2006, Cardinal Roger Mahony announced that he would order the clergy and laity of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to ignore H.R. 4437 if it were to become law. Cardinal Mahony personally lobbied senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to have the Senate consider a comprehensive immigration reform bill, rather than the enforcement-only bill that passed the House of Representatives. Cardinal Mahony also blamed the Congress for the illegal immigration crisis due to their failure to act on the issue in the previous 20 years, opposed H.R. 4437 as punitive and open to abusive interpretation, and supported the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (S. 2611). Transgender Rights The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops openly opposes the 2021 Equality Act which serves to address discrimination towards members of the LGBTQ+ community. They claim that the legislation discourages differing opinions on marriage and sexuality and codifies gender ideology in federal law. Party affiliation Before the 1960s, when cultural changes lead to an incremental liberalization of the Democratic Party, Catholics were seen as staunch Democrats. The Democratic Party ran Al Smith, the first Catholic presidential candidate by a major party, in 1928, and, except when the ticket was headed by a Southern candidate, has nominated a Catholic for president or vice president in every election since 1960 except for 1988 (where a Greek Orthodox, Michael Dukakis, was the presidential nominee). Since the 1960s, the Catholic vote has come to reflect the nation as a whole instead of being predominantly Democratic. In the 60s and early 70s, a number of Catholics and Southern whites abandoned their traditional affiliation with the Democratic Party and began to support the Republican Party. This shift is evidenced by the fact that Nixon received 33% of the Catholic vote in the 1968 election compared to 52% in 1972. As a group, Catholics represented a quarter of the nation's electorate and were now one of the nation's largest swing groups. Both parties began to aggressively woo the Catholic voters. Although the Catholic hierarchy could not dictate who Catholics voted for, they did have a substantial influence over the faithful in their dioceses. Politicians were aware that the bishops could direct significant time, energy and money to support the issues that were important to them. From their perspective, the bishops were eager to regain some of the influence that their predecessors had wielded in the earlier part of the