A subsequent 1964 issue opposed a proposal by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to transfer sovereignty of the Panama Canal to the Republic of Panama. Johnson failed in his attempt, but President Jimmy Carter in 1978, with bipartisan U. S. Senate support led by Moderate Republican Howard Baker of Tennessee, prevailed by a one-vote margin to extend control of the Canal Zone to Panama. It was Moderate Republican support for many Democratic proposals that particularly angered Smoot, who gave up on the national Republican Party as a viable alternative to the majority Democrats of his day.