Roll Call: David Hawkings- 'Opus: '5 Reasons Why Congress is Broken'

Source:Roll Call- A look at our Congress. 

Source:The New Democrat

"Roll Call senior editor David Hawkings has been covering Congress for three decades, and he’s convinced that the legislative branch is more broken now than at any other point in his career. Here’s why." 

From Roll Call

I guess I would disagree a little with what David Hawkings is saying here and that I would add a little to his argument as well.

Money, is an issue with Congressional elections, but it's not the issue. It's not so much what's spent on House and Senate elections, but the fact that we as voters don't know what the money is spent on and how it was raised, who donated the money to the Congressional candidate or incumbent, or did a third-party raise that money and decided to spend it on a Congressional race and how they raised that money.

If someone wants to spend ( or waste ) 10 million dollars on a U.S. House race, that's their money. But we as voters and the media have a right to know how they raised and spent that money. So we know if that candidate or incumbent is being bought like a loaf or bread and taking policy positions based on what their political contributors are giving them. And if they promised their contributors votes and bills if they give them money.

If we had full-disclosure on all political contributions from candidates, incumbents, and third-parties that and raise and spend their own money on Congressional elections and money that's raised and spent by third-parties to run their own advertising on those races, we could fire a lot of crooks and liars in Congress, because we would know how they get their political contributions. 

Or another option would be that those crooks and liars would clean their political hands and start voting and legislating based on what they actually believe is best for their district or state, because they don't want to be seen as bought because they know the voters, media, and probably more important for them the Federal Elections Commission will know how they raise their money. Who they're getting their political contributions from.

With full-disclosure, people could ask themselves: "Do I really want to vote for someone who takes so much money from the oil and gas industry and always votes and legislates in favor of them?" Or: "Do I really want to vote for someone who takes so much money from the teacher unions and never takes a position that goes against them like school choice and school accountability?" 

Members of Congress in both chambers fundraising records would become public, as well as their Congressional records their votes and positions that they've taken in Congress, because of full-disclosure and voters would have a lot of information at their disposal to look at and see if they want to reelect their Representative or Senator. or vote for or against their opponents when they're up for reelection.

Just to talk about the U.S. House for a second and the main reasons why the House is broken and functions more like a broken home where you can't close the doors or windows in it, and the floors are cracking, is two reasons.

Gerrymandering- the reason why Representatives are so partisan and act as if they now hate members of the other party and just don't disagree with them is because they represent gerrymandered districts and voters who hate the other party. These Representatives simply come from the community that they represent and are representing the views of their constituents in the House. 

You eliminate partisan gerrymandering from both parties and Democratic and Republican Representatives would then be forced to represent people from both parties in their district. Instead of representing a House district where 3-5 or 7-10 voters in their district are members of their own party. They would be forced to moderate their positions and tone in order to get reelected because their district would be a lot more diverse.

Majority always rules- the other reason why the House is so partisan is because of the way the chamber is set and run where the majority party isn't just in complete control of the agenda but how bills are debated and have complete control of whether even amendments to partisan bills can be offered or not. Unlike in the Senate where the minority party led by the Minority Leader can not only obstruct the majority if they have at least 41 votes to do that, but can offer amendments and substitutes and have those amendments voted on to every bill that comes to the Senate floor, as well as in committee.

Not saying that the House should also have a cloture rule and allow the minority party led by the Minority Leader to obstruct everything, because that would make the Washington rush hour look like a NASCAR event, ( an inside the beltway joke ) and nothing would get done in the house. But the House minority party should at least be allowed to offer amendments and substitutes to bills and have those alternatives voted on to every bill that the majority party tries to write and pass on their own. Giving the minority party stake in the game and a feeling that there to do something other than to talk and vote no.

I'll just close this piece with a little George Carlin the great political satirist. He asked the question to his audience during one of his shows where do politicians come from? And I'll paraphrase him by saying they weren't shipped here from Mars or some other planet or flown in here from another country. They go to the same schools that we did and same communities. They represent the communities that sent them to Congress or whatever office they hold.

Carlin's point was that politicians aren't much different than the people they're supposed to represent that their Congressional salary is supposed to pay for. The reason why Congress especially the House is so partisan is because that is what their voters want it to be. To vote exactly the want they want them to and represent their values and not compromise, because they see the other party as the enemy and not as opponent. 

You want a better and less partisan Congress, especially in the House, you need better and less partisan voters voting for its members.

Roll Call: David Hawkings - Whiteboard: What is a Filibuster?

Source:Roll Call- A filibuster whiteboard. 

Source:The New Democrat 

David Hawkings is right about what an actual filibuster is. Its generally one Senator or a group of Senator's who take to the Senate floor and talk forever basically, or till they run out of breath, faint, have to use the bathroom, discover they have lives, perhaps miss their kids and wives, etc. Maybe the Senate Leader finds the 60 votes that he needs to cut off the Senator or Senator's that are speaking.

And generally but not always filibusters are performed (if you want to call filibustering a performance) by a member or members of the minority party. The Senate has a filibuster and the cloture rule, but its really the cloture rule is used by the Minority Leader who rounds up enough votes to stop the majority from moving ahead on legislation that is used by the minority to block legislation.

Instead of minority members speaking indefinitely about a particular bill, the Minority Leader will round up 41 or more votes to simply prevent the majority from moving to final passage on a bill that probably has no minority input on it and perhaps didn't even go through committee. And then the Minority Leader or his deputy who is generally the lead minority member on the committee that has jurisdiction of the bill, will argue that the Senate simply hasn't had enough time to consider the legislation and the minority simply can't support this and isn't ready to vote on the bill.

