in Congress became incredulous.

Shortridge, speaking of the agreement, speculated that there may in fact never have been a written version, since the State Department would never release any copies of the agreement. Sen. Claude Swanson (D-VA) agreed, and lambasted the agreement as “indefinite as vapor” (The Congressional Record 1924, 5828). Arguing that Japan was subverting the agreement, Shortridge spoke poetically about the picture

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bride controversy, which had been used by some Japanese laborers to circumvent the

Gentleman’s Agreement:

The young and valiant Japanese laborer, in San Joaquin County, Calif., yearning to perpetuate himself, sought a fair maiden in Japan under the cherry blossoms. He did not go there. Cupid never drew him across the Pacific to woo her in the moonlight. Far from it. He was cultivating asparagus or potatoes in the fertile fields of what we term “The Delta.” But he sent her the photograph of his classic features, and received in return photographs of classic maidens from Japan, and thus, avoiding the distress of the expense of travel, what heaven had put apart man had joined together; for the maidens came in their kimonos across the peaceful Pacific, landed on the wharf at San Francisco, were there met, greeted, and embraced by their future husbands. (The Congressional Record 1924, 5804)

Shortridge denigrated those who tolerated the picture bride practice as being

“feeble-minded Americans with brains no bigger than a canary bird’s” (The

Congressional Record 1924, 5805). To Shortridge, this practice alone was adequate to justify his sponsored exclusion amendment. Even at this point, Reed (PA) declined to support the Shortridge amendment, and even a Southern Democrat, Sen. Joseph T.

Robinson (D-AR) echoed Reed’s sentiment, saying he did not want to attempt to overrule the State Department or to threaten friendly relations with Japan. (The

Congressional Record 1924, 5809) Attempting to mollify members, Reed relayed

Secretary of State Charles Hughes’ assurances that the Japanese government was no longer permitting emigration of Japanese laborers, though this restriction did not apply to the parents, wives and children of those laborers already in the United States.

Instead of yielding to Reed, Shortridge invoked the earlier rhetoric of Theodore

Roosevelt. Roosevelt, being a substantial part of the Progressive movement, was not ideologically inclined to welcome more Japanese to American shores. Roosevelt justified this in part by saying, “…the Japanese themselves would not tolerate the

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intrusion into their country a mass of Americans who would displace Japanese in the business of the land.”14 Roosevelt expressed no tolerance for any immigrants who retained any allegiance to their birth country once they were in America, and his adopted “Bull Moose” party was not by any means known as an immigrant-friendly organization. It is evident though that Roosevelt’s having assumed the presidency strongly tempered his sentiments toward immigrants, even those least popular in the day, the Japanese. Post-presidency, Roosevelt said:

“Unfortunately, during the latter part of my term as President certain unwise and demagogic agitators in California, to show their disapproval of the Japanese coming into the state, adopted the very foolish procedure of trying to provide by law that the Japanese children should not be allowed to attend with the white children15, and offensive and injurious language was used in connection with the proposal…I cannot too strongly express my indignation with, and abhorrence of, reckless public speakers and writers who, with coarse and vulgar insolence, insult the Japanese people and thereby do the greatest wrong not only to Japan but to their own country.”

Deferring to Coolidge, Reed (PA) initially tried to minimalize the rhetoric aimed at the Japanese and other groups within the Senate. But through the Hanihara letter, the

Japanese government on April 5 warned of “grave consequences” were Japanese exclusion to officially become law; this became widely seen throughout Washington as a veiled threat. The Senate Republican leadership’s efforts to forestall Japanese exclusion were upended, and soon ceased.

14 The version of the Roosevelt autobiography I referred to for this project was an electronic copy furnished by Google Books and Amazon. The original edition, of course, was printed not in 2006 but in 1913.

15 The San Francisco proposal to exclude Japanese American children from schools, which Roosevelt labeled “obnoxious,” was defeated after intense pressure from the Roosevelt administration for them to leave the duty of dealing with foreign powers only to the federal government.

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Reed had previously pushed for a committee amendment that, in lieu of exclusion, would have recognized the Gentleman’s Agreement and held Japanese immigration down to a very small annual quota. After the Hanihara letter, support for the alternative amendment evaporated, and not even Reed would any longer support it.

“It was our feeling that [the committee amendment] would be more effective than an exclusion section…it was a choice of methods. To our mind one was a friendly method and the other was at least open to the charge of being an unfriendly method…when I vote against the committee amendment I expect to do so with a sad heart” (The

Congressional Record 1924, 6305) said Reed. Senators George Pepper (R-PA), Frank

Willis (R-OH), and (D-MD) also indicated they would have voted for the committee amendment had it not been for the Hanihara letter. (The

Congressional Record 1924, 6308-12) Heflin, an isolationist, pointed to the Republican leadership’s new policy dilemma:

Mr. President, it is genuinely refreshing to see Republican leaders back off completely from the position taken by them last week…the Senators from California…were fighting on the other side of the Republican-Jap deal almost single-handed. The progressives were with us in the fight, and the whole Democratic side stood for American rights in the matter. When Republican leaders discovered they were whipped, and whipped to a frazzle, they had a hurried conference, had it this morning, and now they come in and say that they take offense at something that a Jap ambassador has written on the subject. (The Congressional Record 1924, 6314)

The disarray indicated that initially, there was not uniform agreement about how to best respond to the letter. Swanson explained that in Japan some were looking to

“incite enmity” toward the U.S. and that our naval capabilities had come to represent a threat to Japan (The Congressional Record 1924, 6306). A fellow Democrat, Sen.

William King (D-UT) attacked Swanson’s remarks as “militant” and “bellicose,” and said

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the matter was one of diplomacy and was hence better off left for the State Department to handle.

Restrictionists were indignant about the diplomatic snafu, and again categorized

Japanese immigrants as being incompatible with the American system of government.

Sen. (D-TX) described the Japanese immigrants as “subversive” and stated that their “increasing population [was] beginning to present the most serious problems” (The Congressional Record 1924, 6311). Sheppard was also an advocate for suspending immigration completely.

By the time of the final vote, the only remaining opponents to Japanese exclusion in the Senate were Colt, (R-SD), George McLean (R-CT) and Francis

Warren (R-WY). Both McLean and Warren abstained from voting on the committee amendment defeated shortly after the Hanihara letter became public. Sterling said that the letter should not have been interpreted as it had widely been on the Senate floor, but acknowledged that he was in a “hopeless minority” in his views. Further, Sterling suggested that the so-called “menace” of Japanese on the west coast was largely manufactured. At the same time, Sterling openly asserted the supposed racial superiority of Nordics over everyone else, and suggested that many of the newer immigrants were communists to be considered subversive. He suggested suspending all immigration for three years, and is therefore not possible to categorize as a “pro- immigration” legislator. (The Congressional Record 1924, 6464)

Though the Japanese question in large part overshadowed debate about quotas for other countries, the debate surrounding the Mexican border and how to regulate it played a significant, though not dominating, role within the broader immigration

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discourse. Willis of Ohio offered an amendment to place Mexico and some other countries in the Western Hemisphere under a quota similar to the ones created for

Europe. He cited a report from the Commissioner General of Immigration, which said that not only were Mexicans making their way across the border illegally, but Southern

Europeans were being smuggled across the Mexican border as well. With regard to this, Willis said, “…what does it amount to to shut and padlock the front door…and yet leave the back door open so that substantially anyone who seeks to enter the United

States can come in by way of that portal?” (The Congressional Record 1924, 6621)

Expressing racialized sentiments, Willis also said, “I wish there were a way in which there could be a larger Immigration provided, if desired, from Canada, because the people of Canada are the same sort of people that we are” (The Congressional Record

1924, 6623). Willis was joined by Sen. Henry Ashurst (D-AZ), another Mexican quota advocate (The Congressional Record 1924, 5413), and as well as by Harris of Georgia.

Harris was even more blunt; he warned that more than 100,000 Mexicans could enter the country, called them “undesirable,” and said, “I want to get rid of them” (The

Congressional Record 1924, 6623).

Bruce (MD) also wanted restrictions on immigration from Mexico, but not from

Canada, as his view was that Canada had adequate laws of their own restricting immigration from other countries. (The Congressional Record 1924, 5828)16 Bruce stressed his desire for homogeneity, saying he wanted to make the United States more like Britain, France and Germany than like -Hungary, saying, “…a loosely stitched garment goes to pieces under a strain” (The Congressional Record 1924,

16 For Reed, a quota for Canada was a non-starter anyway, as the border was “a physical impossibility to guard.” Congressional Record, April 8, 1924. P. 5828

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5955). He also wanted to restrict immigration from “Negro Republics” such as and from all Central and South American countries.

Others, such as Sen Furnifold Simmons17 (D-NC), were more nuanced, framing the debate in terms of sovereignty instead of race. Simmons quoted Secretary Davis, who said, “Mexico sent us some 65,000, in addition to the thousands who crossed the border surreptitiously and without complying with our laws” (The Congressional Record

1924, 6528). Reed (PA) acknowledged the smuggling problem and attributed it to immigrants’ desire to avoid the $8 head tax (The Congressional Record 1924, 5827), but would not commit to supporting the quota amendment.

Not everyone in the Senate saw Mexican immigration as a particular threat. Sen.

Alva Adams (D-CO) spoke highly of the Hispanic population in Colorado, and suggested that it was white people who should be regarded as the immigrants in Colorado since it was “Spanish-speaking people” who developed that part of the country. And in downplaying the perceived threat that Mexican immigration posed, Sen. Holm Bursum

(R-NM) stated ironically, “Mr. President, you will never live long enough, nor will any other Senator live long enough, to see the day when there will be any considerable number of Mexicans who come to this country to live permanently” (The Congressional

Record 1924, 6628). And maintaining consistency with his other immigration positions,

Colt suggested the amount of Mexican immigrants prior to 1890 would have been so small that any quota would amount to nearly total exclusion. Other senators cited

17 Sen. Furnifold Simmons (D-NC) talked extensively about the need for crop diversification for struggling agriculture, and wanted to recruit able farmers from Europe. While he did not want to raise the quota to allow for this, he instead wanted to give farmers preference within the quotas at the quota levels already in the bill. Senators William Bruce (D-MD) and Joseph McCormick (R-IL) objected, saying there was no way to guarantee that imported farm labor would actually stay on the farm once they were in the country. Reed (Penn.) also objected, saying that the Simmons amendment would “embarrass” the consuls issuing the visa certificates. Sen. (D-MN) said that farmers in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark already had a great and profitable environment in which to work.

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economic reasons. Sen. King of Utah spoke against the Mexican quota amendment on the grounds that it would disrupt trade.

Ultimately, the Senate GOP leadership did not support efforts to impose a quota, and all proposals to deal specifically with Mexico were jettisoned. Reed (PA), exasperated, said that the demands for the quota could not realistically be met, and remarked, “…it is a physical impossibility to guard the Mexican and Canadian borders to prevent the smuggling of immigrants. At the present time we do not try to guard the

Canadian border very well…the land border [of Mexico] is so long, and the country is so wild along much of it, that it is a practical impossibility for us to guard it” (The

Congressional Record 1924, 5474). Reed (PA) later said, “Just imagine what the result will be if we pass this [Mexican quota]. Obviously we are not going to pass it unless we mean in good faith to enforce it. Imagine trying to patrol thousands of miles of uninhabited country along that river…and imagine to yourselves what it will cost us to enforce that border patrol to keep out these 62,000 Mexicans” (The Congressional

Record 1924, 6624). The quota amendment would ultimately be rejected, with no recorded vote. (The Congressional Record 1924, 6629) From that point, no proposed regulations for Mexican immigration were discussed for the remainder of the cycle.

Reed (PA) used an official estimate that around there were 80,000 immigrants who had come from Britain or Ireland early on and were “native stock,” and that roughly half the population in 1924 were descendants of the original 80,000. Since the new immigrants from other areas in Europe were reproducing at much faster rates, he said, action was needed to keep so many of them from continuing to come in. (The

Congressional Record 1924, 5460) He also decried the large number of remittances

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that were going back to Italy from America, and he alleged that some other countries in

Europe only sent us poor, uneducated migrants so that they could wash their hands of them, and hand the problem to us instead. As mentioned earlier, however, Reed showed at times a peculiar nuance, and not all of his proposals were purely restrictive.

He recognized the problems with turning away immigrants who were otherwise qualified to be admitted, but whose quota was taken up by another ship who landed stateside immediately before them. (The Congressional Record 1924, 5467) Not only would the visa certificate solve this problem, but it would also assist in certifying that the immigrant was not of one of the “prohibited classes.”

Immigration from more remote regions did not escape scrutiny. Reed (PA) explained, “Obviously some account has to be taken of the ten million negroes of the

United States. The negroes do not want and we do not want a negro quota…[The West

Indies] are British colonies, and the British quota would have to take care of them. They would be charged, if they came at all, against the British quota. We want to hold down the immigration that has begun to spring up against the negroes of the West Indies”

(The Congressional Record 1924, 5944-5). Ellison Smith (D-SC) said that while plans to tie immigration to the national origin to him would be acceptable, to base it on racial origin instead would be more desirable, or else countries like Great Britain would send from their colonies races of people “that would not be desirable” (The Congressional

Record 1924, 5960). Furthermore, for Smith it would have been even better to just shut the door completely and assimilate those who are already in the country. In concurrence, Reed (PA) said that black Americans should not be allotted a quota (in other words, no immigrants to be admitted from Africa). He said, “[blacks] do not want,

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and we do not want, to allow great immigration from African sources. That is self- evident to all of us” (The Congressional Record 1924, 5468).

Sen. Mathew Neely (D-WV) went much further, making one of the most racially charged speeches on the floor. Favoring a complete suspension of all immigration for five years, he said, “It is high time for us to realize that this is our country, and it is our duty to defend it against all enemies…not only against enemies in arms but against the millions of physically, mentally and morally inferior men and women scattered over

Europe, , Africa, Mexico, and the islands of the sea” (The Congressional Record

1924, 6625).

Others approached it from a partisan angle with more targeted racial invective.

Sen. (D-AL) argued against discriminating against southern

European immigration while defending the exclusion of the “yellow race” (The

Congressional Record 1924, 6457-9). Underwood continued, characterizing the

Democrats as the more “tolerant” party, even as the overwhelming majority of Senate

Democrats urged more restrictive policies. In another exchange, Sen. James Reed (D-

MO) angrily criticized the proposed cap of 160,000 immigrants and said that such a cap would exclude many people who would undoubtedly make good citizens. When Sen.

Thaddeus Caraway (D-AR) expressed disagreement, Reed (MO) accused Caraway of

“nagging” him on the floor over this issue and all other issues as well.

Other instances went further still. Harris complained that the “foreign stock” that recently came from abroad were only “skin deep” Americans and that they would renounce their allegiances to the U.S. instantly were it to be in the interests of their birth country. In response to the Harris amendment that would have suspended all

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immigration for five years, Reed (PA) said that “in point of literacy, the white population of Georgia is far below the white population of Norway, or of Sweden, or of Denmark, or of Germany, or of Holland, or of Switzerland.” The junior senator from Georgia, Walter

George (D) took offense, and said white illiteracy was caused simply by “negroes” dragging down the white population. The signs of vitriol persisted until the final vote.

Sen. John Shields (D-TN), feeling that the final bill was much too liberal, called it a

“legislative abortion” (The Congressional Record 1924, 6470). Predictably, this comment incensed Reed (PA), and led Copeland to remark, “I feel sorry always for the

Presiding Officer because if he is a considerate presiding officer he has to listen or appear to listen to all the orators…splashed around the Senate under circumstances like this” (The Congressional Record 1924, 6533).

The product that would emerge from conference with the House would do little to pacify the most committed restrictionists, such as Sen. Byron Harrison (D-MS).

Dismayed that the conference report contained exceptions above the two percent quota for wives and children of American citizens, tourists, and clergymen, whereas the original bill passed by the Senate contained no such exceptions, Harrison lamented,

“Ah, Mr. President, we had thought we were traveling on the road to real restrictive immigration, but we have not been” (The Congressional Record 1924, 8579). Lodge interjected, indicating he was tired of listening to Harrison, but Harrison continued,

“Members of the conference committee have not been afraid to go into conference since this bill was passed by the Senate. They have performed like Japanese in the game of jujutsu…” (The Congressional Record 1924, 8579). Harrison’s late stand led to

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mutual finger pointing with the Republican leadership, who suggested he was injecting partisan politics into the debate.

Undeterred, Lodge pressed, “This legislation, if it shall be maintained, is going to stretch forward into the centuries; it is going to change the current of infusion in the blood of the American population; it is going to make a change for the better in the quality of our immigration, a change far more important than any that has ever yet been made…” (The Congressional Record 1924, 8580). Lodge and Reed found further support in Harris of Georgia, a conferee who praised the bill, even though he had earlier argued for complete suspension of immigration. Harris said, “This is by far the best bill on this subject we have ever had in the United States. It will do more for our country than any other bill passed by Congress…” (The Congressional Record 1924, 8581).

Shortly after, the Senate passed the conference report with sixty-nine votes in favor (including hardliners such as Harrison and Shields), nine against, and the rest absent. Despite the last-minute objections over changes in conference, in line with the restrictive aims of the bill, most of those in both chambers were restrictionists, and most who voted against were not. The bill then went to Coolidge’s desk, where it was signed, despite earlier veto threats, and the national origins quota system, along with the myriad of other institutional reforms, finally was made into law.

Analysis of Senate Floor Vote of 1924 Act

The bar chart in Figure 4-1 displays the distribution of first-dimension DW-

NOMINATE scores among senators in the 68th Congress. Two major clusters emerge around the 0.4 mark for Republicans, and the -0.25 mark for Democrats. Notably, aside from one outlier, the Republican cluster is skewed left, reflecting the presence of an economically less-conservative bloc within the Republican conference. The Democratic

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caucus is skewed right, albeit only slightly. Overall, the distribution reflects a larger picture whereby the two parties were still well-defined (Tables 4-1 and 4-2 show a strong relationship between first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores and party affiliation), yet both parties had emerging factions seeking to move in a different direction from leadership with respect to some economic issues; increasing numbers found themselves closer to the “center,” an area occupied by only one senator in 1882.

Table 4-3 shows that the vote to pass the conference report was balanced evenly between the two parties, notwithstanding the slightly fewer abstentions for the

Democrats. This is noteworthy especially in the context of the polarized ideological distribution of the chamber, yet in this bill’s instance, each party was seizing upon the nativist sentiment in California with the aim of carrying the state in the Electoral College, hence yielding a bipartisan vote on a very broad and highly restrictive law. More specifically referencing a major point of contention within the law, correlation between party and roll-call vote on Japanese exclusion falls just short of significance (as Table 4-

4 illustrates). Further, as Table 4-5 suggests, a possible correlation between DW-

NOMINATE scores and the roll call vote on the exclusion amendment fares nearly as well, but also falls just short of significance. Taken together, these results suggest that while the Democrats were not at the time the “liberal” party with respect to the Japanese question, the high profile of “small-p” progressives within the Republican Party (namely

Hiram Johnson and Samuel Shortridge) serves to confound any definitive partisan linkage.

This is further demonstrated by the boxplot shown in Figure 4-2. Most “no” votes are closely clustered around a first-dimension DW-NOMINATE score of 0.5, yet

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abstentions were ideologically broad, and even more so were the “yes” coalition. In this case, the median “yes” vote for the Japanese exclusion amendment corresponds to a

DW-NOMINATE score near zero, but the “yes” vote’s upper quartile extends even past

1.0 to accommodate senators far removed from the main bloc of the exclusion amendment’s supporters, likely pointing to the unique impact of the Hanihara letter on decision-making by the Republican leadership.

For the conference report, which included the Japanese exclusion amendment,

Figure 4-3’s boxplot also suggests that the median DW-NOMINATE scores for the “yes” and “no” sides both approach zero. Yet even here, the “yes” distribution stretches far to reach the Republican leadership, underscoring the importance the Republican leadership assigned to passing a bill. Accordingly, Table 4-6 shows us that the relation between the DW-NOMINATE score and the vote on final passage falls far short of statistical significance.

Just as the final “yeas” and “nays” on the omnibus immigration bill are not captured by partisanship or a spatial ideological measure, the themes expressed in floor speeches are in conflict with one another even when vote position on the conference report is taken into account. For instance, among those who ultimately voted “yea,” there were those who were concerned about the bill’s ramifications toward foreign relations (specifically with respect to Japan, as indicated by the letter “B”), but even more who had no such reservations (indicated by the letter “V”). And most tellingly, among those who expressed opposition on the floor to the severance of the

Gentleman’s Agreement, most voted for the underlying bill to pass regardless.

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The other popular arguments among supporters were the unassimilability of certain immigrant groups (primarily, those not from northern or western Europe, as indicated by the letter “U”) and the increasing numbers of these groups relative to their proportions already in the citizenry (as indicated by the letter “Q”). Indeed, the core thrust of the legislation, with the national origins quotas as the centerpiece, was to bring numbers of these immigrants down to a significantly lower level as compared to that from Britain, France, Germany, and Scandinavian countries.

Despite the misgivings of some Republicans over the Japanese question, proponents of the bill maintained control of the debate for its duration, and the few opponents tended to address humanitarian and ethical concerns over the bill’s overtly discriminatory provisions. Popular themes were the diplomatic question with Japan (“B”), the need for the country to keep an inviting posture to the rest of the world (“F” and “K”), and concerns about keeping families apart (“G”), and at times, impassioned defenses over the positive ways in which immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were benefiting the development of major cities. The final opposition to the bill, however, also included a handful of restrictionists who would have preferred a much lower quota or a complete suspension of immigration. Preceded by the hastily constructed 1921 quotas, and the ongoing influences of popular eugenicists, the ultimate passage of the law was never truly in doubt.

Conclusion to Chapter Four

Though “distance between the parties,” as measured by first-dimension DW-

NOMINATE scores, was coming off of historic highs, polarization in the early 1920s was at the beginnings of a sustained drop, owing to the emergence of a new faction within the Republicans with their own distinct agenda. Whereas in 1882, the average

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difference between the parties had a coefficient of just above 0.8; it averaged close to

0.85 for the period between 1900-1920, yet by 1924, the coefficient was down to 0.75

(and declining), reflecting the Democratic Party’s transition (Burner 1968) from a rural, agrarian-based party to one supported more by immigrant-heavy urban centers, as well as the fragmentation between the Roosevelt-aligned Progressives and the Republican establishment represented by Harding and Coolidge. For its part, the Democratic

Party paid a temporary price; its gravitation towards urban centers caused it to ultimately nominate a presidential candidate (Al Smith) who faced obstacles too great to win nationwide, yet those same urban centers were a crucial part of what would form the New Deal coalition. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, FDR successfully translated his coalition of voters into strong Democratic majorities in

Congress, with many Republicans displaced, and Democrats split on the more far- reaching aspects of Roosevelt’s agenda. Through this dynamic, distance between the parties reached historic lows in the 1930s, during which Congress undertook no significant efforts on immigration.

Because this distance was at historic highs when literacy tests and restrictive measures were debated and passed, and because, even in 1924, polarization was still well above the historical average, the analysis in this chapter supports Hypothesis 1, which links the passage of more restrictive immigration laws with periods of high polarization. Furthermore, the level of polarization in the Senate, while on its way down from the preceding sessions, was still quite high, with the Progressives pulling the rest of the GOP toward the nativist cause.

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The high level of distance between the two party caucuses at the time, in conjunction with the somewhat broad convergence on the conference report, severely undermines Hypothesis 2a, because Hypothesis 2a maintains that roll call votes on immigration should be expected to reflect roll call votes more generally. In the case of the 1924 law, the opposite is true, as though the parties failed to cooperate on other matters, no distinction could be drawn between the two parties with respect to their overall support for the 1924 act.

Hypothesis 2b measures nuance, and suggests that in an era of higher polarization (like the 68th Congress), nuanced views would be less common. While 2b cannot be accepted or rejected based on one era’s quantitative data, Table 4-8 shows that most who either made extensive floor remarks or took a public position according to

The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, either expressed purely liberalizing opinions (corresponding to letters A-M), or mostly restrictionist opinions (corresponding to letters O-X). Walsh (MA) and Reed (PA) included a blend of liberalization and restrictionism in their extensive floor remarks, but few others did. The Democratic leadership, progressive Republicans from the West, and the main Republican conference in the northeast all had solid and consistent rhetoric, while many of the rest had no floor remarks at all. Therefore, this era’s data falls in line with Hypothesis 2b’s expected outcome.

Hypothesis 3, which claims that wartime discourse influences immigration policy, finds limited qualitative support. Throughout this era, jingoism fed into fears of subversion, which translated into the exclusion of Bolsheviks in the 1924, and the exclusion of other “subversive” classifications in more minor laws passed during this

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era. On the other hand, the desire to admit more oppressed peoples from Europe could not overcome the nativist trends of the 1920’s eugenics movement, and the 1921 and

1924 laws subjected their immigration numbers to a hard ceiling for the first time. In this instance and in others, foreign policy conflicts certainly have helped determine that certain groups would be prohibited from entry, but only in rare instances have they by themselves determined who Congress thinks should immigrate.

Restrictive laws in this era passed in succession, from the indefinite renewal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1902, the Basic Naturalization Act of 1906, and the restrictive laws of 1917 and 1921, ultimately culminating in broad, comprehensive, yet still largely restrictive, reform in 1924. Overall distance between the two parties registered a steep decline in the mid-1920s, after which no broadly restrictive laws were passed for sixty years.

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Figure 4-1. Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 68th Senate (1924)

Table 4-1. Classification table of observed/predicted values of party by senators’ DW- NOMINATE score by binary logistic regression

Observed Predicted

Party Percentage Correct Democratic Republican

Party Democratic 43 1 97.7

Republican 4 48 92.3

Overall 94.8 Percentage

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Table 4-2. Statistics for binary logistic regression (party is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

DW-NOMINATE (first 22.415 7.821 8.214 1 .004 5E+009 dimension)

Constant .326 .663 .242 1 .623 1.386

Table 4-3. Crosstabs of party by yea/nay vote on passage of the 1924 conference report (Senate)

Party Total

Democratic Independent Republican

Roll Call, Final Yea 33 0 36 69 Passage

NV 7 0 11 18

Nay 4 0 5 9

Total 44 0 52 96

Table 4-4. Pearson correlation of party with yea/nay vote on passage of the Japanese exclusion amendment (Senate)

Roll Call Vote on Party Exclusion Amendment

Roll Call Vote on Exclusion Pearson 1 -.188 Amemdment Correlation

Sig. (two-tailed) .067

N 96 96

Party Pearson --.188 1 Correlation

Sig. (two-tailed) .067

N 96 96

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Table 4-5. Pearson correlation of senators' DW-NOMINATE scores with their votes on passage of the Japanese exclusion amendment

DW- Roll Call NOMINATE Vote on (first Exclusion dimension) Amendment

Roll Call Vote on Exclusion Pearson Correlation 1 -..181 Amemdment

Sig. (two-tailed) .078

N 96 96

DW-NOMINATE (first dimension) Pearson Correlation --.181 1

Sig. (two-tailed) .078

N 96 96

Figure 4-2. DW-NOMINATE scores of senators, grouped by their vote on the floor amendment mandating Japanese exclusion

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Figure 4-3. DW-NOMINATE scores of senators, grouped by the roll call vote on the 1924 Conference Report

Table 4-6. Pearson correlation of senators' DW-NOMINATE scores with votes on passage of the conference report for act of 1924

DW-NOMINATE Roll Call (first dimension) (conference report)

DW-NOMINATE Pearson Correlation 1 -.031 (first dimension)

Significance (two-tailed) .762

N 96 96

Roll Call Pearson Correlation -.031 1 (conference report)

Significance (two-tailed) .762

N 96 96

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Table 4-7. Most popular themes raised in debate on final passage of 1924 act in U.S. Senate

Frequency Most Popular Themes Invoked in Debate (1924) Supporters 12 V U.S. immigration policy should not be tailored to demands of foreign governments 11 U Assimilation is not possible for certain groups 8 B Existing (or newly proposed) immigration restrictions would damage U.S. standing in the world 7 Q The U.S. has (or will have) too many immigrants Opponents 3 B Existing (or newly proposed) immigration restrictions would damage U.S. standing in the world 2 F Immigration laws must be humanitarian, not draconian 2 G Immigrant family reunification must be prioritized 2 I Immigrants have proven their worth in U.S. communities 2 K The U.S. must assist oppressed peoples around the world 2 Q The U.S. has (or will have) too many immigrants

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Table 4-8. Senate roll call vote and remarks on Immigration and Nationality Act of 1924 (conference report)

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Oscar W. Underwood (D) AL NV Strongly Favors James T. Heflin (D) AL Yea Strongly Favors PQRV Thaddeus H. Caraway (D) AR Yea Strongly Favors Joseph T. Robinson (D) AR Yea Favors Ralph H. Cameron (R) AZ Yea Henry F. Ashurst (D) AZ Yea Strongly Favors UV Samuel M. Shortridge (R) CA Yea Strongly Favors NV Hiram W. Johnson (R) CA Yea Strongly Favors V Lawrence C. Phipps (R) CO Yea Alva B. Adams (D) CO Yea Favors DEI George P. McLean (R) CT Nay Frank B. Brandegee (R) CT Yea Thomas F. Bayard, Jr. (D) DE Yea L. Heisler Ball (R) DE Yea (D) FL Yea B Duncan U. Fletcher (D) FL Yea B William J. Harris (D) GA Yea Strongly Favors NQRUV Walter F. George (D) GA Yea Strongly Favors QUV Smith W. Brookhart (R) IA Yea Albert B. Cummins (R) IA Yea William E. Borah (R) ID Yea V Frank R. Gooding (R) ID Yea William B. McKinley (R) IL Yea Joseph M. McCormick (R) IL NV Strongly Favors R Samuel M. Ralston (D) IN Yea James E. Watson (R) IN Yea (R) KS Yea (R) KS Yea Strongly Favors IPQUV Richard P. Ernst (R) KY NV Augustus O. Stanley (D) KY NV Joseph E. Ransdell (D) LA Yea Edwin S. Broussard (D) LA Yea Henry Cabot Lodge (R) MA Yea Strongly Favors David I. Walsh (D) MA Nay Strongly Opposes ABCGIKP Q William C. Bruce (D) MD Yea Favors U

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Table 4-8. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Ovington E. Weller (R) MD NV Frederick Hale (R) ME Yea E Bert M. Fernald (R) ME NV BDI Woodbridge N. Ferris (D) MI NV James Couzens (R) MI NV (D) MN Yea Henrik Shipstead (D) MN Nay R Selden P. Spencer (R) MO NV James A. Reed (D) MO NV Opposes Hubert D. Stephens (D) MS Yea U Byron P. Harrison (D) MS Yea Favors N Thomas J. Walsh (D) MT Yea Burton K. Wheeler (D) MT Yea Lee S. Overman (D) NC Yea Furnifold M. Simmons (D) NC Yea Favors CD Lynn J. Frazier (R) ND Nay Edwin F. Ladd (R) ND Nay Robert B. Howell (R) NE Yea George W. Norris (R) NE Yea Henry W. Keyes (R) NH Yea George H. Moses (R) NH NV Walter E. Edge (R) NJ Yea A Edward I. Edwards (D) NJ NV Holm O. Bursum (R) NM Yea Favors BDEI Andrieus A. Jones (D) NM Yea B Tasker L. Oddie (R) NV Yea (D) NV Yea Royal S. Copeland (D) NY NV Strongly Opposes FGHIKL James W. Wadsworth, Jr. (R) NY Yea Simeon D. Fess (R) OH Yea B Frank B. Willis (R) OH Yea Strongly Favors BX Robert L. Owen (D) OK Nay John W. Harreld (R) OK Yea Robert N. Stanfield (R) OR Yea Charles L. McNary (R) OR Yea George W. Pepper (R) PA Yea Strongly Favors David A. Reed (R) PA Yea Strongly Favors ABCFGIJL MQV

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Table 4-8. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Peter G. Gerry (D) RI Nay LeBaron B. Colt (R) RI Nay Strongly Opposes B Nathaniel B. Dial (D) SC Yea Strongly Favors Ellison D. Smith (D) SC Yea Strongly Favors BQTV Thomas Sterling (R) SD Nay QSUV (R) SD Yea Kenneth D. McKellar (D) TN Yea Favors QU John K. Shields (D) TN Yea Strongly Favors CR Morris Sheppard (D) TX Yea ST Earle B. Mayfield (D) TX Yea William H. King (D) UT NV Opposes BF (R) UT Yea Claude A. Swanson (D) VA Yea Strongly Favors V (D) VA Yea Porter H. Dale (R) VT Yea Frank L. Greene (R) VT NV Wesley L. Jones (R) WA Yea UV Clarence C. Dill (D) WA Yea Irvine L. Lenroot (R) WI NV Robert M. La Follette Sr (R) WI NV Matthew M. Neely (D) WV Yea Strongly Favors RU (R) WV NV John B. Kendrick (D) WY Yea D Francis E. Warren (R) WY Yea Favors

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CHAPTER 5 WORLD WAR II AND ITS AFTERMATH

Introduction and National Political Backdrop

Having engaged the entire United States citizenry, World War II did much to shape political discourse, with global alliances and rivalries redefined. Also redefined were the parties themselves; though each party’s ideology was well-defined up to and through the mid-1920s, but during the war were more ideologically convergent to each other than at any other point in the history of Congress. The absence of gridlock based on partisanship, against the backdrop of World War II and Cold War rhetoric, helped to eliminate legislative barriers typical of most eras with respect to immigration reform.

