Jerry Voorhis

Congressional service[edit]

Voorhis was a candidate for the California State Assembly in 1934,^[4] changing his registration from Socialist to Democrat, but was defeated by popular incumbent Herbert Evans despite receiving the backing of writer and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Upton Sinclair.^[19] Two years later, he challenged incumbent John Hoeppel for the 12th district Democratic nomination. Hoeppel was weakened by a recent conviction for attempting to sell a nomination to West Point and Voorhis won the Democratic nomination, with Hoeppel finishing in third place. Running as a "Progressive Roosevelt-Democrat", Voorhis easily defeated Republican nominee Frederick F. Houser in the general election.^[20]


Voorhis was reelected to Congress four times and had one of Congress's most liberal voting records.^[21] He supported New Deal initiatives, including Franklin Roosevelt's controversial court packing plan.^[22]


In January 1937, Voorhis's first legislative initiative was to propose a dramatic increase in spending for the Works Progress Administration in order to increase employment.^[23] While this effort was unsuccessful,^[24] Congress, faced with an economic downturn the following year, increased WPA spending beyond the level which Voorhis had sought.^[25] While the 75th Congress had in excess of 300 Democrats, many of them were conservative, and Voorhis emerged as a leader of a progressive caucus of some 50 representatives.^[26] Voorhis advocated the purchase by the Federal Government of the stock in the Federal Reserve Banks, which was held by the member banks, as a way of financing government expenditures and briefly got President Roosevelt to support the measure until the President's advisers caused Roosevelt to change his mind.^[27] Voorhis later allied with future House Banking Committee chairman Wright Patman to force Federal Reserve Banks to pay most of the interest they earned on federal securities to the U.S. Government, rather than to the bank stockholders.^[28]


In the run-up to World War II, Voorhis urged neutrality. He proposed enactment of a law which would require a national referendum on whether to go to war. According to Voorhis, laws banning the sale of munitions to foreign nations and forbidding Americans from making loans to other nations for war preparations would keep the United States out of war.^[29] In September 1939, when interviewed by The New York Times for his reaction to the President calling Congress into special session to consider amendments to the Neutrality Act, Voorhis stated that a special session should quickly increase relief to the working poor.^[30] In early November 1939, however, Voorhis announced his support for repealing the arms embargo mandated by the Act, at the same time urging that the country remain neutral.^[31] Voorhis also opposed a peacetime draft,^[32] and supported "lend-lease" legislation.^[33]


Once war was declared, Voorhis supported the internment of Japanese-Americans, though he suggested that the evacuations be done in as voluntary a manner as possible and that officials be appointed to administer their property to avoid forced sales at bargain prices.^[34] During the war, Voorhis advocated more efficiently taxing higher incomes and war profits, planning against postwar unemployment, and planning for the nutritional needs of Americans. Voorhis also opposed dominance of big business in the war effort. Congress, for the most part, ignored Voorhis's pleas.^[35]


Voorhis often opposed the petroleum industry, questioning the need for the oil depletion allowance. In 1943, he was told by a Pasadena attorney that the Navy Department was planning to grant Standard Oil exclusive free drilling rights in the vast Elk Hills naval reserve in central California, then thought to be the richest oil reserve outside the Arabian Peninsula. The congressman in a speech from the House floor in May 1943 exposed the deal, which was soon cancelled. The Washington Post hailed him as a hero, and House Naval Affairs Committee Chairman Carl Vinson of Georgia stated that Voorhis had performed "the greatest kind of service".^[36] However, the Los Angeles Times suggested that Voorhis had harmed the war effort by depriving the people of California of gasoline.^[37] In 1945, Voorhis fought a bill which would have given oil companies offshore drilling rights. The petroleum industry journal Second Issue blamed the defeat of the bill on Voorhis. Nixon biographer Roger Morris suggested that these stands led oil companies to give Nixon substantial, but surreptitious, financial assistance during the 1946 campaign against Voorhis.^[38]