Parties and Leadership I

For Thursday, Thurber ch. 2.  Will discuss SOTU and individual leaders.

Dr. Harkonen will visit Thursday.  See internships

Catch SOTU tonight at 6.

2022:  watch at 29:30

2020:  watch at 26:10 and 1:46:00

d

Hill leadership

• House
• Senate

Leadership Activities

• Legislation
• Whips and for real (Scalise is now majority leader)
• Communication
• 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 gave up powers that Ross Baker (p. 151) and Davidson (p. 146) describe.

 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy's reported concessions. #TheReidOut pic.twitter.com/yxkxFOQO1Z

— The ReidOut (@thereidout) January 4, 2023

• Is party unity the same as party discipline? 
  The Cheney vote
• Censures:  states and RNC

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.