While Franklin D. Roosevelt’s enlargement of the administrative state and aggressive governing tactics produced conflict within his own party, Republican losses in the 1932 election were too heavy for the party to recover until the mid-1940s, leaving them nearly completely out of governance. One party’s caucus had grown too large to stay coherent, and most of the other was voted out by the New Deal coalition. Neither party organization had true ideological homogeneity; distance between the two parties in the Senate, as measured by DW-NOMINATE scores, averaged close to 0.37 from

1932 to 1952, compared to 0.7 in 1920. Polarization showed signs of rebound from its low point in 1952 to reach 0.57 in 1964, from which it would fluctuate modestly until around 1980. For the purposes of the immediate post-war period, the intraparty conflicts that took place suggest such low levels of polarization were due to the same exogenous events that elected Franklin Roosevelt president, and were not sustainable in the long term.

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From 1940, of served as House Speaker, ushering in what would be coined the “Textbook” era of committee government as opposed to party government. Rayburn delegated power to committee chairs, most of whom were part of the “,” whose goal it was to place limits on the New Deal agenda.

These chairs in turn managed the votes of Republicans and other conservative

Democrats to stop legislation they found objectionable. The chairs’ power was further consolidated by the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946; that cycle, the Democrats lost control of both the House and the Senate due to public frustration over President

Harry Truman’s handling of price controls. The incoming Republican Congress was more active on immigration matters than recent preceding Congresses (Hutchinson

1981) and would produce the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which added 200,000 nonquota visas for displaced people in Eastern Europe to apply for U.S. permanent residency, giving preference to agricultural workers and taking another measured step toward liberalization.

Once the New Deal coalition returned to form in 1948, returning Rayburn to the speakership and Truman to the White House, and Sen. Patrick McCarran (D-NV) chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, along with Rep. Emannuel Celler (D-NY), chair of the House Judiciary committee, and its immigration subcommittee chair, Rep. Francis

Walter (D-PA) assumed the leading role. Walter, himself a staunch nationalist and anti- communist (Daniels 2004), favored immigration reform but without a full-scale liberalization sought by more liberal members. Walter served as the floor manager for the House debate for a much larger overhaul that would become the act of 1952, and

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successfully passed all committee-friendly amendments and defeated all hostile floor amendments that were either too liberalizing or too restrictive.

As Democratic committee chairs were in conflict with both the liberalization and restrictionist camps, the Republicans might have even more severely suffered deep fragmentation. On the verge of becoming the Republican nominee for president in

1952, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was faced with the prospect that his coalition within his party and within the broader electorate might collapse. The Republican nomination was almost evenly split between Gov. Robert Taft (R-OH) and General

Eisenhower. California was the presumed “compromise” nominee should neither Taft nor Eisenhower get the votes they needed to win the nomination. All of California’s delegates were legally bound to support Warren until

Warren chose to release them, but it was widely believed that Richard Nixon, who was also running, was plotting to throw his supporters to Eisenhower in exchange for

Eisenhower’s promise to make Nixon running mate. (Reston 1968) This conflict between the two men only exacerbated the strained relations Warren and Nixon already had over their respective approaches to governing.

Eisenhower was a moderate-to-conservative Republican, and as his party’s presidential nominee, saw himself responsible for uniting the party. To have both the

Warren and Nixon factions on his side, Eisenhower took Nixon as his running mate, and promised Earl Warren the first vacancy on the Supreme Court, which would turn out to be one for Chief Justice. Eisenhower fulfilled his promise, yet according to Earl

Warren’s memoirs (1977) Eisenhower was actually much more conservative on social issues than Warren was, and Eisenhower unsuccessfully lobbied the Court to rule in

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favor of the segregationist school boards in Brown v. Board of Education. After the

Brown decision, relations between the two men were strained beyond repair, and

Eisenhower would later characterize the Warren appointment to the High Court as being

“the biggest damn fool mistake I ever made” (Purdum 2005). Publicly, however,

Eisenhower would attempt to take ownership of desegregation as an issue in the wake of Brown; reversing course would have been politically untenable.

Warren would not be the only social progressive that President Eisenhower would nominate to the High Court. Eisenhower’s subsequent appointment of John

Brennan, a Roman Catholic, as associate justice was also strategic (Powe 2000;

Scheiber 2007) in that he was concerned about Catholics voting for Stevenson in high numbers in the 1956 election. While this may have helped Eisenhower win re-election, it only served to push the Supreme Court further in the direction in which Warren was intending to take it; Brennan would prove to be one of the Warren bloc’s most reliable votes.

To be sure, Eisenhower’s national popularity from his military service endeared him to broad portions of the New Deal coalition, facilitating his achievement of two victories in the Electoral College. However, whereas modern presidential candidates are expected to aid their party’s candidates in down-ballot contests through coattails,

Eisenhower only achieved this feat in his first election, bringing Republicans back to power in Congress for two more years. And whereas upon his inauguration Eisenhower led a party struggling to regain national viability after FDR’s realignment, by the end of his presidency, Republicans in each branch of government were pulling the party in separate ideological directions. In particular, decisions from the Warren court had

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fundamental policy ramifications that mobilized a backlash among segregationist

Democrats, yet emboldened other Democrats to embrace the court’s direction on matters of national policy. Within Congress, this split yielded the Democratic Study

Group (founded in 1959) on one ideological end, and segregationist Democrats like

Sen. (S.C.) and Alabama Governor on the other. The ensuing policy trajectory of the party prompted both Thurmond and Wallace to leave, with Thurmond later joining the Republican conference and Wallace competing as a third-party candidate in 1968.

Though historical events prior to and during the Civil Rights movement enabled both parties to self-sort ideologically (in particular, Goldwater’s candidacy and his vote on the Civil Rights Act), the lack of directional unity in the interim yielded more legislators than normal who would be persuadable to broad national policy initiatives, implying an opposition too reduced in stature to block legislation. As president, John F. Kennedy and later, Lyndon B. Johnson benefited, and with respect to legislation on racial issues (immigration reform included), Johnson identified key

Democrats to advocate his bill. Moreover, once racialization was introduced into debates on national policy, southern segregationists tended to marginalize themselves on the Senate floor.

The conservative coalition of the textbook era formed because the Democratic

Party had grown too large to form ideological equilibrium; the direct result of the coalition was to subvert- on some issues- the ideologically pure wing of the Democratic

Party and form an effective governing coalition with the “opposing” party. The configuration was unsustainable were “party” to have any meaning, and through this

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lens, realignment was inevitable. The Republicans’ 1964 presidential nominee, Sen.

Barry Goldwater (AZ) proved a crucial short-term liability to his party; Goldwater’s much- scrutinized failure to vote for cloture on the 1964 Civil Rights Act (and his overall departure from Republican ) produced a landslide defeat to Johnson, enabling the Democratic caucus to grow even larger. Liberal Democrats now had the strongest growth and would continue growing in number until eventually overtaking the conservative old guard in the 1970s. The revolt was due to both the policy preferences of the emerging liberal bloc within the Democratic caucus (conservative committee chairs held up or watered down Civil Rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s) and due to process concerns underscored by the lack of legislative productivity and the relatively low stature of rank-and-file members. Meanwhile, the incoming liberals found themselves much more electorally secure from their southern Democratic counterparts, who were threatened in the South for the first time by the Republican Party since the age of Reconstruction (Becker and Moscardelli 2008).

Magnuson Act (1943): Recognition of a Wartime Ally

In the broadest sense, this dissertation ascribes high historical significance to

Rep. ’s (D-WA) repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. For its normative implications alone, that Congress repealed, in a single action, multiple previous codifications of anti-Chinese legislation is unquestionably historic. This is especially true in the context of those laws’ discursive origins, which fully embraced racist principles. One such provision, which barred Chinese immigrants from acquiring

United States citizenship, was eliminated permanently, and a major legal barrier was eradicated.

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In a narrower sense, assigning the Magnuson Act the same level of significance as broader immigration reforms in this era (such as in 1952 and 1965) is not possible, either with respect to the legislative development of immigration policy, or in terms of the broader study of Congress. At no point did either chamber produce a roll call vote on passage, rendering DW-NOMINATE scores virtually unusable for regression analysis; floor debate was also limited, and while some members did speak, they were too few to comprise a reliable sample. Direct White House involvement also yields few clues; Roosevelt himself said little on the issue, except for a brief signing statement in which he expressed his support.

Moreover, this law did not actually enable Chinese immigration to resume beyond a paltry quota of 105 people annually. Though the legal barrier pertaining to citizenship was removed, another legal barrier, the quota imposed by the 1924 act, remained unaltered (though the quota would be eventually be eliminated by the 1965 act). Some self-proclaimed restrictionist members, such as Reps. Edward Herbert Rees

(R-KS) and William R. Poage (D-TX) recognized the muted effect the bill would have in strictly numerical terms, and therefore suggested that the bill did not pose major implications for further Chinese immigration and declined to oppose it. Rees remarked on the House floor:

“We are now in a terrible, cruel war. We are fighting a most ruthless enemy. If legislation permitting 105 Chinese to come into this country annually for permanent residence will help in anywise in the prosecution of this war and save and protect the livers of American soldiers to any extent whatever, I believe there will be no objection to it by the American people.” (The Congressional Record 1943, 8624)

Others acknowledged the symbolic nature of the bill, and expressed preferences to go further, but voted for the measure out of a supposed necessity for cooperation

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with China on the war effort. Chinese exclusion was a frequent target for Japanese propaganda, and maintaining it would have been incompatible with fostering the type of relationship with China that had become necessary militarily. Rep. George Dondero

(R-MI) remarked, “…the objective of Japan is not only to destroy us as a military power in the Pacific but to unite one-half of the population of this world in a race war against us, the white people. She is using the age-old of race and color to attain that objective. Let us do what we can to counteract it” (The Congressional Record 1943,

8631). His remarks are notable not only for his inclinations toward the bill, but also the employment of racialist identities now used towards the end of cooperation as opposed to exclusion.

Rep. Overton Brooks (D-LA) suggested that the bill did not go far enough, and that the Chinese Nationalists would be better served by more tangible military aid than by a nominal repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Brooks argued, “Our help should not go merely in the form of a repealed statute, which will not kill a single Jap nor recover a single mile of conquered territory from the heel of the enemy. It should be in the form of more airplanes, more guns, ammunition, tanks, and military equipment” (The

Congressional Record 1943, 8635). Absent from his remarks, however, were any overt suggestion that Chinese immigration resume to significant levels.

Rep. Compton White (D-ID) was less ambiguous, and maintained that no

Chinese immigrants should be admitted. He recounted the alleged reasons for which

Chinese were undesirable as immigrants, and complained that younger generations of

Americans were ignorant of the mayhem previously caused by Chinese immigrants.

White’s fellow Democrat and Idahoan Thomas Ford objected, supporting the bill in the

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strongest terms, and suggesting that every reasonable and reputable organization on the West coast did as well. (The Congressional Record 1943, 8636)

In his remarks, Rep. Charles Dewey (R-Ill.) was favorably oriented toward repeal, but his concerns were primarily economic. “From the point of view of food, China is greatly undernourished and it will be many years before for 450,000,000 people will be in a position to feed themselves adequately. In other words, it will, from the cold, selfish point of view be of great advantage to American workmen and farmers to take part in

China’s forthcoming industrial revolution” (The Congressional Record 1943, 8627).

Such sentiments and calculations motivated the passage of the Magnuson Act.

It should be noted that the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act did not come out of a universal surge of racial egalitarianism, as racialist rhetoric against Japan facilitated the redefinition of China as an ally within Congress, and in the minds of many, the post-war economic interests of the United States were the primary consideration.

The Magnuson Act is historically significant, but its delayed legal effects and the brevity of its legislative debate limit this dissertation’s empirical observations with respect to Congress. Therefore, it should not be equated with this era’s more major laws; it should instead be viewed as an important stepping stone. At that time, exogenous events shifted the national discourse in major ways, resulting in sudden, major policy shifts along with them (even if themselves long overdue) and suggest that in the absence of these events, changes to anti-Chinese policies would have been long delayed, if not precluded outright. At the time of the Chinese Exclusion laws, it was still not clear that the United States was on a trajectory for war with Japan, much less a

Japan who had begun conquering large swaths of the Asia-Pacific region. The initial

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debates on Chinese exclusion also preceded the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education, which seemed an innocuous document at the time (with the ostensible goal of motivating schoolchildren to lead just and moral lives) and had by the 1930s been used as a tool for the deification of the Japanese emperor (Nolte 1983). This exemplifies how an intersubjective understanding of an official document can change completely over the course of a half-century; Japan continued to employ nationalistic discourse as a means of galvanizing its public behind expansionism. As the human toll continued to mount, American foreign policy was slow to transition from isolationism, as there were few perceived interests to be served either by intervening in the war, or by changing immigration policy to be more accommodative to nations like China, with whom the

United States had a tortured history.

However, by the time of the Magnuson Act, the situation had changed fundamentally; the events of December 7, 1941 threatened U.S. territorial sovereignty, after which the country undertook the most burdensome war effort in its own history.

Political actors had found a convenient new target for the country’s racial insecurities; it was no longer the Chinese who were suspected of working to subvert the American way of life, but it was now the Japanese, and the war served to reconstitute allies and enemies in the public consciousness, and the sense became that China deserved cooperation at lower levels in addition to the military level.

In 1947, two years before Mao Zedong and his founded the

People’s Republic (and as the death knell for the Progressive movement was sounding), the United States sought to strengthen its alliance with Chiang Kai-Shek’s

Nationalist government. This resulted in a new Sino-American Treaty, through which

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China asserted its people’s rights not to be discriminated against while in the United

States, as had taken place under previous immigration statutes.

Moreover, as Higham (1955, 172) notes, “…the West coast felt a double sense of crisis: added to an internal fear of Japanese blood was an external fear of Japanese power. One exacerbated the other.” States varied in their response time in giving due recognition to the Magnuson Act, but the anti-Chinese discourse had now been replaced by anti-Japanese discourse. Nevada was among the first to repeal all anti-

Chinese laws it had on the books (The Yale Law Journal 1947); Wisconsin, a former bastion of , in the late 1940s amended Article I of its Constitution to read,

“No distinction shall ever be made by law between resident aliens and citizens, in reference to the possession, enjoyment, or descent of property” (The Yale Law Journal

1947). Other states followed through various avenues of repeal, though some much later. Once the war ended, the pro-Chinese discourse would evaporate, and the Asian community would not see any substantive policy advances until the Civil Rights movement.

Immigration and Nationality Act (1952)

The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, as LeMay and Barkan (1999) state, represents “the gradual chipping away from the severe restrictionism of the [prior] era.”

Formally known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, it eliminated the last of the absolute bars against Asian immigration (which had come about by the Chinese

Exclusion Act, the act of 1917 and the Japanese exclusion amendment contained in the act of 1924) but maintained extremely low quotas under the existing national origins system established by the 1924 act. The 1952 act granted citizenship to residents of

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Guam, and also lifted the bans against African immigration imposed by the 1924 act, but here too extremely small quotas were imposed in their place.

The law’s main restrictive provision was the set of additional procedures for screening out potential subversives- namely those with associations to communism- and barring them from entry, and allowed for the deportation of those already present in the United States. This drew the ire and concern of a small bipartisan group of liberal legislators for its potential foreign policy ramifications, but few others in Congress sought to distance themselves from what many in Joseph McCarthy’s time deemed necessary national security measures.

Hutchinson (1981, 312) writes:

“Although strongly criticized at the time and subsequently for its severity and for certain other features, the 1952 act can best be judged against the background of the legislative proposals that preceded and accompanied it…If the Senate and House committees that developed the 1952 act were swayed by the restrictive temper of the period, they nevertheless chose a middle course corresponding with the majority position of Congress, and they did resist and reject the more extreme proposals that arose out of wartime emotions and fears of alien ideologies.”

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, McCarran was responsible for most of the 1952 act’s provisions. He regularly played the role of gatekeeper against legislation that he did not favor, including immigration reform, and the proposals he blocked included both liberalizing and restrictionist reforms. During the 81st Congress,

McCarran faced a challenge from Sen. Harley Kilgore (D-WV), who introduced a bill in the Judiciary Committee aimed at preventing illegal immigration, but the committee rewrote his entire bill to make it unenforceable. At the same time, McCarran faced challenges from liberal Senators in the 82nd Congress, including Democrats Hubert

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Humphrey (MN) and Herbert Lehman (NY), who introduced a much more liberal substitute to McCarran’s own bill. McCarran then accused Humphrey and Lehman as being “radicals” dedicated to “the destruction of our protective immigration system,’ and stopped their bill from being reported out of committee. Subsequently, upon floor consideration of the McCarran bill, Humphrey and Lehman, aided primarily by John

Pastore (D-RI), William Benton (D-CT) and (R-OR) gave numerous and lengthy floor speeches fighting to recommit and later defeat McCarran’s bill, but were unsuccessful on all fronts.

After voice votes in each chamber and a conference committee, Congress delivered an immigration bill in 1952 that overhauled, but did not eliminate, the national origins quota system established by the 1924 law. Truman favored complete abandonment of the quota system and vetoed the bill, writing in his June 25 veto message:

I return herewith, without my approval, H.R. 5678, the proposed Immigration and Nationality Act. In outlining my objections to this bill, I want to make it clear that it contains certain provisions that meet with my approval. This is a long and complex piece of legislation…In one respect, this bill recognizes the great international significance of our immigration and naturalization policy, and takes a step to improve existing laws. All racial bars to naturalization would be removed, and at least some minimum immigration quota would be afforded to each of the free nations of Asia…But now this most desirable provision comes before me embedded in a mass of legislation which would perpetuate injustices of long standing against many other nations of the world, hamper the efforts we are making to rally the men of East and West alike to the cause of freedom, and intensify the repressive and inhumane aspects of our immigration procedures. The price is too high, and in good conscience I cannot agree to pay it.

The next day, after a brief debate under the urging of Walter, the House voted to override by a margin of 278-113. The day after, McCarran took to the floor of the

Senate, and criticized the premises behind Truman’s veto. In a lengthy initial speech,

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McCarran said, “…Mr. President, the criticisms of the bill in this respect in the veto message of the President are unfounded and untrue. They are…a rehash of the misconstructions, not of this bill, but the provisions of existing law which we incorporated…” (The Congressional Record 1952, 8254). McCarran was challenged on the floor by Lehman, Humphrey, Pastore, Morse, and Benton in an otherwise mostly empty Senate chamber, to which Lehman expressed frustration, saying, “My colleagues- and I am sorry there are so few of you on the floor at this time- I beg of you, do not slap at and insult the millions of fine citizens who have come to us from southern and eastern Europe…” (The Congressional Record 1952, 8256). Humphrey echoed this sentiment, saying, “…we will obviously find ourselves at the conclusion of the debate without a chance to reply to the arguments of the opposition” (The

Congressional Record 1952, 8259).

After proponents of the Humphrey-Lehman alternative took their last stand, and minutes before the override vote was to be cast, backers of McCarran’s bill, such as

Sen. (D-NC), took to the floor to make brief reassurances and again dismiss the concerns of the bill’s detractors. Smith said, “Mr. President, I have read the bill that was vetoed by the President, and I had hoped that many others who were criticizing the bill, and were very vicious in their opposition to it, had done likewise…it has seemed to be that the many persons who have been its severest critics have not, in fact and truth, read the bill” (The Congressional Record 1952, 8262). Sen. Homer

Ferguson added, “…every Senator can do justice to this country and to the peoples of the world by voting to override the veto…by allowing the President’s veto to stand, we will not make any correction in the law” (The Congressional Record 1952, 8267).

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In short order, the override vote was held, and the bill passed 57-26. Though the

1952 act did not liberalize to the extent Truman desired, the law did serve to accommodate many of Truman’s priorities, and as Hutchinson (1981) notes, represented the majority of Congress better than any other bills proposed in committee.

Overall, the debate reflected a dominance of McCarran’s and Walter’s preferences for incremental liberalization in lieu of either further restrictionism (which many preferred) or the broad-based approach favored by some liberals. Moreover, each side claimed support from numerous editorials, with The New York Times taking the side of

Humphrey and Lehman, whereas McCarran’s backers touted the support of the

Japanese American Citizens League and other civic organizations. McCarran also successfully exploited divisions within the administration, and cited the support of the

INS chief and CIA director, among others.

While it is true that both the Magnuson Act and the 1952 act (with caveats) were liberalizing, and while it is true that they passed in a period of low polarization, it would be misleading not to mention that racism still prohibited many Americans from equal treatment. As is commonly known, paid a price of internment by way of Roosevelt’s executive order and a Supreme Court that enabled him. And while there is no mistake that the Chinese scored a symbolic victory, neither Japanese nor

Chinese would be welcomed back into the United States in earnest until the passage of the 1965 act, and the federal government would not formally recognize the Japanese internment as an injustice and for still another twenty-two years after.

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Analysis of Roll Call Vote of 1952 Act

With respect to the veto override that enacted the McCarran-Walter Act, the lack of a coherent partisan position is borne out in logit regressions. No significant relationship is found between party and the position taken on the veto override.

The boxplot in Figure 5-1 displays the ideological distributions of the two parties according to first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores for each senator in 1952, and shows that the two parties both had large ideological ranges and considerable overlap; the interquartile ranges of the two parties were distinct, but by the barest of margins.

Figure 5-2 displays DW-NOMINATE scores by roll call vote in the Senate; more than three-fourths of those who voted to enact the law had positive scores, and a similar proportion who voted to sustain the veto had scores below zero. Abstentions converged to a point in between, though were closer to the “sustain” votes. Whereas the DW-NOMINATE score itself appears to show a strong relationship, Tables 5-1 and

5-2 show that a senator’s political party narrowly achieves significance as a factor as to whether the legislator voted to override, with Republicans more likely to have done so

(p=.048). Thus, the veto override had the most subtle of partisan overtones in an era where parties were not very cohesive themselves.

Figure 5-3 shows a near-normal distribution of ideological positions in the 82nd

Senate, skewed slightly left. Such a distribution is unique to this era, and more closely resembles that of a one-party system than it does that of a responsible two-party system. In other eras, overall ideological distribution reveals two distinct clusters with varying degrees of definition; here, more members gravitate towards the ideological center instead of to one of two polar extremes. Most likely, this distribution enabled

McCarran to build a legislative coalition relying mostly on rank-and-file centrists rather

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than on legislators with vested interests owing to high immigrant (or labor) populations in their states or districts.

Overall, opponents of McCarran-Walter took to the floor in greater numbers during the final debate than did supporters of the bill; furthermore, as Table 5-3 shows, opponents tended to be liberals, who raised the issues of discrimination, noted contributions of immigrant groups affected by the national origins quotas, and stressed the need for the United States to accommodate political dissidents from communist regimes, all the while suggesting that McCarran’s bill did not go far enough toward these ends. In response, McCarran stressed the same themes on the floor and needed little help from his allies in debating to get the bill passed, reassuring skeptics that his bill would provide most of the reforms they sought. For their part, opponents of the bill who preferred no liberalization at all, such as (D-AL) or Matthew Neely

(D-WV) stayed silent during the final debate, while voting “nay” alongside Humphrey,

Lehman, and Pastore. A complete list of the bill’s supporters’ and opponents’ positions and letter remarks can be seen in Table 5-9. These findings are not inconsistent with the broader historical trend. The overall bill, in spite of President Truman’s objections to it, was very mixed with respect to whether it was liberalizing or restrictive, and as the

APSA points out, the era was not reflective of a responsible party system. Therefore, it should be of no surprise that the parties’ stances on immigration specifically were barely more distinct than their overall platforms.

Immigration and Nationality Act (1965)

After the passage of the 1952 overhaul, the remaining national origins quotas continued to be a major point of contention within Congress. The law established another immigration commission (66 Stat 163), whose 1953 report, entitled Whom Shall

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We Welcome, disavowed the national origins quota system and decrying it as arbitrary and ineffective in reaching the desired aim. The first bill to fully repeal the national origins quotas was introduced by Lehman in 1953 immediately following the completion of the commission’s report, but McCarran scuttled the bill in committee in the same manner as he stopped Lehman’s substitute bill during the 81st Senate. More attempts would follow, including one by Javits, S.1093 in February 1964. Whereas some viewed refugees from communist regimes with suspicion and, as a safeguard, sought to assign extremely low quotas for them, Javits rebuffed these efforts, labeling the national origins quota system itself as a “target for Communist propaganda. (The Congressional Record

1965, 24446-80) But McCarran, having gotten the law he wanted, entertained no further changes for the remainder of his chairmanship,

The type of policy outcome Javits roughly preferred passed in Congress twelve years subsequently, after Kennedy, an immigration proponent, had been elected president and then assassinated. Though the scope of final bill was severely curtailed particularly in subcommittee with the Western hemisphere ceiling, while it did not go unaltered from previous proposals, the underlying bill was a creature of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Senator (D-MI) introduced the bill (S.500), by his own proclamation, on behalf of the Johnson administration.

Providing a stark contrast from the modern era, S.500 achieved broad and bipartisan support, bolstered by the liberal incoming class from the 1964 elections. the administration’s bill, supplanted two other similar proposals, S.436 and S.1093; the

House companion measure was H.R. 2580. Among S.500’s most vocal supporters were

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the Kennedy brothers Ted (MA) and Robert (NY), along with Sen. (R-HI)1, the first Asian American to become a member of Congress. 2

While many legislators thought the bill went too far or did not go far enough in accommodating new immigrants, there were those who expressed near-complete satisfaction with the final product; such members included Tower and Sen. Leverett

Saltonstall (R-MA), who nonetheless enthusiastically supported the bill. Saltonstall praised nearly all of the bill’s goals, but expressed concern about ’s population growth, which at the time was estimated at a three percent annually. This also distinguished Saltonstall for nuance, as he supported both the underlying bill and the Ervin amendment which curtailed it.

Ervin’s role in the process is particularly of note. While in committee, he succeeded in amending the bill to impose an annual 120,000 quota on Western

Hemisphere immigrants. He spent more time on the floor warning against repealing the national origins quotas than he did in support of the other aspects of the bill. His instincts, as he expressed them, were almost reflexively toward restriction, not liberalization. He remarked on the floor, “Although there may be no great hemispheric immigration problem at present, it is better to lock the stable door before the horse is stolen.” Also revealing was the fact that his colleague from his own (solidly )

1 During subcommittee hearings, three amendments proposed by Hiram Fong were adopted. Under the first, any alien who had lived in the United States for at least seven years and entered the country before June 28, 1958 could have their status adjusted to make him eligible for U.S. Citizenship. The second provided for the issuance of visas to students who were previously denied entry should they meet certain criteria. The third amendment enabled asylum seekers fleeing from communist countries and already in the United States to adjust their status in the U.S. without being required to return to their country of origin first. Fong cited the American Immigration and Citizenship Conference, an umbrella of over ninety ethnic organizations, as among the groups pushing hardest for passage of HR 2580.

2 Fong was also briefly a candidate in the GOP contest for the 1964 presidential nomination.

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state, Sen. , switched his vote from “nay” to “yea” only minutes before passage of the conference report. lavished enormous praise on Ervin throughout floor debate for Ervin’s cooperation in improving, and eventually passing, the bill, though the absolute context of the praise is unclear.

In similar fashion to Ervin, Sen. George Smathers (D-FL) offered guarded support for the legislation, talking mainly about the need to support Cuban refugees fleeing the Communist regime, and that the bill would be in the nation’s best interest overall. He did express reservations, however, in that he feared the bill would cover too many non-immigrant farm workers. Others were more effusive in praise. As he did during the debate of the 1952 act, Pastore of made very heavy use of

American exceptionalist metanarrative not against but for welcoming large numbers of new immigrants. “Today America is the beacon light of mankind. America is the hope and envy of the world. America wears the mantle of leadership…discrimination is invidious to our way of life” (The Congressional Record 1965, 24562-5).

Both the bill’s supporters and opposition were highly fragmented in terms of what provisions they supported and why. The centerpiece of the 1965 act was the abolition of the national origins quota system, a move that was supported by Sen.

(R-TX). Tower, in a written statement, opposed final passage based on his belief that the country could not sustain the large numbers of immigrants that the bill would allow.

(Tower did not actually cast a roll call vote against the bill.). Other opponents, such as

Sen. Spessard Holland (D-FL) opposed almost every aspect of the bill on racist grounds, including the repeal of the quota system. Holland was irked not only by the restriction of Canadians in the bill (owing to the Western Hemisphere ceiling) but also by

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the fact that immigrants from Africa would now be treated as favorably as immigrants from Europe. Holland cited many letters of opposition to the bill from constituents, as did Dirksen (R-IL), and while Holland was a vehement opponent of the legislation,

Dirksen was more or less a willing supporter. Others still, such as Ervin, assumed the reverse of Tower’s position, supporting final passage while denying the need to do away with the quota system.