The minority party blocks legislation all the time with the cloture rule. The Minority Leader will announce that they intend to block the legislation. The Leader will then move to final passage, but to get to final passage of legislation which is the final vote, the majority party needs 60 votes to accomplish that. Which generally doesn't happen on partisan legislation because Congress tends to be very divided at least in the last 40 years or so. Even when on party controls both the House and Senate, their majorities tend to be fairly small, especially in the Senate. And the Senate minority party tends to have at least 45 members which is more than enough to block legislation on their own, if the Minority Leader keeps them unified against partisan legislation that the majority party wants to pass.

I'm somewhat divided on the Senate filibuster myself. Even as a Democrat who sees his party both as the minority party in Congress, but as the opposition party and in the White House. Filibusters themselves I'm not a fan of. The idea that one Senator or even a group of them can command so much attention and power by themselves, which makes them as powerful as both the Minority Leader and Majority Leader, even if there're a freshman and perhaps have no other experience in Congress other than their first year or 2 in the Senate, seems counterproductive and makes the party leaderships seem very weak.

But on the other side as a Liberal who believes in both limited government and is against absolute power even if the Democratic Party is the party with complete control over the government, I don't want the Senate to become like the House of Representatives. I actually believe the House is too much like the House and not calling for the House minority party to be able to block legislation on their own that majority brings to the floor, but the House minority should at least be able to offer relevant amendments and alternatives to all legislation that majority brings to the floor and committee. And at the end of the day if the majority party has a simple majority or more to pass legislation, then they would be able to do that even if not one minority Representative votes for the bill.

What Congress needs to return to is regular order. Where if the majority parties in either the House or Senate, decide not to work with the minority on legislation, then their bills at least have to go through the relevant committee or committees where hearings are held, amendments and alternatives are offered, debated and voted on. And then if the final bill passes out of committee, then the bill goes to the floor where the same process is done all over again, but this time with everyone in the chamber able to debate and offer amendments to the bill.

If Congress both the Senate and House did this and you eliminated gerrymandering, you could see less obstruction and partisanship in Congress. Because the majority party in both chambers would then know they can't steamroll the minority and be able to pass partisan legislation with very little if any debate and probably no amendments. And the minority party in both chambers would then know that they have a stake in the game (so to speak) and know they'll be able to offer amendments and alternatives to all legislation that the majority brings up and be able to force the majority to take tough votes and have new issues to run on the during the next election.

I'm not a fan of the filibuster because it makes both the Minority Leader and Majority Leader weak. It makes back-benching Senator's seem as powerful as the two leaders. But I don't like absolute power especially when one party controls both the White House and Congress. So you need to strengthen the leadership's while protecting minority rights and our checks and balances.

So I would eliminate the filibuster and say for legislation to be blocked from final passage in the Senate, it can only be done by the two leader's. Have a motion to table that only the Leader and Minority Leader can propose and similar to the cloture rule when the Minority Leader moves to table the bill, the Leader can overcome that with 60 votes.

Along with the new amendment process where the members of both parties can offer relevant amendments to all legislation and the minority can offer alternative bills to all legislation. And then I believe you would see less partisanship because now both parties would be able to debate and even legislate and just need to the votes for the amendments to do that.

And I believe you would also see less obstruction from the minority party, because instead of the Minority Leader trying to block legislation by himself, he might just decide to let legislation go through once it has been fully debated with a real amendment process and use those votes as election issues.

The filibuster is outdated but checks and balances aren't and absolute power with the opposition having no ability to hold the party in power accountable is un-liberal democratic. This is not a one-party state or a parliamentary system where the party in power doesn't just have the power to govern, but the power to rule. We'll always need checks and balances especially when one party has complete control of the government.
Source:Roll Call

Roll Call: Emma Dumain: 'New Democrat Coalition Wants Bigger Role in Party's Message'

Source:Roll Call- U.S. Representative Ron Kind (Democrat, Wisconsin) one of the leaders of the New Democrat Coalition in the House.

Source:The New Democrat

"Members of the New Democrat Coalition have struggled for years to make their centrist message heard in the larger, and distinctly more left-leaning, House Democratic Caucus.

The 46 self-described “moderate” and “pro-growth” House members in the coalition say they agree with the rest of their caucus on “90 percent of the issues” — it’s the remaining 10 percent that’s harder to summarize.

How difficult? Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., shares a joke he tells about the group to illustrate the point.

“The New Dems’ message doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker,” he told CQ Roll Call. “So I said we should stand on the steps of the Capitol and shout, ‘What do we want? A comprehensive approach to job creation that includes tax reform, investments in infrastructure and a pro-growth budget that invests in our future! When do we want it? Well, we want to work in a collaborative way to bring people together!’

“I should probably have thrown education in there, too,” Kilmer added. “That would be a part of the chant, too.”

The New Democrat Coalition members have long bemoaned their exclusion from the leadership table that’s typically — especially now — skewed to the left.

But with Democrats of all stripes evaluating what went wrong in the 2014 midterms and wondering how to win back seats in 2016, members of the group see an opening to really be heard — and hopefully taken seriously.

That’s why, for the first time in its nearly 18-year history, the group is putting out a comprehensive legislative agenda.

The two-page document, obtained early by CQ Roll Call, lays out what the New Democrats think the party needs to do to compete in moderate swing-districts around the country, where Democrats have suffered major losses.

