Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:33:26.468Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Middlemen No More? Emergent Patterns in Congressional Leadership Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

Douglas B. Harris  and
Garrison Nelson
Douglas B. Harris
Affiliation:
Loyola College in Maryland
Garrison Nelson
Affiliation:
University of Vermont
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For a quarter-century, conservative Republicans have used the “San Francisco liberal” label to place Democrats as outside the American mainstream. Imagine their dismay as the 110th Congress opened in January 2007 and Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat well to the left of most of her party, ascended to the podium as speaker of the United States House of Representatives. This was, to be sure, a departure. Traditionally, House Democrats had selected ideological “middlemen” for top leadership posts (Truman 1959), particularly those from the “Austin-Boston alliance” that held unbroken sway in House Democratic leadership selection from the initial teaming of Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas and Majority Leader John McCormack of Boston in 1940 to that of Tip O'Neill of Boston and Texan Jim Wright in the 1970s and 1980s. During this time, Democrats “almost never” selected “‘Americans for Democratic Action-type’ liberals” as leaders (Peabody 1976, 470).

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 49 - 55
Copyright
© 2008 The American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brown, Lynne P., and Robert L. Peabody. 1992. “Patterns of Succession in House Democratic Leadership: Foley, Gephardt, and Gray, 1989.” In New Perspectives on the House of Representatives, 4th edition, eds. Robert L. Peabody and Nelson W. Polsby. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 319–72.Google Scholar
Canon, David T. 1989. “The Institutionalization of Leadership in the U.S. Congress.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 14 (3): 415–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrell, John A. 2001. Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Foerstel, Karen. 2001. “Pelosi's Vote-Counting Prowess Earns Her the House Democrats' No. 2 Spot,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, October 13, 2397–8Google Scholar
Green, Matthew N. 2006. “McCormack versus Udall: Explaining Intraparty Challenges to the Speaker of the House.” American Politics Research 34 (1): 3–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Matthew N., and Douglas B. Harris. 2007. “Goal Salience and the 2006 Race for House Majority Leader.” Political Research Quarterly 60 (4): 618–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Douglas B. 1998. “The Rise of the Public Speakership.” Political Science Quarterly 113: 193–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Douglas B. 2006. “Legislative Parties and Leadership Choice: Confrontation or Accommodation in the 1989 Gingrich-Madigan Whip Race.” American Politics Research 34 (2): 189–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, John. 1995. A Rage for Justice: The Passion and Politics of Phillip Burton. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, Sean Q. 1995. “Generational Change and the Selection of Senate Democratic Leader in the 104th Congress.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Tampa, Florida.Google Scholar
King, David C., and Richard Zeckhauser. 2002. “Punching and Counterpunching in the U.S. Congress: Why Party Leaders Tend to be Extremists.” Presented at the Conference on “Leadership 2002: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice,” The Center for Public Leadership, March 14–15, 2002, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
MacRae, Duncan. 1956. “Roll Call Votes and Leadership.” Public Opinion Quarterly 20: 543–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Garrison. 1977. “Partisan Patterns of House Leadership Change, 1789–1977.” American Political Science Review 71 (3): 918–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Garrison. 2007. “The Austin-Boston Speakership and the Post-1938 Purge of House Democrats: A Preliminary Examination.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, Bruce I., and Robert L. Peabody. 1977. “How the Race for House Majority Leader Was Won—By One Vote.” Washington Monthly, November, 47–56.Google Scholar
Ota, Alan K. 2006a. “Republicans Fight for Leadership Post,” CQ Weekly, January 23, 241.Google Scholar
Ota, Alan K. 2006b. “The Power of a Blank Blue Ballot,” CQ Weekly, January 30, 286–7.Google Scholar
Ota, Alan K. 2006c. “Boehner Promises ‘New Vision,’” CQ Weekly, February 6, 334–5, 338.Google Scholar
Patterson, Samuel C. 1963. “Legislative Leadership and Political Ideology.” Public Opinion Quarterly 27 (3): 399–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peabody, Robert L. 1976. Leadership in Congress: Stability, Succession, and Change. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Polsby, Nelson W. 1969. “Two Strategies of Influence: Choosing a Majority Leader.” In New Perspectives on the House of Representatives, 2nd edition, eds. Robert L. Peabody and Nelson W. Polsby. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Rohde, David W. 1991. Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, Barbara. 2006. Party Wars. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Truman, David B. 1959. The Congressional Party: A Case Study. New York: Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar