A bit on may 19th a professor of law and taxation at the university of virginia law school, and a former chief of staff of the joint committee on ten sanction will speak about his research and that committees records and history of the joint committee. And on may 26, we host another professor of Political Science science he will discuss her research on a book manuscript about the politics of National Identification documents in the United States, in the 20th century. An Important Mission of the center is promoting Scholar Research in the records of the senate, the house of representatives, and advancing the stony of the history of congress. This researcher top series helps us gauge fully that mission is being met, and we do so by regularly hosting scholars who have conducted research in the house of the senate record, or who have written significant books in the history of congress. And todays a much anticipated talk, we hear about one of those very significant looks on the history of congress. Our guest charles stewart, had marvelous research top last november, on a book that he coauthored with Wendy Schuller electing the senate in direct democracy because before the 17th amendment. At the time, the battle over who would succeed the speaker was a finally dying down in the agreed to return it here to discuss the history of electing the speaker of the house. He has given todays top enticing title, speaker battles, then and now. The top informed by a book called fighting for the senate, the house in the rise of Party Government. Which i highly, highly recommend. Charles, longtime friend to the center, is a distinguished professor of Political Science at mit. Where he has taught since 1985. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of arts and sciences. In addition to the two books have already mentioned, charles is also the author of a wonderful textbook analyzing congress. And it did with theresa nelson, the indispensable to volume communities and the United States congress. Thank you very much for being here today with us, charles. And letting us host to. We should have a few minutes for campaigning after the presentation but before you ask a question please raise your hand, so we can passed a microphone and you can be heard. Thank, you charles. So thank you. Its great to be here. Again, as richard was saying, a few months ago when i was gonna be giving a talk about, actually a more recent book, which im not sure about Senate Elections before the 19th amendment. Right as the john boehner was eventually swept off the stage, and i suggested to richard well maybe i should talk about speaker elections. And he said no, wanted to talk about the senate and advertize . But, you can come back next year. Thats one im doing here. And, when i was here last time, i also just had to say that repeating this time its a real thrilled to be speaking here. Richard didnt mention like my first book, which was about budget reform in history, the history of budget reform, basically was written in this building when i was a graduate student first as a dissertation, and then later on. So this was in the 1980s, but when you got off. Last time we get off the archives eventually stopped, you would go just fast as you could across the street. Because it was a very different neighborhood 30, 40 years ago, than it is today. You couldnt go across the street and sit in front of a bakeries and eat croissants and all of those sort of things. I think it was to canadians who upped the quality of the neighborhood on the street. So in any case, its really great to be here. Also, really interesting, in these talks to be reminded that although, in my life as a congressional historian, i do my work because i just love the stories, and i find really interesting. And they have helped to build a sub field of congressional history with a few of the Political Science, which you will discover is quite different than when it would look like if it were in the field of history. We study these things because we love them, there is Great Stories they have not been told. And history this days is about political institutions, we can complain about the history. Some of us on the field is, stay if we like. But the main thing is that ive discovered this book actually become relevant. So i was talking about the passages of the 17th amendment, how elections happened before the 17th amendment. When i got into that project, i didnt realize that they would be for movement, actually to repeal him in tenth amendment, and go back to state legislation. In fact, ted cruz favors renewing the 17th amendment. So its become a current topic. But likewise, i first started thinking about first running about the speakerships, with various interests. And some other that i will talk about. In i have some currency itself. So when im gonna be talking about is speaker battles or how and why did the party stop airing their dirty laundry on the floor, and why doesnt he just . Today i must even him talking about the book. That richards and so nicely advertised for us. And then i realize i was putting together the top and although i would much prefer to kind of do the play by play announcement for more recent speakership battles. It turns out that since no one knows the old battles, time it might be useful just to give the Historical Context and come back at the end, and see a bit about