Those in opposition tried to pare down the law with amendments, but most were unsuccessful. Sen. Jack Miller (R-IA) offered an amendment seeking to fix the total number of immigrants at 290,000 per year by subtracting from that number nonquota immigrants. For example, if there were 20,000 immigrants in a given year admitted from nonquota countries, then that would be deducted from the 170,000 allotted to the

Eastern hemisphere (which, combined with the 120,000 ceiling for Western hemisphere, would amount to 290,000). Ted Kennedy vociferously attacked the proposal, saying it went against the core intention of the bill. Ultimately, the Miller proposal was rejected.

Sen. (D-MS), then serving as chair of the Senate Judiciary

Committee, unequivocally opposed the bill. Like Holland of Florida, Eastland’s opposition was transparently race-based. Another southerner, Sen. Allen Ellender (D-

LA), suggested halting all immigration for five years and conducting a study on the relationship between immigration and , but such proposals failed to receive serious consideration.

Both Kennedy brothers, as well as Sens. Javits and Hart, were all opposed to the Western Hemisphere ceiling. Nevertheless, the ceiling made it into the bill during consideration by the Subcommittee on Immigration. Sen. Ervin passionately advocated

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for there to be such a ceiling, invoking the late Senator Lehman’s name in justifying his support for it, though everything Lehman had done while still living suggests he would not have supported the ceiling.

The Ervin-backed effort for a Western Hemisphere ceiling, despite being part of a broader liberalization of immigration law, is notable for several reasons. Most evidently, because a ceiling limits immigration to a fixed and finite number, it by extension sets a hard limit on the potential scope of liberalization caused by this bill. The numerical impact alone signifies a hard policy concession sought by southern Democrats and ultimately granted by the Democratic leadership, despite the preferences of the underlying bill’s chief proponents.

Second, most of the Western Hemisphere immigration was to be nonwhite; therefore, limiting it would also serve to limit changes to the racial distribution of the U.S. population. Immigration involves dimensions of both economics and race; therefore a member’s position on immigration has coordinates on both dimensions. Accordingly, a member who favored segregation and other racialist views on the sociocultural dimension would seek to compensate for their ideological distance from the bill through amendments such as the Western Hemisphere ceiling. It is reasonable to doubt that the underlying bill would have won the support of the necessary southern Democrats absent such concessions.

Third, it underscores that the end product was a compromise between various party factions, making it palatable to the political center, which at the time was occupied by southern Democrats and some moderate Republicans. In this respect, the process finds commonality with the 1952 and 1986 laws, which were shaped in their final forms

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by centrist measures, and contrast with the 1996 law, whose original form was shaped by Republican leadership and was left largely untouched until passage.

At the same time, the underlying objective of the bill was unequivocally liberalization, and given the bill’s major other provisions, such as the full repeal of the national origins quota system and the overall increase in immigration that the bill promised, members aligned with Javits and the Kennedys had far more to gain than to lose by seeing the bill pass. Indeed, the consternation Javits felt with regard to the

Western Hemisphere ceiling, among other things, was mitigated by the overall thrust of the bill. As Javits remarked upon consideration of the conference report:

…I wish to pay tribute, as I have before, to the statesmanship of the distinguished senior Senator from [Mr. Ervin], I did not agree with him on [the Western Hemisphere ceiling] at all; he did not agree with me. But he did agree in the final analysis that there should be a bill, and he found himself able, in good conscience, to accept the totality of this package without which a bill would not have been possible. I am satisfied as to that…the proudest words in any language that can be offered to a man of intellect, whether one agrees with him or not, are, ‘I am persuaded.’ This is my tribute to the Senator from North Carolina. (The Congressional Record 1965, 25616)

Immediately after, Ervin himself, a Dixiecrat not known for liberal stances on race relations, praised Javits, and overall bill, insisting that the Western Hemisphere ceiling was one of the bill’s best attributes. Ervin said, “I believe that the bill is the best obtainable at this time in our Nation’s history. I believe that we will insult our Latin

American neighbors less by placing a limitation…now, before 600 million people demand entrance to this country” (The Congressional Record 1965, 25616). What might have been a perpetual sticking point leading to stalemate in another era was a compromise enabling a broad and disparate coalition to support the immigration reform effort.

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Overall, the administration achieved most of its stated objectives, and ultimately, the finished product had the distinct ideological stamp of the Kennedys; at the request of Robert and Ted, their late brother’s book, “A Nation of Immigrants,” was printed in the record in its entirety (The Congressional Record 1965, 24482-98), and H.R. 2580 passed the House on August 25, 1965; S. 500 was reported by the Senate Judiciary

Committee on September 8, and passed by the Senate on September 22, after which the conference report was adopted in both chambers by a voice vote on September 30. and was signed into law at the foot of the Statue of Liberty by Lyndon Johnson on

October 3. Upon signing, Johnson remarked, “The days of unlimited immigration are past. But those who do come will come because of what they are, and not because of the land from which they have sprung.”

Analysis of Roll Call Vote of 1965 Act

Tables 5-4 and 5-5 illustrate the strength of opposition and support in the Senate for S. 500. Table 5-4 shows no significant correlation between party and roll call vote on final passage; yet as Table 5-5 shows, first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores readily suggest significance as a factor in the roll call vote (p=.01). Taken together, these results suggest that much of the support for S.500 was ideological, though not partisan in a direct sense; the parties had only recently departed on an ideological self- sorting trajectory, yet this bill’s pool of supporters was quite more liberal than the smaller pool of those in opposition. In that respect, the immigration bill was more reflective of the future Democratic Party’s ideals than it was necessarily of the party’s current composition in the Senate.

As Figure 5-4 shows, there was considerable overlap between parties of DW-

NOMINATE scores in the 89th Congress, though not to the same extent as in the 81st

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Congress. The distribution of scores for Republicans had not changed substantially, but for the Democrats, the interquartile range was much lower (with a median of 0.37) and more condensed than it had been previously, influenced particularly heavily by the incoming class of 1964. The lower quartile for Republicans and upper quartile for

Democrats neatly overlap; Democrats had two outliers, one in each direction.

Figure 5-5 shows a relatively normalized distribution of ideology in the Senate.

The center was still well occupied, but with a surge in members with DW-NOMINATE scores in the -0.3 to -0.4 range. This indicates a more liberal turn in the ideology of the chamber at large, though overall substantive polarization was not yet evident; conservative Democrats, particularly from the South, were now challenged by liberals, but they would not fully relinquish their power until several cycles later.

The boxplot in Figure 5-6 shows a trend whereby the Democrats who supported the bill had lower DW-NOMINATE scores than those who did, which matches expectations given the liberalizing nature of S.500; with one exception (Democrat Frank

Lausche of Ohio), every Democrat who voted in favor had a negative first-dimension score. For the Republicans, the DW-NOMINATE is not indicative of support the immigration overhaul. On the “yea” side, Javits and Sen. Clifford Case of are shown as outliers since they had scores below zero and since Javits was a leading proponent of the bill, his “yea” vote is of much lesser surprise than most of the other

“yea” votes within the Republican conference, all of whom had scores well above zero.

By way of contrast, a relationship between the DW-NOMINATE score and the roll call vote clearly does exist for the Democrats. All of the Democratic “no” votes had

“moderate” DW-NOMINATE scores, but they clearly could not have been called

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moderate on issues concerning race and identity, suggesting a major divergence between the two dimensions. Only a few Democrats with DW-NOMINATE scores in this range supported the law for reasons outlined in this chapter. Outliers were Lausche, who had a score much more typical of a Republican but voted “yes,” and Sen. Wayne

Morse (D-OR) who had a lower DW-NOMINATE score than anyone serving with him.

Overall, the bill achieved a broad ideological coalition, even though the primary force originated from the center-left.

For this case, results from the preceding election predict a member’s vote even better than DW-NOMINATE scores or party affiliation, as the logit regression in Tables

5-6 and 5-7 suggests. The relationship is robust (p<.001), with the states Goldwater did the best in being the most likely to have senators who opposed the bill, and Senators may have taken a cue from the election results in deciding how to vote on S.500.

However, this did not apply evenly, as some states’ senators split their votes (namely

Smathers and Holland of Florida) while others nearly did (Ervin and Jordan of North

Carolina). The inverse relationship between Goldwater’s vote percentage in a given state and the likelihood of that state’s senators voting “yea” might be expected, however, since Goldwater was not noted for being a proponent of liberalized immigration. Indeed, one might argue that the immigration bill was as much a portent for the Democratic Party’s immigration platform as Goldwater’s candidacy was for the

Republicans.

As evidenced by Table 5-8, 1965 act’s proponents were much more vocal than were the coalition that passed the 1952 act, and decidedly outnumbered the opposition in giving floor speeches as well as through the final vote tally. Also different from the

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1952 debate was that there was nearly no overlap in the priorities expressed on the floor between supporters and opponents. The most popular theme expressed by supporters was the need to end discrimination from previous laws (“A”), and to institute the elaborate preference system in the 1965 law to address family unification (“G”).

Supporters also sought more skilled workers (“C”) and celebrated positive diplomatic effects that the bill would have with countries whose subjects previous laws had excluded (“B”). Also present was the general metanarrative that the 1965 reforms would reflect American values and that the nation would be better for them (“M”).

Overall, opponents expressed dismay that the new immigration the 1965 bill would allow would not be compatible with existing American communities (“U”), or would constitute too large of a proportion of the U.S. population (“Q”) and would exacerbate overpopulation overall (“S”). As in other times, potential labor displacement was addressed (“R”), but as an issue, it did not garner the same share of traction that it would have in less prosperous economic times. The complete list of supporters, opponents, and their letter remarks are included in Table 5-10.

Conclusion to Chapter Five

Party polarization was at historic lows throughout this era. Within this era, 1964 marked the peak in terms of ideological distance between the two parties in the Senate, but polarization was still at a relative low historically. All legislation pertaining to immigration passed during this era was, on balance, liberalizing; therefore, Hypothesis

1, which maintains that broad liberalizations of immigration are passed during depolarized eras, is supported by legislative outcomes. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations successfully put together broad coalitions, which included liberal

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Democrats, most Republicans, and some southern conservative Democratic committee chairs, to pass the broad reform effort, a feat not possible in a more ideologically polarized era.

For the first time in this dissertation, the results coincide with Hypothesis 2a, which holds that roll call votes on immigration should be broadly reflective of polarization across all issue domains. Patterns of support for the major immigration measures were bipartisan; at the time, both parties lacked a discernable ideological distinction from one another (as measured by DW-NOMINATE), and the same is true for the roll call votes on the 1952 act. The passage of the 1965 law was also bipartisan, mainly because Southern Democrats were themselves too divided to mount effective opposition. Though the assumptions behind Hypothesis 2a are severely undercut by results in other eras, such is not the case here.

If narrowly applied to the laws themselves, Hypothesis 2b, which predicts prevalence of more nuanced floor speeches in eras of lower polarization, finds some support. The debate, led by committee chairs McCarran and Walter, on the 1952 act was nuanced in terms of the policy, Truman’s veto message was nuanced, and the policy objective itself was nuanced. At the same time, paranoia contraindicates nuance in the broader sense, and racialized paranoia from previous eras was replaced by

McCarthyism, and anti-Communist paranoia has been in some instances intertwined with race, and the debate between McCarran’s supporters and Lehman’s supporters often proved lacking in civility. In 1965, nuance was again restricted to a few senators; the rest spoke forcefully in favor or liberalization or restrictionism, but not a combination of both. Many southern Democrats loyal to Johnson expressed mixed sentiments about

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the bill and in due course their nuanced support, but the rest of the Dixiecrats were not nuanced in their opposition, and disfavored the measure based on racial implications.

Summarily, some members gave nuanced speeches and some did not, and for many who did not, one paranoia merely replaced another.

Lastly, of all the eras covered in this dissertation, the war years and immediate postwar years exemplify Hypothesis 3, which holds that wartime discourses influence immigration policy, better than any other era. Within the immediate temporal context, the formation of a military alliance with the Chinese Nationalists appears both necessary and sufficient as a cause of the 1943 act; the act itself represented an abrupt shift in congressional discourse, restoring technical legal equality to a country whose citizens had previously been deemed inadmissible, and its contribution was widely recognized in

Congress as important to the most intensive war effort in United States history. The

Cold War then created a paradigm guaranteeing that future attempts at immigration reform be subject to its own context. Paranoia found a new form in McCarthyism, and

Congress liberalized immigration broadly in 1952 and 1965 while taking specific steps to encourage immigration from anticommunists. Overall, developments in this era suggest that immigration reforms were no longer primarily analogous to economics (as in 1924), or purely to a cultural issue such as a racialized discourse (as in 1882), but now subject to a third legislative dimension in foreign policy.

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Figure 5-1. Senators' DW-NOMINATE scores grouped by party in the 82nd Senate (1952)

Figure 5-2. Senators' DW-NOMINATE scores grouped by their vote to sustain or override Truman's veto of 1952 act

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Table 5-1. Logit regression measuring effect of a Senator’s political party on his/her override vote of 1952 act

Observed Predicted

Roll Call Vote on Veto Percentage Override Correct

Yea Nay

Roll Call Vote Yea 57 0 100 on Veto Override

Nay 25 0 0

Overall 69.5 Percentage

Table 5-2. Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on veto override is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

Party 1.001 .505 3.925 1 .048 2.720

Constant .386 .314 1.505 1 .220 1.471

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Figure 5-3. Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in the 81st Senate (1952)

Table 5-3. Most popular themes expressed in debate on veto override of 1952 act

Frequency Most Popular Themes Invoked in Debate (1952) Supporters 2 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory 2 I Immigrants have proven their worth in U.S. communities 2 K The U.S. must assist oppressed peoples around the world Opponents 9 K The U.S. must assist oppressed peoples around the world 8 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory 6 B Existing (or newly proposed) immigration restrictions would damage U.S. standing in the world 6 F Immigration laws must be humanitarian, not draconian 6 I Immigrants have proven their worth in U.S. communities

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Table 5-4. Pearson correlation of vote on S.500 by Party (1965)

DW-NOMINATE Roll Call (first dimension) (final passage)

DW-NOMINATE Pearson Correlation 1 .067 (first dimension)

Significance (two-tailed) .506

N 100 100

Roll Call (final Pearson Correlation .067 1 passage)

Significance (two-tailed) .506

N 100 100

Table 5-5. Pearson correlation of DW-NOMINATE scores with roll call vote on S.500 (1965)

DW-NOMINATE Roll Call (first dimension) (conference report)

DW-NOMINATE Pearson Correlation 1 -.257* (first dimension)

Significance (two-tailed) .010

N 100 99

Roll Call Pearson Correlation -.257* 1 (conference report)

Significance (two-tailed) .010

N 99 100

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Figure 5-4. DW-NOMINATE scores in 89th Senate by Party. Outliers are Lausche (Ohio, #71) and Morse (Oregon, #74)

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Figure 5-5. Distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores in the Senate during the 89th Congress (1965)

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Democratic Republican  * 2. Milward L. Simpson (R)

0.500

* 3. Frank J. Lausche (D) 

0.000

 * 3. Jacob K. Javits (R) * 2. Clifford P. Case (R)

-0.500 Nay

* 3. Wayne L. Morse (D) 

Nay NV Yea NV Yea

Roll Call (Sep 21) Roll Call (Sep 21)

Figure 5-6. Roll Call vote on initial passage of HR2580, broken down by party (1965)

Table 5-6. Binary logistic regression, dependent variable is roll call on passage of HR2580, independent variable is vote percentage difference between Goldwater and Johnson in 1964 election in that Senator’s state

Observed Predicted

Roll Call Vote on Final Percentage Passage Correct

Yea Nay

Roll Call Vote Yea 75 1 98.7 on Final Passage

Nay 9 9 50.0

Overall 89.4 Percentage

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Table 5-7. Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on final passage is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

Goldwater (%)- -.094 0.24 14.775 1 .000 .911 Johnson (%)

Constant .339 .411 6.81 1 .409 1.403

Table 5-8. Most popular themes expressed on the Senate floor in final debate on 1965 act

Frequency Most Popular Themes Invoked in Debate (1965) Supporters 20 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory 15 G Immigrant family reunification must be prioritized 13 M The U.S. will be greater and more prosperous with this reform 11 C The U.S. needs skilled workers 10 B Existing (or newly proposed) immigration restrictions would damage U.S. standing in the world Opponents 6 U Assimilation is not possible for certain groups 5 Q The U.S. has (or will have) too many immigrants 5 R Immigration will displace U.S. workers 5 S Immigration will cause overpopulation in the U.S.

Table 5-9. Senate roll call vote and remarks on Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (veto override)

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks John J. Sparkman (D) AL Nay Joseph Lester Hill (D) AL Nay J. William Fulbright (D) AR Yea John Little McClellan (D) AR Yea Ernest W. McFarland (D) AZ Yea N (D) AZ Yea William F. Knowland (R) CA Yea Richard M. Nixon (R) CA Yea Eugene D. Millikin (R) CO Yea Edwin Carl Johnson (D) CO Yea Brien McMahon (D) CT NV Opposes AKM William Benton (D) CT Nay Strongly Opposes ABFIK J. Allen Frear, Jr. (D) DE Yea Favors

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Table 5-9. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks John J. Williams (R) DE Yea Spessard Holland (D) FL Yea George Smathers (D) FL Yea Walter Franklin George (D) GA Yea Strongly Favors QRV Richard Brevard Russell (D) GA NV Bourke B. Hickenlooper (R) IA Yea Guy M. Gillette (D) IA Nay (R) ID Yea (R) ID Yea (R) IL Yea (D) IL Nay Strongly Opposes ABCFGKL William E. Jenner (R) IN Yea Homer E. Capehart (R) IN Yea Andrew F. Schoeppel (R) KS Yea (R) KS NV Favors Earle C. Clements (D) KY Nay Thomas R. Underwood (D) KY Nay Allen Joseph Ellnder (D) LA Yea Russell B. Long (D) LA Yea Strongly Favors N (R) MA Nay Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (R) MA NV Opposes Herbert O’Conor (D) MD Yea Strongly Favors I John M. Butler (R) MD Yea (R) ME Yea (R) ME NV Favors Homer Ferguson (R) MI Yea Strongly Favors K Blair Moody (D) MI Nay Strongly Opposes ABIK Hubert Humphrey (D) MN Nay Strongly Opposes BCFGJK Edward John Thye (R) MN Yea Favors AIK Thomas C. Hennings, Jr. (D) MO Nay James P. Kern (R) MO Yea John C. Stennis (D) MS Yea James O. Eastland (D) MS Yea James Edward Murray (D) MT Nay Zales N. Ecton (R) MT Yea Willis Smith (D) NC Yea Strongly Favors Clyde Roark Hoey (D) NC Yea (R) ND NV

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Table 5-9. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks (R) ND Yea Hugh A. Bulter (R) NE Yea Fred Andrew Seaton (R) NE Nay (R) NH Yea Charles W. Tobey (R) NH NV Opposes H. Alexander Smith (R) NJ Nay AK Robert C. Hendrickson (R) NJ Nay Opposes Dennis Wyatt Chavez (D) NM NV Opposes I Clinton Presba Anderson (D) NM NV Pat McCarran (D) NV Yea Strongly Favors AGMQX George W. Malone (R) NV Yea Irving M. Ives (R) NY Nay Opposes I Herbert H. Lehman (D) NY Nay Strongly Opposes ABIJK Robert A. Taft (R) OH NV John W. Bricker (R) OH Yea Robert S. Kerr (D) OK NV A.S. (D) OK NV Favors Wayne L. Morse (R) OR Nay Strongly Opposes F (R) OR Yea James H. Duff (R) PA Nay Edward Martin (R) PA Yea John O. Pastore (D) RI Nay Strongly Opposes ABEFKL Theodore Francis Green (D) RI Nay Burnet R. Maybank (D) SC Yea Olin D. Johnston (D) SC Yea Karl E. Mundt (R) SD Yea Strongly Favors P Francis H. Case (R) SD Yea Strongly Favors U Kenneth D. McKellar (D) TN Yea C. (D) TN NV Opposes Thomas Terry Connally (D) TX Yea Lyndon B. Johnson (D) TX Yea Arthur V. Watkins (R) UT Yea Wallace F. Bennett (R) UT Yea Harry Flood Byrd (D) VA Yea Absalom Willis Robertson (D) VA Yea Ralph E. Flanders (R) VT Yea (R) VT Nay Warren G. Magnuson (D) WA Nay Strongly Opposes

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Table 5-9. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Harry P. Cain (R) WA Yea Strongly Favors (R) WI Yea Joseph McCarthy (R) WI Yea Harley M. Kilgore (D) WV Nay Strongly Opposes AFJ Matthew M. Neely (D) WV Nay Joseph Christopher O’Mahoney (D) WY Nay Strongly Opposes CDGIJKM Lester C. Hunt (D) WY Nay

Table 5-10. Senate roll call vote and remarks on Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (final passage)

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Edward L. (Bob) Bartlett (D) AK Yea Strongly Favors JL (D) AK Yea Strongly Favors John J. Sparkman (D) AL Nay . J. Lister Hill (D) AL Nay . J. William Fulbright (D) AR Yea . John L. McClellan (D) AR Nay Strongly Opposes DSUV Paul J. Fannin (R) AZ Yea . Carl Hayden (D) AZ Nay . George L. Murphy (R) CA Yea . Thomas H. Kuchel (R) CA Yea Strongly Favors ABCDFGIKLM Peter H. Dominick (R) CO Yea . Gordon L. Allott (R) CO Yea Strongly Favors GJ Abraham A. Ribicoff (D) CT Yea Strongly Favors ABCEG Thomas J. Dodd (D) CT Yea Strongly Favors ADFGJLM John J. Williams (R) DE Yea . J. Caleb Boggs (R) DE Yea . Spessard L. Holland (D) FL Nay Strongly Opposes QRUVW George A. Smathers (D) FL Yea Favors DM Richard B. Russell, Jr. (D) GA Nay . Herman E. Talmadge (D) GA Nay . Daniel K. Inouye (D) HI Yea Strongly Favors Hiram L. Fong (R) HI Yea Strongly Favors ABCEG Bourke B. Hickenlooper (R) IA Yea . Jack R. Miller (R) IA NV Favors AQ

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Table 5-10. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Leonard B. Jordan (R) ID Yea . Frank F. Church (D) ID Yea . Everett M. Dirksen (R) IL Yea Strongly Favors ACGIKLS Paul H. Douglas (D) IL Yea Strongly Favors R. (D) IN Yea Strongly Favors Birch E. Bayh (D) IN Yea Strongly Favors James B. Pearson (R) KS Yea . Frank Carlson (R) KS Yea . (R) KY Nay . Thruston B. Morton (R) KY Yea Favors Allen J. Ellender (D) LA Nay Strongly Opposes JPQRSTUVW Russell B. Long (D) LA Yea Favors M Edward M. Kennedy (D) MA Yea Strongly Favors ABCEFGIJM Leverett Saltonstall (R) MA Yea Strongly Favors ABCFGIJM Daniel B. Brewster (D) MD Yea Strongly Favors Joseph D. Tydings (D) MD Yea Strongly Favors AEIM Margaret Chase Smith (R) ME Yea . Edmund S. Muskie (D) ME Yea Strongly Favors AHJM Philip A. Hart (D) MI Yea Strongly Favors ABCEGIKM Patrick V. McNamara (D) MI Yea Strongly Favors Walter F. Mondale (DFL) MN Yea Strongly Favors Eugene J. McCarthy (DFL) MN Yea Strongly Favors AFG W. (D) MO Yea . Edward V. Long (D) MO Yea Strongly Favors John C. Stennis (D) MS Nay . James O. Eastland (D) MS Nay Strongly Opposes OPQRSTU Lee W. Metcalf (D) MT Yea . Michael J. Mansfield (D) MT Yea Strongly Favors B. Everett Jordan (D) NC Nay * DR Samuel J. Ervin, Jr. (D) NC Yea Favors EGHMQUV Quentin N. Burdick (D) ND Yea . Milton R. Young (R) ND Yea . Roman L. Hruska (R) NE Yea . Carl T. Curtis (R) NE Yea . Thomas J. McIntyre (D) NH Yea . Norris H. Cotton (R) NH Nay . Clifford P. Case (R) NJ Yea Strongly Favors Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (D) NJ Yea Strongly Favors ABCEFGLM

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Table 5-10. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Joseph M. Montoya (D) NM Yea . Clinton P. Anderson (D) NM NV . Howard W. Cannon (D) NV Yea . Alan H. Bible (D) NV Yea . Jacob K. Javits (R) NY Yea Strongly Favors ABCEG Robert F. Kennedy (D) NY Yea Strongly Favors ABCJM Stephen M. Young (D) OH Yea Strongly Favors Frank J. Lausche (D) OH Yea Strongly Favors Fred R. Harris (D) OK Yea . A. S. (Mike) Monroney (D) OK Yea . Wayne L. Morse (D) OR Yea Strongly Favors AF Maurine B. Neuberger (D) OR Yea Strongly Favors Hugh D. Scott, Jr. (R) PA NV Strongly Favors Joseph S. Clark (D) PA Yea Strongly Favors Claiborne D. Pell (D) RI Yea Strongly Favors ABCFGKL John O. Pastore (D) RI Yea Strongly Favors AHI Donald S. Russell (D) SC Nay . IPQ J. Strom Thurmond (R) SC Nay Opposes ES Karl E. Mundt (R) SD Yea . George S. McGovern (D) SD Yea . (D) TN Yea . Albert A. Gore, Sr. (D) TN Yea . Ralph W. Yarborough (D) TX Yea . John G. Tower (R) TX NV Strongly Favors AGQRST Wallace F. Bennett (R) UT NV Favors Frank E. (Ted) Moss (D) UT Yea Strongly Favors Harry F. Byrd (D) VA Nay . A. Willis Robertson (D) VA Nay Strongly Opposes U Winston L. Prouty (R) VT Yea . George D. Aiken (R) VT Yea . Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson (D) WA Yea . Warren G. Magnuson (D) WA Yea . Gaylord A. Nelson (D) WI Yea . (D) WI Yea Strongly Favors Robert C. Byrd (D) WV Nay Strongly Opposes QRSTUWX (D) WV Yea Strongly Favors Milward L. Simpson (R) WY NV Favors Gale W. McGee (D) WY Yea Strongly Favors AJ

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CHAPTER 6 FROM REFORM TO REAGAN-BUSH

Introduction

The Reform Congress, engineered in large part by liberal Democrats first elected in the 1960s and 1970s, upended the power structures in previous eras, ultimately made committees much less powerful, and involved new party leadership that favored the interests of newer and ideologically leftist Democrats. Power shifted away from conservative committee chairs generally, but now faced a specific threat of repercussions from party leaders if the Democrats’ national agenda were not followed.

While the ideological transitions in both parties added additional complexity to the debate, such complexity at the same time enabled the ideological center to marginalize both extremes and realize reform that was truly consensus-based, though imperfect.

The fluidity of Congress (through which major reform was eventually enacted in 1986) was likely in part endogenous to the fluidity of the president’s own views on immigration matters.

Early in the Reform Congress, the immigration system was perceived to have been sufficiently addressed at the time due to the major 1965 overhaul; Congress attempted only minor modifications. For example, the act of October 20, 1976, sought to lessen the waiting period for prospective immigrants from the Western Hemisphere by extending the preference system to Latin America and the Caribbean. (94 Stat. 102)

The Act of 1980 is an example of a law that while seemingly tailored to a single type of immigrant, in terms of actual effect, it allowed for unprecedented numbers of people to be admitted from regions of the world that theretofore were not among the “preferred” countries of origin. More than anything, it was representative of

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national unity against the lingering specter of communism; in the two decades preceding the act, over a million refugees had come, mainly from communist regimes such as , , mainland China and the USSR. These numbers well outstripped what the 1965 immigration overhaul had anticipated, and therefore the need for new legislation arose.

While upon passage, the law called for a ceiling of 50,000 refugees annually, a provision in the law enabled the president to adjust that number for a given year if international crises warranted him doing so. In addition, the act codified into U.S. law the UN definition of a refugee- someone with a “well-founded fear of ” due to his or her race, religion, or membership in a political movement, and the law specifically excluded those who may have participated in the persecution of such individuals in their own country.

The act of 1980, which was in accordance with the White House’s request, received broad support from both parties; it was approved unanimously in the Senate and opposed by a small bipartisan group of House members. The law was narrowly tailored to a specific class of immigrants, but at the same time conferred broad powers onto Carter and all future presidents, the ability to override the ceiling of 50,000, bearing implications all the way to the modern era. But the was not intended as a systematic immigration overhaul; rather, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) passed in 1986 and sponsored by Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) and Rep. Romano

Mazzoli (D-KY) was to be the focus of Congress’s efforts.

The Making of IRCA

As the earlier debate ensued as to how to apply the immigration system to handle international crises, the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy

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was established to propose remedies. (U.S. Select Commission 1981, xi). This commission, headed up by Theodore Hesburgh, who was then the president of the

University of Notre Dame, made a broad array of recommendations on how Congress might approach the issue. Summarizing their priorities, the Commission wrote:

We recommend closing the back door to undocumented/illegal migration, opening the front door a little more to accommodate legal migration in the interests of this country, defining our immigration goals clearly and providing a structure to implement them effectively, and setting forth procedures which will lead to fair and efficient adjudication and administration of U.S. immigration laws. (3)

Throughout their report, while the Commission did advocate tighter enforcement and imposing employer sanctions on companies who hire immigrants who are undocumented, they were more vocal in advocating for legalization of undocumented workers, family reunification, more visas to clear immigrant backlogs, and involvement of volunteer and community organizations to play a part in welcoming new immigrants.

These remarks implicitly advocated a comprehensive approach; such fundamental questions as “defining immigration goals” and “providing a structure” cannot be addressed effectively piecemeal. Simpson became the chief architect of Congress’s answer to the Commission, and likened his legislative priorities to a “three-legged stool:” better enforcement on the border, penalties for companies who hire undocumented immigrants, and the creation of a national ID card as proof of eligibility to work in the

United States.

Though these priorities all seemed noncontroversial to many, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce foresaw a negative economic impact from any government-imposed penalties levied on companies who do not- or cannot- adequately comply with the work eligibility verification process. The employer sanctions were also opposed by liberal

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Democrats, who characterized them as having racially discriminatory consequences

(Gimpel and Edwards 1999).

Which of these aspects to prioritize would be a matter for the new president and incoming Congress, and Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980 was accompanied by a

Republican Senate majority, thereby increasing the influence both he and Simpson would have. Shortly after assuming office as president, Reagan issued a nuanced, yet generally open door statement on how to tackle a new immigration overhaul. Repeating the oft-used mantra, “our nation is a nation of immigrants,”1 Reagan stated that any changes to immigration policy had to reflect the “special relationship” that the U.S. had with Canada and Mexico, that workers coming from Mexico to the United States was beneficial to both countries, and that those immigrants who had resided in the U.S. for a certain period of time should be granted legal status. Notably, Reagan did caution that in the process that Congress should not encourage further illegal immigration through whatever act it may pass, but much like the Select Commission’s report, the emphasis in his rhetoric went mainly to accommodation of newcomers.

