Parties and Leadership II

DC program.

• Paper due by midnight tomorrow.
• For Tuesday, Davidson, ch. 7.  Next assignment will involve explaining the fate of a bill.
• Start thinking about which 2 committees you want to simulate.

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

Review from January 19:

Four Strategic Postures Since 2000 (House, by election year) 

                    Majority                          Minority 

In Party       Dems 08, 20                  GOP 06, 18

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

                                                          Dems 22

                  

Out Party     GOP 10,12,14              GOP 08, 20

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

                    GOP 22

2020 -- What to do in a 50/50 Senate? (Baker chapter in Thurber)

Who has leverage in such a situation?

"Regular Order" (aka "I'm Just a Bill") and polarization

Narrow majorities require high levels of unity.

From Jacobson chapter in Thurber:

BBB slims down and becomes IRA

Blasts from the past:

The Johnson Network

• The Favor Bank

The Johnson Intelligence System

• One week after becoming president, LBJ mentions his long relationship with J. Edgar Hoover (ab at 19:00).

The Johnson Procedure

• Unanimous consent agreement -- functional equivalent of a House rule

The Johnson Treatment

• Caro on LBJ, the House, and the Senate

LBJ in Frank Underwood's office

 

The inside game and the outside game:  in LBJ's time in the Senate, the outside game scarcely counted.  During the early 1990s -- just before the Web dominated political communication -- Rush Limbaugh was central to the GOP outside game.

Newt v. O'Neill 1984 (start clip at 9:30)

Limbaugh was central to the GOP outside game in the early 1990s, before the Web came to dominate political communication

Women in Congress

Pew data

Pelosi as a leader:

• Years later, John Spratt, a South Carolina congressman who voted against her at the time, sheepishly told me, “I couldn’t quite see her as whip, because you need to be kind of tough to be whip, and I estimated her differently. I just didn’t put two and two together.”
• Pelosi’s reign was successful because she understood the will of her caucus rather than bending it to hers.

Approval rating:  compare Pelosi and McConnell

Pelosi and AOC