Parties and Leadership I

Americans hate Congress but like their own Members.

 For Wednesday, we shall discuss the history of parties and leadership.  Read the Boehner excerpt on Sakai. (Note the dialog box on p. 37)

Hill leadership

• House
• Senate

Leadership Activities

• Legislation
• Whips and for real (Scalise is now majority leader)
• Communication:  Johnson v. Schumer
• Campaign Activity

Edmund Burke:

 In all bodies, those who will lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the taste, talent, and disposition, of those whom they wish to conduct: therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will prevent the men of talent disseminated through it from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects!

Speakership elections 

McCarthy concessions (Davidson 19th ed., 135-138).

More on Wednesday about McCarthy's skill set.

After compromising with Democrats, McCarthy fell to MTV change that he had accepted.

And then came Mike Johnson

• Is party unity the same as party discipline? 
• The Cheney vote

Member Organizations

• Congressional Black Caucus
• Links to Off-Hill organizations;  the CBC Foundation

Informal Groups

• House Freedom Caucus
• The Squad

Note:  even majorities of the president's party may split with the administration agenda.  See Democrats on trade in 1993 and 2014.