why they agreed to which current battles over the speakership share features with the past. And the degree to which in fact they are really a bad comparisons to the past, out well. So my interest in oh and by the way, i should note for those of you who are really interested in this. Jeff jenkins and i have to monkey cage blog posts in the last year. Where we do try to bring together to fight over maine or to retain his seat. And these older stories i will be telling you about, if you just google monkey cage stewart speaker can find this on the washington post. So the speaker should battles, as well as im interested in the senate battles. And i became interested when i started reading a little bit into the history of congress. So there wasnt a lot about the history of congress when i was back in, school but i discovered that there had been battles before the civil war for the speakership. This is the picture from our color of the book. This is a celebration in the election of nuts annual banks, the speaker in 1855. And i discovered it was quite common, not only to have uncertainty about who this speaker might be incumbent on congress. But there could be battles on the house floor that would go on for days, and weeks, and months. And this just seemed really cool. An exactly the sort of thing that you want to pick on, after you get tenure, not before. So i got tenure, and i got to do these fun things. And, i started to piece together, the history in project maduro was their first one. Turns out although it wasnt nearly a 60 or exciting as an election as a dangle banks. Nonetheless a very great speaker, had to endure a multi ballot contest to be elected. So it turns out that he used to be very very calm, not just a famous case of nathanael banks. Very calm in the antebellum period to have multiple ballots for election, into have real fights. And ill come back to that. And when i started, coincidence, the speaker of the house when i started this project in fast forward to the president. Although maybe this might be for some maybe this would be more pleasant. But when i started the project if you were to fast forward to the president , he would see quite a different story. He would say almost a come bulky theater set on performances upon the convening of every house of representatives every two years. Where somebody leading the Majority Party would nominate someone for speaker, and somebody from the Minority Party would not need a speaker. And there would be a vote and surprise, surprise all the democrats would vote for the democrat enquirer had the majority and chamber would win. And everyone would go off and have, drinks and celebrate and be happy. Well actually, there is a resolution that would ensure, no longer the printer, allow the officers of the house, and then very soon after that, very very simple. And that there would be caucuses ahead of time, to nominate the two parties. There will be, leaders but they will be very wellknown for these nominees would be. And, if there were disagreement, and there have been disagreements and fight for the leadership of the party. But theyve all been contained within the party, within the caucus. So the caucus a site, that was the world basically for everybody in this room, in our lifetimes, that is basically the story. Nancy pelosi, getting closer to actually our book being done, a decade later. Pelosi began to run into trouble. And welcome back to this, i hope all have time. In fact, i will have time, only time for it. That many of you will recall that after the show lacking the democrats took in 2010, and actually in the run up to that election, there was active talk among many democrats, especially involved democrats, that nancy pelosi has to go. And up there was a bit of a rebellion within the realm democratic party, that she survived in nonetheless, if the democrats had help the house in 2010, history couldve been very, very different. By the time we roll into finishing our book, john boehner had been elected speaker and strong clouds were on the horizon. And as they mentioned several times, here you go here is his second election as speaker. And we see that he had a bunch of votes, and nancy pelosi had a bunch of votes. And then a bunch of other people get a bunch of those. And all these stories are next to republicans. So this oldworld has been gone to fray. This is even before last year, when it keyport group within the tea Party Started circulating a petition to declare the chair of the house vacant. And basically to depose boehner. This of course didnt happen, paul ryan got to be speaker. But nonetheless, that wouldve been routine quite different. If lying, and you all would recall, the speculation about ryan. And although a lot of work happen behind the scenes, there was a big chance that if brian hadnt taken the position, it couldve been chaos. We havent seen that in the long run. So its a new world, and when i want to come back to at the end of this top is the really old world, cant help to inform the new world. So, very quickly, let me first just give you an overview of what happens in this book. Which by the way its probably the last 450 page book ever to be but lift in Political Science. [laughs] we start in the earliest, years with the speakership being decided in contest in a quasipartisan. By which i mean, Political Parties grew up in the early period of the