Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:54:15.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Leadership Choice and Party Performance: The Democratic Takeover of the 110th Congress—Editor's Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

Douglas B. Harris
Douglas B. Harris
Affiliation:
Loyola College in Maryland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Having been out of power in the House since 1994 and in the Senate for 10 of those 12 years as well, congressional Democrats' takeover of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections was an important moment in American political history. Having won the House and, somewhat more unexpectedly, the Senate by a bare majority, the Democrats recaptured control of an entire branch of the federal government for the first time since Bill Clinton left the White House. Controlling the levers of power in the House and the Senate—the legislative schedule, committees and subcommittees, and, to the extent that party bonds hold, the majority of votes in committee and on the floor—Democrats were poised to influence, but of course not unilaterally control, policymaking in the 110th Congress and the conduct of the last two years of the Bush administration through key congressional resources including funding and administrative oversight.I would like to thank all of the authors in the symposium for their willingness to participate and their excellent contributions. A special note of thanks also goes to Sean Kelly for his encouragement and advice on this project from first conception to final completion. Thanks also to Stephen Yoder and Rebecca Fowler at PS for their patience and guidance throughout.

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 43 - 47
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

Becker, Lawrence A., and Vincent G. Moscardelli. 2008. “Congressional Leadership on the Front Lines: Committee Chairs, Electoral Security, and Ideology.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (January): 77–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bibby, John, and Roger H. Davidson. 1967. On Capitol Hill: Studies in the Legislative Process. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
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: 415–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Frisch, Scott A., and Sean Q Kelly. 2008. “Leading the Senate in the 110th Congress.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (January): 69–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisch, Scott A., and Sean Q Kelly. 2003. “Congressional Archives as Untapped Data Sources.” PS: Political Science and Politics 36: 221–4.Google Scholar
Green, Matthew N. 2008. “The 2006 Race for Democratic Majority Leader: Money, Policy, and Personal Loyalty.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (January): 63–67.Google 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. 2005. “Recovering History and Discovering Data in the Archives: An Alternative ‘Mode of Research’ for Congress Scholars.” Extension of Remarks 28 (July): 3–10.Google 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
Harris, Douglas B., and Garrison Nelson. 2008. “Middlemen No More? Emergent Patterns in Congressional Leadership Selection.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (January): 49–55.CrossRefGoogle 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, FL.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, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Garrison. 1977. “Partisan Patterns of House Leadership Change, 1789–1977.” American Political Science Review 71 (3): 918–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peabody, Robert L. 1976. Leadership in Congress: Stability, Succession, and Change. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Peabody, Robert L. 1967. “Party Leadership Change in the United States House of Representatives.” American Political Science Review 61: 675–93.CrossRefGoogle 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
Roof, Tracy. 2008. “Can the Democrats Deliver for the Base? Partisanship, Group Politics, and the Case of Organized Labor in the 110th Congress.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (January): 83–87.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Cindy Simon. 2006. “En-Gendering Choice in Congressional Leadership Elections.” Institute of Governmental Studies. Working Papers (WP: 2006'26), University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Cindy Simon, and Ronald M. Peters Jr. 2008. “Who is Nancy Pelosi?” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (January): 57–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, Barbara. 2008. “Leading the New Majorities.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (January): 89–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, Barbara. 1999. “Transformational Leader or Faithful Agent? Principal-Agent Theory and House Majority Party Leadership.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 24: 421–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strahan, Randall, and Daniel J. Palazzolo. 2004. “The Gingrich Effect.” Political Science Quarterly 119: 89–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar