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The irony is that many of the Northeastern, Upper Midwestern, and West Coast Congressional districts whose Republican representatives voted for the Civil Rights Act are now held by Democrats, while the Southern districts whose Democratic representatives voted against the Act are now largely held by Republicans. The GOP of the post-World War II era was dominated by “Me-too” Republicans, the precursor of today’s RINOs. Those Republicans that favored the civil rights legislation and much of the Great Society legislation were men like Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney (Mitt’s father), and William Scranton, who were regarded as liberals. The opponents in Republican ranks were the conservative luminaries of the day like Barry Goldwater and William Buckley. Unlike many of the Southern Democrats, they opposed the civil rights legislation not on grounds of white supremacy, but on fear of increased and un-Constitutional expansion of Federal power.