National Affairs: KEFAUVER'S VOTING RECORD

• Share

Estes Kefauver's voting record as a member of the House of Representatives (1939-48) and Senator (1949-) is not well known. Nine out of ten times he votes the straight Administration line. Here is a digest of his record since World War II:

Taxes & Economic Policy. FOR: Defense Production Act, extension of rent control and all major Administration control and tax programs, with one exception. The exception: in 1947, voted with Republicans to override the President's veto of the $4 billion Republican reduction of income taxes. AGAINST (with Truman): the Kerr bill to exempt independent natural gas companies from federal regulation; the Capehart amendment to require automatic price increases to balance rises in production costs.

Government Spending: FOR: all major Administration appropriations bills; led the fight for funds to expand TVA power facilities with the Johnsonville steam plant. AGAINST (with Truman): all major attempts to trim fat and pork-barrel projects out of Rivers & Harbors bills and other congressional appropriations.

Fair Deal Legislation (other than civil rights). FOR: public housing, federal aid to education, extended social security, extended power and reclamation facilities and the whole package, except compulsory health insurance. AGAINST: authorizing states to publish the names of relief recipients.

Civil Rights. FOR: abolition of the poll tax. AGAINST: compulsory FEPC.

Labor. FOR: the President's 1946 request for power to draft rail strikers into the Army. AGAINST (with Truman): Taft-Hartley Act, Case anti-strike bill.

Agriculture. FOR: Administration price-support levels, increases in Commodity Credit Corporation price-support resources from $3 billion to $6,750,000,000; ending special taxes on oleomargarine.

Military Policy. FOR: peacetime selective service, U.M.T., all Administration appropriations requests.

Foreign Policy. FOR: the Marshall Plan and the special aid and loans that preceded it; the North Atlantic Treaty and arms aid; U.S. troops for defending Western Europe; Point Four. AGAINST (with Truman): participation by Spain in the Marshall Plan (but for a separate $100 million loan to Spain); the Kem amendment, requiring a cutoff in U.S. military aid for countries that ship strategic materials to the Soviet Union and its satellites.