“There is a role for us to play,” said New Democrat Coalition Chairman Ron Kind of Wisconsin. “We’ve got to have a more active role and meaningful voice, or these districts are going to be harder and harder to defend going forward.” 

The two-page document, obtained early by CQ Roll Call, lays out what the New Democrats think the party needs to do to compete in moderate swing-districts around the country, where Democrats have suffered major losses.

“There is a role for us to play,” said New Democrat Coalition Chairman Ron Kind of Wisconsin. “We’ve got to have a more active role and meaningful voice, or these districts are going to be harder and harder to defend going forward.” 

The New Democrat Coalition’s “American Prosperity Agenda” highlights policy areas that mainstream Democrats have largely glossed over. The “innovation” platform urges members to talk about ways to ensure the United States “lead[s] in the next great discoveries” and “become[s] the global magnet for the world’s top talent.”

Then there are the areas where members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — who currently make up the largest demographic of House Democrats — are likely to flat-out balk.

The New Democrat Coalition says the party ought to “fix the tax code to create American jobs and help American businesses compete” — or support a tax overhaul that would be friendly to the business community, which progressives increasingly regard with skepticism.

The members often use phrases preferred by Republicans, such as “lower regulatory obstacles” and “hold our schools accountable for results.”

And then there’s the reference to Trade Promotion Authority, an issue that is already dividing House Democrats and could be the source of some of the biggest intraparty fissures in recent memory.

The Blue Dogs also were frequent thorns in leadership’s side. The New Democrats say they don’t want to be that, either.

But many stakeholders say the coalition needs to be more aggressive when it comes to fighting against campaign tactics they say have cost Democrats their majorities in both chambers, and they hope the “American Prosperity Agenda” is a step in that direction.

“Look,” said Jim Kessler, a co-founder and vice president of policy for Third Way, an outside group that works closely with the New Democrat Coalition. “I think on the one hand, there’s never been more interest in what the New Dems and moderates are saying within the caucus and throughout Washington. At the same time, there’s never been more hostility.”

Kessler said that while the New Democrats want to “govern,” the progressives represent the “advocacy wing of the party that often times is happy having the fight rather than coming to some sort of conclusion.”

Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, said that House Democratic leaders ultimately have a responsibility to represent the ideology of the majority of their members.

“The leaders have to reflect the caucus, right? And numerically speaking, the people in the caucus now have the lefter-tilt,” Marshall explained. “To the extent that there’s resistance [to the New Democrats], I don’t think it comes from the leaders as it does from the left wing of the party. Folks that are in very safe Democratic districts, very urban districts that produce supermajorities, people who are not vulnerable, they’re just under a different set of incentives and frankly they have closer ties to groups that are happier with the party’s status quo than the moderates are.”

New Democrats speaking with CQ Roll Call wouldn’t insert themselves into the fray. “It’s awfully easy when you don’t win an election to start turning on each other,” Kind said.

New Democrat Whip John Carney of Delaware just hopes the “American Prosperity Agenda” proves to be a useful tool, in many ways, in the months ahead.

“We’re developing a vision and something that we can all rally behind and understand,” he said. “Here’s what we’re all about. Here’s our area of focus. These are a series of things that we bring to the table and our caucus can build on, our common values and objectives.

“It’s a message we can take to constituents back in our own districts,” he said. “We can use it to pick up districts as we try to expand our caucus.”

From Roll Call 

"Congressman Jim Cooper and the New Democrat Coalition urge bipartisan action to address our fiscal situation." 

Source:Jim Cooper- and the House New Democrats.

From Jim Cooper

If you look at the two-party system in America, you'll see a Democratic Party that's supposed to represent the center-left (not left-wing) coalition in America and a Republican Party that's supposed to represent the Center-Right (not right-wing) coalition in America. And by in-large that's still true even today. 

There are still more Progressives (in the classical sense) in the Democratic Party, than in the Republican Party. And there are still more Conservatives (in the classical sense) in the Republican Party, than in the Democratic Party. But two-party system are the key words here. Not every American is either a Progressive or Conservative, politically. We are a lot more ideologically diverse than that and you see that both in the Democratic Party and in the Republican Party. 

Pre-1970 or so and you can go back as even 1965, the Democratic Party was essentially made up of center-right Liberal Democrats and center-left Progressive Democrats in the North. And you had right-wing, Dixiecrat, Neo-Confederate Democrats in the South. 

The center-right in the Democratic Party, were the JFK Liberal Democrats and people like Senator Henry Jackson (Democrat, Washington) people who were very pro-civil rights and believed in a safety net for people who truly needed it, but were also very strong believers in liberal democracy (which is why they're Liberal Democrats) and were very hawkish on foreign policy and national security. The so-called Neoconservatives, who are Progressive Republicans today, were Liberal Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Thanks to the mainstream media and their ignorance of political philosophy and terms, as well as Far-Left Democrats who call themselves Liberals, The New Democrat Coalition in Congress today, who are mostly in the House, but who have a few members in the Senate as well, get called centrists or moderates. But in actuality, they're JFK Liberal Democrats, who get called Neoconservatives or centrists today by the so-called mainstream media and others. 

Roll Call: Bridget Bowman: House Republicans Investigating Washington D.C. Marijuana Legalization

Source:The New Democrat

First of all to dare to correct Roll Call, this is not about the U.S. Congress or even Congressional Republicans against the City of Washington when it comes to legalizing marijuana. Which they already have and marijuana is now legal in Washington for adults. This is about a group of House Republicans on the Government Oversight Committee led by Representative Jason Chaffetz who is Chairman of that committee and other members of that committee who want to put Uncle Sam’s big foot in the way how Washington deals with marijuana in their city.