The ambiguities and ambivalences of Reagan’s measured involvement in the immigration debate is not incongruent with his record as Governor of California (Maddux

2005). As Governor, Reagan signed a bill by moderate Republican Assemblyman

Dixon Arnett, which made it unlawful for companies to knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. Reagan had previously expressed immense skepticism to the ideas behind the bill, but upon signing it, issued a “ringing endorsement” (Maddux 2005). Reagan

1 Found in LeMay and Barkan (1999). Original citation: The Papers of the Presidents, Ronald Reagan, 1981, Vol. I (Washington D.C. Government Printing Office, 1982), 676-77.

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then proceeded to cut funding to the State agency responsible, so that not a single breach of tis law had ever been successfully prosecuted.

Because the issue remained unsettled in the hotspots where undocumented farm labor was most prominent, and because Reagan showed initial signs of the same flexibility toward the federal debate as he did towards the California state statute, the early 1980s would thus see a surge in Congressional activity on immigration, but this did not culminate immediately into passable legislation; IRCA was pieced together over the 97th, 98th, and 99th Congresses. Over this time, inter-constituency and inter-party coalitions were necessary, making the task of Simpson more difficult; an accommodation given to one group had the potential to void the deal for another group.

From its start in 1981 until a month before its passage in November 1986, IRCA was a creature mainly of Simpson and other Senate Republicans. For Reagan, the issue was salient enough for him to express a preference that the Select Commission’s recommendations be implemented, but not salient enough as to warrant adhering to an immutable ideological core during negotiations. For his part, Simpson stayed well within the framework. But Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) was also deeply involved in shaping the bill, and aimed to make the bill more accommodating to newly arrived migrants (moving the cutoff date for amnesty forward) and less threatening to labor (Kennedy made a failed attempt to give the Secretary of Labor, not just the INS, more power to regulate temporary worker programs). This posed an initial conflict between liberal Democrats and the Reagan administration, which initially resisted extending amnesty to migrants mainly because of the strain that agencies at all levels of government had been

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enduring providing social services to new immigrants. (Gimpel and Edwards 1999).

For his efforts, Kennedy would not be satisfied with the final product.

In the House, Rep. Peter Rodino (D-NJ) had the task of shepherding the Senate bill through the House Judiciary Committee. Rodino defeated a “killer” amendment in

Committee from Don Edwards (D-CA), who wanted the federal government to pay the full costs of amnesty for three years, believing that his state would otherwise bear a considerable fiscal burden. He also defeated Bill McCollum’s (R-FL) amendment that would have struck the amnesty provisions from the bill entirely and Ralph Hall’s (D-

Texas) measure, which was widely recognized as a “killer” amendment. While most hostile committee amendments were defeated, House leaders could not as easily control the debate on the floor.

Once the bill reached the House floor, it quickly became clear that the 97th

Congress would not realize passage of the law. The Democratic leadership, fearful of the potential wrath of Hispanic voters and liberals in urban areas heavily populated by immigrants, allowed the bill to the floor but allowed nearly unlimited amendments. A chorus of opposition began to form among Hispanic members (chief among them being

Edward Roybal, D-CA) and pro-business conservatives, thus Mazzoli, unprepared for the wave of amendments his bill was facing, pulled the bill from consideration until the

97th Congress adjourned. (Gimpel and Edwards 1999). Bills would pass both chambers in the 98th Congress, but would not be reconciled in committee.

Ronald Reagan had won re-election handily in 1984, with fifty-nine percent of the vote to Democrat ’s forty-one percent, While Reagan’s main priorities were economic growth and fostering strategic global alliances, the administration

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nevertheless pushed hard for the bill to pass. By September 1986, IRCA was in its fourth major iteration, and appeared to be stalemated from disagreements between

Senate Republicans and House Democrats.

Additionally, Reagan won forty-four percent of the Hispanic vote in 1984 (Light and Lake 1985), a number unbeaten by all subsequent Republican presidential candidates; not coincidentally, he was the last Republican presidential candidate to win all contests on the West coast. The White House understood that maintaining acceptable levels of Hispanic support required Republicans to pursue a balanced approach to immigration reform, which characterized IRCA. “When pressed, [Reagan] usually chose popularity over principle, compromise over conscience” (Troy 2008).

Despite his overall conservative governing approach, Reagan sought to build consensus on IRCA as he did with the Tax Act of 1986; at the same time, after a commission report, four years of debate and a midterm election looming, there were no viable legislative alternatives to IRCA. Pursuing enactment of the bill as written

(however flawed) carried both risks and benefits; there were fewer perceived upsides to stalemate.

Implications were also major for the Mexican government, which had been suffering from a debt crisis for years, further compounded by a plunge in oil prices. The value of the peso was plummeting. The Reagan administration had negotiated a loan package to help the Mexican government, which had become hugely unpopular amidst painful austerity measures and allegations of fraud at the polls. It was also speculated that these were considerations in the latter days of the IRCA debate, as a comprehensive immigration policy would assumedly help stabilize the border situation,

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which seemed to be growing more chaotic. (The New York Tines 1986a) Jorge

Castaneda, then a political scientist at the National University of Mexico, said that the economic situation in Mexico left the youthful unemployed with three options-

“delinquency, revolution or the United States. (Castaneda 1986)

The unrest led the Reagan administration to push for IRCA as a partial means of addressing it. But the 1986 version of IRCA was nearly thwarted when that September,

Rep. (R-CA) attempted to offer an amendment to replace the amnesty provision with a guest-worker program. The House leadership balked and would not permit him to come forward with the amendment, and so despite pressure from the administration to get a bill passed, 145 Republicans joined fifty-seven Democratic

House members to defeat the rule governing the bill’s passage on the floor. If indeed most of the Democratic votes to stop the bill were in protest of the House leadership’s actions, and if the Democratic caucus did in fact include fifty-seven anti-amnesty members, that number then dwarfs any such proportion of House Democrats in the modern era.

At the same time, support for the amnesty provision was not uniform among

Democrats, or for that matter, even Latino Democrats representing predominantly

Latino districts. The Hispanic Caucus was split on Simpson-Mazzoli in its ultimate form, with six voting against and five in favor. (Pear 1986a) Of particular interest is evidence suggesting that naturalized US citizens of Mexican heritage may not have been not altogether sympathetic to their non-naturalized coethnics. Rep. Matthew Martinez (D-

CA), representing a majority Mexican American district, complained that the bill was unfair to those who waited in line to come in legally, a discourse exemplified by modern

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Trump supporters. And Albert Bustamante (D-TX) complained that many of his

Mexican American constituents had complained that they were losing jobs to Mexicans living in the United States illegally. The Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, on the other hand, opposed the bill on the idea that Latinos would face increased employer discrimination, saying that businesses might “hire Anglos to avoid problems,” (Reinhold

1986) though the exact extent to which this occurred is unknown.

In the face of this resistance, The New York Times editorialized (1986b) (while calling for Reagan to twist Republican arms to support Simpson-Mazzoli) that abuses of power by the House Democrats were what imperiled the bill’s fortunes, adding that if the

Democratic leadership were serious about immigration reform they would have acted on the Senate bill (passed in 1985) much sooner. The newspaper pointed to noncooperation between the parties and election-year political gamesmanship that would have been to blame for the bill’s defeat. When Simpson-Mazzoli appeared dead for a third time after the House procedural vote to stop it, John Bolton2, who supported

Simpson-Mazzoli, predicted that future attempts at immigration policy making would be

“draconian” (Yang and Pasztor 1986).

IRCA was declared dead again, and while the White House and Simpson were still pressing to move forward, a leadership vacuum had surfaced in the House. Chuck

Schumer (D-NY), at that time representing a Brooklyn district in the U.S. House, was credited for resurrecting the bill by working to shape it in conjunction with his fellow

House Democrats one last time. Schumer had been instrumental in negotiating the final

2 Bolton at the time was the Reagan Justice Department’s chief legislative strategist (see Yang and Pasztor 1986), though he is now best known for being Ambassador to the under George W. Bush.

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farm labor provision demanded by growers in Western states (Pear 1986b), and was called again to revive the bill’s fortunes.

In early October, Rodino aassembled a bipartisan group of lawmakers in his office to discuss the bill. Schumer attended the meeting, and formed an alliance with

Simpson on the goal of passing IRCA; both Simpson and Schumer successfully reassured Lungren, who was then seen as the representative of growers. Lungren recommitted to passing the bill, and Simpson went to the White House for approval of the new compromise, and immediately received it. At that point, the House Democratic leadership was back on board.

While an amnesty provision (or lack of one) was the primary motivation of some, the Schumer-backed partial exemption of farms from the employer sanctions proved equally critical; Rodino said that the farm worker provision was “the only political glue that could bring together all the factions that were necessary.” In a final attempt to force a restart, Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL) offered another amendment (this time on the floor) that would have stripped the amnesty provision from the bill; some Democrats had gone on record saying that they could not support the bill without the legalization component.

McCollum’s amendment ended up losing by just seven votes. (Pear 1986c)

With the final hostile amendments defeated, the bill passed, and the ensuing conference report followed the Schumer bill more closely than it did the original Senate bill passed the previous year. This drew strong objections from restrictionists Phil

Gramm of Texas and James McClure (R-ID); conversely, liberal Democrats such as

Kennedy and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona were still dissatisfied, and the bill overcame multiple procedural votes and extensive floor remarks before being approved on

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October 17. That day, a significant portion of floor remarks were directed toward

Simpson himself congratulating him on his work; the praise came from both the final product’s supporters and opponents. The final day of debate pitted those with uncompromising immigration positions, whether liberals (e.g. Kennedy and DeConcini) or restrictionists (e.g. Gramm, McClure or of North Carolina) against a coalition of Republican leadership (e.g. Majority Leader of , along with

Simpson himself), Democratic pragmatists (e.g. Joseph Biden of Delaware, Bingaman of , of New Jersey and of New York) and would-be opponents too exhausted to fight for a more perfect bill, such as Carl

Levin (D-MI) and (R-FL). Each side of the debate addressed concerns with the bill one final time, but most opponents expressed resignation, and the conference report passed.

The bill became law on November 6, 1986. President Reagan, upon signing the law, said, “This legislation takes a major step toward meeting this challenge to our sovereignty. At the same time it preserves and enhances the Nation’s heritage of legal immigration. I am pleased to sign the bill into law.” Furthermore, he called the employer sanctions program, rather than the legalization provision, “the keystone and major element.” He acknowledged that IRCA was “the product of one of the longest and most difficult legislative undertakings of recent memory.” 3

Robert Pear of The New York Times remarked, “The curious saga of this bill, which began [in 1981], shows that the legislative process is very fluid. On immigration, as on many issues, the results are not preordained. Unpredictability is one of the

3 From President Reagan’s statement on Nov. 6, 1986. Taken from Montweiler 1987.

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hallmarks of the legislative process. Power is so dispersed in Congress these days that the efforts of a few people can make a big difference. Moreover, delay is not always a waste of time, but is often a useful way for legislators and lobbyists to defer action till more of a consensus forms.” This analysis falls in line with political scientists who express preference for a moderate degree of polarization, as opposed to either extreme.

At the same time, the intense focus on intra-party policy disagreements proved too much for some conservative Democrats who eventually exited the party. Gramm was himself emblematic of the changing times. A lifelong Democrat, he was dismissed from the House Budget Committee after having supported the Reagan tax cut plan, signaling a decreasing level of tolerance for dissent within the . Then he resigned his House seat and ran for it again as a Republican in 1982, and was re-elected. He later would be elected to the Senate in 1984 where he would become one of the most conservative (and importantly, most restrictionist) members of the Republican conference, despite having been a Democrat just a few years earlier.

Eventually, while the cross-party negotiations did not prioritize the wishes of

Gramm, the negotiations between Reagan, Simpson, Schumer, and others allowed for a coalition broad enough to actually pass the bill through both chambers in. One key difference between the IRCA debate from recent reform efforts was that in 1986, IRCA promised a perceived payoff for members to produce legislation that, while not ideologically pure, substantively attempted to solve a problem important to the national interest; this sharply contrasts from the modern scenario whereby members and party elites find it much more beneficial simply to allow stalemate and blame the other party

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than to assume the risks of realizing new policy. Even in 1986, the political risks to enacting a compromise were significant, as recent polls had shown a trend in which the

American populace increasingly appeared to favor restriction over liberalization. (Pear

1986b)

Analysis of Senate Floor Debate on IRCA, 1986

By any measure, just as IRCA was riddled with complexities, the debate surrounding it was equally complex with nuance, caveats, and contradictions, particularly by the time the conference report passed on October 17. While in the final

Senate vote, supporters outnumbered opponents nearly three to one, few were celebrating a definitive resolution to the immigration issue; there was something to dislike for everyone in the bill, even the bill’s backers.

On the left, IRCA had numerous unenthusiastic “yea” votes, including Sen. Jeff

Bingaman (D-NM), who said:

Mr. President, in the 4 years I have been in this Senate, this is the first time that the two Houses of this Congress have been able to agree on legislation to reform our immigration laws. There are many criticisms that can be made of this bill and I share many of those criticisms. However, the choice before us in not whether we want this bill or a better bill on this subject. It is very possible, and even probable, that this is the best bill our complex system of checks and balances can come up with at this time. And time is of the essence in dealing with this problem. (The Congressional Record 1986, 33223)

Bingaman, who had voted against previous versions of IRCA but had come around to supporting the final version. While acknowledging that illegal immigration was an urgent and serious problem, Bingaman was primarily concerned about the potential for job discrimination against nonwhites resulting from the employer sanctions, but was swayed by the Senate acceptance of House provisions which sought to address discrimination, namely authorizing an Office of within the Department

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of Justice to investigate instances of discrimination, along with the expansion of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to include national origin as a protected category in addition to citizenship.

New Mexico’s other senator, Republican , addressed an entirely separate set of concerns:

“I believe we are going to have a situation where our enforcement people will literally be besieged. There will be an invitation to fraud and abuse the likes of which we have not seen, as illegal aliens struggle to find a way to qualify as 90-day workers in the agricultural fields in this country, in the past and in the future under the replenishment provisions.” (The Congressional Record 1986, 33224)

Ultimately voting “no,” Domenici’s remarks were perhaps less typical of the time than they were of the future direction the Republican Party would take with respect to immigration. Domenici, while expressing resignation and acceptance that the bill would pass, along with congratulations for Simpson, complained of an “administrative nightmare” that the bill would create for the INS, in large part due to the late additions to the bill that Bingaman praised. Yet the same antidiscrimination provisions that persuaded Bingaman and dissuaded Domenici were not enough for Ted Kennedy, another “no” vote, albeit a conflicted one:

“There are times when we take a position where we believe in it very deeply and we are called to vote yea or nay on some of matters of basic principles. We have differing degrees of intensity about the views which we do have. I believe that my position is the correct one, though I may very well be wrong.” (The Congressional Record 1986, 33231)

The most vocal opposition to IRCA from the Senate floor came from Gramm, and from McClure. Gramm objected to the amnesty provision through a variety of economic and identity-based arguments. Seeking to highlight the potential fiscal impact of extending entitlements to workers processed through the amnesty program, Gramm

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forced a vote on waiving section 303 of the Budget Act, which cleared seventy-five to twenty-one. Following that, Gramm lambasted the legalization provision as an invitation for future immigrants to break the law.

McClure’s floor speech is particularly noteworthy; during the final debate session,

McClure reiterated Gramm’s concerns, and like many others challenged the fairness of the employer sanctions, which McClure said transferred the task of work eligibility verification onto private employers, who were no better equipped than the government to execute it. But he also invoked the potential for IRCA to increase racial profiling. On the floor, McClure said to Simpson:

“I say to the Senator from …you will not be asked the question of whether you have the right to be here. I am blond and blue-eyed. I will have no problem being here. They will not even ask me about my right to stay here…but I would suggest to you that if your skin is brown, your hair is dark, and your eyes are dark…that group of people will find themselves questioned more than other citizens of this country.” (The Congressional Record 1986, 33221)

Here, McClure, despite having an exceedingly conservative voting record, indeed may have had sincere concerns about the prospect of enhanced scrutiny unduly assigned to persons who phenotypically appear non-white. Alternatively, McClure may have recognized the cross-cutting interests supporting and opposing the reform package and hence sought to capitalize on latent doubts in the minds of more liberal members, but he ultimately did not come close to overcoming the aura of inevitability that encompassed the final days of the IRCA debate, which was characterized cynically by Sen. William Armstrong (R-CO), another opponent of the bill:

“As I have listened, not only this day but on many previous days, I am struck by the fact that those who are going to vote in support of this bill have spoken at great length and have really gone to elaborate length to justify their position in support of this bill. Really, it comes down to two propositions: One, ‘We love Alan Simpson and he has worked hard for this

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over a long period of time so I am going to vote for him,’ and two, “There is a terrible problem and we do not know what to do, but this is the only thing we have so we ought to vote for it.’” (The Congressional Record 1986, 33226)

While no doubt facetious, Armstrong’s characterization of how others in the

Senate were taking their final positions on IRCA was not wholly inaccurate; indeed, everyone who spoke on the floor during the day of IRCA’s passage included high praise in their remarks for Simpson, whether sincere or contrived, and moreover, all of the

“yea” votes who spoke expressed distaste for some provision or other, or expressed doubts that the entire bill would work as intended.

Further examples of reluctant supporters included the two Florida senators, then

Democrat Lawton and Republican Paula Hawkins. For his part, Chiles praised the employer sanctions while expressing skepticism about the federal government’s capacity to monitor and enforce IRCA’s agricultural . Chiles remarked, “…it appears that we are making a valiant attempt to gain control of our borders. The bill provides for several tools that will hopefully assist the United States in controlling the flow of illegal aliens into this country” (The Congressional Record 1986,

33244). While the tone here may have been somewhat more restrictionist than many

Democrats of the time, it is virtually unheard of in the Democratic Party of today, and more similar to modern Republican rhetoric.

Hawkins was equally, if not more, nuanced, especially with regard to the amnesty provision at the center of the law. She remarked:

“Mr. President, one of the most controversial aspects of this immigration reform proposal is the provision granting legal status to illegal aliens who have resided continuously in the United States since 1982. I have been a reluctant supporter of past legalization provisions and I support the legalization provision before us now. The fact is that the Immigration and Naturalization Service cannot hope to find and deport all the illegal aliens

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who are currently in this country. There is not even a reliable figure as to how many illegal aliens there are in the United States. Given these circumstances, it is clear that we should give the INS a clean slate and encourage it to focus on preventing future illegal immigration. While I share the concern expressed by those who believe that the legalization program is rewarding those who have broken the law, I see no other solution to the current crisis.” (The Congressional Record 1986, 33240)

Hawkins further suggested that Congress would likely have to revisit the issue of immigration since the conference report for IRCA had become more limited in scope than previous iterations of the bill had been, yet she urged a “yes” vote. While Florida’s current Republican senator, Marco Rubio, staked out a similar position to a similar proposed law in 2013 as Hawkins did to IRCA, Hawkins’s position likely carried fewer political risks in her own time than Rubio’s did in his.

In the end, Simpson himself remarked, “…in any event, this is not a perfect bill.

There are some things in there that pain me” (The Congressional Record 1986, 33209).

And speaking of the process of enacting immigration reform, Simpson referenced the

1952 act (while overlooking other laws passed since), remarking, “No wonder it only gets done every 35 years. No one would touch it with a stick. Perhaps this rather ghastly job has to be done by people who are not as deeply involved and emotionally targeted by their constituents” (The Congressional Record 1986, 33233).

In fact, some parallels can be drawn with the 1952 debate. As was the case with the 1952 act, IRCA was opposed by some members on both sides of the debate; both those who preferred a full-scale liberalization and those who preferred no liberalization at all, despite having divergent legislative preferences, voted “no” together nevertheless.

But as was also the case with the 1952 act, the coalition behind the bill, spearheaded by an influential senator, was powerful enough to eventually win out overwhelmingly against the scattered opposition. And ultimately, IRCA was a law that few in Congress

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wanted but many eventually settled for, due to its many important revisions to existing law.

Impact and Aftermath of IRCA

IRCA has yielded a mixed legacy; it facilitated the incorporation of millions of previously undocumented immigrants into American society and in the process granted them and their families’ legal stature similar to that of United States citizens. The post- legalization development of these communities was profound on the individual level, and probably not measurable on the broader societal level with true precision.

But as the bill met and exceeded auxiliary goals, it failed to resolve the stated goals of Simpson in a permanent way. IRCA, to at least noticeable degree, has indeed given rise to McClure’s worst fears of further illegal immigration resurfacing, and bringing with it a more highly racialized discourse.

Other observers accurately foresaw some of the effects that Simpson-Mazzoli, in its final form, would have. Claimed Jorge Bustamante, a border scholar, “Migrants have never responded to the law…they respond to the conditions of the market” (Walsh

1986a) At the time, many undocumented workers were unaware of the new law that had just passed; they were only aware of long-standing rumors of a change in the law

(Walsh 1986b), rumors which had persisted for years, but up until that point had failed to come to fruition.

Another criticism was of the law’s reliance on industry self-regulation. Quoted by

The Wall Street Journal, law professor Jose Bracamonte said, “The notion of employer sanctions is that employers will self-police…but it seems absurd to think that they will police themselves out of millions of dollars of profits” (Moffett and Solis 1986) and.predicted a revitalization of the underground market for forged papers, along with

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an increased trend toward subcontracting of immigrants and an inability of an overwhelmed INS to meet their duties. Different estimates exist of precisely how prevalent such failures are; nevertheless, they serve to give restrictionists in the modern era fodder for advocating a radically more enforcement-based approach for future legislative proposals.

Once the law was passed, The Wall Street Journal editorial board roundly criticized the employer sanctions, warning that the increased costs of hiring the now- legal immigrants would rise and cause inflationary pressures, which is one primary reason the Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill. But the compliance exemption

Schumer helped secure for agriculture would have shielded the economy from much of the , further underscoring the exemption’s importance as expressed by Rodino and others.

As the original Select Commission also urged a new legislative consensus on legal immigration, IRCA left the task incomplete, and a separate bill would be needed to revise the legal immigration system. The Immigration Act of 1990, while much more limited in scope than IRCA, reorganized how visas were allocated to each country, and faced no significant resistance from either party. Taking advantage of their stronger numbers and somewhat more unified caucus, House and Senate Democrats pushed to raise the number of immigrants admitted annually, over the mild objections of President

George H.W. Bush, who ultimately signed the bill with fanfare after the bill’s liberalizing features were watered down. The law also gave preference to those seeking family reunification and those with skills sought by the employment sector. Finally, the law

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established another commission to study immigration, the results of which are detailed in the following chapter.

Analysis of Senate Roll Call Vote, IRCA 1986

The crosstabs in Table 6-1 show that despite the clear presence of broad, bipartisan support, three-fifths of Democrats voted for IRCA, and nearly three-fourths of

Republicans did. Senate Republican involvement in crafting of the bill may explain part of the difference in support; moreover, IRCA was viewed at the time as being more restrictive than it was liberalizing. This is reversed by the modern context, where

Republican Senate leadership has attempted to rely on Democrats to pass comprehensive reform, and where comprehensive reform that includes any legalization provisions is reliably dismissed out of hand by conservative firebrands.

Table 6-2 reveals broad support across region as well as party for S.1200.

Support was strongest in the South and the Midwest; of all the regions, only the mountain region (CO, WY, MT, UT, ID, NV, AZ) had a majority of Senators opposing the bill, leaving Simpson outnumbered in his own region. All other regions had clear majorities voting for the bill, save for (whose Senators split their votes) and the

Mid-Atlantic region (which represents DE, NJ and MD) which also split its votes.

Figure 6-1 displays the basic ideological composition of the Senate. While there are still a fair number of moderates in the chamber, there are far fewer than there were in the 1960s, and several more liberals, with growing ideological convergence in the

Democratic Party; a full seventeen senators had first dimension DW-NOMINATE scores between -0.3 and -0.4. On the upper end, some convergence appears for the

Republicans around the 0.25 mark, though is much less pronounced than in the

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Democratic case. Twenty-eight senators occupy the center (-0.2 to 0.2), in much decreased proportion from 1965, but still very much with a presence.

As Figure 6-2 shows, each side of the roll call vote covered the entire ideological spectrum. However, the median “no” vote corresponds to a score of -0.23 and half of the bill’s supporters had even lower scores, showcasing a liberal bloc of resistance.

“Yes” votes had a near normal distribution with respect to DW-NOMINATE, representing the broad coalition needed to pass the bill.

Figure 6-3 shows that the ideological distance between the two parties, and at this point there is minimal overlap. Republican Senators (CT) and

Charles Matthias (MD) had DW-NOMINATE scores that placed them closer to mainstream Democrats than to their own party’s consensus, but by this point, the middle half of each party were distinctly defined. And whereas today the South almost exclusively elects Republicans to the Senate, in 1986 Democrats had a 14-10 edge over Republicans in the southern states, even in the midst of a 53-seat Republican majority in the Senate. One might note the presence of more Republican Senators in the Northeast (a liberal bastion) than there are Democrats, and that the Pacific states’ delegations were mostly Republican (a situation difficult to conceive in today’s context).

Perhaps 1986 is best characterized as a period of transition; Newt Gingrich had just recently founded the Conservative Opportunity Society, which was designed to transform the Republican Party into what is now commonly understood as a

“conservative,” and by extension, more restrictionist, party, though possibly against the policy preferences of more liberal northeastern senators. Furthermore, Republicans would lose their Senate majority in the 1986 elections, while the large number of Pacific

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and Northeastern GOP Senators would be dramatically reduced over the next fifteen years. But in 1986, this trend could not yet be captured either in the partisan makeup of the Senate, nor in terms of the relative electoral strength of the two parties’ presidential candidates.

Table 6-3 breaks down a Senator’s vote choice and whether or not the Senator was from a border state (California, Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas). Among current

Senators from the game geographic region, a similar bill would have higher (and possibly majority) support today, notwithstanding Ted Cruz, who has adopted tough border enforcement as a marquis issue. To be sure, whereas a bipartisan consensus existed against IRCA in 1986 among border senators, no such consensus exists today.

Tables 6-4 and 6-5, through a logistic regression, show the effect of the

Senator’s party label on their vote choice on IRCA in 1986, while Tables 6-6 and 6-7 instead use Reagan’s vote percentage in a senator’s state as the independent variable.

The bivariate logit is used, since whether a Senator voted for or against the initial build of S1200 is dichotomous, excluding one abstention by Sen. John East (R-NC). In Table

6-4, party just falls short of being statistically significant, and the correct roll call vote is called 68% of the time.

For Table 6-6 the model considers the roll call vote against the percentage a senator’s state voted for Reagan in the 1984 election, and it performs better than the model based on the senator’s party affiliation, at 73% success. Notably, in spite of

Reagan’s support for the bill, there is a negative relationship between Reagan’s vote share in a senator’s state and that senator’s vote choice, and it achieves statistical significance at an alpha level of .05. If the Mayhew theory of re-election as primary

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motivator holds, these results may indicate some constituency-based ideological preferences on immigration that emerged as the parties grew more distinct from the previous era, and the presidential vote tally is a reasonably strong indicator of a district or state’s ideological tendencies. At the same time, arguments expressly pursuant to constituent demands were seldom invoked on the floor of the Senate during debate on the conference report.

Instead, as Table 6-8 shows, the most frequently raised theme on the Senate floor during the final debate was a simple desire to pass a bill (“N”), a feeling generated from Congress having debated and voted on multiple iterations of IRCA over the prior four years. Aside from that, there was considerable overlap in the themes raised between those who ultimately voted “yea” versus those who voted “nay.” For instance, seven senators voted to pass the bill with the idea of keeping the flow of migrants down, while seven voted against it for the same express purpose. Both opponents and supporters expressed a preference for a law that is fair and does not lead to racial discrimination (“A”), and there was disagreement as to what extent the bill achieved this ideal. In addition, some opponents expressed objections familiar to the modern day, either that farmers should employ U.S. workers instead of migrant workers (“R”), or that the amnesty provision effectively rewarded people for breaking the law (“O”). Overall,

IRCA was not completely satisfactory to any in the Senate, but by the fall of 1986, those who were able to tolerate it as a legislative solution happened to outnumber those who were not. A complete list of roll call votes on the conference report, positions and letter indicators for floor speeches can be seen in Table 6-9.

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Conclusion to Chapter Six

Hypothesis 1 of this dissertation maintains an inverse relationship between the parties’ ideological distance from each other and the likelihood that liberalizing reform passes. As a specific reform effort, IRCA represented a mixture of sanctions against companies and accommodations for migrants themselves, and that while some interests were not supportive of the reform effort, party affiliation and DW-NOMINATE scores are far weaker predictors for this law than would be for similar legislation in the modern era. Generational replacement has continued, and discourses of party ideology have shifted. More far-reaching connotations have been ascribed to words like

“amnesty” through the mobilization of conservative and populist activists. Whereas more recent times have seen the peak of party unity, by 1986, each party had passed the midpoint in its transitional phase to a more responsible party system. That the 1980s were an era of medium polarization, and that the reform as passed was not either purely restrictive or liberalizing (nor was it perceived to be), Hypothesis 1 is supported.

Perhaps by coincidence, the results for IRCA also coincide with Hypothesis 2a, which predicts greater party unity in roll call votes on immigration as polarization increases. Strictly in terms of party, the coalition behind IRCA roughly equals that behind the 1965 law, except where some liberal Democrats have been replaced with conservative Republicans. The ideological center was still very friendly to both laws, but the trend expected by Hypothesis 2a is observed in this case.

Hypothesis 2b, which predicts greater levels of nuance in periods of low polarization, is somewhat undermined, due primarily to more nuance in position-taking for this debate than there either was in 1965 or than there has been in modern times.

The prevalence of nuance here though probably speaks to the idiosyncratic nature of

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this law, which included numerous changes that attracted support from initially skeptical members. Whereas, for instance, the 1924 act was unequivocally restrictive and the

1965 act was unequivocally liberalizing, there appears to have been no broad consensus on the type of results that IRCA would ultimately produce. Taken together, the restrictive and liberalizing elements of IRCA found success in convincing a majority of Congress that it would improve the immigration system, and as shown in Table 6-9, opposition to the conference report was insufficiently solidified and lacked enough members that were willing to use procedural votes as a roadblock, as would be more common in the modern era.

As the IRCA debate centered upon immigration from a neighboring friendly country (Mexico) and upon how American industries would adjust to the labor requirements, IRCA itself was divorced from any organized foreign policy idea, limiting its implications for Hypothesis 3, which maintains wartime discourse often serves to alter the course of immigration policy. While the conditions that necessitated the consideration of IRCA stemmed in large part from economic turmoil in Mexico, the focus of the debate and remedies for the problem were domestic. Hypothesis 3 finds much more support from the more narrow laws designed to accommodate refugees from communist countries, which were as important to the Cold War strategy of the United

States as they were important domestically. The transitional nature of this era and the comprehensive nature of IRCA exposes limits of dichotomized measures for party and for “high” and “low” polarization. Members of the Senate, regardless of whether they ultimately supported the 1986 act, were extensively varied in their reasons in voting as they did. But while the debate was rife with discord, the presence of working relations

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between the White House and Congress, across parties, and between party factions made possible a process by which reform could be advanced. This dissertation holds that the dissolution of these relationships contributed greatly to the legislative failure of future efforts.

