I thought the ACLU shut those down. No?
Republicans get the blame for it, but it was pretty bipartisan. Through the first 1/2 of the 20th century, there were various (sometimes righteous) campaigns to change the forced hospitalization system in the US, these didn't pick up much steam till JFK got into office. Kennedy was sympathetic because of what happened with his sister Rose. So under his administration there was a shift toward community based care, bolstered with pharmaceuticals for mental cases. There was money promised for these programs that never made it to them because he died, and people didn't care anymore.
Meanwhile, both sides were also looking at how much health costs were in general, and the asylum system was becoming a huge drain on both state and federal budgets, so the Republicans got behind it too, and it just snowballed from there.
The final thing that basically destroyed the asylum system was the passage of the bipartisan "Lanterman Petris Short" act that California passed that stopped involuntary commitments in most cases. From there, the various rights groups began to pick apart the the mental health systems in other states.