Apparently the party that is supposed to be anti-big government and Uncle Sam and pro-federalism which is what Republicans have traditionally advertise them as, is now Uncle Sam’s favorite nephews and nieces. And marijuana in Washington is just one example of that. Same-sex marriage and pornography are other perfect examples of that. But the problem that House Republicans have as it relates to marijuana in Washington is that Congress the House and Senate together passed their bill that would throw out marijuana legalization that President Obama signed after the city passed their legalization bill.

The thirty-day period that Congress has to review and overthrow laws that Washington passes themselves has already expired. With neither the House or Senate acting on anything that would overturn the city’s law. So the Washington marijuana legalization law goes forward. And House Republicans led by Representative Chaffetz are left to hold hearings over the Washington law, but without much if any ability to actually overturn it. Because they decided to act against the law after the law was already passed.

Roll Call: Tamar Hallerman & Niels Lesniewski: Senate Democrats Show Limits of GOP Control

Source:The New Democrat

For all of you non-political junkies, first of all I’m wondering why you’re reading this at all, but secondly this piece is for the average political junkie who probably does at least look at C-SPAN everyday. So you might be better off watching Fashion Police, Project Runway or Access Hollywood or something to find out which latest hot celebrity is in trouble or whatever. Because this piece is about the U.S. Congress which is by far other than the presidency itself the most interesting part and important part of government anywhere else in the world.

First of all I think the Senate Democratic Leadership made a policy mistake by using the cloture rule to block any consideration of the House Republican passed Homeland Security funding bill that defunds President Obama’s immigration order. What the House Republicans did was stupid and is why we are we are with Homeland Security employees wondering if they are going to get paid next week. But at least allow that bill come to the floor to be debated and try to amend the bill and strict that portion of the bill out with the amendment process. That Leader McConnell has put back in. If that amendment passes now you have what you wanted in the first place which was clean funding bill. If the amendment fails then you can still block the bill from final passage.

Now politically what Senate Democrats are doing is working very well for them. Congressional Republicans are still getting blamed for the new-made up crisis by House Republicans and with Senate Republicans unable or unwilling to bring up a clean funding bill for Homeland Security. But the good guys (meaning Senate Democrats) still have an opportunity to save the day at the end of the day. By telling Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell that if they give Senate Democrats a clean funding bill and bring it up for final passage and it passes, Senate Democrats wouldn’t block consideration of a repeal of President Obama’s immigration order, but as part of separate legislation. Pass Homeland Security and then debate and work on a bill to repeal the immigration order and pass immigration reform after Homeland Security is funded.

I know this as a Democrat that when Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 after being in the minority in the House for twelve years and the Senate for four years, that just because you control both chambers of Congress, doesn’t mean you get your way all the time. The House can pass anything they want to on their own with just the majority party if they are united. The Senate is a place where minority rights is real and where the Minority Leader is almost as powerful as the Majority Leader. They almost have to work together to get anything done. Congressional Republicans need to learn that quickly, because 2015 will be the only year they’ll have in this Congress to pass major legislation. And find ways to work with Congressional Democrats especially in the Senate to pass the legislation that they have to. Like appropriations and later on hopefully a budget.

Roll Call: Niels Lesniewski: Odd Couples Push Criminal Justice Overhauls

Source:The New Democrat

It shouldn’t be surprising that both John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are in favor of real criminal justice reform that reduce sentencing for people convicted of non-violent sentences. They are both from Texas and their state has one of the most expensive criminal justice systems both on a per-capita basis, but also in total budget in America. And Texas as right-wing as it gets stereotyped and for good reasons, is one of the leaders now when it comes to criminal justice reform and prison rehabilitation. Again because their state has so many people in prison. I believe the largest prison population in the country at least on a per-capita basis. California might have more prisoners as it relates to total numbers.

John Cornyn is the Senate Assistant Majority Leader, the number two Senate Republican right behind Mitch McConnell the Senate Leader. So he has a lot of sway as far as what will come to the Senate floor in this Congress for consideration. Senator Ted Cruz also from Texas is more of a conservative libertarian or has those leanings. So he’s interested along with Senator Rand Paul and Senator Mike Lee in criminal justice reform. So having these three Senate Republicans in the same group on an issue with Senate Democrats like Sheldon Whitehouse, a LBJ Progressive, Dick Durbin someone who I would call a Classical Liberal and Pat Leahy the Ranking Member on the Judiciary Committee a strong opponent of the War on Drugs, is actually not that surprising for people who follow Congress on a regular basis.

What this Senate coalition is talking about is reducing sentences and for non-violent offenders and not sending so many of them to prison in the first place. This is really about the War on Drugs and getting drug offenders who were simply arrested for illegal narcotics possession and being high on those drugs, into drug rehab instead of prison. They are also talking about over-criminalization and arresting people for doing things that actually don’t hurt other people. Online gambling would be an example of that. Marijuana possession would be another one, I would add adult prostitution as another one. And this is something that Congress should’ve done a long time ago.

Roll Call: David Hawkings: Could Steve Scalise Shepherd a Rewrite of the Voting Rights Act?

Source:The New Democrat.  

Do I think House Republicans especially the House Republican Leadership will see the Steve Scalise situation as an opportunity to reach out to African-Americans and tell them that they care about their issues and are listening to them. And will say “we now support the Voting Rights Act and want to see it extended”. In one word, no because the House GOP especially listens to the Tea Party and their Far-Right that is part of the Tea Party. That favors states rights and they believe that states even have the right deny people the vote even based on race.

