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In the summer of 1963 the California legislature passed the Rumford Act, prohibiting racial discrimination by realtors and the owners of apartment houses and homes built with public assistance. California real estate and property management interests, which had fought the Act's passage, then placed on the November 1964 ballot an initiative provision (Proposition 14) that would amend the state constitution to repeal the Rumford Act and prevent the state or any locality within it from adopting any fair housing legislation. During most of 1964 intense and lavishly financed campaigns were fought by supporters and opponents of Proposition 14. Almost 96 per cent of the people who turned out on election day voted on the measure, which passed by a ratio of two to one. In one sense the campaign and balloting were an exercise in futility, for in May of 1967 the United States Supreme Court declared Proposition 14 unconstitutional. Some short-term consequences of its passage were apparent, however. For several years there was a severe weakening of legal sanctions against racial discrimination in housing, resulting in abandonment of many cases that were underway before the 1964 election. For eighteen months the federal government froze $120 million in funds for California urban renewal projects. Less tangibly, it is claimed that the proposition's overwhelming popularity contributed to the Watts riots and other racial violence in California.

An attempt has been made in this study to present a concise history of the political development of the American Farm Bureau Federation and to show how economic conditions of the time influenced its formation. Furthermore, a summary of the political development of the AFBF's policies that led to the Federation's stand against the Wheat Certificate Plan in the 1963 Wheat Referendum is emphasized. Although much of the credit and blame for the defeat of the Wheat Certificate plan has been accredited to the AFBF, it was the purpose of this study to ascertain to what extent the AFBF influenced the outcome of the Wheat Referendum of 1963 in Ellis County, Kansas. This research also considered several other factors which may have influenced the balloting on the county level. While the investigation concerned only one county in Kansas, the results of the questionnaire study could be applied to a certain degree on the state and national levels to better understand the results of the referendum vote in 1963.