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Conditions for Party Leadership: The Case of the House Democrats

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Lewis A. Froman Jr.
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
Randall B. Ripley
Affiliation:
The Brookings Institution

Extract

Political power in Congress, all observers agree, is highly decentralized. The factors chiefly responsible for this are also well known: weak national parties (in the Congress this results in strong constituency ties and weak leadership sanctions over members) and a highly developed division of labor through the committee system. A leadership endowed with few opportunities to punish and reward, coupled with specialization by policy area, inevitably produces an institution with numerous and disparate centers of power. Just as inevitably the politics of such an institution is compounded of persuasion, bargaining, and log-rolling.

As weak as the legislative parties are, however, they still provide the major organizing force in Congress. Roll-call vote analyses have demonstrated this, and a recent study of the House Whip organizations also bears it out. Generally speaking, the single most important variable explaining legislative outcomes is party organization.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1965

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References

1 See Huitt, Ralph K., “Democratic Party Leadership in the Senate,” this Review, Vol. 55 (06, 1961), pp. 333344Google Scholar, and Froman, Lewis A. Jr., People and Politics: An Analysis of the American Political System (Englewood Cliffs, 1962), ch. 6Google Scholar.

2 Turner, Julius, Party and Constituency: Pressures on Congress (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1951)Google Scholar; MacRae, Duncan Jr., Dimensions of Congressional Voting (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1958), I, 203390Google Scholar; Truman, David B., The Congressional Party (New York, 1959)Google Scholar, and Froman, Lewis A. Jr., Congressmen and Their Constituencies (Chicago, Rand McNally, 1963)Google Scholar.

3 Ripley, Randall B., “The Party Whip Organizations in the United States House of Representatives,” this Review, Vol. 58 (09, 1964), pp. 561576Google Scholar.

4 Turner, op. cit., pp. 14–15, 69–70.

5 See, for example, the stir caused when Hale Boggs, the Democratic Whip, attacked one title of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill during floor debate. Cong. Rec., vol. 110, no. 23 (daily ed.), 02 7, 1964, pp. 24062408Google Scholar.

6 The exceptions include bills that are complex and subject to numerous amendments—like foreign aid authorization and appropriation bills. In these cases it is difficult to frame a question for polling. Another exception was the civil rights bill in February, 1964. This was a complex issue, subject to many amendments, and it was impossible to forecast how the bill would be amended. Furthermore, unlike all of the other issues polled in the 87th and 88th Congresses, this bill could not be won by Democratic votes alone. Republican votes were absolutely indispensable.

7 See Ripley, op. cit., for a discussion of the role of the polling process in the work of the Democratic Whip organization.

8 Members were polled on the following issues: (1) the permanent enlargement of the Rules Committee, (2) an amendment adding $450 million to the public works program, (3) a recommittal motion deleting student loan provisions from a Health Professions Assistance Bill, (4) final passage of the Feed Grains Bill, (5) final passage of an increase in the amount of the national debt limit, (6) final passage of a bill giving more money to the Area Redevelopment program, (7) final passage of an extension in time of the debt limit, (8) a recommittal motion on the tax bill tying it to a cut in governmental spending, (9) final passage of another increase in the amount of the debt limit, and (10) final passage of the cotton bill.

9 “Surprises” can come for a number of reasons, including faulty work by the Assistant Whips. But the vast majority of these surprises occurred because the individual member had changed his mind, without prior notice.

10 The first index is that used by Congressional Quarterly. The second is of our own devising and is based on pro-leadership votes on the ten issues which were the subject of whip polls in 1963.

11 For our purposes the South includes all the States of the Confederacy; the West includes all States west of the Mississippi River except Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas; the North includes the rest.

12 This comes from Congressional Quarterly. An opposition score of 25% means that the members opposed the President on a quarter of the issues on which the latter took a position.

13 Note that the debt limit bills all came from the Committee on Ways and Means. Chairman Wilbur Mills of this Committee is an unusually powerful and influential House member and helped the Speaker contact the doubtful members. On the Rules Committee issue Majority Leader Albert also helped make some of the contacts.

14 For example, on April 9, 1964, after the Democratic leadership had kept the House in session until almost 1:00 A.M. the preceding day, the Republicans stalled the House for four hours, using various procedural delays.

15 In 1961 there were 101 votes to be examined, not counting 15 “hurrah” votes. In 1962 there were 100 to be examined and 24 of the hurrah variety. In 1963 there were 105 to be examined and 14 hurrah votes.

16 See Cohen, Bernard C., The Press and Foreign Policy (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 54104Google Scholar.

17 For a similar point, see Schattschneider, E. E., The Semi-Sovereign People (New York, 1960), ch. 1Google Scholar.

18 The votes on both recommittal motions were substantially closer than on final passage, although the Democratic leadership position was successful on all four roll calls.

19 See the Washington Post, August 22, 1963, A1:1, and the Wall Street Journal, 08 26, 1963, 2:3Google Scholar.

20 See the Washington Post, April 9, 1964, A3:5, and the Baltimore Sun, 04 9, 1964, 8:3Google Scholar.

21 Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, No. 14 (04 3, 1964), pp. 649653Google Scholar.

22 Froman, Congressmen and Their Constituencies, op. cit., p. 91.

23 Ibid., chs. 7 and 9; see also Turner, op. cit., and MacRae, op. cit.

24 Fiellin, Alan, “The Functions of Informal Groups: A State Delegation,” in Peabody, Robert L. and Polsby, Nelson W., eds., New Perspectives on the House of Representatives (Chicago, 1963), pp. 5978Google Scholar, and Kessel, John H., “The Washington Congressional Delegation,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. 8 (02, 1964), pp. 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Truman, op. cit., p. 250.

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