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Table 6-1. Roll call vote on IRCA (S1200) by party, 99th Senate

Party Total

Democratic Independent Republican

Roll Call, Final Yea 29 0 39 68 Passage

NV 0 0 1 1

Nay 19 0 12 31

Total 48 0 52 100

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Figure 6-1. Distribution of Senators' first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 99th Congress (1986)

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Figure 6-2. Distribution of Senators’ first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 99th Congress, grouped by yea/nay votes on passage of IRCA

Figure 6-3. Senators' first dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in 99th Congress, grouped by party

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Table 6-2. Roll call vote on S1200 by region, 99th Senate

Region Total

South Midwest Northeast Mountain Pacific Hawaii

Roll Call, Yea 19 22 14 5 5 2 1 68 Final Passage

NV 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

Nay 4 6 8 11 1 0 1 31

Total 24 28 22 16 6 2 2 100

Table 6-3. Roll call vote on S1200 in states on Mexico-U.S. border versus other states

Non- Border Total border

Roll Call, Yea 66 2 68 Final Passage

NV 1 0 1

Nay 25 6 31

Total 92 8 100

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Table 6-4. Classification table for binary logistic regression measuring the effect of senator's party on senator's vote on S1200

Observed Predicted

Roll Call Vote on Final Percentage Passage Correct

Yea Nay

Roll Call Vote Yea 68 0 100 on Final Passage

Nay 31 0 0

Overall 68.7 Percentage

Table 6-5. Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on final passage is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

Party .756 .443 2.913 1 .088 2.129

Constant .423 .295 2.053 1 .152 1.526

Table 6-6. Classification table for binary logistic regression measuring the effect of the state's vote percentage for Ronald Reagan in 1984 on senator's roll call vote on S1200 (final passage)

Observed Predicted

Roll Call Vote on Veto Percentage Override Correct

Yea Nay

Roll Call Vote Yea 68 0 100 on Veto Override

Nay 27 4 12.9

Overall 72.7 Percentage

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Table 6-7. Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on final passage) is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

Reagan vote (%) -.080 .040 4.043 1 .044 .923

Constant 5.656 2.448 5.338 1 .021 286.075

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Table 6-8. Most popular themes expressed on the Senate floor during final debate on IRCA (1986)

Frequency Most Popular Themes Invoked in Debate (1986) Supporters 8 N “Let’s just get on with the bill” 7 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory 7 Q The U.S. has (or will have) too many immigrants Opponents 7 Q The U.S. has (or will have) too many immigrants 6 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory 5 R Immigration will displace U.S. workers 4 O Proposed liberalization is an assault on U.S. laws

Table 6-9. Senate roll call vote and remarks on IRCA (1986), conference report

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks (R) AK Yea (R) AK NV Favors (R) AL Nay Strongly Opposes OPQU (D) AL Nay (D) AR Nay Opposes QR (D) AR Yea Barry Goldwater (R) AZ NV Dennis DeConcini (D) AZ NV Strongly Opposes AEFJ (D) CA Yea Favors AFK (R) CA Yea Strongly Favors NQ (D) CO Yea Favors AIK William L. Armstrong (R) CO Nay Strongly Opposes IQ Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. (R) CT Yea (D) CT Yea (R) DE Yea (D) DE Yea Favors IJNQ (D) FL Yea Strongly Favors AK Paula Hawkins (R) FL Yea Favors Q (D) GA Yea Mack Mattingly (R) GA Yea (D) HI Nay (D) HI Yea (R) IA Yea (D) IA Yea James McClure (R) ID Nay Strongly Opposes OPV

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Table 6-9. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks (R) ID NV Opposes Alan J. Dixon (D) IL Yea (D) IL Yea Favors NPQR Richard Lugar (R) IN Yea (R) IN Yea Bob Dole (R) KS Yea (R) KS Yea (D) KY Nay Mitch McConnell (R) KY Yea Russell B. Long (D) LA Yea J. Bennett Johnston (D) LA Yea Ted Kennedy (D) MA NV Opposes ABK (D) MA Yea (R) MD NV (D) MD Yea (R) ME Nay George J. Mitchell (D) ME Nay Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D) MI Nay (D) MI Yea Favors A Rudy Boschwittz (R) MN Yea (R) MN Yea (D) MO Yea (R) MO Yea John C. Stennis (D) MS NV (R) MS Nay (D) MT Yea (D) MT Yea Jesse Helms (R) NC Nay Strongly Opposes QRV (R) NC NV Opposes Quentin N. Burdick (D) ND Yea Mark Andrews (R) ND Yea (D) NE Nay J. James Exon (D) NE Yea Gordon J. Humphrey (R) NH Nay Strongly Opposes AR (R) NH Nay Bill Bradley (D) NJ Yea Favors N (D) NJ Yea Pete Domenici (R) NM Nay Opposes ANQ

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Table 6-9. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks (D) NM Yea Favors AN (R) NV NV (R) NV Nay Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) NY Yea Strongly Favors AFIJQR Al D’Amato (R) NY Yea (D) OH NV Favors QR (D) OH Yea Favors ANR David L. Boren (D) OK NV (R) OK Nay (R) OR Yea (R) OR Yea H. III (R) PA Yea (R) PA Yea (D) RI Yea (R) RI Yea Strom Thurmond (R) SC Yea Favors NW Ernest Hollings (D) SC Yea (R) SD Nay (R) SD Nay (D) TN Yea (D) TN Yea (D) TX Yea Favors AINQ (R) TX Nay Strongly Opposes OQSU (R) UT Nay (R) UT Nay Strongly Opposes AOQR (R) VA Yea Paul S. Trible, Jr. (R) VA Yea (R) VT Yea (D) VT NV Favors Slade Gorton (R) WA NV Favors Daniel J. Evans (R) WA NV William Proxmire (D) WI Yea (R) WI Yea (D) WV Yea Jay (D) WV Yea Malcolm Wallop (R) WY Yea Alan K. Simpson (R) WY Yea Strongly Favors AFNRW

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CHAPTER 7 HARSH RHETORIC AND PARALYSIS

Introduction

Judging merely from the contours of the immigration debate post-IRCA, the 1986 law promised a comprehensive and permanent approach to repairing inadequacies in immigration system, but ultimately proved an inadequate measure itself. So too did the

1996 immigration law (Gimpel and Edwards 1996), enacted under the Clinton administration and the 104th Congress, a combination of entities which in other policy areas worked to bring polarization on Capitol Hill to a new level.

The Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 is more significant for the historical patterns it reinforced with respect to partisan polarization in

Congress, and less so for any supposed impact the law might have had on solving the problem it was designed to address. Modern restrictionists do find a convenient scapegoat in IRCA and maintain that its amnesty provision made the illegal migration situation worse. But in modern discourse the 1996 act is seldom referenced, since it too has had no obvious impact on definitively solving the immigration problem in spite of all of its restrictive provisions. In theory, the 1996 law would have achieved effect partly through increased enforcement, but mainly through severely limiting social services to the undcoumented, and by extension would presumably prevent more from arriving on

U.S. soil. But in practice, it has fallen short of the historical significance that it was believed to signify at the time; nevertheless, as the 1996 act remains the most recent successfully passed immigration legislation (excluding only the symbolic but unfunded

Secure Fence Act of 2006), Senate roll call votes are analyzed in this dissertation as they are for other laws.

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Polarization was already on the rise in the first part of the Clinton era. President

Clinton’s victory in 1992 helped sweep into office, and they wasted little time in legislating their top policy priorities in the two years before Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress.

At the national level, the march toward liberal causes dominated national news: the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Freedom of Choice Act (which was debated at length, but ultimately failed to pass), Hillary Clinton’s healthcare task force, the Assault

Weapons Ban, and the selections of for Attorney General and Joycelyn

Elders for Surgeon General. The unique circumstance of the 1992 election and

Congress’s subsequent sharp leftward turn, combined with emerging Clinton scandals, all became irresistible fodder for conservative activists to seize upon and mobilize against. While it is likely that Newt Gingrich’s was given far too much credit for the Republican victory (it is questionable how many voters were aware of the platform), the very idea that national Republicans could almost unanimously agree on ten far-reaching proposals was a harbinger of a rightward shift in the

Republican Party intense enough to match the leftward movement among Democrats.

Democratic defections to Republicans accumulated more quickly following the so-called “Republican Revolution” of 1994, and the majority of Democrats who remained in the party took a more accommodative approach. But the commission created by the 1990 act logically proved influential, and was headed by Rep. Barbara

Jordan (D-TX), a liberal African American Democrat who earned a reputation for being able to foster consensus and work constructively with politicians with disparate and

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diverse ideological backgrounds. Few disliked her1, and so her commission’s findings were highly valued across the board, including her panel’s more restrictive suggestions.

Jordan passed away in 1996, costing proponents of immigration reform one of their most well-informed and influential surrogates, leaving the debate to be settled by presidential election politics in lieu of the consensus-based coalition building that led to the passage of IRCA.

Debate and Passage of 1996 Act

Since the Jordan commission itself ultimately recommended that overall legal immigration be reduced by a third, there was no political basis for Republicans once they assumed the reins of power to encourage more legal immigration. Emboldened by

California Governor (and presidential aspirant) Pete Wilson’s moves to exclude the undocumented from accessing the social safety net, restrictionists among congressional

Republicans wanted to replicate Wilson’s moves nationally, and were fundamentally at odds with the Clinton administration over how to adjust immigration levels and what kind of federal benefits immigrants should be allowed to get.

Seeking to secure another four years in office, Clinton did not take the offensive on matters of immigration and social welfare, and both policy areas were central to the

1996 act. Instead, he parried Congress’s moves by accepting a watered-down, albeit still sweeping, welfare reform package and a law that did nothing to address legal immigration, yet in theory embodied a tough stance on illegal immigration. The Clinton campaign was not certain that they would carry California in the Electoral College, and

1 Gimpel details some of Jordan’s rapport with other members, and writes that Jordan had a particular reputation for fairness.

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knew they had a much narrower path to victory without winning the state2; the conventional wisdom at the time suggested that it was more expedient to take a tough stand against illegal immigration in California than to do otherwise, with Proposition 187 having been newly passed. The focus was on winning the votes of populist nativists as opposed to Mexican American voters, who themselves had not been monolithic on the illegal immigration issue.

When an immigration overhaul emerged in the Senate in the fall of 1995, the proposed changes broadly emphasized restricting immigration in general, as opposed to merely curtailing illegal immigration. Politically enervated from having lost control of

Congress in the 1994 elections and the recent passage of Proposition 187 in California, the White House started the debate entirely on defense. Jordan’s commission released their second report in June 1995, and recommended that levels legal immigration be reduced by a third. Accordingly, it then followed that the original bill, sponsored by

IRCA’s chief architect, Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY), had sought to cut the annual average of legal immigrants, then at roughly 800,000, down to a cap of 535,000. The

White House immediately embraced the proposal (Holmes 1995b), which in turn emboldened immigration opponents to push for more stringent demands. As one immigration scholar, Charles Keeley, noted, “This has happened very quickly…this was not an issue in ’92, not even an issue in California” (Holmes 1995b). 3

As though events such as the Jordan report and the passage of Proposition 187 in California were not enough, a Census Report released in late August of 1995 helped

2 This turned out not to be the case at all; Clinton would carry California in 1996 comfortably.

3 As quoted in The New York Times, Sep. 25, 1995. Keeley, a professor of demography at Georgetown, had focused closely on immigration in much of his scholarly work.

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ignite a fierce debate. According to the report, the U.S. had its highest proportion of foreign-born residents up to that point since the 1940s; 8.7% of the population was now foreign-born, and the report included projections that over time that number might reach as high as 14% within the next fifty years. Anti-immigration interest groups seized on the report, and Congress felt increased pressure to reverse the trend. (Holmes 1995a)

At the outset, congressional Republicans planned for their bill to address both the legal immigration system as well as illegal immigration. Facing opposition from

Democrats and business interests, Simpson, who was one of the new bill’s strongest proponents, said, “My job is to try to represent the national interest…to do that, you will hopefully trod on every segment of American society and be called everything from xenophobe to a racist to a poop” (Holmes 1995b). Simpson had demonstrated previous success in legislative coalition-building, but many of the constituencies he relied upon previously were no longer available to him, either within or outside Congress.

The broad variety of provisions in the original bill begot a commensurably broad coalition of opponents. The proposed national registry of Social Security numbers and the new requirements on companies that they use the database alarmed groups. The national registry provision, which cleared the House Judiciary Committee on September 21, 1995 by a 17-15 vote, found friends and foes in both parties. While only four of the seventeen votes came from Democrats, one of the four was staunch liberal Barney Frank (D-MA), who said, “If we do not get a better handle on illegal immigration, the ability of those of us who believe in legal immigration as an important benefit to this society, as well as an important human right, will be further undermined”

(Holmes 1995c). Conversely, the proposal drew fire from some loyal Republicans, who

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used the occasion to show their libertarian sentiments. Rep. (R-OH) described the proposed service as “1-800 Big Brother,” and Majority Leader

(R-TX) feared that such a system would lead to a national ID card. (Holmes 1995c)

Meanwhile, supporters characterized it as the only way to make the 1986 law work, citing the difficulty for employers to verify documents presented to them. (Holmes

1995c)

In October 1995, an attempt to split the immigration bill in two, in the form of an amendment by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), was voted down in the House Judiciary

Committee. (Holmes 1995d) However, this would not be the final attempt to split the bill. The next month, ten House Republicans from California, among them Jay Kim,

David Drier, Frank Riggs and Dana Rohrabacher, sent a letter to Gingrich asking him to decouple the legal and illegal immigration bills. On the other side, thirty-five House members, including (R-TX), Gerald Solomon (R-NY), and (R-

SC), all three of whom were committee chairmen, sent a letter asking Gingrich to keep them as one bill. (Holmes 1995e)

And businesses- especially the burgeoning tech industry, which included

Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Texas Instruments (Schmitt 1996a) were

“incredulous” (Holmes 1995c) that Congress would cut down skilled immigration at a time when engineers and computer scientists were in such high demand. Immigrant rights groups, civil libertarians and conservative think tanks, joined the major tech companies in opposition. (Schmitt 1996) Rep. (R-TX), however, denied many of the claims The New York Times made about what was actually in the bill. 4

4 From Rep. Smith’s letter to the editor on October 1, 1995.

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There was more evidence that the Republican Party had not yet completely solidified public perception as the party against further immigration, but that they were well on their way to doing so. The Cato Institute’s feared, “As a political issue, this could blow up in the Republicans’ face” (Schmitt 1996a). And a senior for Microsoft mused, “It strikes me as very odd that this bill is coming out of a

Republican Congress” (Schmitt 1996a)

In February 1996, the three remaining Republican presidential candidates had widely varying positions on immigration, although none could be called particularly liberal. Patrick J. Buchanan favored a total five-year moratorium on legal immigration,

Senate Majority Leader Dole supported cuts similar to what was proposed in the Jordan commission, and (R-TN) favored keeping immigration labels steady but also creating a new branch of the military dedicated to guarding the Mexican border.

(Schmitt 1996a) In particular, Buchanan’s and Alexander’s positions were well- representative of the party’s eventual trajectory, and marked a departure from

Republican presidential candidates of the previous three cycles, though Dole would become the eventual nominee.

By March 1996, Sen. of Michigan had become the dominant

Republican voice against the exhaustive approach that Simpson was looking to implement. He offered an amendment to split Simpson’s bill into two parts, one dealing with illegal immigration and the other on legal immigration, with the one on illegal immigration to be considered first. Simpson tried various legislative tactics and personal appeals (Schmitt 1996c), and would in the end be outmaneuvered by

Abraham. Abraham said, “I’m in no way trying to kill legal immigration reform, but it’s a

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distinct and separate topic, and ought to be dealt with that way” (Schmitt 1996c). The

White House was moving in a similar direction, shifting its lobbying efforts to the far less controversial task of stopping illegal immigration, in spite of having earlier endorsed the legal immigration reductions proposed by the Jordan commission. The debate had shifted, and from that point the discussion was almost exclusively about illegal immigration, with the efforts at reforming legal immigration falling by the wayside.

As of May 7, 1996, there were some key differences between the House and

Senate bills, with the House bill being by far the more restrictive of the two. The New

York Times, on its editorial page, gave the Senate bill, which passed on May 2 with only three “no” votes (all from Democrats), some generally favorable remarks (The New York

Times 1996a), and praised Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Abraham for having successfully removed most of the restrictions on legal immigration from the original bill as proposed by Simpson. The Times also commended the measures doubling the number of Border Patrol agents, and maintained the necessity of tightening requirements for immigrants to receive welfare benefits, citing an “underfunded” federal welfare system. Later that month, the Times’ editorial board wrote that both the House and the Senate had “come a long way” in improving the bills, and acknowledged the need to curb potential “abusive use” of social welfare programs by the newly immigrated. (The New York Times 1996b) In the same piece though, they criticized the

Medicaid restrictions as being too harsh and said that the restrictions ran counter to the interests of public health.

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However, the introduction of such restrictions was a primary motivation for the bill’s sponsors, who framed the strain on state coffers as being of crisis proportions. As debate on the bill resumed in September, Simpson said:

“When we have 60 percent of the live births in a certain hospital in California attributed to illegal undocumented mothers who then give birth to a U.S. citizen; when we have people who are minorities who go to seek public support because they need it and are then told that the cupboard is bare because it has all gone to illegal, undocumented persons, that stirs people up. They don't like it, and it really shouldn't be the guiding policy of anything we do here, but it is the way it is.” (The Congressional Record 1996, S10573)

IIRIRA’s remedy to the resulting depletion of social services funds was to remove the federal portion of funding used to provide such services to immigrants who were not legal. But while no one in the Senate had made the explicit argument that nothing should be done to stop illegal immigration, Sen. (D-FL), one of only three senators to vote against the original Senate bill, argued that since the Federal government had failed to prevent unauthorized arrival of immigrants, the Federal government should therefore assume responsibility for providing emergency services to such immigrants, and that an undue financial burden was being placed on the states.

Graham further argued:

“But on occasion, as may happen to native-born Americans, a circumstance arises where assistance is needed. In the past, our State and local communities have scraped by doing all that was possible to assist these newcomers. The Federal Government was frequently a partner of States and communities in providing assistance in unexpected emergency conditions. Mr. President, we are now faced with the prospect of trying to continue our humanitarian efforts without that Federal partner and, thus, with even fewer resources available from the National Government a greater demand for those resources from the States and local communities which are affected.” (The Congressional Record 1996, S11515)

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That month, the New York Times shifted its position, dropping all support for

IIRIRA. It gave a harsh editorial against the law as it was then written, citing potential abuses by the INS and the hardships it would pose for refugees. “A bill that grants so many unrestricted powers to the Government should alarm Republicans as well as

Democrats. This is not an immigration bill but an immigrant-bashing bill. It deserves a quick demise” (The New York Times 1996c). Further complicating the situation was that the entire bill had been attached as a rider to an omnibus appropriations bill, along with dozens of other unrelated bills. Summarily, the White House could not veto the bill without vetoing funding for most of the government to operate.

After the Clinton White House gained a major concession with the elimination of the public school provision, they assumed an offensive posture, threatening to delay the entire omnibus spending bill unless additional language was deleted. With their favorability ratings having declined after previous budget standoffs, the Republicans in

Congress promptly capitulated, and many of the more extreme parts of the bill were deleted. Eliminated was the provision denying federally funded HIV/AIDS treatment to all immigrants, as was the provision for automatic deportation for immigrants who used certain types of public benefits (which included English classes, child care, and

Medicaid) for more than twelve months out of their first seven years. In addition, the provision put in place by Clinton’s opponent, Bob Dole, that would have barred children here illegally from public schools. When the White House demanded that these be dropped from the bill, Senate Democratic Leader (D-SD) backed Clinton up, calling the provisions in question “mean-spirited” (Schmitt 1996d). Nevertheless, what remained was a nevertheless highly restrictive bill that did little to address the

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concerns of immigrants already present; this alone set the legislation apart from any immigration bills passed since the 1930s.

Some provisions were less controversial and received broad support from both parties. (Schmitt 1996e) One such provision doubled the number of border patrol agents to 10,000. Another section was aimed at expediting the deportation of immigrants who have committed a crime or have been shown to use fake documents.

Simpson and Rep. Smith of Texas successfully retained some language raising the amount of money an immigrant’s sponsors would have to make, and critics saw this as a means of limiting legal immigration by stealth. There was also a provision in the bill that required prospective asylum seekers to apply for asylum within a month after arriving in the United States. Sponsored by Rep. Bill McCollum, (R-FL) this measure had the support of Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who a decade earlier helped assemble the coalition of Democrats necessary for IRCA to pass. Schumer said, “If you believe enough in America to claim asylum, you ought to come forward and not wait until someone says, ‘Gotcha.’” Schumer was apparently influenced by the case of

Omar Abdel Rahman, who applied for asylum, but not until the INS revoked his permanent resident status and began deportation proceedings. Rahman would be later convicted of terrorism charges. While Schumer thought it would have been reasonable to impose a two- or three-month deadline, the White House opposed any deadline at all.

(Dugger 1996)

As for other previsions, the bill established the requirement that all applicants for welfare benefits provide proof of citizenship in order to be eligible for those benefits. It also contained a provision requiring the federal government to reimburse states for any

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Medicare costs incurred from providing emergency care to the undocumented. It also limited refugees to one appeal (to be filed within a window of just seven days) if the INS agent at the border initially denied their request for asylum.

A marked shift in tone could be observed in some key Senators who had worked to pass IRCA in 1986. Speaking of the late September compromise between Clinton and Gingrich, Sen. Simpson scoffed, “If [the GOP leadership] bought the package that the White House sent them at 7 A.M., I ain’t there” (Schmitt 1996e). On the other side was California’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein was up for re-election that year, and she read the state’s popular sentiment much the same as the White House did, and preferred that a bill pass. Ultimately, she pushed for the Clinton-backed compromise to be cleared by the Senate, saying, “We can talk about it and legislate it next year. For now, let’s get it done” (Schmitt 1996d).

Loathe to be outdone by the Republicans, in the weeks preceding the 1996 election, the administration was working hard trying to define themselves as having a tough record against illegal immigration, attempting to position themselves even further out than George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. , then White House chief of staff, said, “Before President Clinton took office, enforcement of our immigration laws and an up-to-date immigration policy had been absent for nearly a decade…The

Clinton Administration has developed a comprehensive anti-illegal immigration policy that beefs up our border and workplace enforcement inspections and has used the criminal justice system to deport a record number of criminals and other illegal aliens”

(Schmitt 1996f). The administration had locked in this strategy with its signature on

September 30. This rhetorical strategy had befuddled many. Even after the bill had

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been signed, Feinstein said, “It’s unclear whether the Administration wants the quotas to remain stable, increased or decreased…I frankly don’t know what their posture is”

(Schmitt 1996f).

National Republicans, in their efforts to elect Bob Dole to the White House, attempted to use the immigration issue to their advantage, ultimately falling short. But in response to the Republican ads portraying the Clinton administration as soft on immigration, the Democratic National Committee in turn responded in kind with their own barrage of ads. The DNC ads, which referenced not simply Dole but

“Dole/Gingrich,” included images such as a brown-skinned man sliding down a rope over a wall, as well as another dark-skinned man being handcuffed by a Border Patrol agent. The ad read in part, “The Dole/Gingrich budget tried to repeal 100,000 new police. Dole/Gingrich tried to slash school anti-drug programs. Only President Clinton’s plan protects our jobs, our values” (Bennet 1996). Referring to this, James Bennet of

The New York Times opined, “It is very unusual for a Democrat to use such inflammatory, negative images of illegal immigrants.” Yet , then serving his first term as mayor of , remarked, “Immigrants are exactly what

America needs. They’re what we need economically, and I think they’re what we need morally- because we’re a country that doubts itself right now…the anti-immigration movement that’s sweeping the country right now in my view is no different than the movements that swept the country in the past.” 5 The fact that he then positioned himself to the left of the president on immigration might be attributed to his constituency being home to many immigrants and children of immigrants, and he was interested in

5 Excerpt from Giuliani’s speech to a conference on immigration at the University of . Reprinted in part in The New York Times, Oct. 1, 1996.

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winning re-election as New York City mayor, even though he became somewhat more restrictive upon launching his bid to be president in 2008.

In the weeks after the bill was signed into law, the Justice Department filed motions to dismiss class-action lawsuits brought by amnesty applicants who said they were denied due process guaranteed to them under the 1986 law. The ACLU responded, “This is a clear example of the Clinton Administration trying to make a bad law even worse” (Johnston 1996). Others called the Clinton administration’s record to be more reactive than proactive, however. (Schmitt 1996f) Even some of the most pro- immigration groups, who in modern days have been decidedly aligned with the

Democratic Party, had to qualify their support. “The Administration has been willing to stand its ground against extremes when it’s clear it’s politically safe…But the White

House can also be accused of backing down on critical matters of principle, like civil rights and refugee protection” (Schmitt 1996f), commented a top executive at the

Council for La Raza. Yet with the Republican conference unified and with the overwhelming majority of Democrats endorsing such an unequivocally restrictive act in an election year, it is difficult to assign responsibility for the act’s composition and passage to the president, or to any other single political actor.

Analysis of Roll Call Data for the 1996 Act

During the 1996 election cycle in particular, the leadership of both parties worked hard to position themselves against illegal immigration. However, the 1996 act’s position within the omnibus bill complicates roll call vote analysis for two reasons.

First, the bill covered not only the immigration revisions, but an extensive list of other Republican priorities, ranging from student loan reform to on federal funds being used to interfere with voluntary prayer in public schools. A clarified “yea”

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or “nay” position from a member with respect to the immigration bill is difficult to isolate, as the conference report of IIRIRA did not stand on its own. It is possible that the other

Republican agenda items may have shifted more Democrats against voting for passage, but that is also difficult to elicit from the one roll call vote on the conference report available, the final House vote on September 29.

Second, the Senate conference report passed on a voice vote, from which data cannot be recorded. An earlier roll call vote was held in the Senate on the initial passage of the omnibus bill, passing 72-27 with opposition from three moderate

Republicans and the rest from liberal Democrats, in reflection of a fairly clear-cut partisan split. Therefore, for this section, House data on the omnibus bill is used instead of Senate data (as in the other chapters).

Whereas some House Democrats in safe districts had cover to vote against the law, the administration was mindful of alienating working-class white voters that provided Republicans with their majority in 1994. As Table 7-1 shows, though substantial numbers in both parties supported the conference report, the most opposition came from Democrats. Table 7-2, through a Pearson correlation between party and roll call vote, confirms that party was significant at better than the p=.001 level.

The boxplot in Figure 7-1 shows a broad ideological coalition, as measured by first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores, that comprised the bill’s supporters in the

House. Save for some libertarian-minded Republicans resistant towards expanding federal police powers, nearly all of the opposition came from liberal Democrats. At the same time the bottom quartile of the “yes” votes had DW-NOMINATE scores below

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zero, and the most concentrated support is among those with scores between 0.4 and

0.5. The abstentions are notable, as all five were Democrats with DW-NOMINATE scores well-removed from most of the “no” votes (which are themselves fairly well concentrated around -0.45), which may suggest that the abstentions were electorally strategic.

The logit test shown in Tables 7-3 and 7-4 shows that the better Clinton was doing in a given district during the 1996 election, the more likely the member from that district would oppose the bill, despite Clinton’s public support. The Clinton vote percentage fails to be the independent variable in the literal sense, however, as these vote percentages were not determined until over a month after the bill had been signed into law.

The boxplot in Figure 7-2 shows each party having become nearly as homogenous ideologically as ever up to that point. For both the Democrats and the

Republicans, fifty percent of each party lies within a range of 0.2; the top quartile for the

Democrats starts near -0.25, and the bottom quartile for the Republicans starts near the exact opposite level. Republicans had only one in their conference with a negative DW-

NOMINATE score, (R-MD), yet at the same time, only two Democrats had higher scores than she did. The data point for Bernie Sanders is noteworthy for two reasons. First, though in 1996 Sanders had a voting record that was quite liberal, he nevertheless did not belong to either party at that time, and therefore could not be coded as either Democrat or Republican. But more significantly, though he later created a movement among Democrats distinctly further left than the mainstream of his

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party, this is not reflected in the first-dimension DW-NOMINATE distribution for this cycle.

Figure 7-3 shows a well-defined gap between liberals and conservatives in the

House, with a clear space between the two clusters. This nears the antithesis of the

1952 distribution, which was nearly normal and centered around zero. The modal frequency is highest among Democrats and Republicans near -0.4 and 0.4, respectively.

The most frequently invoked themes on the Senate floor during the debate are shown at the end of the chapter in Table 7-11, with the complete list in Table 7-12.

Since the debate on IIRIRA gave great attention to amending procedures for the removal of migrants with criminal records, the frequency of the letter “X” is of little surprise; at the same time, supporters took pains to distinguish between immigrants with documentation and those without, and claimed that the more deserving immigrants would not be adversely affected by the bill at all (“K”), and that the law would be applied fairly and justly, as indicated by the letter “A.” Of course, the difficulty in passing the original proposal that addressed both legal and illegal immigration likely elicited from supporters emphasis on due process and guarantees of fair treatment for those following the law; a more broadly crafted IIRIRA without such safeguards may not have been tolerated by the Clinton administration or by pro-business Republicans. At the same time, the bill, however limited in scope from previous proposals, was very much restrictive.

Despite the assurances of proponents, the bill’s legislative opponents expressed skepticism that IIRIRA would not result in racial discrimination (“A”), characterized the

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deportation provisions imposed on immigrants found to be in the country illegally to be draconian (“F”) and with the potential to separate immediate family members from each other due to differing legal statuses (“G”). In fact, the very prospect of family separation continued to be a point of contention in the immigration debate, and has remained so ever since.

Formation of Modern Immigration Debate

As passed, the law itself did nothing to fundamentally alter the status quo legally.

Unauthorized migration continued through a still-porous southern border, and millions of migrants, even those with children who were citizens by birth, remained undocumented.

It was the controversy surrounding the law, along with other measures at the state level, that proved influential to the future of the immigration debate. Segura, Bowler, and

Nicholson (2006) attribute nativist bills like the House passed to the exodus of Latinos from the Republican Party, suggesting that the campaign for Proposition 187 and the harsh rhetoric surrounding it reversed what had been a favorable trend for Republicans along Latino voters, without producing significant gains among white voters to counterbalance losses elsewhere.

The growing number of Hispanics in the electorate was not lost on strategists for either major candidate, Texas Gov. George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore. Gore ultimately carried Hispanics (and did especially well with Hispanics outside of Florida) in the 2000 election, yet Bush held his own and attempted to forward a Hispanic-friendly persona as a candidate, even speaking Spanish on the campaign trail on multiple occasions.

