The Democratic Congress passed an army appropriations bill in 1879 with a rider that repealed the Enforcement Acts, which had been used to suppress the Ku Klux Klan. Those acts, passed during Reconstruction, made it a crime to prevent someone from voting because of his race. Hayes was determined to preserve the law protecting black voters, and he vetoed the appropriation. The Democrats did not have enough votes to override the veto, but they passed a new bill with the same rider. Hayes vetoed this as well, and the process was repeated three times more. Finally, Hayes signed an appropriation without the offensive rider. Congress refused to pass another bill to fund federal marshals, who were vital to the enforcement of the Enforcement Acts. The election laws remained in effect, though the funds to enforce them were curtailed. Hayes's strong stance against the Democratic attempts to repeal the election laws earned him the support of civil rights advocates in the North and boosted his popularity among some Republicans who had been alienated by his civil service reform efforts.