The fact that jimmy carter deregulated beer production is a bit of a myth. Jimmy carter singed hr 1337 which only allows for home production of beer. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d095:HR01337:@@@L&summ2=m&

Carters role was actually pretty limited as he just signed the law and didn't sponsor it. The biggest impact most people attribute to the homebrewing laws is that more people were exposed to styles of beer that weren't commercially available, thus leading people to seek these commercially and spawning the craft beer movement. There is an often cited article http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2010/08/how-jimmy-carter-saved-craft-beer/19195/ that refers to Carter imposing some deregulation of the industry but I haven't seen any citations other than that article.

Sorry for the large digression from the original topic but I wanted to color what I beilve was the sentiment at the time, most people didn't care very much as homebrewing was more of a fringe activity at the time and the laws that were passed only mattered at the federal level, some states didn't legalize homebrweeing until last year. http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrewing-rights/talking-points/#legal

I hope this helps a bit, sorry if its a bit of a ramble I am on mobile so I can't effectively proofread.