republic, but in the early days, the earliest few decades ill give some specifics in just a bit. There werent caucuses, in the way that we understand them now. There oftentimes uncertainty, even with one of the parties had a majority. Whoever the speaker would be. And once the speaker was decided, it was not necessarily determine who would be on the committees, who would be a position to cheddar. Eventually, and early in the antebellum period, speakership contest became structured around partisanship. And around ideology. And this is kind of in the late antebellum period, we are really fun fights happen. It is circumstances, that are still informal caucuses. They are not the type of caucuses we have right now. It wasnt always clear, whats the implications of the speaker being chosen were. And it certainly was not an expectation of the caucus nominee would be supported by everybody in the party. Nonetheless it became partisan and the the really important thing this is the world many of us of live through, all of us above through this. Because after the civil war, very interesting timing during a civil war after the civil war. The organization of the house became very very regular. It became regular in such a way thats, jeff and i referred to this as a cartel. By which not only did the Majority Party control, not only all of the offices but that expectations fell from that. The Majority Party would actually control legislation in the house. That depended on there being certainty that the majority caucus would come to the defense of the nominee as speaker. And once that happened, the world was really different. That is the world that may or may not be and this is a world that was built up, in the period from the civil war up until the speakership of one of the most famous speakers. For those of you who are professional congress geeks, speaker read. Basically in that three decade period. Grows up, becomes really mature in the early twenties. And then one last thing, we discover in the process that the speaker was the tip of the iceberg. Just in terms of the story. One of the things we did not expect, we thought we were telling a bunch of knock down drag out rock him saw come robots fights about the speakership. When we discovered about the antebellum period, there are offices and oftentimes those offices were as important if not more important to members of the house and the speakership. In many ways, maybe more important for the development of parties and the speakership at those times. Those include, the printer. Those include the clerk, the sergeant and arms and once there was a fight on who the chapel was gonna be. From the chapel deposed in a partisan. Theres a lot of interesting stuff, especially antebellum. This is where we talk about the development of Party Government, this conglomeration of offices, in the antebellum period, are in the eye of martin van buren. Who is americas great party thinker. He has a theory about how you can get all these things together, and he can control national politics. So its not just the speaker, its everything. This is a vision test, i used to be able to read this. There is a table of contents in the book, there is a bunch of upended sees, so for use of you who by the book, not only do we have blow by blow chapters, really focusing on the precivil war and then we have postof the war. One chapter for post civil war period, that tells you something about these fights. We have a bunch of upend in seas, so if you are interested in all the balloting, or all these offices that i just we have the numbers. We have sources, likewise. We have gone through, we have actually collected sources and numbers about the caucus battles. So where the speakers came from, etc. Its all in there. Relying on a bunch of data sources, instead of historical ones. The various recordings, the journals, the debates as well as the party and other newspapers. Primarily a documentary study. Unfortunately, not too much in the archives. So, let me just quickly, and this is the rest of the top. I will probably skip over the Political Science part, it was not important. Ill do a slightly more detailed overview of the speaker elections probably jump over talking about voting and get to nine critical elections, which i think help inform how we think about the problem that john had. And that ryan has had. So why study this . One of the things i just want to know is, there is a number of questions intellectually about studying speakership. Speakership fights. Some of them we can just call them purely historical. A lot of really interesting as a threat of questions. There are larger issues as well that i have already talked, about for instance, there are still questions remaining about the evolution of Party Parties are not in the constitution, as you know. They have to be built, and then that together, i have by the way one of my little movements being a fan of the presidency, is that there is something in american politics known as the president ial synthesis of american politics. I want to build the congressional synthesis of american politics. I think there is meat here for the building of that congressional synthesis. And finally, this is kind of like the Political Science in question. But its a really hard question. Embedded in how we is the type of election that we are about to see in cleveland. And that Election Form