In addition to its many other problems, the community mental health center (CMHC) program had a big political concern. Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had both been exposed in southern California to the antipsychiatry rhetoric of the John Birch Society. It was also known that 71% of psychiatrists and 95% of psychoanalysts voted Democratic in 1964. Hearings on the reauthorization of the CMHC program were held twice during Nixon’s presidency. Despite strong Republican opposition and clear evidence that the program was not working, the program was reauthorized because the President was bogged down in the Watergate scandal. The election of Jimmy Carter as President in 1976 was viewed as a potential savior for the CMHC program. Carter immediately appointed a mental health commission, with his wife Rosalyn as chairwoman. Thirty-five panels produced a 2139-page report with 117 recommendations. Many were good, but it was too little too late because the Carter Commission had been unable to deal with the fundamental problem—the failure of the CMHC program. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the recommendations of the Carter Commission were put aside, and the remaining CMHC funds were block granted to the states, effectively ending the program. In more recent years, President Reagan has been widely accused of having killed the CMHC program. This is not true; the program had in fact died because of its failure to provide care for the patients being discharged from the state mental hospitals. Reagan’s contribution was simply to remove the corpse.