Both of the top third-party candidates, Patrick J. Buchanan and , had roots in the Reform Party, whose national organization had begun to disintegrate after

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Perot’s 1996 general election loss. Donald J. Trump briefly competed for the 2000

Reform Party nomination, but later decried the lack of organization plaguing the party, and refused to endorse Buchanan, whom at the time Trump characterized as too extreme.

Unlike Bush, Buchanan had been a known hardline restrictionist, and of all candidates on the ballot in 2000, his agenda was most closely aligned with nativists and isolationists, and most opposed to the “Washington consensus” of low tariffs, , and open immigration. But in the final week before the election, Perot, the Reform

Party’s own founder, endorsed Bush over Buchanan, blunting the message of his own former party.

In the context of the 2000 Presidential election, the details of which are well- documented elsewhere, Perot’s endorsement probably mattered. Bush’s final official lead over Al Gore of 537 votes in Florida enabled him to take the White House, But the national ordeal of the election recounts and the ensuing court battles further served to polarize the electorate; in 2004, third-party presidential candidates received a tiny fraction of the vote they earned in 2000, ostensibly because the electorate felt compelled to choose a side between one of the two major candidates. Bush managed another win in 2004, in part by outperforming expectations with Hispanic voters. His strong numbers, it was hoped, would leave Bush well-positioned to negotiate immigration reform and build consensus across party lines and across ethnicities.

In pursuing this policy goal, Bush found enough support in the Senate the following year to eventually pass a bill, but the House did not cooperate. Years before running into legal troubles, then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert saw to it that any

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legislation he did not like would plainly not reach the House floor for a vote. This trend became visible when the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 only came to a vote via the rarely-used discharge petition, and was eventually passed, but not before

Hastert frantically tried to lure the House into passing a substitute to the Senate bill so that he could squash the bill in committee. The trend continued when he coerced unwilling rank-and-file Republicans into passing George Bush’s prescription drug legislation, taking the unprecedented step of leaving the vote to continue overnight.

Hastert had the president sign a Deficit Reduction Act even though the House and

Senate failed to pass identical versions, and, in what was presumably an effort to bolster his party’s electoral fortunes, he killed debate on the president’s Social Security proposal, and sent a stem-cell research funding bill to the president in spite of a guaranteed veto, on the (mis)calculation that doing so would benefit the Republicans electorally by turning out religious conservatives. He also openly scorned the more consensus-building when he allowed a deal between Senate leadership and moderate Republicans on the president’s 2003 tax cuts, and when he allowed the

“Gang of Fourteen,” a bipartisan group of Senators formed to achieve compromise on

Bush’s judicial nominees, to conduct business on its own terms. Unwilling to spend more of his own political capital, Hastert simply ignored it, instead deciding to debate a far more nativist measure and then neglect conference negotiations. Though the

Senate’s effective sixty-vote threshold routinely stifles legislation that would otherwise pass (Sinclair 2002), so can an obstinate House Speaker, with equal efficacy.

Three bills the 109th House considered were H.R. 4830, Border Tunnel

Prevention Act of 2006, H.R. 6094, Community Protection Act of 2006, and H.R. 6095,

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Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006. Neither any of these nor the companion bill to McCain-Kennedy, which was sponsored by (R-AZ) received floor votes in the House. There was, however, a large amount of heated discussion on the

House floor regarding the bills that Rep. (R-CO), an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration and a skeptic with regard to legal immigration, was attempting to move forward.

The rhetoric that the main backers of these bills had relied on arguments ostensibly about national security and the threat of terrorism. But most other bills directly related to these two topics (e.g. the , Airport Security, 9/11 intelligence, Homeland Security, and so forth) have been acted on with much greater urgency and without as much resistance from conservatives. Therefore, the links of the restrictive immigration bills to these topics functioned as an important rhetorical device from their backers. Furthermore, anyone who opposed the efforts of Tancredo,

Sensenbrenner and others were portrayed as having supported blanket “amnesty,” a term which had acquired dangerous connotations since the IRCA debate.

The Democratic position (and that held by moderate Republicans) largely decried the three bills as being political posturing and fear-mongering prior to the 2006 election.

This position is well represented by the floor statements of Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-

NY):

“…I want to reiterate my support for comprehensive immigration reform. Not only do these bills fail to adequately address that need, but they could actually make our system more dysfunctional. These bills do not significantly enhance border security or address undocumented immigration; rather, they would limit the basic rights and protections this nation were founded upon. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the Republican majority is more interested in looking like they are doing something, than actually solving the problem. The American people know better and they

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know political maneuvering and inaction when they see it.” (The Congressional Record 1996, E1886)

The Senate did debate and ultimately pass its own immigration bill, sponsored by

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and overseen by the White

House. Their attempt, which passed the chamber with most Democrats and some

Republicans, included increased funding for border protection, but also included a guest-worker program and an amnesty provision similar to that of IRCA, but now with a much wider range of potential applicants. The House passed its own enforcement-only bill, and reconciling the two bills in conference committee was not achieved.

Ultimately, the actions of the House in the 109th Congress led to no policy change. Delay and Hastert immediately dismissed any discussion as to how to reconcile what the House passed versus what the Senate passed into a conference report that could have passed both houses. Therefore, it is questionable as to whether a policy outcome other than the status quo was really a high priority for the backers of these bills, as the kind of sustained effort of an ideologically diverse group of members to cooperate seen in 1986 was not pursued in this case. As Rep. Jim McGovern (D-

MA) argued on the floor:

“Notwithstanding the fact that President Bush has challenged us to come up with comprehensive immigration reform, which also includes tight border security, and notwithstanding the fact that this Congress passed what I believe is an objectionable immigration reform bill and the Senate has passed a more acceptable immigration reform bill and we are supposed to go to conference and work out the differences and produce a comprehensive immigration reform bill, as the President has requested, the leaders of this House have chosen to do nothing, not a thing.” (The Congressional Record 1996, H6852)

In some respects, the actions of the leadership in the 109th House are not without precedent. Conventional wisdom holds that members of Congress, in particular those

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representing marginal districts, are not going to expend much effort in attempting to align themselves with an unpopular president. But their actions do illustrate the House

Republican leadership’s low tolerance for dissent and potentially hostile amendments, and while it has been noted that Newt Gingrich seldom hesitated to use any and all powers available to him as Speaker, Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Delay went even further in testing the limits of their offices.

Because the 2005-06 attempt did not pass and therefore did not revise any statutes, it cannot be said to have directly influenced actual immigration policy.

However, the discourse behind the debate is highly relevant, and is one of the most recent examples available that can assist in gauging the positions of the two major parties. For that reason, even though other failed attempts are not similarly covered in this dissertation, data analysis for the 2005 vote is presented here.

Analysis of Floor Votes in House and Senate, 2005

In spite of the constant threat of the that exists today in the Senate, proponents of reform could not have asked for the process to go much more smoothly in the Senate than it did. McCain-Kennedy, which would have provided increased security and granted legal status to undocumented workers, won broad bipartisan support (although perhaps it got much more strong support among Democrats; as Table

7-5 shows, only four Democrats voted against the measure, and each of them came from states with persistently high unemployment rates).

As Tables 7-6 and 7-7 show, for this era, first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores are a very reliable indicator of how a member would vote on the immigration bill. The logit regression shows a negative relationship, and accurately predicts 85% of the roll call votes in the Senate, doing only slightly worse for the “yes” votes, at p<.001.

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Party alone is still a fairly solid predictor, though not as much so. The logit regression shown in Tables 7-8 and 7-9 uses party label as the independent variable in the Senate, showing a logit regression measuring the effect of party, and the effect again shows significance. But the predictive power of party alone is thirteen percentage points lower than that of DW-NOMINATE, and is worse still in the context of the “yes” votes; this stems from the Republican split between those who more closely adhered to the Bush administration’s preferred course of action and those who could not support any amnesty plan, even if that meant defying Republican leadership in the White House and Senate.

The boxplots in Figure 7-5 show that among Senate Republicans, those who supported the bill had DW-NOMINATE scores much closer to zero than those who opposed it, though there is overlap between the “yea” and “nay” votes in the 0.35-0.45 range. For the Democrats, since only four members voted against the Senate bill, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions with respect to ideology, but the four members who voted against the bill, according to DW-NOMINATE, were not ideologically distinct from those who supported it. Figure 7-6 shows, overall, most of the Senators who supported the bill had moderate or low DW-NOMINATE scores, but the “yes” coalition had a much broader range than the “no” coalition (excluding, again, the four Democratic outliers).

Figure 7-7 shows that the distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in the Senate, yields two largely distinct clusters. Those members that did occupy the middle, such as Democrat of and Republicans

(RI), (ME) and Arlen Specter (PA) were nearing the end of their

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careers. Modal frequencies for DW-NOMINATE scores are highest from -0.5 to -0.4 for

Democrats, and from 0.4 to 0.5 for Republicans.

For the much more restrictive House measure, the crosstabs in Table 7-10 show solid support for the measure among Republicans and slightly less solid opposition among Democrats. Figure 7-8 depicts an even more pronounced ideological divide in the House than the preceding figures do for the Senate. For the House bill, supporters of the bill, with some exceptions, had predominantly very high DW-NOMINATE scores, while opponents (again, with some exceptions) had very low scores. Aside from the outliers, there is no overlap even with the upper quartile for the Democrats and the lower quartile for the Republicans. The abstentions appear ideologically aligned with the “yes” votes, but most of those happened to be Republicans, and ascertaining any strategic pattern behind the abstentions will require further research. Figure 7-9 shows polarization in the 109th House reaching remarkable levels, with the most liberal

Republican in the House being more conservative than the most conservative

Democrat. No ideological overlap existed any longer between the parties, and members that accounted for any such overlap in the Senate either retired or were defeated for re-election soon after. Similarly, Figure 7-10 shows extremely well-defined liberal and conservative blocs; few members remained who could be called true moderates, and no members at all occupied the immediate center.

Conclusion to Chapter Seven

Granted, given how hard President Bush pushed for a legislative victory, it is a puzzle as to why the House and the Senate differed so radically on their approaches to immigation reform in the 109th Congress, and why the Republican Party’s overall approach in the Senate was much more consensus-based and comprehensive than

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was the House GOP’s approach, especially given that the Senate as an institution has gained a reputation for stopping legislation in its tracks via the filibuster. To be sure, the

Senate did experience legislation-killing , particularly in the case of ANWR drilling and other environmental issues. It is clear, however, that the different outcomes on immigration policy between the two chambers can be chalked up to two facts: first, that the Republican leadership (namely Hastert) in the House was by their own personal nature far more nativist than was the Senate, and second, certain members of extremely conservative or populist districts with uniform constituencies (members like

Sensenbrenner, Hunter, and Tancredo), dominated the shaping of the policy, with moderates now too few in number to influence policy.. Furthermore, Witko (2006) notes that PACs (such as NumbersUSA, in this case) may well achieve their policy objectives

(either by getting what they want, or stopping what they don’t want) by limiting committee participation so that well-crafted legislation does not come up to the floor.

Accordingly, the comprehensive approach failed to make it to the floor, as it could not pass the “” requiring a “majority of the the majority” to support a bill before the bill reaches the floor.

For the era spanning the Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies, Hypothesis

1, which ties the passage of restrictive immigration laws with higher party polarization, is supported. Granted, parallels between 1924 and 1996 can be drawn in that both were election years, with both major presidential candidates competing for California, and both political parties making some use of restrictionist posturing to enhance their standings with voters. But more significantly, no liberalizing bills passed, and none considered until the mid-2000s; even then, not enough members were available to the

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White House to partake in the same kind of practical, consensus-based coalition building that was possible in the 1980s.

Looking only at this time period, Hypothesis 2a, which predicts roll call votes on immigration to coincide with the broader ideological orientations of the two parties, appears to be true with this case. Most Republicans supported the 1996 law, and most

Democrats opposed it. While for the Senate’s failed 2005 attempt, while more

Republicans opposed than supported the bill, the bill’s provisions were very similar to a reaffirmation of IRCA; it promised a moderate-to strict bill by 1986 standards, but not necessarily so within the context of the modern immigration debate. Another important distinction is that whereas in previous eras both parties competed to be on the side of populist and nativist sentiments, since 1996 both parties appear to have ideologically self-sorted on the question of immigration; Democrats are now nearly united behind efforts to liberalize because it favors emerging constituencies in their coalition (namely most Hispanic and some Asian voters), while most Republicans (excluding the congressional leadership) now consistently resist further liberalization on ideological grounds. Further research is needed to ascertain the exact reasons; regardless, immigration, as its own policy dimension, now does much to distinguish between the two parties, whereas in previous eras, it played no such role.

Hypothesis 2b, which suggests less nuance in an era of high polarization, is also not undermined here. While Clinton himself and a handful of other Democrats framed illegal immigration as a problem to be taken seriously, most Democrats took a strong ideological exception to Congress’s approach, and expressed as much unequivocally.

Similarly, most Republicans overlooked the positive economic impacts of migrant

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workers, which are routinely mentioned by the Chamber of Commerce and other business interests in defense of liberal immigration policy, and instead consistently portrayed the economic impact of migrants as a net negative.

Hypothesis 3, which suggests that wartime discourses influence immigration policy, is not applicable at all to the 1996 effort. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, restrictionists have emphasized strong borders as a means of keeping out potential terrorists, and embraced the House’s 2005 approach, which included no citizenship or legalization for those not in the United States legally. But whereas during the Cold War,

United States immigration policy was shaped in order to reassure state-based allies and to accommodate refugees from Communist regimes, the “Global War on Terror” now serves to galvanize opposition to any amnesty program. The new war against Islamic extremists was ultimately what enabled, perhaps even required, a shift in Giuliani’s rhetoric from pro-immigration to immigration-skeptic. But as current conditions show, some in the Republican Party leadership now advocate pre-emptively banning migrants from “high-risk” countries in the name of national security, while others remain hesitant.

Differences among Republican factions- to simplify, Trump-aligned restrictionists versus

Bush-aligned liberals- with respect to their immigration approach has yielded a well- defined fault line between restrictionists and moderates, bearing genuine future ramifications for the ideological constituency of the Republican Party.

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Table 7-1. Crosstabs of vote in the House on Final Passage of Conference Report of 1996 Act

Party Total

Democratic Independent Republican

Roll Call, Yea 76 0 229 305 Conference Report

NV 5 0 1 6

Nay 117 1 5 123

Total 198 1 235 434

Table 7-2. Pearson correlation of MC's Party with vote on 1996 conference report

Roll Call (conference Party report)

Party Pearson Correlation 1 .642**

Significance (two- .000 tailed)

N 434 434

DW-NOMINATE (first Pearson Correlation .642** 1 dimension)

Significance (two- .000 tailed)

N 434 435

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Figure 7-1. DW-NOMINATE scores of House members grouped by their vote on passage of 1996 Conference Report

Table 7-3. Binary logistic regression showing effect of Clinton's vote percentage in MC's district with MC's vote on conference report, 104th Congress

Observed Predicted

Roll Call (conference Percentage report) Correct

Yea Nay

Roll Call Yea 285 20 93.4 (conference report)

Nay 36 87 70.7

Overall 86.9 Percentage

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Table 7-4. Statistics for binary logistic regression (party is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

Clinton Vote (%) -.219 .023 91.385 1 .000 .803

Constant 12.627 1.249 102.250 1 .000 304595.1

Figure 7-2. DW-NOMINATE scores in U.S. House grouped by party during 104th Congress. Outliers are Hall (372, TX), Morella (191, MD), Sanford (353, SC) and Stockman (377, TX)

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Figure 7-3. Distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores among House members in 104th Congress (1996)

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Figure 7-4. Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in the 104th Senate (1996)

Table 7-5. Crosstabs of vote on passage (by party) of 2005 Senate bill

Party Total

Democratic Independent Republican

Roll Call, Yea 38 1 23 62 Conference Report

NV 2 0 0 2

Nay 4 0 32 36

Total 44 1 55 100

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Table 7-6. Logit regression showing effect of DW-NOMINATE score on vote for passage of 2005 Senate bill

Observed Predicted

Roll Call (on passage) Percentage Correct Yea Nay

Roll Call (on Yea 52 10 83.9 passage)

Nay 4 32 88.9

Overall 85.7 Percentage

Table 7-7. Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

DW-NOMINATE (first -4.448 .895 24.703 1 .000 .012 dimension)

Constant 1.286 .365 12.405 1 .000 3.620

Table 7-8. Logit regression showing effect of party on vote for passage of 2005 Senate bill

Observed Predicted

Roll Call (on passage) Percentage Correct Yea Nay

Roll Call (on Yea 39 23 62.9 passage)

Nay 4 32 88.9

Overall 72.4 Percentage

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Table 7-9. Statistics for binary logistic regression (roll call vote on passage is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

Party -2.610 .598 19.050 1 .000 .074

Constant 2.289 .530 18.649 1 .000 9.870

Figure 7-5. DW-NOMINATE scores grouped by vote on passage of 2005 Senate bill, divided by party

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Figure 7-6. Overall first dimension DW-NOMINATE scores grouped by vote on passage of 2005 Senate bill

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Figure 7-7. Distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores in the 109th Senate (2005-06)

Table 7-10. Roll call vote on passage of 2005 House bill, by party

Party Total

Democratic Independent Republican

Roll Call (on Yea 36 0 20 237 passage)

NV 2 0 11 13

Nay 164 1 19 184

Total 202 1 231 434

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Figure 7-8. DW-NOMINATE scores of members grouped by roll call vote on 2005 House bill

Figure 7-9. DW-NOMINATE scores in U.S. House by party, 109th Congress (2005)

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Figure 7-10. Distribution of DW-NOMINATE scores in U.S. House, 109th Congress

Table 7-11. Most popular themes expressed on the Senate floor in final debate for immigration provisions in omnibus appropriations bill (1996)

Frequency Most Popular Themes Invoked in Debate (1996) Supporters 4 K The U.S. must assist oppressed peoples around the world 4 X Immigration will exacerbate crime 3 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory Opponents 4 F Immigration laws must be humanitarian, not draconian 3 G Immigrant family reunification must be prioritized 3 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory

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Table 7-12. Senate roll call votes and remarks on omnibus appropriations measure containing IIRIRA (1996)

Name State Vote1 Orientation2 Remarks Ted Stevens (R) AK Yea Frank Murkowski (R) AK Yea Howell Heflin (D) AL Yea (R) AL Yea Dale Bumpers (D) AR NV David Pryor (D) AR Nay John McCain (R) AZ Yea (R) AZ Yea Dianne Feinstein (D) CA Yea Strongly Favors AKNRW Barbara Boxer (D) CA Nay (R) CO Nay (R) CO Yea Christopher J. Dodd (D) CT Yea Joseph Lieberman (D) CT Yea William V. Roth, Jr. (R) DE Yea Joseph Biden (D) DE Nay Bob Graham (D) FL Nay Opposes AFGR Connie Mack (R) FL Yea Sam Nunn (D) GA Yea (R) GA Yea (D) HI Yea Favors AGK Daniel Inouye (D) HI Yea Chuck Grassley (R) IA Yea Strongly Favors X Tom Harkin (R) IA Nay (R) ID Yea Strongly Favors D (R) ID Yea Paul Simon (D) IL Nay Carol Moseley-Braun (D) IL Nay Richard Lugar (R) IN Yea (R) IN Yea

1 Roll Call votes are not on the conference report, as in other chapters, but on passage of the omnibus appropriations bill originally passed by the Senate. The conference report was approved in the Senate by voice vote.

2 Denotes support for or opposition to IIRIRA in its final form.

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Table 7-12. Continued.

Name State Vote3 Orientation Remarks (R) KS Yea Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R) KS Yea Wendell H. Ford (D) KY Yea Mitch McConnell (R) KY Yea J. Bennett Johnston (D) LA Yea John B. Breaux (D) LA Yea Edward M. Kennedy (D) MA Nay Opposes AFGIR John Kerry (D) MA Nay Paul S. Sarbanes (D) MD Nay F Barbara A. Mikulski (D) MD Yea William S. Cohen (R) ME Yea Olympia Snowe (R) ME Yea Carl Levin (D) MI Nay Spencer Abraham (R) MI Yea X Paul D. Wellstone (D) MN Nay (R) MN Yea Christopher Bond (R) MO Yea Strongly Favors (R) MO Yea Thad Cochran (R) MS Yea (R) MS Yea Strongly Favors Max Baucus (D) MT Nay Conrad Burns (R) MT Yea Jesse Helms (R) NC Yea Lauch Fairlcloth (R) NC Yea Strongly Favors C (D) ND Yea (D) ND Yea Jim Exon (D) NE Nay J. Robert Kerrey (D) NE Nay Bob Smith (R) NH Yea (R) NH Yea Bill Bradley (D) NJ Nay Frank R. Lautenberg (D) NJ Nay Pete Domenici (R) NM Yea

3 Roll Call votes are not on the conference report, as in other chapters, but on passage of the omnibus appropriations bill originally passed by the Senate. The conference report was approved in the Senate by voice vote.

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Table 7-12. Continued.

Name State Vote Orientation Remarks Jeff Bingaman (D) NM Yea Harry Reid (D) NV Yea Richard H. Bryan (R) NV Yea Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) NY Nay Al D’Amato (R) NY Yea John Glenn (D) OH Nay Mike DeWine (R) OH Yea Don Nickles (R) OK Yea James Inhofe (R) OK Yea Mark O. Hatfield (R) OR Nay (D) OR Nay Arlen Specter (R) PA Nay Favors A (R) PA Yea Strongly Favors KW Claiborne Pell (D) RI Yea John H. Chafee (R) RI Yea Strom Thurmond (R) SC Yea Ernest F. Hollings (D) SC Yea Strongly Favors Larry Pressler (R) SD Yea Strongly Favors Thomas A. Daschle (D) SD Yea (R) TN Yea Bill Frist (R) TN Yea Phil Gramm (R) TX Yea (R) TX Yea Strongly Favors Q Orrin G. Hatch (R) UT Yea Strongly Favors KQX Robert F. Bennett (R) UT Yea John W. Warner (R) VA Yea Charles S. Robb (D) VA Yea Patrick Leahy (D) VT Yea James Jeffords (R) VT Yea Slade Gorton (R) WA Yea (D) WA Yea (D) WI Nay Strongly Favors R (D) WI Nay Strongly Opposes AFGL Robert C. Byrd (D) WV Nay Favors John D. Rockefeller IV (D) WV Nay Alan K. Simpson (R) WY Yea Strongly Favors X Craig Thomas (R) WY Yea

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CHAPTER 8 TOWARD A NEW PARTY SYSTEM

Introduction

The developments after the 2008 election, historic for its election of Barack

Obama to the White House and the largest Democratic majorities in Congress in decades, marked the beginning of a discursive shift with regard to the perception of the two parties in the electorate. The global financial crisis, which occurred in the waning days of the Bush presidency, elicited major government intervention in the financial sector in the form of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), over the initial objections of a bipartisan majority of House members who voted not to proceed with the . The bailout did pass the House on a second vote, 263-171, after intense lobbying from the Bush administration, but in turn served to mobilize a populist-leftist movement in Occupy Wall Street, which signified the first major ideological movement of the era with the official backing of neither party, and was more anti-elite than it was partisan.

Obama similarly endorsed TARP (The Congressional Record 2008, S10231) as a flawed but unavoidable measure, and upon assuming office, the he pursued, in conjunction with congressional leaders, an agenda very much amenable to the legislative priorities of the Democratic mainstream, which included an $830 billion economic stimulus package in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, new regulations on credit card issuers, and a modest reform package for the financial services industry sponsored by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Barney Frank

(D-MA) Most of the 111th Congress, however, was devoted to passing the Patient

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Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, leaving little time or resources for

Congress to debate on immigration.

Meanwhile, Republican voters, with the assistance of conservative elites such as and , were encouraged to distance themselves from the national Republican Party, mainly because Republicans failed to resist new obligations enacted under George W. Bush, and because congressional

Republican leadership was now perceived as similarly ineffective in putting constraints on the president. The was thus formed, which combined a supposed (though in fact, mischaracterized) ideologically conservative purism with disaffection and distrust toward the federal government. The movement also attracted surrogates who staunchly opposed any further tolerance of illegal immigration.

The perceived need for grassroots conservatives to create the Tea Party, a loosely organized, yet distinct movement from the Republican Party, should have signaled an imminent threat to the existing Republican leadership; the creation of an alternate entity to pursue the policies that the existing leadership claimed to be already pursuing underscored a sense of distrust between the grassroots and party leadership.

Though the Tea Party movement would be somewhat damaged from its backing of House and Senate candidates that proved unelectable in the general election, they did mobilize enough voters to return the House to Republicans with a comfortable majority in 2010. House Majority Leader was elected Speaker, and had promised during the campaign to repeal Obamacare, or short of that, defund the program so as to stop its implementation, both promises proved unfulfillable.

Republicans nominated former Massachussetts Governor to oppose

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Obama in 2012 amid weak primary opposition, who decried Romney as an

“establishment” candidate. Romney’s perceived electability helped him acquire the

Republican nomination, as it was believed Obama’s unpopularity among conservative voters would be sufficient to unite the Republican voter coalition. Romney ultimately failed to turn out his coalition in the required numbers, whereas Obama successfully returned his coalition of voters (which included single women, African Americans, and increasing numbers of Asians and Hispanics) to the polls, leading to his re-election, but with increased pressure to pass immigration reform that accommodates those already in the United States illegally.

Congress Attempts Reform

The continuing deadlock on immigration prompted pro-immigration groups and prominent voices in the Spanish-language media to question whether the Obama administration could have been doing more to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Having gone two decades without immigration reform, the 113th Senate considered S.744, the comprehensive immigration reform measure colloquially known as the “Gang of Eight” bill, which would have granted work permits and a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants with financial penalties for amnesty applicants, and increased resources for border protection, with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as its most visible sponsors. To date, S.744 stands alone as Congress’s only attempt during Obama’s presidency to modernize the immigration system as a whole. One of Rubio’s speeches was aired by a group called

“Americans for a Conservative Direction,” a subsidiary of FWD.us, which is a 501(c)(4)

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group founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.1 Board members for Americans for a Conservative Direction included former Mississippi governor and RNC chair Haley

Barbour, Sally Bradshaw, who served as ’s chief of staff during his tenure as

Florida governor, Joel Kaplan, who served as deputy chief of staff to President George

W. Bush, Dan Senor, who was chief advisor to during his 2012 vice presidential run, and Rob Jesmer, the one-time executive director of the National

Republican Senatorial committee.2 This assortment of members, all of whom shared deep roots in the party’s recent history, typified political actors within the Republican

Party advocating a plan with amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

Zuckerberg delivered his push for immigration reform along with an expressed desire to see more skilled workers from select countries be able to come to work in the

United States. Business leaders’ strong advocacy for increased immigration levels is not without precedent; Andrew Carnegie in particular appraised highly each immigrant’s contribution to national GDP, moreso than official government figures. (Higham 1955)

As noted above, Zuckerberg and other business leaders seeking to import more skilled labor had the backing of long-standing Republican Party power brokers, and the effort to pass the bill was major.

Ultimately, S.744 passed the Senate, but Boehner refused to act, citing the

“Hastert rule” that required a majority of Republicans to support a bill in order for it to move forward, and it appeared clear that the House majority would not be unified in supporting any bill that included an amnesty program. The 111th Congress had already

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FWD.us Retrieved Dec 22, 2015.

2 http://www.americansforaconservativedirection.com/#about Retrieved Dec 22, 2015.

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failed to move the DREAM Act, which would have legalized those undocumented who were brought to the United States as children; in lieu of congressional action, Obama implemented deferred action programs DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans) through executive orders which protected certain migrants from deportation, drawing the ire of immigration hawks and immediately prompting a court challenge in United States v. Texas (2016).

The inaction of the 111th, 112th, and 113th Congresses was also accompanied by activity at the state level. In Arizona, SB1070, which authorized the state police to pull over and detain anyone they reasonably suspected might be in the country illegally, was passed under unified Republican state government, and Governor assumed a high-profile nationally over confrontations with the White House over the issue.

Although most of the SB1070 provisions would be struck down by the Supreme Court in

Arizona v. United States (2012) due to the potential for racial profiling, the core provision of the law requiring police to turn immigrants who are found to be undocumented over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) remained.

Moreover, the law inspired similar efforts in other jurisdictions, such as Alabama and in small localities across the country (S. Rept. 113-40), all of which aimed to provoke the federal government to take action.

Return of Intraparty Conflict

During the 2012 campaign, in an effort to gain the trust of immigration skeptics,

Romney had called for “self-deportation” of undocumented immigrants, which implied not necessarily an active government role in removing undocumented immigrants, but rather a passive role in restricting access to social services, thereby making life more difficult and prompting them to leave the country on their own accord. The concept

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bears similarities to the objectives of the 1996 act, which treats social services as magnets for new arrivals of migrants, and accordingly restricts such services in various ways.

After Romney’s loss, the Republican National Committee released the ”Growth and Opportunity Report,” colloquially known as the 2012 “autopsy,” which brought into focus the need for a less combative tone on immigration and other issues of concern to minority groups:

On the voter engagement front, we discussed the need to make investments, including hiring national and state-based staff, to communicate directly with African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Pacific Americans. The party “has to stop talking to itself,” we noted, and we urged Republicans to engage with voters who don’t always identify with Republicans. 3

Though early contenders for the following presidential election such as former

Governor Jeb Bush and Senator Marco Rubio from Florida embraced this approach, they were upstaged by an insurgent movement within the Republican Party. On June

16, 2015, Donald J. Trump formally entered the race, and in his opening speech, characterized some Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists” (DelReal 2016)

(though qualifying that by saying he believed that some of these immigrants were also

“good people”). Then, on July 7, referencing Jeb Bush, Trump remarked, “…his weak stance on immigration- he said it’s an act of love. I mean what kind of stuff is that? It’s baby stuff” (Easley 2015). In the month prior, Bush led the Republican field for the 2016 presidential nomination by varying margins from two to seven points. (Real Clear

Politics 2016) But following that remark, Trump gained the national lead over his

Republican opponents, then kept it.

3 “Growth and Opportunity Project.” http://goproject.gop.com/ Retrieved Dec 22, 2015.

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Subsequently, Trump called for a complete suspension of Muslim immigration to the United States. In response, Paul Ryan, newly elevated to House Speaker, made an exception to his general unwillingness to comment publicly on the presidential race.

“What [Trump] proposed yesterday: This is not conservatism. This is not what our party stands for and, more importantly, it’s not what our country stands for” (Levy 2015).

Ryan maintained that Trump’s suggestion was incompatible with the American system, and more specifically, the ideals of the Republican Party. Meanwhile, talk radio hosts directed their fire not at Trump, but at Ryan and others in the Republican establishment.