is, majority requirement. No entry barriers, how do those get resolved . A convention in cleveland, how does that resolve . Speakership is the same thing. To get elected speaker, you need a majority anyone can be nominated. You can vote for anybody. There is a deadlock how do you resolve . Its a really hard question. As well as practically. Couple of possible unifying stories, i will skip over that. You do want to see Political Science. You probably want to hear more about let me give you now a little more of a chronology of the period. We break down the period into one two three four five periods. The first period up to 1811 is the preinstitutional period. It is the period of johnny limburg, and as with speaker vinyl. There is usually one of two ballots, always have some speakers for a while. This is a number of ballots, we actually do not know. It is not even in the journal how much were in the ballots. Newspapers have accounts, so we have the number of ballots, who the speakers were. Informal nomination, sometimes the Majority Party gets a speakership, sometimes not. I would not say its lacks a days ago, but its not as high powered and as focused as it becomes later on. Especially after the 12th congress of henry clay. Henry clay is one of the great monumental figures, not just in American History, but in the institutional death that lippman of the house of representatives. Clay comes, and become speaker, and makes a number of institutional changes to turn the house into kind of a protocol incipient version of which we see now. By which we mean, committees, standing committees, strong speaker controlling the floor those sorts of things. During this period, clay allows people to see the values john presiding officer, and speaker should becomes more valuable. Individual politicians met for the party. However, without very strong clay is able to get elected speaker because of the force of personality, maybe i dont know. Theres a lot of reasons, actually i still am kind of puzzled. Clay always gets elected speaker so easily, he comes and goes. Yes gambling thats, negotiate streets. Whatever he leaves during this period, clay shows up from time to time. He leaves for instance in the middle of 16th congress. Taylor gets elected speaker. Clay comes back comes back hes right back in. Taylor again, to ballots. So there is no guarantee that things are going to be resolved really quickly, if you are not henry clay. Interesting thing happens in 1839, before 18th he died, i see could ballot. If i dont have time in the culinary to talk about this, in 1839, the house starts voting the way they do now. Live voice, out loud. And that changes a lot. Obvious thing is, we now know how individual members of carter is our voting. If you are constituent, you can observe this. If your party lured, you can observe this. You can imagine how it is going to change. And this period from 1939, 65 is the one that has the many many deadlocks. Most famous ones. So you can see, when kabul is elected and 31st congress, banks 133 ballots. Carbs, 63. Pennington 44. And on and on. Twice, and there are motions to adjourn the house, just wait for the next elections. Probably the only time in American History, if you read the constitution, the house could not do that. Because they cant adjourn unless the senate says. That is the only time in American History, it would deprivation can actually matter. So the senate wouldve said, now you gotta write this one up. But imagine this, on the eve of what became the civil, Congress Almost said thats just go home. We cannot solve this. After the civil war, things really changed. You do not see any numbers by the speakers. So no more multi ballot affairs. Parties began to nominate speakers, informal caucuses. It becomes a binding caucus. Then there comes a question about the new arrangement weather will stick, and it does. And were on off to the races. After 1991, so, just to talk about the transition for a second. 1891, speaker read, get an important tense moment in history, speaker read basically codify, force of personality by fury of Party Government and by changes of rules, really caughtifies the control of the floor by the Majority Party leadership. So, you now have kind of this nominating caucus, where the Majority Party works now, its problems privately they come to an agreement about who is going to lead. The vanquished, get really a committee assignments. Or promises. And you go to the floor unified. And that is basically the form, that is kind of the system that we think is going to happen right now, and 9 18 anyone. After 1891, it is pretty much one ballot except for 1923, when there is a progressive stall working. Split, nine ballots to elect federal gillette in 1923. That is the episode that has been seen as the most parallel possibly toward boehner has, did experience. And ryan makes parents in the next caucus. But other than 1923, caucuses have made nominations and they have gone through with the Majority Party winning. What is this, this is not a seismograph from oklahoma these days. This is just a visual that is in the book, let me explain it to you. You dont need to know the details to kind of get the importance of the visual. This line right here, so this line right here is reflects how many seats the Majority Party has in the house of representatives. From the first congress, up until the