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The Minority Party and Policy-Making in the House of Representatives*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Charles O. Jones
Charles O. Jones*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
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Extract

Considerable attention has recently been focused on political oppositions in democracies. A recent book examines oppositions in various western countries and a journal called Government and Opposition was founded in 1965. The significance of the role of an opposition in democracies does not have to be stressed. It is generally accepted.

What of the role of the opposition in the United States? Robert A. Dahl notes that one must use the plural when speaking of opposition in this country since, “a distinctive, persistent, unified structural opposition scarcely exists in the United States … it is nearly always impossible to refer precisely to “the” opposition, for the coalition that opposes the government on one matter may fall apart, or even govern, on another.”

While it is true that “the” opposition is not institutionalized as a definite cohesive, persistent, distinctive group in American politics, it is also true that there has usually been an identifiable minority party in Congress. Though it does not always oppose the majority, and cannot be expected to be synonymous with “the” opposition very often, it does persist. Despite handsome invitations to disband—in the form of successive defeats at the polls—a sizeable number of congressmen, senators, and congressional candidates continue to call themselves Republicans and to organize as such in Congress.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 481 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1968

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Footnotes

*

This is a much-revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Statler-Hilton Hotel, New York City, September 6–10, 1966. Financial support for this study was provided by the Carnegie Corporation in a grant to the American Political Science Association's Study of Congress, Professor Ralph K. Huitt, Director, and the Institute of Government Research, University of Arizona. I wish to acknowledge the comments and criticisms of Samuel C. Patterson, Randall B. Ripley, John Manley, Conrad Joyner, Jorgen Rasmussen, and Phillip Chapman.

References

1 Dahl, Robert A. (ed.), Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

2 The first issue of Government and Opposition was published in November, 1965.

3 In Dahl, op. cit., p. 34.

4 I rely to a great extent on Neustadt's, Richard E. analysis of presidential power contained in Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York: John Wiley, 1960).Google Scholar

5 Of course, there were no voting behavior surveys for this period. Based on election returns, I am assuming that the Republican Party was the majority party in terms of voter party identification.

6 Wilson, Woodrow was not the kind of man to ignore the opportunity. He had expressed himself on the need for a stronger executive in his book, Congressional Government (New York: Meridian Books, 1956, first published in 1885).Google Scholar To him, the president had merely been a branch of the legislature (see p. 173).

7 Link, Arthur S., Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era (New York: Harper, 1954), p. 1.Google Scholar

8 These are terms used by Ripley, Randall B. in Party Leaders in the House of Representatives (Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Institution, 1967).Google Scholar

9 Quoted in Chiu, Chang-wei, The Speaker of the House of Representatives Since 1896 (New York: Columbia university Press, 1928), p. 303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Ripley, op. cit., Ch. 2. The other categories of leadership style relied on by Ripley are “collegial” and “personal.”

11 Various sources may be relied on for a more complete description of this procedure. See Chiu op. cit.; Brown, George R., The Leadership of Congress (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1922)Google Scholar; Hasbrouck, Paul D., Party Government in the House of Representatives (New York: Macmillan, 1927)Google Scholar; Link, Arthur S., Wilson: The New Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Wilder H. Haines, “The Congressional Caucus of Today.” this Review, 9 (November, 1915), 696–706.

12 U. S. Congress, House, Committee on Ways and Means, House Report No. 5, 63rd Cong., 1st sess., 1913, p. lv (emphasis added).

13 U. S. Congress, House, Committee on Banking and Currency, House Report No. 69, 63rd Cong., 1st sess., 1913, p. 133 (emphasis added). It is not suggested that all legislation passed without incident in the House. For example, the Tariff bill and Federal Reserve bill both were controversial within the Democratic Party. Once the principal issues were resolved in the party, and between Democratic congressional leaders and President Wilson, however, major bills passed the House by large margins.