If there’s anything done on voting rights in the 114th Congress that is a Republican Congress, the first one since 2005-06, it will happen in the Republican Senate. Because there is bipartisan support for a Voting Rights Act extension. The question is of of course will Senate Leader Mitch McConnell bring it up or not. I really doubt it and don’t believe he even believes in the VRA and already has plenty on his plate as far as what he wants to accomplish in this Congress.

Now in a perfect world, sure why not if you’re a Republican especially in your leadership in
Congress either in the House or Senate, or you have big role on the Senate or House Judiciary Committee’s, why not use the Scalise situation to reach out to African-Americans and say “I support voting rights for all Americans, regardless of race, even at the federal level and support an extension of the VRA”. Especially if you also just happen to be running for president in 2016 and perhaps are not even in Congress right now.

If you’re thinking long-term as a Republican and you’re lets say a big-tent establishment Republican and you even support voting rights ideologically, someone like a Jeb Bush, extending the VRA is a no-brainer. Because you believe its good policy and you know the current situation of your party as it relates to minority Americans, especially African and Latino. But again those aren’t the people who run the GOP in Congress, the big-tenters if you will. It’s still the Tea Party and Far-Right, as well as the growing conservative libertarian wing of the GOP that doesn’t support the VRA.

Roll Call: David Eldridge: A Look Back at Congress's Most Memorable Leadership Battles

Source:The New Democrat

"Pershing, who went on from Roll Call to The Washington Post, where he covers politics, does a great job showing how leadership battles shaped the futures of Gerald Ford, Edward M. Kennedy, Jim Wright and Newt Gingrich, among others.

Here’s Pershing’s 2005 piece in its entirety:

When it comes to Congressional leadership races, they just don’t make ’em like they used to.

While there has been plenty of drama on Capitol Hill over the last few years, there have been few knock-down, drag-out contests for House or Senate leadership posts.

True, the current Republican leaders of the House and Senate both rose to power under dramatic circumstances. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) won his post after Trent Lott (R-Miss.) stepped down under fire for comments he’d made about the segregationist past of then-Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). And in the House, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) ascended to the Speakership following two dramatic resignations, first Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and then Speaker-designate Bob Livingston (R-La.).

Despite the drama, Frist and Hastert won their posts with the broad acclamation of their parties. And on the Democratic side, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) won the post of Senate Minority Leader without significant challenge, while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was elected party leader easily after having previously won a somewhat closer contest for Minority Whip against Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

But if the past few years have generally featured snoozers for leadership contests, the last 50 as a whole certainly did not. Since Roll Call sprung to life in 1955, there have been enough coups, multi-ballot marathons and one-vote nailbiters to fill plenty of newsprint.

Here, then, are the 10 best leadership races of the last 50 years in chronological order.

1959: Senate Minority Leader

When Sen. Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.) was elected Minority Whip in 1957, his close relationship with President Dwight Eisenhower made him the de facto leader of his party in the chamber, ahead of Minority Leader William Knowland (R-Calif.).

In 1958, Knowland left the Senate, leaving Dirksen with a chance to win the top job. According to an introduction written by Frank Mackaman in Dirksen’s own memoir, Dirksen faced “considerable opposition from the moderate Republicans” in his Minority Leader campaign against Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.).

But Dirksen was able to use his close relationship with Eisenhower to his advantage, and he also mollified various Republican constituencies by handing out committee posts and lower-level leadership titles.

In the end, Dirksen prevailed over Cooper by a 20-to-14 vote. He ended up holding the Minority Leader title for 10 years, making a name for himself as one of the Senate’s most effective leaders. He is now immortalized in the name of one of the Senate’s three office buildings.

1959: House Minority Leader

By 1954, Rep. Charles Halleck (R-Ind.) had already served two brief stints as Majority Leader under Speaker Joseph Martin (R-Mass.) when his party lost power in the House.

Halleck then spent five years as the deputy to Martin, all the while plotting a challenge against his longtime senior partner. In 1959 he pulled the trigger, launching a campaign against Martin for Minority Leader.

Halleck, more energetic and 16 years younger than Martin, was able to convince his colleagues that he could do a better job leading the GOP again in the wake of Democratic gains in the 1958 election.

Halleck ended up beating Martin, 74 to 70. Martin later blamed his loss on plotting by Halleck and Vice President Richard Nixon.

1965: House Minority Leader

After six years in power, Halleck got a taste of his own medicine in the form of a challenge from Rep. Gerald Ford (R-Mich.).

In 1963, Ford had won a somewhat unexpected victory for Conference Chairman against an older candidate, then plotted a similar victory in 1965 against Halleck after another disappointing election for Republicans.

Drawing from the old Halleck playbook, Ford presented himself as more youthful and energetic than his opponent, and he was able to gather the support of enough impatient fellow Republicans — including a young Illinois Congressman named Donald Rumsfeld — to topple Halleck.

Halleck retired three years later. Ford went on to become vice president and then president.

1971: Senate Majority Whip

This contest between two Senate titans, Sens. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), was partially decided by the deathbed vote of a third legend of the chamber.

In 1969, Kennedy had scored something of an upset by ousting Sen. Russell Long (D-La.) from the post of Whip. Two years later, with his eye on a possible presidential bid, Kennedy was himself blindsided by Byrd.

