Which members of the House voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and what were their party affiliations?
Executive summary
The House of Representatives voted on two major floor actions connected to H.R. 7152: an initial House passage on February 10, 1964 and a final House approval of the Senate-amended bill on July 2, 1964; the early roll call shows 290–130 and the final House approval is recorded as 289–126 (different roll calls reflect amendments and returns from the Senate) [1] [2]. Congressional records and reputable roll‑call repositories show that a majority of both parties supported the measure in the February vote — 152 Democrats and 138 Republicans voted “yea,” while 96 Democrats and 34 Republicans voted “nay” — producing the widely cited finding that a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats in the House voted in favor [1] [3].
1. The procedural facts: two House votes, two tallies
House consideration of H.R. 7152 produced an initial floor tally on February 10, 1964 (often cited as 290–130 for the House-passed bill) and — after the Senate amended the measure and sent it back — a final House approval of the Senate version on July 2, 1964 (recorded as 289–126 in archival roll-call tallies) [1] [2]. Sources emphasize the technical distinction: the February vote was passage of the House bill, while the July vote was acceptance of the Senate amendments to avoid a conference, and both appear in official roll‑call repositories [4] [2].
2. The party breakdown most commonly cited
Contemporary roll‑call tallies and later fact checks report the February House vote as yielding 152 Democratic yeas and 96 nays, and 138 Republican yeas and 34 nays — figures that produce the frequently repeated observation that roughly 61 percent of House Democrats and roughly 80 percent of House Republicans supported the bill in that roll call [1] [3]. Authors and institutional histories likewise stress that an “overwhelming majority” of both parties backed the legislation, even though Democratic opposition was concentrated among conservatives, particularly Southern Democrats [5] [3].
3. Geography and faction, not just party, shaped votes
Histories of the measure make clear the clearest cleavage was regional and factional: a conservative Southern bloc within the Democratic Party provided much of the resistance, while many northern Democrats and a sizable majority of Republicans supported the bill; Republican leaders in the Senate (notably Everett Dirksen) were decisive in securing cloture and passage there, and House members such as William McCulloch played key roles in marshaling House support [6] [7]. Institutional accounts stress that party labels alone obscure intraparty divisions — a point underscored by the disparate percentages of support inside each caucus and by contemporaneous descriptions of conservative vs. liberal wings [5] [6].
4. Where to find the individual names and how sources differ
Comprehensive, named roll calls listing exactly which Representative cast each yea or nay are preserved in archival roll‑call records and modern databases: GovTrack and VoteView host the detailed House roll call for H.R. 7152, and the National Archives reproduces official tally sheets for the relevant votes [4] [8] [2]. The reporting available here does not provide a printable, itemized list of every Representative and party label in the body text, so a complete per‑member list must be read directly from those roll‑call sources cited above [4] [8] [2].
5. A balanced conclusion and limitations of this account
The balance of evidence in congressional records and institutional histories is unambiguous on the aggregate question: both parties supplied majorities for the Civil Rights Act in the House, with 152 Democrats and 138 Republicans recorded as voting “yea” on the primary House roll call cited in standard references, and with the final House acceptance of the Senate amendments recorded as roughly 289–126 in archival tallies [1] [2] [3]. This analysis is limited by the excerpted reporting provided here: it relies on summary tallies and institutional histories and therefore cannot, within this piece, reproduce the full per‑member roll call; for the full list of which individual Representatives voted yea or nay (with party affiliation), consult the GovTrack, VoteView or National Archives roll‑call transcriptions cited [4] [8] [2].