14 One such instance was the legislation to repeal the exemption to American coastwide shipping under the Panama Canal Act of 1912. Speaker Clark and Majority Leader Underwood opposed President Wilson on repeal but, with some Republican support, Wilson was able to build a majority without their endorsement. See Link, Wilson: The New Freedom; and James M. Leake, “Four Years of Congress,” this Review, 11 (May 1917), 252–283.

15 Campbell, Angus, et al., The American Voter (New York: John Wiley, 1960), Ch. 19Google Scholar; and Philip Converse, et al., “Stability and Change in 1960: A Reinstating Election,” this Review, 55 (June, 1961), 269–280. See also, Key, V. O. Jr., “A Theory of Critical Elections,” Journal of Politica, 17 (02, 1955), 3–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Ripley, op. cit., Ch. 2.

17 The caucus apparently proved useful in canvassing opinion and organizing the great numbers of new Democrats. See E. Pendleton Herring, “First Session of the 73rd Congress,” this Review, 28 (February, 1934), 65–83. The Democratic caucus minutes for this period are available in the Library of Congress.

18 Congressional Record, 73rd Cong., 1st sess., March 9, 1933, p. 76.

19 Lapham, Lewis J., Party Leadership and the House Committee on Rules (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1954), p. 52.Google Scholar

20 Congressional Record, 73rd Cong., 2nd sess., March 23, 1934, p. 5262.

21 See Neustadt, op. cit., pp. 163–164.

22 For a discussion of the frustrations of House Republicans under Martin's leadership, see Jones, Charles O., Party and Policy-Making; The House Republican Policy Committee (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1964), Ch. 2.Google Scholar

23 See Neustadt, op. cit., p. 75.

24 Quoted in Congressional Quarterly Almanac, Vol. 13, 1957, p. 87.

25 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, Vol. 14, 1958, p. 57.

26 Neustadt, op. cit., p. 179.

27 Quoted in the New York Times, January 15, 1960, p. 16 (emphasis added).

28 There are a number of excellent studies of this struggle. See Peabody, Robert L. and Polsby, Nelson W. (eds.), New Perspectives on the House of Representatives (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1963), Chs. VI and VIIGoogle Scholar; MacKaye, William R., A New Coalition Takes Control: The House Rules Committee Fight of 1961 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963)Google Scholar; MacNeil, Neil, Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives (New York: McKay, 1963)Google Scholar; Robinson, James A., The House Rules Committee (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963).Google Scholar See also my “Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith—An Essay on the Limits of Leadership in the House of Representatives,” Journal of Politics, 30 (August, 1968). It should be noted that further changes were made in 1965 to reduce the power of the Committee.

29 Personal interview with a senior House Democrat, June, 1963.

30 For details, see Jones, op. cit., pp. 27–42.

31 See Peabody, Robert L., The Ford-Halleck Minority Leadership Contest, 1965 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966).Google Scholar

32 Theodore Lowi argues that innovation is a principal function of the minority party in Congress. See “Toward Functionalism in Political Science: The Case of Innovation in Party Systems,” this Review, 57 (September, 1963), 570–583.

33 This is always true of the minority party; but in more restricted situations, the party's options are limited throughout the legislative process. It also should be pointed out that there is considerable legislative and representative behavior by minority party congressmen which is simply not attributable to party membership.

34 Relying on Rice's, Stuart index of cohesion: Quantitative Methods in Politics (New York: Knopf, 1928).Google Scholar

35 It should be noted that “constructive” means that the Republicans were offering an alternative. That alternative may well have been “destructive” from the point of view of the President.

36 For details on the Republican dilemma on this legislation, see Jones, op. cit., pp. 126–134.

37 Ibid., pp. 65–66.

38 For evidence on the 89th Congress, see Peabody, Robert L., “House Republican Leadership: Change and Consolidation in a Minority Party,” unpublished paper delivered at the 1966 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Statler-Hilton Hotel, New York City, 09 6–10.Google Scholar

39 For a general discussion of the opposition party in governmental decision-making, see Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957)Google Scholar, especially Chapter 4.

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