Parties in Government II: Congress

Committees and the Simulation

New data on the composition of the parties

"A Protracted Era of Partisan Parity" -- It Was Not Always So

ChrisnHouston - File:Control of the U.S. Senate.PNG File:Control of the U.S. House of Representatives.PNG

Four Strategic Postures Since 1980 (House, by election year)

                                                Majority                      Minority

            Pres Party                    Dems 92, 08                GOP 80-92,06

                                                GOP 00, 02, 04, 16      Dem  94-00 10,12,14

           

            Out Party                    GOP 94-00 10,12,14     GOP 08

                                                Dem 80-92, 06             Dem 00, 02, 04, 16

Hill leadership

• House
• Senate

Edmund Burke:

 In all bodies, those who will lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the taste, talent, and disposition, of those whom they wish to conduct: therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will prevent the men of talent disseminated through it from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects!

Speakership Elections

Factions and Member Organizations

Note:  even majorities of the president's party may split with the administration agenda.  See Democrats on trade in 1993 and 2014.