hundred 12 congress. The solid, line the dark line is the fraction of votes received by the top vote getter, from the Majority Party. The first round of voting. And you will notice up till here, it is pretty erratic, oftentimes less than one. Which indicates that oftentimes, the Majority Party could not get everybody to vote. You will notice that things start getting calm around 1870, and it has been pretty calm ever since. And the fact that you this line doesnt get up totally to, one is not because of defections but it is usually just because of absences. This is a slightly different graph, but this is the banner problem, and the ryan problem. Which kind of puts it in context. It is the biggest divergence from the expectation since the civil war, with the one exception of 1920. So this is a big deal, its a really big deal. Im gonna skip over, and you can just believe me that they are really important and interesting, i would love to. Or you can buy the book. This is a visualization, just trying to show visually where the conflicts are. So, each column is a congress from the first, down to the 115th. And this row shows us, when speaker elections kind of blew up, when clark elections blew up, winds aloft and you can see that this comes up to the fifties. And lots of blowing up, up and down the line starting at the 37 the congress, there is only one color and thats a 1923. So things are really, really different. I would also skip over to say this, you can read the slide if you may. The importance of this, i think its one of the great examples of unintended consequences in congress history. The intention of viva voce was to overcome the nagging and promises of the election have the since area officers in the printer. This would game an issue. So van buren other Party Leaders decided the solution to this was to open up voting in public. So we could observe if someone read next, and in the short term it worked. We had a really high spike in Party Loyalty in the next elections. A problem so newspaper editors also started messing. And citizens started noticing. Right at the moment that the nation is beginning to get divided along slavery and other issues. And so, back in the old days, you might be if you are from the south, you might be able to vote from someone for the north. And then claim to your constituents must have been somebody else who voted for the guy, it wasnt me. You cant do that in the more. And in a heightened ideological environment, it was much much harder to get the parties. Plus we had a bunch of data. Let me talk about, theres a bunch over 115 elections of the speaker in american politics, there are no line that i think are particularly worth noting. Im not gonna go through all the details, here. But just note that this really, really quickly, theres a couple of general patterns here. The first one that i would note is the election of 1839, which took 11 ballots over two days. And Robert Hunter ended up being the speaker. The story here was that going into the election nobody knew which party had a majority, to begin with. That layer on top of, this therell was an infamous disputed election in your jersey, what elect their members at large. And it would be the outcome of that disputed election which would determine which had the majority, i took two weeks just to decide what to do with that disputed election. The democrats eventually won that fight, but then they took another two weeks to decide who would be speaker. Hunter, who gets elected, gets elected because the democrats although they end up having majority are not very good at counting votes. So hunter was awake. Although the democrats had a majority. So the outcome here was simply vote counting. For 18 49th and 1855 these are the real danny brooks. 61 ballots over three weeks, where howell cobwebs eventually elected in the 34th congress 113 ballots over two months. In which daniel banks was elected. Just in these elections, all of these were three quarter affairs. And if other congress had been basically closely aligned, where the numbers have been closed it wouldve also had close affairs. By which i mean, there were whigs, or some opposition to the. Democrats anti slavery, and then the democrats, and when i was opposing the democrats, another and southern whigs. So you would basically have these divisions between party and they were slavery slavery. And that is inherently unstable mix in a majority voting. And then in both of these cases, the house eventually decided to select the speaker from plurality vote, from this time in history. It is the only way they can get out of the conundrum. In 36, now were coming into the civil war, hanging from civil rights elected. Very interesting, much more uneasy to understand, by 36 slavery was basically the issue, the 36th congress. And everyone was on this issue. With the democrats basically being the first slave report, any the republicans in a ducks do of other parties who are not democrats a rate against slavery. And here the issue ended up being that a group of, lets call them republicans, just to make it easier, who are not quite as anti slavery as the others, sort of penchant, they would vote for the democrats. In a series of battles. In order to try to move republican parties, kind of more to the left, away from the anti slavery movements. The democrats noticed this. And unbeknownst to the republicans, on