The West Virginian, whom Roll Call speculated at the time “must be one heck of a poker player,” went into the contest thinking it might be decided by the proxy vote of Sen. Richard Russell (D), who was in the hospital suffering from lung disease.

When the dust settled, Byrd emerged victorious, 31 to 24. Russell’s proxy vote for Byrd may have been his last political act, as he died soon after on the opening day of the 92nd Congress.

1976: House Majority Leader

On Dec. 9, 1976, Roll Call ran a story across its front page with the headline: “Survey Shows Burton Ahead in House Majority Leader Race.”

The story asserted that Rep. Phil Burton (D-Calif.) had a “commanding lead” in the Majority Leader race over Reps. Jim Wright (D-Texas), Richard Bolling (D-Mo.) and John McFall (D-Calif.).

Roll Call was right. Sort of.

On the first ballot, Burton garnered 106 votes, Bolling 81, Wright 77 and McFall 31. McFall dropped out and threw his backers to Wright, allowing the Texan to edge Bolling for second place on the next ballot by two votes.

With the momentum swinging his way and a coalition of moderates and conservatives behind him, Wright edged out the liberal Burton on the third ballot, 148 to 147.

The victory paved the way for Wright to eventually succeed Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.). In 1989, the Texan was brought down by allegations of impropriety pushed by a cadre of aggressive young conservatives led by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), himself a future Speaker later toppled in part due to ethics concerns.

1984: Senate Majority Leader

Before Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) could make a name for himself as a Senate leader and, eventually, the 1996 GOP presidential nominee, he first had to navigate a hard-fought, five-way race for the chamber’s top job.

With Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) retiring, the race to replace him included GOP Sens. Pete Domenici (N.M.), Dick Lugar (Ind.), James McClure (Idaho), Ted Stevens (Alaska) and Dole.

McClure, a stalwart conservative, was eliminated on the first ballot. Next to go was Domenici, followed by Lugar. On the final vote, Dole was able to outmaneuver Stevens, 28 to 25.

In addition to installing Dole as leader, the race also set off a chain reaction in the committees. The Kansan was succeeded as Finance Committee chairman by Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), while Lugar took over the gavel of Foreign Relations, postponing the ascension to that post of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).

Stevens, who had been Majority Whip before losing to Dole, never ran for leadership again and instead devoted his full attention to committee assignments, including an eventual stint as Appropriations chairman.

1989: House Minority Whip

This race essentially marked the end of one promising leadership career and the launch of another. The victory of Gingrich over Rep. Ed Madigan (R-Ill.) exposed fissures among House Republicans, driving old-school moderates apart from a new breed of conservative lawmakers.

The Whip position opened up when Rep. Dick Cheney (R-Wyo.) was chosen to be Defense secretary by the first Bush administration after the White House’s original choice, John Tower, went down in flames.

Cheney’s departure prompted an unexpected March leadership race between Madigan, who had the support of Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.), and Gingrich, who had bolstered his standing among conservatives by consistently attacking Wright. As Roll Call put it in a March 16, 1989, headline, “‘Schizophrenic’ GOP Forced to Choose Between Polar Opposites for New Whip.”

Ultimately, in a rebuke to Michel’s moderate approach, Gingrich beat Madigan by two votes, 87 to 85. Madigan lost despite the fact that his campaign was run by two budding expert vote-counters, future Speaker Hastert and future Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

In a notable understatement, after Gingrich’s win, Michel predicted, “It’ll be a more aggressive style on our side, I’m sure.”

1992: House Republican Conference Chairman

While the Conference chairman post was at the time only the third-ranking GOP leadership post, this hard-fought contest between Reps. Dick Armey (R-Texas) and Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) was another omen of things to come.

Armey beat Lewis 88 to 84 with the ample assistance of a largely united Texas Republican delegation. In a statement after his loss, Lewis said the result made clear that “Texans stick together and Californians do not. Texas’ solid backing and a divided California delegation were the difference in this race.”

Armey’s victory marked yet another blow for conservatives against the moderate wing of the party represented by Michel. On the same day Armey won, the conservative DeLay was also elected Conference Secretary over centrist Rep. Nancy Johnson (Conn.).

Like Stevens following his loss to Byrd, Lewis decided never to run for leadership again. Instead, he, like Stevens, concentrated on moving up the Appropriations Committee ladder, ultimately becoming chairman earlier this year.

1994: Senate Majority Whip

Just as the House Republican leadership got younger and more conservative in the early 1990s, so too did the Senate GOP in the bellwether Whip contest between Sens. Trent Lott (Miss.) and Alan Simpson (Wyo.).

Simpson was the incumbent Whip and a 26-year Senate veteran, facing a challenger who was just completing his first term in the chamber after having held the Republican Whip post in the House.

Lott prevailed on a 27-to-26 vote, despite the fact that Dole and many senior Senate Republicans backed Simpson. The victory paved the way for Lott to become Majority Leader when Dole left the chamber to run for president in 1996.

1994: Senate Minority Leader

On the same day that Lott edged Simpson, Democrats held their own tough leadership fight between Sens. Tom Daschle (S.D.) and Chris Dodd (Conn.).

Daschle began campaigning for the job in early 1994, expecting to face Sen. Jim Sasser (Tenn.). But Sasser lost his re-election bid in November to a young Republican surgeon from Tennessee named Bill Frist, and Democrats lost the majority. So instead of running for Majority Leader against Sasser, Daschle ran for Minority Leader against Dodd. 

