Nicol C. Rae

Review of The Lost Majority

Abstract

Senate Republican Leadership in Tough Times

The US Senate is a diffuse and individualistic body that is notoriously hard to lead. Somewhat ironically, the job of the Senate Minority Leader on Capitol Hill today is probably easier than that of his majority counterpart, since the Minority Leader is largely absolved of the expectation that a party policy agenda can actually be passed through a chamber where it is far easier for the minority party to obstruct legislation. During the 110th Congress Mitch McConnell proved quite a successful Minority Leader in terms of unifying his party, command of Senate procedures and using those procedures for party advantage. Despite his successes in frustrating the Senate Democrats, McConnell was unable to overcome the deep unpopularity of his fellow Republican, President George W. Bush, and of the Republican Party in general. As a result the Senate GOP appears certain to suffer further losses in the 2008 elections, thereby demonstrating the disconnect between effective leadership inside the Senate chamber and electoral success.

Southern Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. By Stanley P. Berard. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. 250p.

The rise of partisanship in Congress has been one of the most conspicuous features of American politics during the 1990s. David Rohdes (1991) Parties and Leaders in the PostReform House demonstrated that much of this rise in partisanship could be attributed to the convergence in congressional voting between Northern and Southern Democrats. Since the New Deal, the latter had traditionally allied with Republicans on many issues in a bipartisan conservative coalition that generally dominated both Houses of Congress and constrained liberal legislative outcomes. While Rohde and Barbara Sinclair (Legislators, Leaders and Lawmaking, 1995) have emphasized how institutional rule changes in the 1970s created a much greater incentive for party loyalty among member of Congress, relatively little attention has been paid to the extent to which enhanced partisanship in Congress has been driven by “bottom-up” electoral imperatives. Stanley Berards new book on Southern Democrats in the House convincingly shows that major changes in the southern electoral environment were equally important in promoting convergence in the voting records of Northern and Southern Democrats, leading to a more partisan House overall.