Though in the end, Trump’s campaign strategy proved successful, there continues to be an ideology-based schism within the Republican Party. Such clashes have been occurring in both parties since the parties’ inception, albeit with amplitudes of varying degree, as evidenced by the Ford-Reagan clash of the late 1970s, the

Goldwater-Rockefeller clash among Republicans in the early 1960s, the Smith-McAdoo clash among Democrats in 1928, and perhaps equally so the Sanders-Clinton and

Trump-Bush clashes now taking place. Trump’s primary victory and his electoral strength in traditionally Democratic areas such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and

Pennsylvania, along with the following amassed by Sanders and continuing proxy wars between candidates for party leadership suggest that party coalitions in the electorate are now being reconfigured to accommodate outside movements inspired by the Tea

Party, Occupy Wall Street and its spiritual successor movement, “The Resistance,” as has been the case in previous highly polarized party systems.

Re-emergence of the Reform Party Coalition

The popularity of both Sanders and Trump pose empirical puzzles with respect to why the parties appear to be heading in a markedly different ideological direction from

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just one cycle prior. Indeed, in previous eras where polarization was high (as described in Chapters 3 and 4), the parties moved to reincorporate voters with a propensity to defect (or had already defected to) minor parties (Bibbly and Maisel 1998). A similar process may be underway in the current era for the voter constituencies that once made up the Reform Party coalition. The primary insurgent candidates can in fact be linked to the Reform Party coalition; Trump participated directly in Reform Party politics, while

Sanders, himself an independent for most of his career, bears deep ideological similarities to Nader, another major actor within the Reform Party.

As the previous chapter notes, while in Congress, Sanders compiled a voting record that yielded a similar first-dimension economic score not unlike mainstream liberal Democrats. Yet through his twenty-five years of service in Congress, Sanders never joined the Democratic caucus, and his lack of affinity for the Democratic Party as an institution is borne out by his visible reluctance to endorse Clinton even after the final primary votes had been cast. Sanders ultimately lent his support to Clinton, but only after winning some concessions in the party platform, such as the fifteen-dollar and in other respects, which were less amenable to “Third Way” center- left politics, and moreso to social democratic parties in other countries.

Socialist and social democratic policy orientations often overlap with populist demands. On one hand, though a self-professed socialist, Sanders is of an ideology far removed from the Marxist tradition; he has not called for the abolition of private property, nor has he suggested that the state, in broad terms, acquire the means of production for major industries. And whereas Marx characterizes religion as an opioid for the proletariat that enables the bourgeois agenda, Sanders has been conciliatory,

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not hostile, towards religious communities, demonstrated in part by his visit to Liberty

University (Corasaniti 2015) at the beginning of the primary campaign. Sanders’s views on governance differ substantially from Marx, and are analogous with Ralph Nader, who was nominated for president by the Green Party in 2000 and by the Reform Party in

2004.

On the other hand, Sanders’s ideological similarities to Nader also set him well apart from the Clintons. Whereas Bill Clinton devoted much political capital to passing

NAFTA and numerous other trade agreements, Sanders and Nader oppose them and advocate their reversal. While in the Senate, Hillary Clinton voted to authorize war in

Iraq; Sanders and Nader never supported the war. As Secretary of State, Clinton presided over numerous entanglements, none of which Sanders or Nader ever supported. For each of these policy questions, all of which have gained increased salience, Sanders, Nader, and Trump converge to a similar position, while Hillary converges with the Republican establishment. In other words, though the expected first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores of Nader and Trump might be quite different, they might also be similar if an isolationist/neoliberal dimension were introduced, making the fact that Trump and Nader were both major figures in the Reform Party much less surprising.

At least three major factors can be attributed to the Reform Party’s truncated longevity. First, following the 2000 election, which saw a near-even split between the two major parties, both the Green Party and the Reform Party earned a reputation as spoiler movements, and while neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore matched the ideology of Green and Reform Party constituencies, those constituencies nevertheless

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probably had a preference between the two major party candidates, and voting for a minor party candidate eliminated the agency of voters in selecting which of the two major candidates would become president.

Second, the most visible Reform Party actors, Perot, Buchanan, and Trump, can all be construed to have had significant overlap with the existing Republican Party both in terms of its policy agenda and its core constituencies. Perot endorsed Newt

Gingrich’s Contract with America in 1994, and thereby may have added much of his voter base to the Republican coalition that year, which particularly mattered for

Republicans running in marginal seats. Perot himself quietly endorsed (Yardley 2000)

George W. Bush in 2000 over his former party’s official nominee, .

Buchanan, in turn, reluctantly endorsed Bush in 2004 instead of either reattempting a third-party challenge or endorsing Nader, the Reform Party’s 2004 (and final) presidential nominee. In October of that year, Buchanan wrote:

There is a rumbling of dissent inside the GOP to the free-trade fanaticism of the Wall Street Journal that is denuding the nation of and alienating Reagan Democrats. The celebrants of outsourcing in the White House have gone into cloister. The Bush amnesty for illegal aliens has been rejected. Prodigal Republicans now understand that their cohabitation with Big Government has brought their country to the brink of ruin and bought them nothing. But if we wish to be involved in the struggle for the soul of the GOP—and we intend to be there—we cannot be AWOL from the battle where the fate of that party is decided. (Buchanan 2004)

The failure of major Reform Party actors to consolidate reliably behind the party’s own nominee underscores a third reason for the party’s disintegration. While Reform

Party candidates may have had some ideological convergence on a hypothetical isolationist/neoliberal dimension with regard to trade and foreign policy, no such convergence existed along the pre-established first or second dimensions. As the party’s nominee, Buchanan had no appeal to social progressives, while Nader similarly

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could not appeal to social conservatives. Trump himself cited this lack of ideological cohesion in his decision to depart from the Reform Party, writing4:

I believe that in order to win the presidency as a Third Party Candidate, all forces within that party would have to strongly pull together and be totally unified. Sadly, this has not happened. I agree with my friend -the Reform Party has become dysfunctional…Now I understand that has decided to join the Reform Party to support the candidacy of Pat Buchanan. So the Reform Party now includes a Klansman, - Mr. Duke, a Neo-Nazi - Mr. Buchanan, and a Communist - Ms. Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep. (Trump 2000)

According to data compiled by Pew5, up until Trump’s win in the Indiana primary on May 3, voter turnout was much increased in the 2016 Republican primaries compared to previous cycles (Desilver 2016), particularly among voters who have never before participated in the nomination process, and Trump’s policy positions, many of them deemed unorthodox by other Republican candidates, may have played some part to incorporate these voters. For instance, Trump has generally maintained his protectionist and antiwar policy orientation, and has added to it a distinctly restrictive immigration stance, all of which diverge from other leading candidates such as Jeb

Bush and Marco Rubio, but may have enabled his candidacy to reabsorb former Reform

Party voters (in a manner reminiscent of the Bryan candidacy reincorporating agrarian populists for the Democrats), who were mainly isolationist and working-class whites once sympathetic to Perot and Buchanan. Trump’s “new” voters, when added to evangelical Christians and to previous political bystanders drawn in by Trump’s celebrity, formed a coalition too large and too mobilized for other Republican candidates to compete.

4 Statement from Donald J. Trump. https://www.gwu.edu/~action/trumpout.html Retrieved Aug 29, 2016.

5 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/10/turnout-was-high-in-the-2016-primary-season-but-just- short-of-2008-record/

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Future research should, both quantitatively and qualitatively, assess the historical voting patterns of the Trump coalition to find out how many of his voters came from the

Reform Party movement to which Trump previously belonged; such would yield answers not only in terms of determining the origins of support for Trump’s immigration positions, but whether these voters will continue to actively participate on behalf of any one political party or political movement beyond the current cycle.

Comparative Cases of Populist Insurgencies

While the recent populist surge in the United States is of crucial significance, anti-establishment trends are visible across the globe. Though political campaigns always involve questions unique to a country’s domestic situation, Mounk (2014) attributes immigration concerns, stagnation or decline of living standards from one generation to the next, and an increased dominance of supranational organizations over the traditional nation-states. In other words, populist movements are routinely characterized not purely by economic questions, but most often also by themes surrounding national (or regional) sovereignty or identity.

The precise evolution of each populist insurgency is unique to each country, and may be mobilized, or limited in their capacity to do so, based on domestic political realities. For instance, in Canada, after the ruling Progressive Conservatives lost all but two members of Parliament in the 1993 federal elections, the Reform Party of Canada was created through the prism of regionalism amidst concerns that the establishments of the major parties were favoring eastern provinces over western provinces in economic development.6 Though the Reform Party would later re-merge with other

6 I thank Bryn Hendricks, a former Liberal Party of Canada operative based in Toronto, for introducing me to the Canadian party system of the 1990s.

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splinter groups to form the new Conservative Party of Canada in 2003 and elect one of its own, Stephen Harper, as Prime Minister from 2006 to 2015, Harper’s own government was eventually displaced by the younger and nationally popular Justin

Trudeau’s Liberals, due in part to a prevailing wisdom that the national government had grown too entrenched and was not responsive to ordinary people’s problems during a period of increasing deficits, rising inequality and slowing economic growth.

The first half of 2016 brought more changes. Taiwan elected Tsai Ing-Wen of the

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and gave her party a majority in the national legislature, which had been continuously under Nationalist (KMT) control since the founding of the Republic of China (ROC). Tsai’s lopsided victory stemmed from not only pre-existing constituencies who long favored formal independence from the

People’s Republic of China (PRC), but also from perceptions among traditionally

Nationalist voters that rapid development of economic relations with China under the

KMT was primarily favoring the rich, and that local identity would be lost were Chinese influence to persist at current levels.

In Europe, Populist-right parties formed governments in an economically- weakened Iceland, as well as in Austria, after tens of thousands of thousands of Syrian refugees came into continental Europe passing through Austrian territory under the accommodations made by the and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The most significant development was the United Kingdom’s referendum on whether to withdraw from the EU, and fifty-two percent of voters voted to leave. This was the favored outcome of Euroskeptics across the UK, who believed that the UK could not attain economic prosperity, nor retain their national identity, if the migration of low-wage

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immigrant labor from Eastern Europe (or of Muslims) were allowed to persist. As national governments within the EU must abide by the unconditional free movement of people under the Schengen accord, the UK could not impose border controls; a general perception that EU institutions were anti-democratic was also a major theme. The

“Brexit” vote was driven mainly by Conservative voters and supporters of the UK

Independence Party (UKIP), but also a third of Labour Party supporters, primarily from former industrial centers of England and Wales; those that had the least to lose economically from severance of ties with the EU tended to vote for Brexit, whereas those with higher incomes and education levels voted to remain in the EU. The vote splintered party lines, putting populists against neoliberals, and triggered leadership contests both in the Conservative and Labour Parties, as both Prime Minister David

Cameron and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn had favored remaining in the EU.

The EU parliament and pro-EU politicians across Europe gave the vote a hostile reception and warned of severe fiscal consequences for the UK were it to withdraw. A greater fear was the polling strength of other Euroskeptic parties in France, the

Netherlands, Italy, Greece and elsewhere, and implications for future referenda in those countries. Goodliffe (2015) finds a steady increase in Euroskepticism in France since the 1990s, boding well for the anti-immigrant National Front party for the next round of elections, while Williams and Spoon (2015) find that governing parties are much less amenable to Euroskepticism regardless of their pre-election orientation, leaving government officials more vulnerable to the charge of and subservience to globalist interests.

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Due to similarities in themes between the Trump and Sanders candidacies,

Brexit, and other populist-oriented campaigns across the globe and their temporal proximity to each other, it would likely be mistaken to regard these events as entirely unconnected. Immigration, economic inequality, and national identity are central to each of these movements, and the shared adversary of the neoliberal “Washington consensus” is common to each case. That such an established way of international commerce could be upended may also portend the simultaneous upending of the party systems that oversaw the negotiation of the consensus in the first place.

Analysis of Floor Vote of S.744

Figure 8-1 shows the distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in the

113th Senate. As with the 104th and 109th congresses, a clear gap exists between two distinct partisan clusters; the range from -0.2 to 0.2 only includes five senators, including Democrats (D-WV), Max Baucus (D-MT), Mark Pryor (D-AR), all of whom represent states that have voted consistently Republican at the presidential level for the previous four cycles. Within the same range are two Republicans, Susan

Collins of Maine (a state which has consistently voted Democratic in presidential races), and of Alaska, who in 2010 was defeated in her primary for renomination by a populist firebrand and achieved re-election by way of a write-in candidacy.

The Republican cluster is skewed right; most Republicans have scores between

0.3 and 0.8; the four with the highest scores include (R-ID), along with Mike

Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz. Of these four, all except Crapo are first- term senators who defeated more moderate candidates preferred by the Republican establishment. On the left, only two senators, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie

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Sanders, had DW-NOMINATE scores lower than -0.6, and are thus set somewhat apart from the rest of the Democratic cluster. Like their counterparts on the far right, both have waged aggressive populist campaigns aimed at countering the neoliberal consensus on trade, and additionally, financial services reform.

As Table 8-1 shows, the , including nominal independents Sanders and of Maine, was completely unified behind S.744.

Fourteen Republicans joined the Democrats in voting “yea,” exceeding the sixty-vote threshold necessary to overcome a filibuster. Had the House leadership moved to consider a companion bill and gone to conference, it is conceivable that a filibuster could have once again been cleared, were the Democratic caucus to reaffirm their support for a mixed-measure immigration reform package, but no such opportunity arose.

From the results of Tables 8-2 and 8-3, it can be argued that political party mattered and had significant predictive power as an independent variable, as the logit model correctly predicts the roll call vote with 84% accuracy, and the p-value is less than .001. But as the logit regression in Tables 8-4 and 8-5 show, the first-dimension

DW-NOMINATE score is far more reliable as a predictor than party, getting only three votes wrong out of one hundred, and significance is once again easily achieved. Thus, the Poole-Rosenthal measure of ideology, however imperfect, appears to closely match the likelihood of a member having supported S.744.

The roll call vote is very much representative of a Republican Party that fractured during the 2016 presidential nomination process. Indeed, while there no longer are any

Democrats who openly oppose legalization for undocumented immigrants, there is now

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a schism between those Republicans who are willing to accept such a measure and those who are not.

Conclusion to Chapter Eight

In light of increasing divergence, both in terms of rhetoric and key roll call votes, between party leadership and powerful, assertive subsets of the major party caucuses, it may be the case that potential is increasing for a reversion to a system with less coherent political parties. Trump’s nomination and a continued resistance from Bush- aligned Republican officials to it, as well as the Democrats’ own divisive primary, may be both reflective of existing intraparty divisions and causative of further deepening of those divisions in a cycle of negative feedback. Should this occur, it would not be inconsistent with pre-Depression historical precedent, and the modern Congress has been subject to polarization levels higher than at any point since the Progressive era.

Though Congress may go through a sustained state of hyperpolarization, history shows that it has not stayed there for longer than one generation; as in the 1920s and 1930s, the drop in party polarization was precipitated by rising economic inequality, an ideological split between mainstream and insurgent Republicans (leaving the party struggling to remain competitive at the national, and particularly presidential, level), a

Democratic Party in leftward transition, and a president often associated with executive overreach. As of today, at least three of those four conditions have been met, while the fourth may be determined by the 2016 elections.

Certainly, the failure of Congress to move immigration reform forward might be attributed in part to bicameralism, given that on two separate occasions, first in 2005 and second in 2013, the Senate passed a comprehensive bill that aimed to address both border security and legalization for a specific subset of migrants without

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documentation. And in the first instance, the House passed an entirely different bill with no willingness by the House Republican leadership to bring the bill to conference, and in the second instance, the House did not respond in kind with any bill at all. Thus, it may be tempting to envision a scenario whereby Congress, as a unicameral legislature, may have been more successful in overcoming the legislative gridlock of the past twenty years.

But with a bicameral Congress as a fact of life in the real world, the important question is how Congress succeeded in addressing immigration policy in previous eras whereas its recent attempts have failed. In a direct sense, the lack of legislative progress might be attributed to the agency of House Republican leaders, whether they made a decision not to negotiate with the Senate on their own accord, or were strongly discouraged from negotiating by activist constituencies and by significant numbers of rank-and-file members. In either case, differences in policy positions, particularly with respect to legalization, were too expansive to be reconciled in this era.

Hypothesis 1, which posits that eras of high polarization are not likely to yield liberalizing immigration policy changes, is supported. This era has witnessed polarization levels at sustained highs not seen in nearly a century, and the lack of interchange between House and Senate leaders to reach a compromise stands in stark contrast to the successful consensus building of previous eras that occurred even when the two chambers were controlled by different parties. The division has resulted not only in no policy change in immigration, but a complete lack of willingness on the part of many Republicans to entertain a legalization program, even as part of a broader package that includes restrictive measures.

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The premise of Hypothesis 2a, which states that legislators’ votes on immigration reform are ideologically consistent with their broader voting patterns, fares far better in the 2013 case than in any previous case; the logit regression using DW-NOMINATE to predict roll call vote outcomes fares far better than does party alone, which nevertheless also accurately predicts votes more often than not. The close congruence of the S.744 roll call vote with voting patterns across all other issues suggests that those

Republicans who supported S.744 also are less likely than other Republicans to vote in unity with the majority of their conference on other important legislative matters. Should this trend continue, and exact party-line votes (such as in the Obamacare case) become less frequent, it could undermine the Republican Party apparatus as a responsible entity and lead to a redrawing of division lines between ideological coalitions. Whether such a scenario takes place will be determined in part by the agenda-setting powers of the president and House and Senate leadership after the election.

Hypothesis 2b, which expects a lack of nuance in eras of higher polarization, is neither supported nor undermined by the data presented in this chapter, especially because the congressional immigration debate did not reach the advanced stages, and no such debate took place at all in the House in this era. While it might be argued that the Senate Democratic leadership and the “gang of eight” put forth a balanced and nuanced piece of legislation in S.744, the focal point of the broader debate has continued to be whether and how to legalize those undocumented already residing in the United States; the binary nature of that single question- and the attention it has garnered- poses a serious obstacle for political actors to stake out a middle ground from which a consensus might be built.

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For Hypothesis 3, which concerns the effects of wartime discourse on congressional immigration debates, developments of this era have yielded few clues, namely because congressional activity, aside from the brief Senate debate on S.744, has heretofore not materialized in this era. Moreover, the scope of American involvement in the Middle East during the Obama presidency has been much narrower than the major engagements of previous eras, such as World War I, World War II, and the , so the extent of influence current engagements may have is not commensurate with the major wars of the past. Lastly, the question of admitting Syrian refugees, though it has proved a divisive issue in presidential politics, is largely out of the hands of Congress, as President Obama has based his refugee policy on presidential authority derived from the Refugee Act of 1980. Overall, the increased visibility of ideological divisions within each party, and especially the Republicans, increases the potential for changes in party identification trends among groups in the electorate, which would inevitably have very significant implications for how the parties set the agenda, and what it means to be a “conservative,” “progressive,” or a

“moderate.” These questions will determine the nature of the next party system, and are still far from resolved.

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Figure 8-1. Distribution of first-dimension DW-NOMINATE scores in the 113th Senate (including temporary appointments, 2013)

Table 8-1. Crosstabs of roll call vote on S.744 by party

Party Total

Democratic Independent Republican

Roll Call, Final Yea 52 2 14 68 Passage

NV 0 0 0 0

Nay 0 0 32 32

Total 52 2 46 100

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Table 8-2. Classification table of observed/predicted roll call votes on S.744 by party via binary logistic regression

Observed Predicted

Roll Call Vote on S.744 Percentage Correct Nay Yea

Roll Call Vote Nay 32 0 100.0 on S.744

Yea 16 52 76.5

Overall 84.0 Percentage

Table 8-3. Statistics for binary logistic regression (party is independent variable; roll call vote on S.744 is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

Party -.034 .007 22.861 1 .000 .967

Constant 6.335 1.311 23.336 1 .000 564.089

Table 8-4. Classification table of observed/predicted roll call vote on S.744 by DW- NOMINATE score by binary logistic regression

Observed Predicted

Roll Call Vote on S.744 Percentage Correct Nay Yea

Roll Call Vote Nay 30 2 93.8 on S. 744

Yea 1 67 98.5

Overall 97.0 Percentage

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Table 8-5. Statistics for binary logistic regression (first dimension DW-NOMINATE score is independent variable; roll call vote on S.744 is dependent variable)

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

DW-NOMINATE (first -25.902 8.867 8.533 1 .003 .000 dimension)

Constant 11.387 3.925 8.416 1 .004 88154.414

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CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION

Productivity and Friction: A Reconceptualization

This dissertation has explored the unique circumstances behind the passage of each major landmark immigration law in the United States, and has established that the level of partisan polarization over the past two decades has made any substantive reform difficult, let alone more complete reforms that address all relevant concerns in the public sphere with respect to immigration. This chapter, in reviewing the legislative processes since 1875, restates the patterns of progress, paranoia, and stalemate in somewhat different, but no less applicable, terms.

It is worth nothing that much of the taxonomy used in this dissertation and elsewhere to describe important political phenomena are terms borrowed from the physical sciences. As one instance, “polarization” is an important concept in atomic physics and electrochemistry, and is associated with positively or negatively charged particles. Similarly, “productivity” in Congress might be analogous to the amount of “ work” done, measured in physics in joules- and as “power,” in physics, is demonstrated by the amount of work done per unit of time, some amount of work must also be done to demonstrate “power” in the political sense, or to use one’s own ability to make things happen that otherwise would not occur. And though legislation does not physically

“move” as does, for instance, a tennis ball, we nevertheless use the term “movement” for legislation, whereby it completes one process and moves on to the next. (Semat and Katz 1964)

Much as this dissertation refers to the availability of (often moderate) legislators to form legislative coalitions as “fluidity,” just as a fluid readily takes the form of its

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container, Evans (2004) characterizes the use of pork-barrel spending to facilitate movement of important legislation as “greasing the wheels,” referring to the process in the physical world whereby a viscous substance is applied to mechanical parts to mitigate friction in the short term, and to prevent mechanical failure over the long term.

Likewise, according to Evans, if the legislative machinery is not working as desired due to the presence of too much friction, one may apply “grease” in the form of “pork” projects to improve mechanical performance of the metaphorical moving parts within

Congress. Taking the metaphor one step further, as the force of friction works against one’s efforts to move an object over a surface, it might also be characterized as acting against the movement of legislation toward passage. It is therefore worthwhile to consider the concept of a “legislative coefficient of friction,” which when quantified, would bear an inverse relationship to the degree of Congress’s ability to move legislation over a given interval; the lower the frictional force, the smoother the legislative process becomes.

The coefficient of friction between two surfaces is a “dimensionless constant of proportionality” (Semat and Katz 1964) and if not given a priori, must be determined experimentally. When moving an object across a surface, the frictional force is the product of , the coefficient of friction between two surfaces, and the normal force , shown in the equation below: determined by the mass of an object multiplied by acceleration due to gravity.

In turn, is determined by the mass of an object multiplied by acceleration due to gravity. Put simply, assuming a level surface, the normal force is simply the weight of

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an object. Thus, to move a stationary object, a force greater than must be applied to the object; the more an object weighs, the higher the value of the frictional force, and the more difficult it will be to move.

Coarse surfaces have higher coefficients of friction than smoother surfaces, and the coefficient is reduced further when a viscous fluid is applied. In the same way, not all legislatures would have the same, or legislative coefficient of friction. The bicameral nature of Congress, the sixty-vote threshold necessary to overcome a Senate filibuster, presidential veto power, and obstructionism arising from incivility and partisan acrimony all would serve to increase the value of at a given time. Conversely, is lessened, I argue, by the presence of moderates, or non-ideologues, in a chamber within Congress.

The next important question is with regard to what purpose devising such a metric as the legislative coefficient of friction would serve. Going back to the above equation, the normal force, which depends heavily on how much an object weighs, would represent the degree of policy change a piece of legislation would represent. For instance, such laws as the 1924, 1965 and 1986 acts all represented broad and systematic changes to the immigration system and had a fundamental impact on subsequent immigration patterns; these laws can be characterized as “heavy” laws.

Laws with moderate weight include the 1952 and 1996 acts, and laws with lesser weight include measured or piecemeal efforts such as the 1943 Magnuson Act or the act of

1990.

In the physical world, the greater the normal force due to gravity to which an object is subject, the greater the static frictional force that must be overcome to move an object in one direction or another. In the same way, “lighter” laws that represented only

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minimal policy change have, again and again, passed with a modest amount of force applied. Acts such as the 1921, 1943, and the largely symbolic 2006 Secure Fence Act were debated and passed over a period of months, or even weeks, while more ambitious efforts, such as the 1952 act, took two years from start to finish, IRCA took five years, and recent comprehensive efforts have now been debated, on and off, for more than a decade, with no policy change having resulted, thanks in large part to two parties, nearly even in strength, each resorting to a kind of “cultural politics” in narratives that seem virtually irreconcilable. Nevertheless, the broad, exhaustive nature of recent attempts may partially explain their failure; they may simply have been too ambitious for the current legislative capacity of Congress.

If the “weight” of laws can be quantified, and if the forces applied to the legislative effort can also be quantified, along with the amount of distance the bill travels (in order words, whether it passed review by the committees, whether it received a floor vote, and whether a conference committee took place, and so forth), those variables allow us to isolate the legislative coefficient of friction to which the entire legislative process was subject. This new variable, calculated over a specific interval, indicates how much

“friction” was endogenous to institutional factors and the overall ideological distribution of Congress; in order words, it indicates how much resistance stems from factors other than direct agency by members of Congress and/or the president.

The work by Dodd and Schraufnagel (2009; 2015) finds that there is a relationship between party polarization and the amount of legislation achieved, but that the relationship is not uniform, but instead curvilinear; too much polarization often contributes to an environment that stymies important legislation, but so does too little

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polarization. A new metric, such as a legislative coefficient of friction, may yield additional clues as to why; while we have seen in the modern era the two major party caucuses working to push the immigration debate in equal and opposite direction, the textbook era faced the unique circumstance whereby committee chairs were the only legislators positioned to apply force to forward ambitious legislation, but in many cases, they were not ideologically predisposed to do so.

For the “friction” metric to be operative, the question of “applied force” by political actors must also be addressed. This force is not arrived at exclusively by voting and offering amendments, but persuading members and prioritizing a certain bill over other matters. The membership and institutional configuration of Congress at a given time leaves some members better positioned to apply force over others, such as in in the

1950s when the power of committee chairs far exceeded the rank and file. Moreover, the force should not be presumed always to originate from within Congress, but often from outside discourses.

The discursive themes presented in Table 9-1 represent the direction, though not necessarily the strength, of these applied forces. They represent the main ideas as to why immigration reform is needed, or why a proposed piece of legislation should be defeated, and indeed, the most popular themes expressed during each of the major immigration debates closely reflects the nature of the bill being debated. In some cases, opposing forces are also represented in the top tier (such as the letter “B” in the

1882 debate, or the letter “I” during the 1924 debate), and as in the 1996 case, a restrictive bill’s sponsors may use inclusive rhetoric to co-opt the potential opposition.

In all other cases, the frequency of discourses expressed on the floor of Congress fall in

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line with the nature of the underlying bill; the cases of 1882 and 1924 have predominantly restrictive messaging, the cases of 1952 and 1965 have predominantly non-restrictive messaging, and the cases of 1986 and 1996 represent a mixture. This trend falls in line with what we might expect, as a successful bill requires a majority coalition to pass, and the winning side most often dominates the narrative.

On the other hand, the strength of the force often exceeds in importance the frequency or direction; the 1924 and 1952 acts in particular saw small groups of legislators take to the floor and express their vehement opposition, but to no effect; the exertion of force by the Republican leadership in 1924, by McCarran and Walter in

1952, and by the White House in 1965 overwhelmed their opponents, underscoring that the positions of all members are not, and never have been, of true equivalence.

Because piecemeal laws have throughout history have found a greater success rate and much less resistance compared to more encompassing legislation, further development of the friction-force-weight concept may be warranted. And while quantifying the amount of force or friction with precision will be a considerable undertaking, the concept may assist in isolating how often legislative success is due to effort, and whether cases of failure are primarily due to organized resistance, or to other factors inherent in the institution or party system. The following section reviews past instances of immigration reform through this lens.

Congressional Activity on Immigration

The earliest law analyzed in this dissertation is the Chinese Exclusion Act of

1882; it occurred in an era with a party system bitterly divided by Reconstruction and characterized by two parties that were completely regional. Polarization was high, and

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neither party had a penchant for cross-party cooperation. The leaders of each party, however, looked to working-class laborers, especially in California, to become part of a more durable majority coalition, and the discourse of paranoia against an unfamiliar people soon overwhelmed Congress. With the exception of some Republicans from the northeast, both parties advocated for Chinese exclusion to retain strategic advantage, pushing for legislative action with convergent directional force. Though the bill faced enough resistance initially by the president and Republicans voting to sustain his veto, once the “weight” of the bill was reduced from a twenty-year exclusionary period to ten, much of the resistance, most importantly from the White House, was dropped. In this case, though the parties had different ideas on how to govern in most other policy areas, that they converged on the Chinese Exclusion Act was sufficient to overcome resistance after two years.

The case of the Immigration Act of 1924 was similar in that polarization was still high (but dropping due to an emerging ideological split among traditional and progressive Republicans, along with a Democratic Party transitioning to a more urban- centered party). And much like the case of 1882. Both parties, despite their differences in other policy areas, exerted substantial force to bring overall immigration levels, and particularly less popular groups such as southern Europeans and Japanese, down.

This era, with few true moderates and arguably subject to a high coefficient of friction, had a distinct ideological divide between the parties, but the discursive and strategic considerations once again prompted both parties to push in the same direction, again overcoming initial resistance from the president.

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The cases of 1943 and 1952 pose an entirely different situation. Particularly given the wartime discourse, little force was necessary to push the Magnuson Act, which effectively allowed for only 105 Chinese to immigrate annually. However, the growth in power of the committee chairs, thanks in part to the Legislative

Reorganization Act of 1946, enabled those committee chairs to define the terms of the immigration along the lines of their own preferences, leaving rank-and-file members who preferred more ambitious alternatives with little recourse. Piecemeal liberalizing immigration legislation, very limited in scope, was easily passed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but in addressing a full-fledged overhaul of the immigration system put in place by the 1924 act, backers of the McCarran-Walter Act successful in passing their bill with only isolated pockets of resistance from the rank and file, whereas the small group behind the Humphrey-Lehman alternative lacked the clout, the means, and the support necessary to apply a sufficient amount of force to their bill. As was often the case during the textbook era, low productivity was not due to friction from the rank and file, but rather due to committee chairs choosing to act only on narrow legislative remedies, or choosing not to act at all.

Whereas the McCarran-Walter Act overhauled the national origins quota system and eliminated entry bars on the Asia-Pacific Triangle, the fundamental structure of immigration policy remained unchanged until the passage of the Hart-Cellar Act of

1965. Much like the 1952 debate, the 1965 bill’s supporters were able to pass a bill without encountering an excess of friction, or more specifically, an organized bloc of resistance large enough to jeopardize the bill. And much like the 1952 act, the 1965 effort was facilitated by ideologically moderate Democrats and Republicans; the key

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differences arose from the unique conditions imposed by President Kennedy’s assassination, the Civil Rights movement, and a more liberal incoming class from the

1964 elections. In this case, the White House was best positioned to apply the force needed to pass their bill, and they did so in short order without a significant degree of friction.

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 diffused power back to the rank-and- file, and the influence of committee chairs waned to a significant degree. While each party became more ideologically cohesive, the process was gradual. Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, which was considered narrow in scope at the time, without organized resistance. In due time, a new “responsible” party system was taking shape, giving rise to an increasing solid bloc of conservatives in the Republican Party and liberals among Democrats. A new broad, systemic overhaul of the immigration system was proposed in the first version of IRCA in 1982, but organized resistance in both parties, wary of the catch-all, middle-ground approach, imposed a higher degree of friction on the process, causing it to span more than four years. Ultimately, sufficient force was applied to push the bill over the finish line after actors in both parties persuaded sufficient numbers of moderate to support the bill, but by nearly everyone’s account, the bill was an imperfect remedy. The Immigration Act of 1990 was much narrower in scope and made minor modifications to IRCA, and the comparatively lesser weight of that bill subjected it to a much lower level of resistance.

After the 1994 elections congressional Republicans, now led by staunch conservatives, assumed control of the agenda and created a narrative of welfare reform, seeking to reduce the number of people dependent on social services. While

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initially, leaders sought to restrict both legal and illegal immigration, such an ambitious bill could not pass in the hyperpartisan environment; only after the bill had been pared down to focus on illegal immigration was a path cleared. As was the case in the early

20th century, both parties competed to appear toughest on illegal immigration, and a bill limiting social services to undocumented immigrants was passed without resistance from the president. Such a scenario has not occurred since.

Despite a sustained and forceful push in 2005-2006, and briefly in 2007 and

2013, reform efforts have not been able to withstand the friction imposed by large, organized, and resolute ideological blocs within Congress with specific ideas about what immigration reform should resemble. Competing constituencies now appear increasingly devoted to their ideologies on the matter, likely leaving the status quo in place until one side collapses. Whether government is unified or divided will partly determine the exact degree of friction present in Congress, but even in the case of unified government, a reduction in stature of ideology will be necessary for the process to move forward.

Causes of Polarization

As the above chronology illustrates, polarization increases the potential for organized resistance, or friction, to legislative initiatives; such conditions have only been overcome when both parties strategically decide to apply force in the same direction; this is especially true of the earlier immigration acts passed during times of paranoia. By definition, however, highly polarized eras rarely enable such a degree of cooperation except when it is at the expense of a non-voting “other.” Thus for many, an environment with less solidified parties and more legislators open to negotiation would be a more palatable alternative.

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A major obstacle is that there is little any one political actor can do to alter these conditions. Party polarization is determined by where each party, in the collective, is ideologically at a given juncture. However, though many factors, namely the policy agenda in Congress, are within the immediate control of leaders, many other factors are not. Therefore, pronounced changes in congressional polarization levels, and elections that help produce them, are at least as often due to exogenous shocks as they are due to the agency of party leadership. For instance, Carmines and Stimson (1981) argue that the theory explaining realignment through critical elections is insufficient, and alleges that scholars subscribing to this theory (Key 1955; Sundquist 1973) do not pay adequate attention to what goes on between these “critical elections,” and too much on the moments during which these elections took place. This dissertation concurs that elections cannot be taken simply on their own terms.

To be sure, to accuse Key and others of complete disregard for non-election events would amount to a highly disingenuous straw man argument; the question is not whether inter-election activity matters, the question is simply how much. Preferred is a model that instead accounts for non-election events (sometimes with delayed reactions due to changes in public perception) that help shift public opinion across large constituencies of voters. Stimson is correct, for instance, to choose desegregation as a possible cause of realignment. The late Justice Scalia might decry court-imposed

“social upheaval,” and Brown v. Board of Education certainly had far-reaching effects, even though the type of upheaval brought by that case took place only to counteract the previous upheavals of segregation, slavery, and social inequality.

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Just as often, economic downturns, whether prolonged and sustained as during the Carter and George H.W. Bush presidencies, or sharp and precipitous as they were in 1929 and 2008, are widely credited with helping to determine election outcomes, as likewise have been wars and movements of mass protest.

It is possible that the problem of excessively high polarization, which is normatively bad for some (but has demonstrably inhibited congressional productivity) is self-correcting on the macro level. The Progressive Party, for instance, began as a largely intraparty movement among Republicans at ideological odds at leadership; so has been the Tea Party. Both were formed during times of historic polarization highs, and both brought latent intraparty policy divisions to the surface; within Congress, the

Freedom Caucus and the Progressive Caucus may now be fulfilling a similar function.

Poole’s assertion that polarization is caused by multiple factors, as opposed to merely redistricting, is sound. First, Senators are elected statewide, and unlike House districts, state boundaries are not gerrymandered on a decennial basis. Yet Theriault

(2008) and others have established the Senate has grown more polarized right alongside the house, although perhaps not to the same degree of intensity. Theriault attributes much of the polarization to the “Gingrich Senators,” or Republicans who began their careers in the House, where they served alongside Gingrich, and brought the “Gingrich style” of legislating with them when they won promotions to the Senate.

Second, each race has its unique context, and an incumbent with a party registration advantage could squander the edge because of gaffes, scandal, or events outside of his or her control. Third, the geographic and socioeconomic sorting of constituents produces constant change, and this change is now widely understood to be

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accelerated by uneven population growth across demographics. New district maps are created with each census, and are hence not created frequently enough to withstand completely the effects of constituent sorting. And fourth, even a ten-point party identification advantage in each district is not insurmountable, especially in “wave” elections that might occur in the midst of a temporally unpopular administration. Any new members, and also, state legislators, elected in such a cycle would then benefit from incumbency themselves.

This is not to suggest that is not a serious problem; in particular, state legislatures have interpreted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) toward the end of systematically producing partisan majorities in state delegations. To be sure, the VRA does serve the important function of helping to ensure that minority communities have ample opportunity to elect members who will faithfully represent the interests of the district. If the current “minority access” districts mandated by the VRA were to be split across districts in redistricting, there would be little doubt that many members from these redrawn districts would lose. Like any other sweeping reform, though, the VRA does have its share of unintended consequences whereby the packing of minority voters into so few districts, one, creates a probable ceiling for the number of members in Congress who are in direct contact with the needs of poor urban districts, and two, creates extremely safe districts, such that the member’s re-election prospects depend more on the primary than they do on the general election. In such situations, the member running for re-election has virtually no incentive to reach across the aisle, and is from an electoral standpoint better off doing everything possible to placate their base.

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1 With the 2012 presidential exit polls D DD showing record numbers of black voters (93 percent), Latino voters (71 percent) and API voters (73 percent) moving toward Obama and the Democratic Party, it is no surprise that districts whose constituencies are largely comprised of these ethnic groups seem to be becoming increasingly safe territory for

Democrats. If a remedy is sought for polarization through legislative action, Congress may consider adjusting the thresholds for the minority access districts currently mandated by the VRA, which may enable members of color to create broader coalitions, as happened in the case of Rep. (D-GA). At the same time, any significant reduction in the overall representation of minority groups in Congress would be most disagreeable, so any adjustment of the VRA should be considered with caution.

Some reforms have been proposed to mitigate the causes and/or the effects of partisan polarization (Theriault 2008). Once such reform, the “jungle,” or “top-two” primary has been introduced in California and Washington, with the promise of producing more moderation among elected officials. Assessing the precise effects of such a system will take time; it is unlikely though, that even a “top-two” primary, whereby all candidates regardless of party compete with one another in the primary and the top two vote-getters alone proceed to a runoff in the general election, can in the immediate term eliminate all vestiges of the polarization that had existed before its introduction. State parties, particularly in states where the ideological, geographic, and/or cultural distinctions between the two parties is readily apparent (as is the case in both California and Washington) continue to evolve along a path dependent on the past,

1 This particular exit poll was taken by Edison Media Research for the National Election Pool, and other media organizations. HUhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/table.htmlUH Accessed 17 Nov 2012.

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and voters’ appraisals of the parties may not be easily erased. While the “jungle” primary would lessen the obligations of candidates to take divisive positions during the primary election, it is not at all clear what immediate impact this new primary and other institutional reforms will have on their own; “demographics” has found its place as a widely-used buzzword in 2012 post-mortem analysis, accompanying the suggestion that a person’s ethnic background, gender, or age more and more often determines which

party they will support before any campaigning even takes place D. Bringing us full circle, the parties can attribute much of these racial voting patterns to their platforms with respect to issues like immigration and affirmative action.

Ultimately, there is no single cause of polarization and the conversion of

Southern Democrats to conservative Republicans alone does not account for it

(Theriault 2008). Nevertheless, as Downs (1957) predicted, the “median voter” and the pursuit thereof by the parties has been pivotal. Yet as the pool of conservative

Democrats, liberal Republicans, and true independents has grown progressively smaller, with the blocs of party loyalists growing more stalwart and somewhat more constrained ideologically, the “median voter” strategy was eschewed in the 2012 elections in favored of a maximum voter turnout model, which involved getting Obama’s base (young voters, black voters, and other minorities) to turn out and vote in numbers as large as possible, many of whom are motivated not just by financial questions, but even moreso by questions involving sociocultural norms.

For most of the last two decades, the parties been preoccupied with these cultural conflicts, relying on support from outside single-issue groups to maintain office.

When different coalitions agree on what to do, generally, they move to collaborate and

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act accordingly. Issues without a political consensus become the focal point of political discourse, which may lead congressional voting blocs to vociferously resist ceding any part of the underlying policy debate. The result is that the parties end up adopting a fundamentally ideological world view, as do a certain number of followers in their electorate, and the party coalitions drift further and further apart.

There are recent signs that more voters may be shedding some ideological rigidity and are now prioritizing what Dodd calls “basic functions” constituencies;

Williamson, Skocpol and Coggin (2011) have shown that Republican populists are not monolithically averse to federal programs, but feel rather strongly that only the

“deserving” should benefit from them, as opposed to the “undeserving,” which may include the undocumented. The basic functions to be promoted, to many in the populist

Republican movement, may include balancing the budget (with or without tax cuts), protecting entitlements, maintaining the standard of living for communities who have fallen through the cracks through trade reform (yet denying benefits to the undeserving), and maintaining a strong and uncompromising national image. That the question involves not necessarily the size of government, but rather the priorities and cultural orientation of government, is reminiscent of what Bensel (1990) describes in Yankee

Leviathan, whereby in many respects, the government of the secessionist South was more centralized and statist than that of the abolitionist North.

A consideration of Converse (1958) adds an additional layer of complexity to the polarization of Congress, and may provide answers to whether the propensity of primary voters to choose ideologically strong candidates has staying power. As Theriault (2008,

4) notes, “As the political party professionals have lost power to the hard-edged single-

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issue interest groups in the early stages of the electoral game, more moderate candidates are either choosing or being forced to step aside in lieu of more ideologically pure candidates.” But for this trend to be sustained, the proportion of ideologically constrained voters in primaries must be high enough to consistently reject candidates who meaningfully deviate from party orthodoxy. While Converse found that voters were largely unconstrained in his own era, the ideological composition of today’s Congress is nearly the opposite as it was during the 1950s. A modern-day retest of Converse’s thesis using survey questions that strictly measure ideological constraint among individual ideological dimensions (for instance, a voter’s support for gay marriage would be placed on a separate dimension from their views on taxation and spending), and as immigration is an issue that intersects both the economic and sociocultural dimensions, a third isolationist-neoliberal dimension might be introduced. In lieu of a binary approach to “open” or “restrictive” immigration policies, the survey should ask a range of specific questions (such as whether the voter favors building a wall, or favors increasing employer-sponsored visas for foreign workers, or favors suspending Muslim immigration) in addition to more generalized questions (for instance, as to whether immigration in general helps or hurts the economy). Such a study would greatly assist in isolating the effect of voter preferences on the state of the immigration system from the other considerations members of Congress must face once elected.

Implications for Polarization and Immigration Reform

Poole and Rosenthal’s most recent data (voteview.com) shows that party unity likely reached its maximum in the 112th Congress and has begun a modest decline, precipitated by emerging intraparty conflicts on budgetary matters and trade. The 2016 electoral cycle, built in large part on these policy debates, has produced the possibility

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that high-level actors within each party will be ideologically distinct from one another on items of high salience to citizens. Together, these considerations suggest that a sixth

(or as Aldrich would suggest, a seventh) party system is under construction.

The work of Downs (1957) and others (e.g. Lopez and Ramirez 2004) imparts that parties respond to what they think voters want; this is not to say all voters, but the cross-section of voters that is available to the party within a given time frame. Taking the conditional party government (Aldrich and Rohde 2002) model and an offshoot in

“strategic party government” (Lebo, McGlynn and Koger 2007) one additional step, we can say that both parties act to persuade voters within their available range, yet both rely on outside sources of information in terms of who these voters are and what they truly want. In the case of 1924, both parties were conveying the same restrictionist immigration message because each found it necessary in order to persuade the maximum number of voters within their maximum range. But in the case of the modern era, the parties’ respective platforms on immigration have been very disparate, either first, because the electorate itself has become so fragmented that entire communities of voters become permanently assigned to one party, or as a second possibility, because the information the parties are getting about their own voters’ preferences is incorrect.

Were the electorate to become irretrievably fragmented, it may take an exogenous event of some magnitude for that to be undone. But in the event that a party’s reading of what its available pool of voters want is simply wrong, it indicates a dysfunctional party by way of an inability of the voter to communicate to the member, or for the member to communicate to the party leaders. Suboptimal communication between rank-and-file members and their party leaders will inhibit the leaders from

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acting effectively in the best electoral interests of their members. In such a case, one of the necessary “conditions” for conditional party government is eliminated, and the leadership vacuum invites a hostile takeover.

Using this context, the ascension of Trump and Sanders can be explained. If Cox and McCubbins (2007) are correct in their argument that the foremost motivation of a party apparatus is electoral self-interest, and that policy concerns are a distant second, then the parties would currently be doing more to shield their members from potentially difficult votes. Instead, recent high-profile legislative debates have resulted in members being asked to deliver high-risk votes amidst a tumultuous national discourse. Heavy

Democratic losses in 2010 and 2014 have been attributed to passage of the Affordable

Care Act (ACA) while Republican leaders pursued Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) amidst defections from the , redrawing legislative coalitions amidst a presidential campaign with heavy populist overtones.

The emergence of alternate factions within the parties, far removed in terms of policy preferences from party leadership, is not dissimilar to the transitions that the parties underwent in the 1920s and accelerated in the 1930s. As Figure 9-1 illustrates, though polarization was still high in 1924 (where party stalwarts, or those with DW-

NOMINATE scores greater than a distance of 0.5 from the Senate chamber mean, continued to make up a plurality of senators), it was far decreased from the binary left- right (or if one prefers, North-South) dichotomy of the previous era, leaving the

Republican majority largely dependent on an emerging bloc of populist rebels, who happened to be largely opposed to sustained levels of immigration, to forward a legislative agenda.

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By the 1940s and 1950s, what had been the Democratic “rebels” (who opposed the pace and scope at which FDR sought to expand federal and executive power) had assumed control of the legislative power apparatus and become mainstream, and together with Republican moderates had greater numbers than legislators who voted reliably partisan (many of whom were themselves southern nativists, or at the other extreme, open immigration advocates). And while liberals assumed control of

Congress’s policy agenda after 1964 and increasingly so until the 1980s, the degree of ideological fluidity necessary among members to address immigration reform in a broad, comprehensive manner remained within reach.

From the mid-1990s onward, as Figure 9-1 also shows, not only did party stalwarts now once again vastly outnumber moderates in the Senate, but the proportion of moderates who were true centrists also dropped precipitously to the point of near- extinction. The 1996 federal crackdown on unauthorized migrants utilizing social services served to placate many in the conservative movement, yet from that point onward, Congress lacked the requisite number of consensus builders for building a balanced, practical, and humane set of policies that would bring resolution to the immigration debate. On the other hand, were the necessary numbers for truly balanced, comprehensive reform to be achieved, that itself would likely reflect a deepening of party disunity already set in motion through the debates on trade, the budget, and the Trump and Sanders candidacies.

Conclusion

As this dissertation states, hyperpolarized eras have not yielded immigration laws that opened the door to new arrivals; such laws have only been passed in periods of low or medium polarization. However, since even the best predictive models to some

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degree incur the risk of variable omission, and since the causes of polarization are multiple, it is not the objective of this dissertation to present this trend as axiomatic.

Moreover, the emergence and recognition of alternative variables beyond the polarization question can lead inquiry to a new paradigm, as Kuhn (1962) would phrase it.

Therefore, rather than employing a deterministic approach by predicting election outcomes or pinpointing the exact times at which current party system will end, this dissertation concludes by describing the more prominent aspects of modern political discourse on immigration, and presenting some possibilities for the trajectories to which they might lead.

This dissertation does borrow from formal modeling in that it uses ideological distance between the two parties as measured by DW-NOMINATE as an independent variable, and immigration policy outcomes as a dependent variable. And often, uses of formal modeling to predict elections (such as Abramowitz 2016) have identified variables of potentially crucial importance (which include official economic indicators, past election returns, and population shifts), and the continued occurrence of elections and legislative sessions may increase the effectiveness of these modeling techniques; overall, each round of models becomes more representative of history due to the inclusion of new data points. However, because this dissertation regards a given level of polarization as a necessary, but not sufficient condition for a specific type immigration law to pass, it must avoid a purely deterministic approach.

Instead, it seeks to highlight the specific historical events, which are partly exogenous but are also partly unexpected byproducts of enduring social change, that

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have served as the additional necessary components for the passage of immigration reform. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the exclusion provision of the

Immigration Act of 1924 were precipitated by a massive influx of Asian immigration within a concentrated geographic area, the inability of the immigrants to mobilize and counter hysteria in the public, and the emerging electoral importance of California. The ultimate repeal of those laws and expansion of the immigration system was enabled by the Civil Rights movement, anticommunist Cold War rhetoric, and a demand for foreign labor in the 1950s and 1960s. And in other instances, individual agency proves decisive; the advocacy of Chuck Schumer in the House of Representatives was necessary for the passage of IRCA, and ’s commission was instrumental in elevating immigration reform to the top of Congress’s agenda in 1996, just as the agency of Dennis Hastert prevented a conference committee for the 2005 McCain-

Kennedy attempt, thereby preventing it from progressing further. Yet ultimately, the presence of a persuadable “center” underpinned each successful comprehensive liberalizing attempt at immigration reform, and the decreased power or outright absence of the center has produced either gridlock, or a competition between two highly polarized parties to secure votes by promoting restrictionism in order to position themselves as better stewards of the American identity.

With respect to party polarization, political scientists are not sufficiently clairvoyant in predicting all potential unintended consequences incurred from making weak parties strong; in 1950, the committee of the American Political Science

Association (APSA) gathered and outlined four potential dangers that might come about were America not to achieve a responsible party system, whereby parties would be

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ideologically coherent and have the strength to formulate a broad and distinct national agenda. At the time of their report, the major party platforms expressed only minor distinctions from one another. Emerging constituencies of the New Deal coalition were at odds with southern Democrats, and the 1952 presidential nomination process showcased an ideologically incoherent Republican Party. The APSA’s concerns were:

• “…the inadequacy of the party system in sustaining well-considered programs and providing broad public support for them may lead to grave consequences in an explosive era. • “…the American people may go too far for the safety of constitutional government in compensating for this inadequacy by shifting excessive responsibility to the President. • “…with growing public cynicism and continuing proof of the ineffectiveness of the party system the nation may eventually witness the disintegration of the two major parties.” • “…the incapacity of the two parties for consistent action based on meaningful programs may rally support for extremist parties poles apart, each fanatically bent on imposing on the country its particular panacea.” • Contrary to what they may have envisioned, the APSA’s first concern was not remedied by a responsible party system; for instance, the recent era of responsible parties has not seen any consensus on how to sustain entitlements. Until the current presidential cycle, the Republican leadership had planned to trim entitlement spending through privatization and increased eligibility standards, and they have not fully funded educational and social welfare programs passed previously by Democrats, nor have

Democrats always faithfully funded policy reforms enacted by Republicans.

Instead, the “responsible” party system, when taken to the levels it reached during and after the Clinton presidency, has led to dysfunction and paralysis with respect to immigration reform. What reforms did pass (such as the 1990 and 1996 acts) proved too narrow (S. Rept. 113-40) too underfunded, and overall too ineffective to be durable parts of the overall policy framework. In contrast, despite their many policy

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flaws, the most far-reaching immigration reforms were achieved during eras of low polarization (the committee government of 1950s and 1960s) or medium polarization

(the mid-1980s, which still had remaining vestiges of committee government). As a responsive entity, the Congress eliminated the racially discriminatory immigration provisions of the past, and gave a robust response to business demands for foreign labor. As a “responsible” entity, Congress has either passed half-measures, not sustained the integrity of the existing laws, or done nothing. Therefore, the move toward ideologically strong parties may have hastened, rather than prevented, the practical failure or financial insolvency of many important programs.

Second, the committee raised concerns relating to separation of powers, for supposedly without responsible parties, the White House would assume more authority unilaterally in doing what Congress fails to do. But in fact, this bleak scenario has happened amidst gridlock between the two ideologically discrete parties. George W.

Bush relied heavily on signing statements to emphasize or de-emphasize enforcement of laws enacted by Congress. And in response to Congress’s failure to pass the

DREAM Act, while under pressure from immigration advocates to stop deportations, the

Obama administration issued two executive orders deferring deportation action; one was for undocumented parents of U.S. citizen minors, and the other for undocumented minors brought to the United States illegally. After the first of these orders, Obama proclaimed, in ostensible frustration, “I just took an action to change the law” (Huggins

2014). While it is easily arguable that there was an urgent practical need for these programs, it is equally arguable that the partisan deadlock imposed lesser political costs on the White House for exploring the outer limits of executive authority, and greater

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political costs for acquiescing to Congress; a deadlocked 4-4 Supreme Court resulted in deferral to the Appeals Court ruling which initially (and ultimately) disallowed the implementation of Obama’s orders. While the APSA’s concerns about executive power were completely justified, the recent party system appears to have exacerbated, not alleviated, the problem.

With respect to their third concern, the APSA was correct that the party system of their time was not sustainable for the long term, and they insinuated that each party would have to evolve or die. As it happened, from the nomination of Goldwater onward, the parties steadily evolved into ideologically coherent entities, but at the expense of the political center until it disappeared in the late 1990s. Yet with respect to immigration reform, the political center has been the ultimate facilitator, whether in the form of conservative committee chairs loyal to Johnson in the 1960s, or pragmatist dealmakers like Chuck Schumer. The absence of a center has produced gridlock, and the unresponsiveness of the two major parties across many policy areas led to the Tea

Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, both ideologically-driven but distinct from party establishments; more recently, the unresponsiveness has produced the nomination (and contributed to the election) of Donald Trump and enabled the fierce resistance of Sanders supporters to Hillary Clinton’s nomination. After decades of a

“responsible” system, both major party coalitions now appear to be highly fragmented and under historic levels of stress.

For the APSA’s fourth concern, ideological disparities did yield George Wallace’s segregationist movement in 1968. Subsequently, no major external threats to the major parties emerged save for the Reform Party under , who himself did not

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represent the extremities of either the left or the right. More recently, ethnic-oriented activist groups have achieved a high profile around the theme of against racial minorities, while in government, the House Progressive Caucus within the

Democrats and the Freedom Caucus within the Republicans appear hesitant to compromise on policy debates of high salience. Whether these groups ultimately remain within their respective party coalitions or whether they earn a reputation for extremism remains to be seen, however, they have formed in the presence of strong parties, not in the absence of them.

As it occurred, the party system’s evolution into its current state has neither alleviated the APSA committee’s concerns in 1950, nor has it led to adequate policy achievements on immigration reform. Certainly, in other policy areas, the parties’ lack of ideological consistency during the textbook era did curtail legislative productivity in numerous other areas (Dodd and Schraufnagel 2009), but for immigration specifically, productivity was high despite the highly depolarized state of Congress. While the 1943 act formally repealing Chinese exclusion was highly significant symbolically, the 1952 and 1965 acts together completely dismantled the restrictive foundation of the immigration system. Their effects reached further than any of the other reform efforts, yet they were products of the textbook era.

While history may have overcorrected the lack of party coherence and in turn, realized many of the 1950 APSA committee’s worst fears, this dissertation does not claim to espouse a level of insight that the best of our predecessors failed to achieve.

The lesson to be learned is not that their projections or their concerns were misguided; rather, it is that individual agency of political actors and time-sensitive political contexts

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cannot be accounted for in advance. In some situations, important reforms may be thwarted due to weak party leadership, but if certain other conditions are met, as they were in 1965 and 1986 particularly, the reverse may in fact be true.

If the potential power of agency is in doubt, a brief consideration of counterfactuals is in order; vastly different alternate might be produced even with minimal interference in the crucial variables. For instance, it is plausible to consider whether a lower prioritization of healthcare reform may have given Congress more of an opening to tackle immigration reform, particularly given the unified

Democratic control during the 111th Congress. President Bush, during his tenure, might have made different decisions regarding TARP and the War, each of which made certain constituencies vastly more inclined (or more disinclined) to identify as

Republicans or Democrats. Northeastern Republican moderates may or may not have more easily retained presence within Congress in the absence of the Clinton impeachment proceedings, or under an Al Gore presidency with different agenda items, and the closeness of the 2000 presidential contest itself was imbued in the public consciousness, further undercutting attempts by the eventual winner to expand their electoral coalition post-election. Even one of these counterfactuals could have drastically altered the course of history with respect to polarization; yet controlling for events that did not actually happen is not a task that social scientists regularly undertake.

Fortunately, though the future is highly contingent on unforeseen events, this dissertation is able to utilize historical patterns, guided by congressional scholarship, to present significant findings. It can be inferred, for instance, from the failure of

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Hypothesis 2a in each era excluding the modern times, that legislators’ positions on immigration are not reliable predictors of their position on a unidimensional left-right continuum, and vice versa. This is because the purview of immigration reform, especially when a broad approach is proposed, fundamentally involves questions of race relations, national identity and national security in addition to mere economics. Of course, individual members do strategize electorally in casting votes just as party leaders do in whipping votes; however, members oriented towards labor constituencies or toward nativist sentiments will likely vote differently than others in their party, even if that member is an otherwise reliable vote for the party’s fiscal agenda. Further research should determine whether congressional debates on immigration reform actually serve as depolarizing agents themselves, as the debates exhibit potential to lay bare divisions even within otherwise ideologically coherent parties.

Whereas Hypothesis 2b suggests linkage between nuance and polarization just as others (e.g. Poole and Rosenthal) have uncovered a modest relationship between polarization and civility, nuance instead appears to be specific to individual members, and not to eras. This dissertation defines a member as having nuance if that member acknowledges arguments of the opposing side during floor remarks, regardless of the strength or orientation of his or her own position on immigration. Most members have served merely as advocates for their own position, while the few members who expressed nuance on immigration also developed a penchant for being even-handed on other policy matters. Further research can elucidate whether individual members express the same level of nuance across all policy areas, and determine whether the use of nuanced language by congressional leaders is a useful tool in coalition building.

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Hypothesis 3, which posits that since wartime discourse has a direct bearing on national identity, it also directly influences immigration policy. Within this dissertation, data points that can be used to test this hypothesis are scarce, especially because no wars have reached the same benchmark of significance as did World War II, during which the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. More broadly, Cold War rhetoric initially inhibited, but later facilitated the arrival of refugees from communist countries, and other foreign policy considerations routinely come into play, as they did with China in 1882,

Japan in 1924 and with Mexico in 1986. A future project might examine each of these individual cases in greater depth, but this dissertation holds that even in the absence of a major war effort, foreign policy considerations and positions on immigration are often inextricably linked from the vantage point of the White House, and to a much lesser (but nonetheless present) degree within Congress.

Most importantly, this dissertation’s core hypothesis, which portends liberalizing laws in eras of low polarization and restrictive laws (or gridlock) in eras of high polarization, is sustained. Because of the value of the political center in reaching consensus on a multi-dimensional issue such as immigration reform, depolarized

Congresses enable the passage liberalizing immigration laws, depending on the agency and strategy of legislative coalition-builders. More highly polarized Congresses appear even more contingent on the agency of political actors, who are often constrained by electoral considerations, and tend to produce either restrictive measures or absolute gridlock. This trend may in fact not hold forever, yet it has been the rule from the founding of the institution until the present day.

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Table 9-1. Most popular themes in each landmark immigration debate, denoted by letter

Year Letter Most Popular Themes Invoked in Debate Rank 1882 1 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory (3 mentions) 2 B Existing (or newly proposed) immigration restrictions would damage U.S. standing in the world (2 mentions) 2 R Immigration will displace U.S. workers (2 mentions) 2 V U.S. immigration policy should not be tailored to demands of foreign governments (2 mentions) 1924 1 V U.S. immigration policy should not be tailored to demands of foreign governments (13 mentions) 2 Q The U.S. has (or will have) too many immigrants (9 mentions) 3 I Immigrants have proven their worth in U.S. communities (7 mentions) 4 R Immigration will displace U.S. workers (6 mentions) 1952 1 K The U.S. must assist oppressed peoples around the world (11 mentions) 2 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory (10 mentions) 3 I Immigrants have proven their worth in U.S. communities (8 mentions) 4 F Immigration laws must be humanitarian, not draconian (6 mentions) 1965 1 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory (21 mentions) 2 G Immigrant family reunification must be prioritized (17 mentions) 3 M The U.S. will be greater and more prosperous with this reform (13 mentions) 4 E U.S. workers will not be displaced by immigration (12 mentions) 1986 1 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory (14 mentions) 1 Q The U.S. has (or will have) too many immigrants (14 mentions) 3 N “Let’s just get on with the bill” (10 mentions) 4 R Immigration will displace U.S. workers (9 mentions) 1996 1 A Our laws must not be unjust or discriminatory (6 mentions) 2 F Immigration laws must be humanitarian, not draconian (4 mentions) 2 G Immigrant family reunification must be prioritized (4 mentions) 2 K The U.S. must assist oppressed peoples around the world (4 mentions) 2 R Immigration will displace U.S. workers (4 mentions) 2 X Immigration will exacerbate crime (4 mentions)

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Figure 9-1. Distribution of centrists (DW-NOMINATE scores between -0.1 and 0.1), moderates (within 0.2 of chamber mean), and stalwarts (greater than 0.5 from chamber mean) in Senate by era

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Robert Winston Scharr was born on July 29, 1981. He earned his Bachelor of

Arts in East Asian languages and literatures (Japanese track) from the University of

Florida in 2002, and completed two years of study at Kansai University in Osaka, Japan as part of that program. He earned a Master of Science from the University of

Washington’s Technical Japanese Program working under Professor Michio Tsutsui in

2006. That year, he rejoined the University of Florida in their Political Science doctoral program. In the interim, he completed a business Chinese language program through the University of California, in the summer of 2007 at Shangai Jiaotong

University. During his graduate studies, he has also taught Asian American politics, first-year Japanese language, and courses for the University Writing Program at the

University of Florida. In addition to Congress and race, ethnicity and politics, his research interests include comparative legislative studies and international relations.

He earned his doctoral degree under Lawrence C. Dodd in May 2017.

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