Both Sen. Wendell Ford (Ky.), the Democratic Whip, and Byrd had backed Sasser and then shifted their allegiance to Dodd. But it wasn’t enough to beat Daschle, who eked out a 24-to-23 victory.

Daschle went on to lead his party in the Senate for 10 years before losing his own re-election battle to former Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.) in 2004. Dodd soothed his wounds by becoming chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Corrected, 3:08 p.m.: An earlier version of this post misidentified the position involved in the leadership race in 1971.  It was a Senate whip election." 

The New Democrat 

Those are some good Congressional leadership races from both the House and Senate that David Eldridge wrote for Roll Call back in 2005. I'll start with 2005 because that is one I personally remember and lived through it especially as a Democrat. Because it had happened about a month after President Bush is reelected in November, 2004 and defeated Senator John Kerry the same Secretary of State John Kerry. 

But something else happened that night when John Thune defeated the then Senate Democratic Leader the Minority Leader Tom Daschle in the North Dakota Senate race. The number one ranking Democratic member of Congress goes down that night a great night for Congressional Republicans in both the House and Senate and of course for President George W. Bush. And because of the Dashcle loss Senate Democrats who were in the minority facing the fact they would be entering the next Congress still as the minority party, but with four fewer members down from 49-45 seats. Going up against a Republican Senate, a Republican House and a Republican President and having to elect a new Minority Leader. 

2005 and in the 107th Congress as Senate Minority Leader is where Harry Reid becomes a big name and one of the most powerful Democrats in the United States. He united the Senate Democratic Caucus behind him and against any partisan legislation that the Republican House Senate over that the Republican Senate wanted to pass. Social Security reform/privatization being a perfect example of that. To go along with the House passed border control only immigration reform bill. Both went down to defeat because Senate Democrats led by Harry Reid were able to block them. Minority Leader Reid becomes Senate Leader Reid in the next Congress when Democrats won back Congress. And Leader Reid has had that title ever since. 

Other leadership races that stand out for me are Gerry Ford in 1964 just after LBJ is elected in a landslide as President. With Democrats adding to their huge Democratic majorities in Congress. And Gerry Ford becoming House Minority Leader in the 1965-66 Congress with smaller numbers than the previous Congress. But being able to unite the House Republican Conference to go along with right-wing Southern Democrats in the House and Senate against the Democratic Leadership in the House and Senate and President Johnson when they tried to pass their own partisan agenda. 

Bob Dole becoming Senate Leader in 1985 replacing Howard Backer which put Leader Dole in a position he would hold for eleven years as Senate Republican Leader both Leader and as Minority Leader. And a strong presidential contender as a national Republican leader. And 1989 with Newt Gingrich taking over for Dick Cheney as House Minority Whip the second ranking House Republican. And had Newt not obtained that position probably doesn't become Speaker of the House at least not by 1995 when he got the job. 

All of these Congressional leadership races are very interesting at least to me as political junky and a political history junky. And they all deserve blogs and perhaps books written about each one. So trying to cover all of them justly in one blog is difficult. But something that deserves to be written about in deep detail.

Roll Call: David Hawkings: 'Could Margaret Thatcher Win a GOP Primary?'

Source:Roll Call- with an inside look into the mind of David Hawkings. Enter at your own risk.

"An abiding aphorism for the Republican Party’s rightward shift is that Ronald Reagan  couldn’t win a party primary today. Something very similar could be said of Margaret Thatcher.

The ocean of hagiography that poured out from congressional conservatives after her death Monday belies a simple truth. A quick read of the Thatcher record reveals a lot of daylight between the way she ran Britain in the 1980s and the way the GOP would run the federal government now.

To be sure, there is enough similarity to support the effusive nature of the tributes from the American lawmakers, so many of whom came of age when she was prime minister and view her as an ideological and stylistic role model for the current age of unapologetically confrontational politics.

“There was no secret to her values — hard work and personal responsibility — and no nonsense at all in her leadership,” said Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, who might expect to be remembered with a similar sort of epitaph someday. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hailed her as “an iconic symbol of the transformative power of conservative ideas.”

Beyond that, it’s undeniably true that Thatcherism’s central tenets are at the core of what the members of today’s GOP espouse almost universally: Nations do best when the hardworking and self-reliant are given plenty of individual liberty and economic freedom to pursue prosperity, and such democracies have a duty to repel aggression by governments that would control the lives of their people. 

It’s that mission statement that Republicans have in mind when they cite, as they often do, one of the many maxims attributed to Thatcher: “You have to win the argument before you can win the election.”

And so, as a comprehensive assessment of her record is spooled out, many senators and House members may be taken aback by evidence that her free-market vision was not quite as unambiguous as her eulogists describe.

Most jarring — to a GOP that has spent so much energy in the past three years trying to stop, repeal or replace Obamacare — Thatcher never wavered in her support for Britain’s government-run health care system, which really does live up to the Republican “socialized medicine” epithet. While Thatcher privatized many other government-run industries, from airlines to steel mills, the National Health Service she left alone, hailing it in her memoir as “a service of which we could genuinely be proud” for both its cost-effectiveness and quality of care.

Hill Republicans who say that cutting taxes and spending is the best way to stimulate growth will be disappointed to learn that Thatcher’s fiscal record doesn’t support them. Government spending as a share of the British economy increased during the first seven years of her administration, and taxes were a 2 percent bigger share of the country’s gross domestic product when she left office in 1990 than when she arrived 11 years before.

