Jun 24, 2005

Changing Congress

by Cliopatria

For those who missed it, an important study in this morning's Times on the changing nature of Congress. Tracking roll-call votes, social scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal note the dramatic decline in centrists in both the House and the Senate over the last half-century. The figures in the House: a drop from 33 percent in 1955 to 8 percent in 2004. The plunge in the Senate is from 39 senators in 1955 to just 9 senators five decades later.

The speculated causes, according to congressional scholar Norman Ornstein: congressional redistricting, the permanent campaign style, the change toward more politically partisan media. Ornstein believes (as do I) that the former is the most important in killing off centrism. But the drawing of partisan House district lines doesn't explain the equally dramatic decline among centrists in the Senate. Here, it seems to me, we need to consider a few other factors:

1.) The increasing inability of Democrats to compete in Senate elections in predominantly Republican states. In the past, such senators (for electoral necessity, if for no other reason) tended toward centrism. In the 2004 presidential election, Bush took 60% of the vote or more in 14 states: Utah (71%), Wyoming (69%), Idaho (68%), Nebraska (66%), Oklahoma (66%), Alabama (63%), North Dakota (63%), Alaska (62%), Kansas (62%), Texas (61%), and South Dakota, Kentucky, Indiana, and Mississippi (each with 60%). A quarter-century ago, in 1980, these states sent 14 Democrats to the Senate--ID: Frank Church; NB: James Exon and Ed Zorinsky; OK: David Boren; AB: Howell Heflin and Don Stewart; ND: Quentin Burdick; Alaska: Mike Gravel; TX: Lloyd Bentsen; SD: George McGovern; KY: Dee Huddleston and Wendell Ford; IN: Birch Bayh; MS: John Stennis. (And even Utah and Wyoming were only four years out each from having had their last Democrat in the Senate--Ted Moss and Gale McGee, both of whom were moderates.) In 2005, these same 14 states sent 5 Democrats to the Senate--NB: Ben Nelson; ND: Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan; SD: Tim Johnson; IN: Evan Bayh.

2.) The increasing unwillingness of Republican electorates (outside of Rhode Island) to nominate moderate or liberal Republicans. In 1972, the Senate GOP caucus included such moderate or liberal members as Ed Brooke (MA), George Aiken and Robert Stafford (VT), Lowell Weicker (CT), Jacob Javits (NY), Clifford Case (NJ), Charles Mathias (MD), Charles Percy (IL), and John Sherman Cooper (KY). (With the exception of Stafford and Percy, any of this list would now be the most liberal Senate Republican if they were alive and serving today.) Of this list, Case and Javits were both defeated by conservative primary opponents; Cooper's state party was taken over by conservatives led by Mitch McConnell, and Aiken, Mathias, Percy, Brooke, and Weicker were all replaced by Democrats--the latter three involuntarily.

3.) The enormous financial resources required to run for the Senate. Senate races today are so expensive that except for wealthy self-funders, it's almost impossible to stand for the Senate without appealing to the base: there's no centrist equivalent to moveon.org or the Christian Coalition that will help raise the needed funds for moderate Senate candidates.

That people such as Lindsey Graham, John Warner, Robert Byrd, or Dan Inouye could (accurately) be considered what passes for a centrist in today's Senate suggests that the centrist bloc in the upper chamber is likely to continue to erode.

More Comments:

Ralph E. Luker - 6/25/2005

Sherman, Are you claiming that George McGovern was a centrist?

Sherman Jay Dorn - 6/25/2005

Wait a gosh-darned minute. In 1980, Republican challengers defeated Church, McGovern, Bayh, and five others, as part of the first Reagan-election coattails.

In addition, Byrd has always been an iconoclast, much more typical of early-century Senators than you might think, from his successful pork harvesting to his parliamentary maneuvering and his vituperative anti-busing stance in the 1970s.

Ralph E. Luker - 6/24/2005

You bet, Michael. The Senate is a better place because they are there. Snowe's one of my favorite pols.

Michael R. Davidson - 6/24/2005

Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from my home state of Maine would certainly fall into the 'Liberal to Moderate' category - along with Chafee they are among the last elected representatives of the Republican party which I grew up in (with Margaret Chase Smith as the principle role model). Both survived major primary battles (in some of which I was a footsoldier) during their earlier careers with candidates from the religious right, but IMHO thankfully came out winners.

Cheers,
Mike Davidson

Derek Charles Catsam - 6/24/2005

Actually, I meant "on" rather than "of" (my problem was with the preposition, and not the verb): The GOP seems more concerned with imposing itself on its members. By that I mean of imposing a certain level of order on its members. Obviously party discipline is important, and in many years it has seemed as if the Democrats have not had enough of it. At the same time, it would seem that one of the rudimentary requirements of a representative democracy would be that members of any party still first and foremost should represent their constituency in the way they understand best. When a liberal Republican from a liberal state is ostracized for his politics, we know we have come a long way from the politicians you mentioned in your initial comment.

dc

Ralph E. Luker - 6/24/2005

"imposing"? Do we mean "disposing"?

Derek Charles Catsam - 6/24/2005

In an era when people believed in something known as "The Vital Center," centrism was not only valued, it was ascendant. But today there is almost no reward for centrism. I think this is especially so among Republicans these days, where being a centrist gets you branded -- just ask Senator Chafee up in Rhode Island about how his colleagues treat him. Liebraman and other Democrats seem to me to embody centrism. Hell, Clinton, Gore, Kerry -- if these guys are not centrists, I do not know who is. The DLC's raison d'etre is centrism. I realize that the Congressional study would not include these prominent Democrats, of course, but it satill seems to me that the GOP is very much more concerned with imposing itself of its members than the Democrats.
dc

Ralph E. Luker - 6/24/2005

Thanks for this post, KC, even though it feels almost like the tombstone over my own political grave. John Sherman Cooper was my boyhood political hero and I think the Senate would be a much better place if more people with instincts like those of Aiken, Brooke, Mathias and Javitz were there now.