Parties and Leadership II

• For Monday, Davidson, ch. 7.  Next assignment will involve explaining the fate of a bill.
• Start thinking about which two committees you want to simulate.

Mark Meadows anecdote -- why is Meadows still in the news?

What is leadership?  What is power?

• Transactional v. transformative
• Sources of power
• Knowledge of policy and procedure
• Understanding of what followers want
• Money
• Reputation:  fear and respect
• Influence on public opinion

So why did Kevin McCarthy fail? Michael Tomasky:

McCarthy’s pulverizing failure as a legislative leader stems from two truths: One, he cared little about policy; two, his word was no good. He’d say anything to anyone. If you’ve read enough political biographies, you know that “he was always as good as his word” is a common form of high praise that can be delivered across partisan lines. McCarthy was as useless and malleable as his word.

Narrow majorities require high levels of unity.

LBJ AND LEGISLATIVE LEADERSHIP

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.  

Gingrich and C-SPAN start to change things. 

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

During the early 1990s -- just before the Web dominated political communication -- Rush Limbaugh was central to the GOP outside game.

• How did Boehner lead the fight against the House Bank?  (He had help.)
• How did Bachmann turn the tables?

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.
• Boehner's anecdote:  how did she depose Dingell as chair of Energy and Commerce?