Two Congresses, Two Parties, Two Elected Branches, Two Chambers (And Four Strategic Postures)

Two Congresses:  Hill Style and Home Style

"What you have to understand about my people is that they are a noble people. Humility is their form of pride. It is their strength; it is their weakness. And if you can humble yourself before them they will do anything you ask."  -- Frank Underwood

In Home Style, members try to convey

• Qualification
• Identification
• Empathy

See a 1993 clip of McCain talking to little old ladies in Arizona.

Parties

Demographic sorting

Four Strategic Postures Since 2000 (House, by election year) -- different way of looking at Thurber, p. 14.

                                                Majority                      Minority

            Pres Party                    Dems 08                    GOP 06, 18

                                                GOP 00, 02, 04, 16    Dem 10,12,14

           

            Out Party                    GOP 10,12,14             GOP 08

                                                Dem 06, 18                 Dem 00, 02, 04, 16

And there are even more flavors, as Matt Glassman points out.

A second look at Federalist 51:

But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions.

From the Census

The average size of a congressional  district based on the 2010 Census  apportionment population will be  710,767, more than triple the average  district size of 210,328 based on the  1910 Census apportionment, and 63,815  more than the average size based on  Census 2000 (646,952). Based on the  2010 Census apportionment, the state  with the largest average district size will  be Montana (994,416), and the state with  the smallest average district size will be  Rhode Island (527,624).

One major difference between the chambers is that few House members run for president, and seldom get far when they do. But a fairly large fraction of senators have gone for the White House:

• Lamar Alexander (R-TN) 1996, 2000
• Cory Booker (D-NJ) 2020?
• Sherrod Brown (D-OH) 2020?
• Ted Cruz (R-TX) 2016
• Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) 2020
• Lindsey Graham (R-SC) 2016
• Kamala Harris (D-CA), 2020
• Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) 2020?
• Rand Paul (R-KY) 2016
• Marco Rubio (R-FL) 2016
• Bernard Sanders (I-VT) 2016, 2020?
• Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), 2020

In the House, see

• John Delaney (D-MD), 2020
• Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), 2020
• Eric Swalwell (D-CA) 2020?

Kamala Harris Presidential Chances in 2020

Kamala Harris recently announced her intent to run for President in 2020, which is not too much of a surprise. However, I thought that FiveThirtyEight gives a thorough rundown on her chances of winning, with many of their points on demographics and "electability" mirroring our discussion from last class. 


https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/kamala-harris-2020-democratic-primary/

Two Political Branches, Two Congresses

• Congressional pay and benefits
• Congressional staff titles
• Congressional staff salaries (find individuals here)
• Article I of the Constitution
• Burke's speech to the electors of Bristol (Davidson, p. 8-9)
• Demographics:

• Paths to Congress
• New members
• Immigration
• Religion
• African Americans
• House constituencies
• Home style

The Inside Game and the Outside Game

At Politico, Rachael Bade,Heather Caygle, and John Bresnahan tell how Pelosi won the shutdown showdown:

During a closed-door meeting of House Democrats Wednesday, Pelosi defended her no-negotiating strategy.

“Understand, there is a plan. It is working for us,” Pelosi told the caucus, recounting how she and other Democrats beat back then-President George W. Bush’s efforts to privatize social security in 2005 by staying unified and sticking to a simple message, much like they were doing now. Democrats did the same when Republicans shutdown the government in 2013 in a bid to defund Obamacare, she said. They didn’t counter Republicans then, Pelosi noted —and ultimately, they won.

“So, for week-in and week-out, we had to say to our group, ‘Stick with the plan,'” Pelosi said, according to a source in the room. “And so, what we are saying is, ‘Open up government. And then we can discuss.'”

“She said the best thing to do is stand your ground and not to propose our own solution,” said one Democratic aide familiar with Pelosi’s message. “She was saying, ‘You have to let them screw the pooch on this to look good,’ that it would weaken us to offer a solution.”

Beyond that, Pelosi did one major thing Trump couldn’t: she kept the divisions in her caucus private. As an unpredictable loose cannon who changed his position on what he wanted from day to day, Trump was unable to keep Republicans unified behind his border wall demand—one they never fully embraced to begin with

"Packing" Democrats: Gerrymandering in Alabama

The gerrymandering section of the Davidson reading reminded me of a Washington Post article that was written after Doug Jones won his senate race against Roy Moore in the 2017 Alabama special election. In this article, Christopher Ingraham notes that if the election results were divided into Alabama congressional districts, Jones would only have been elected in one out of seven of the state's districts. This article reflects the concept of "packing" explored in the Davidson reading. In this case, the Alabama legislature, led by Republicans, packed the state's populations that are more likely to vote for Democrats, namely Black voters, into the seventh district.

Attached below are a photo from Ingraham's article and another showing how packing impacts representation in the House. With an independent redistricting committee, the Alabama delegation could see one or two addition House seats go to Democratic Party. Independent redistricting would also likely increase the representation of Black House members, based on the demographics of the state's Democratic Party.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LIFE IS IN "THE GODFATHER"

From Business Insider: 

The indictment said that in late 2017 Stone on "multiple occasions" told an associate, identified as "Person 2," that they "should do a 'Frank Pentangeli'" before the House Intelligence Committee "in order to avoid contradicting Stone's testimony." The filing goes on to say: "Frank Pentangeli is a character in the film 'The Godfather: Part II,' which both Stone and Person 2 had discussed, who testifies before a congressional committee and in that testimony claims not to know critical information that he does in fact know."

...

In "The Godfather: Part II," Pentangeli is called to testify before the Senate against Michael Corleone, the main character and mafia boss, but is ultimately dissuaded from doing so when Corleone brings Pentangeli's brother to the hearing all the way from Sicily — essentially to intimidate Pentangeli into not testifying against Corleone and to remind him of the code of silence he swore to uphold as a member of the mafia. Pentangeli then contradicts a sworn statement with damning allegations against Corleone and more or less tells senators that Corleone is not guilty of any wrongdoing.

 

In the Beginning

 And the backstory

And the true story of the Compromise of 1790



Factions: David Hawkings' Whiteboard: Congressional Factions

New Members