Southerners in Congress Save the MX

By Staff

Vol. 6, No. 3, 1984, p. 19

More than a year ago, in May of 1983, when the US House of Representatives and Senate approved flight testing of the MX missile and development work on the Reagan Administration’s latest proposal to base the MX, Representative Les AuCoin (D-Ore) warned his colleagues how difficult it would be to stop production of the missile once any money had begun to be spent. “No strategic weapons system that has ever passed this stage of funding . . . has been permanently cancelled,” he said. With House votes in November of 1983 and in May of 1984, the MX has indeed moved to the production line.

In the November House vote and again this May, no region of the country supported the MX so strongly as did the members of Congress from the eleven Southern states. In both instances, the switching of only a handful of votes would have blocked the MX.

Attempts to stop funding of the MX failed by a vote of 208 to 217 on November 1, 1983 and by a vote of 212 to 218 on May 16, 1984.

Southern members of Congress provided eighty-six votes in support of the MX this May. Fifty-one of the seventy-two House Democrats who supported continued funding were Southern Democrats. Particularly damaging were the votes of six Southern Democrats who had opposed the MX in November, but who switched and supported it in May. North Carolina Democrats Ike Andrews, Tim Valentine and Charlie Rose; South Carolina’s Robin Tallon; Florida’s Claude Pepper; and Ron Coleman of Texas.

“Y” signifies a Yea vote to stop the MX. “N” signifies a Nay vote, in support of the MX. Vote #1 was taken 11/1/1983; vote #2 on 5/16/1984.