Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-01T10:41:39.694Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The House GOP's Civil War: A Political Science Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

William F. Connelly Jr.  and
John J. Pitney
William F. Connelly Jr.
Affiliation:
Washington & Lee University
John J. Pitney
Affiliation:
Claremont McKenna College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1997, just two years after their impressive show of unity on the Contract With America, the House Republicans were apparently turning into the House of Atreus. Squabbles high and low divided their leadership, demoralized their rank and file, and delighted their Democratic opponents. Many political commentators blamed this turmoil on the personal shortcomings of Speaker Gingrich and other top lawmakers. Such explanations did make some sense. At least part of the trouble stemmed from the Speaker's ethics problems and the leadership's poor political judgments about disaster-relief legislation.

But the House GOP's summer of discontent was neither a purely personal affair nor a total departure from the party's history: House Republicans suffered from serious factionalism during their long journey in the political wilderness (Connelly and Pitney 1994, ch. 2). While lacking in liberals and ethnic minorities, they still found many things to fight about, such as political strategy, institutional loyalty, and generational outlook. As Rohde (1991, 152–53) demonstrated in detail, House Republicans consistently had lower party-unity scores than Democrats throughout the Reagan years.

After they won their majority, swift House Republican action on the Contract left the widespread impression that they had turned into a lean, mean, quasi-military machine. That impression was misleading. According to an excellent analysis by James G. Gimpel (1996, 18), the Contract was a consensus document: party leaders included only items that already commanded broad agreement within the party (e.g., a balanced-budget amendment) and they excluded items that would stir dissent (e.g., anti-abortion legislation).

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 699 - 702
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, Ross K. 1989. House and Senate. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Bradley, Jennifer. 1997. “Livingston Feuds With Leadership.” Roll Call, June 2, 1, 14.Google Scholar
Connelly, William F. Jr., 1996. “Newt Gingrich: Speaker as Educator and Intellectual.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Connelly, William F., and Pitney, John J. Jr., 1994. Congress' Permanent Minority? Republicans in the U.S. House. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Cooper, Joseph, and Brady, David W. 1981. “Institutional Context and Leadership Style: The House From Cannon to Rayburn.” American Political Science Review 75(2): 411–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drucker, Peter F. 1985 [1966]. The Effective Executive. New York: Harper Colophon.Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard F. Jr., 1973. Congressmen in Committees. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Gimpel, James G. 1996. Fulfilling the Contract: The First 100 Days. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Hume, Sandy. 1997a. “Boehlert Denies That Gingrich Clipped His Environmental Wings.” The Hill, May 28, 3.Google Scholar
Hume, Sandy. 1997b. “Rep. Boehlert's Green Views Make GOP Leaders See Red.” The Hill, May 21, 1, 8.Google Scholar
Jones, Charles O. 1971. “Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: An Essay on the Limits of Leadership in the House of Representatives.” In Congressional Behavior, ed. Polsby, Nelson. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
King, Peter. 1997. “Why I Oppose Newt.” The Weekly Standard 2(28): 22.Google Scholar
Koopman, Douglas L. Hostile Takeover: The House Republican Party, 1980–1995. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Pitney, John J. Jr., 1997. “Understanding Newt Gingrich.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Rae, Nicol C. 1989. The Decline and Fall of the Liberal Republicans From 1952 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rohde, David W. 1991. Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossiter, Clinton, ed. 1961. The Federalist Papers: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay. New York: Mentor Books.Google Scholar
Wilson, James Q. 1990. “Interests and Deliberation in the American Republic.” PS: Political Science and Politics 23(4): 558–62.Google Scholar