The main reason is that her signature 1979 income tax cut was revenue-neutral, paid for by almost doubling the country’s value-added tax. That earned her derision from economist Arthur Laffer, godfather of the modern congressional GOP theory of “dynamic scoring.” And during last year’s presidential primaries, when Mitt Romney said he’d be open to a national sales tax as part of an IRS overhaul, the Newt Gingrich campaign derided such talk of “European socialism.”

It’s that mission statement that Republicans have in mind when they cite, as they often do, one of the many maxims attributed to Thatcher: “You have to win the argument before you can win the election.”

And so, as a comprehensive assessment of her record is spooled out, many senators and House members may be taken aback by evidence that her free-market vision was not quite as unambiguous as her eulogists describe.

Most jarring — to a GOP that has spent so much energy in the past three years trying to stop, repeal or replace Obamacare — Thatcher never wavered in her support for Britain’s government-run health care system, which really does live up to the Republican “socialized medicine” epithet. While Thatcher privatized many other government-run industries, from airlines to steel mills, the National Health Service she left alone, hailing it in her memoir as “a service of which we could genuinely be proud” for both its cost-effectiveness and quality of care.

Hill Republicans who say that cutting taxes and spending is the best way to stimulate growth will be disappointed to learn that Thatcher’s fiscal record doesn’t support them. Government spending as a share of the British economy increased during the first seven years of her administration, and taxes were a 2 percent bigger share of the country’s gross domestic product when she left office in 1990 than when she arrived 11 years before.

The main reason is that her signature 1979 income tax cut was revenue-neutral, paid for by almost doubling the country’s value-added tax. That earned her derision from economist Arthur Laffer, godfather of the modern congressional GOP theory of “dynamic scoring.” And during last year’s presidential primaries, when Mitt Romney said he’d be open to a national sales tax as part of an IRS overhaul, the Newt Gingrich campaign derided such talk of “European socialism.” 

From Roll Call

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Roll Call: Stuart Rothenberg: 'Can President Obama Put the House In Play in 2014?'

Source:Roll Call- columnist Stuart Rothenberg.

"Over the past few weeks, I have heard some people suggest that President Barack Obama’s strategy in pursuing his legislative agenda is more about creating issues for the 2014 midterm elections than about passing legislation.

Whether that is true, it leads to an obvious question: Is the president able to put the House back into Democratic hands, even if he wants to?

Electing a Democratic House next year would allow Obama to push a more unapologetically liberal agenda in his final two years, which he clearly would prefer. And it certainly sounds as if he will be more active during the 2014 midterms than he was in 2010, when his party saw a net loss of 63 House seats and fell into the minority.

He has already committed to holding at least 14 fundraisers for his party’s two congressional campaign committees, including eight for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which will lead the party’s charge to net at least 17 House seats in 2014. He’s also told DCCC Chairman Steve Israel of New York that he will help with candidate recruitment.

It’s far too early to know whether Democrats will have some, or even any, chance to win back the House next year; candidate recruitment has just begun, the number of retirements (and open seats) is uncertain and the president’s popularity more than 20 months from now is an open question. But we do know that history, as The New York Times’ Nate Silver pointed out in a column last November, suggests that Democrats will have a very tough road to 218 seats.

Going back to the election of 1862, the only time the president’s party gained as many as 10 seats was, well, never. Even in 1934, the best showing by the president’s party in House elections since the Civil War, the president’s party gained only nine seats.

In 1998, Democrats gained a handful of seats during Bill Clinton’s second midterm (five), and Republicans gained a somewhat larger handful during George W. Bush’s first midterm (eight). But in each case, unusual circumstances — post-impeachment fallout in 1996 and political fallout from the attacks of 9/11 (plus redistricting) in 2002 — help account for the atypical results.

So, while midterm elections have produced some huge swings well in excess of 17 seats recently — in 2010, 2006, 1994 and 1982, for example — all of those swings were in the favor of the party not holding the White House.

Of course, Obama can hope to break that historical “rule,” just as he broke the rule that no president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had won re-election with an unemployment rate over 7.2 percent. Historical rules seem to be falling regularly these days. But the demise of swing districts, documented by the Cook Political Report and by Silver, narrows the playing field dramatically.

Democrats are in the unenviable position of needing to win a large percentage of the small number of seats in play, which, in turn, allows the National Republican Congressional Committee to target its resources to defend those relatively few seats. 

The president has proved to be a strong fundraiser, and he can surely raise money for the Democratic campaign committees and for individual candidates, if he so chooses. And that cash can help produce TV spots and direct-mail pieces, fund phone banks and help organize and mobilize volunteers. But lack of resources is not why Democrats lost the House in 2010 or why they did not get it back in 2012.

Maybe the biggest thing that Obama could do for his party is boost turnout among Democratic voter groups next year.

Midterm electorates tend to be whiter and older than presidential-year electorates, so turning out an electorate that looks more like 2012 (72 percent white, 19 percent 18- to 29-year-olds) than 2010 (78 percent white, 11 percent 18- to 29-year-olds) would help Democratic prospects.

But since the president will not be on the ballot next year, he will have to prove that his popularity can be transferred to other Democratic candidates or, more generally, to his party.

Of course, all of this assumes that Obama’s popularity will remain intact. He and his party seem to be outwitting the opposition at every turn and on almost every issue right now, but second presidential terms have a way of going downhill, and no one can be sure of the president’s standing 20 months from now. 

I’ll be taking a much deeper dive into the DCCC’s recent memo about the fight for the House in the near future. But for now, it’s best to start the cycle by being skeptical that Democrats can add another 17 seats in the House, even if the president makes that a high priority. 

From Roll Call