This article uses roll-call voting and constituency data to provide an improved understanding of how and why the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 divided the Democratic Party. The evidence suggests, first, that the predominance of southerners among Democrats who opposed the FLSA resulted in part from the widespread disfranchisement of low-wage workers in the South and, second, that Democratic opposition to the FLSA in the House of Representatives reflected a weakening of the coalition that had passed so much legislation during the earlier years of the New Deal.