one day, they were like the six guys playing chicken voted for democrats, trying to play a mind game in the republican election. The democrats, with a few of the Republican Party, which was pivotal here, they all gang up and voted for the same democratic. As if almost they want to grab the speakership away from the majority. And ended up not happening. Bennington ends up getting speakership, he is a more moderate republican than the person that republicans have been trying to get. 37th congress is really important because this breaks the pattern of airing dirty laundry on the floor would happens in this congress, this is a civil war started. Republicans come in, they decide not to have a caucus, but with the agreed the leadership agreed to do is that there would be a ballot, whichever republican gets to most floors, on the house vote, the second ballot republicans will vote for him. So galusha a. Grow comes in, he gets the most votes. Its not a majority, however, on the very next move the fellow who came in second and i will, tell you at the site of one of the printers, as we saw a few ticket to go, enough people who had voted for blair change their votes so that grow gets the majority. And no more ballot affair. That kind of knocks the legs out under the multi ballot affairs. So from that time forward, the question becomes after the civil war, whether the caucuses will hold on the floor . The first real test comes in 18 find a way i should mention, 1865 was the first time both the democratic and Republican Caucus both came to the floor to make a nomination. So maybe time the moderator of 1865. I can 66 the democrats regained control the house, after the civil war. It was a question whether the democrats were gonna do whether the republicans did, which is to resolve it in a caucus, give out goodies to the people who relinquished, and go to the floor united. They did. 47 to 52 ended up being the Republican Party in the democrat party. In which the parties were divided in three, four, five, seven way contests. There was a question, people were so ticked off at the end of these contests, that there was a question about whether the losers would come and vote for the winner on the floor, and they didnt vote. This was the biggest test, a stress dust up until 1891. So thats a stress test. So really, the last time the whole system pull apart was in 1923. And just to give you a really quick overview, because ive got five more minutes of me talking and then questions. 1923 you will recognize as being a period in which the Republican Party was divided between stalwarts, and they werent called that by, then put the conservatives which was the Largest Group of the party, the progressives. And the republicans had taken ups lacking, and so the progressive ended up being, they were about 24 of them. There was only a 14 vote majority for the republicans. They wanted the leadership of the Republican Party to be more open and de demanded this of the republican leadership. Nicholas long worth said no way, you do when i say. In the congress it okay, fine, seen on the floor. And basically it was a game of just staring, as staring contest for three days. And eventually the congress was told. The threat, kind of behind the door, that the progressives could conceivably go over the two more the democrats. Culturally, they never would have. Theres a lot of reasons why you wouldnt expect that to happen. It happened but it was there, possible, ideologically possible. Progressives, eventually won. And they got some changes to the household. In the 24 election, much better for republicans, progressives are no longer pivotal, the speaker took everything back. He punished the progressives. If you had a really Good Committee assignment, you were taken off that committee. Im in the 24 election you also, if you supported this other kind, and if you are out of the party. If you dont vote for me are the party. To, oh by 26, all the progressives were back on the party. And they came along. So, and i would say that is the period where this practice of who you vote for for speaker determines whos bernie run, really begins. If you dont for the speaker can, and your none of the party, get someone else the service. So very quickly, theres two types of stalemates. We have the three quarter, before the civil war we have a big barney, a little party who was organized along some major dimension. A third bernie and they are like the free soil ares. Whereas there is another pattern that we saw with progressives. We saw fee time in the antebellum period, we had two parties, we had what you had the pivotal insurgents. So those are the two. So, pelosis problem ill tell you what these graphs are saying. Nancy pelosi had problems, as i mentioned earlier on the 2010 election, with the socalled blue dog democrats who ran against the general. Now democrats have their own chief lacking in 2010. So it wasnt like she was nominated for speaker. But at the end of the day, there was a revolt against her continued leadership in the caucus. She lost Something Like 43 votes in the caucus. And 11 members voted against her on the floor for speaker. And some others. This just shows, ideologically, using a common measure of ideology, this is the left in this is a right, republicans are over here. The right doctor where the people who voted against pelosi art. So they are the most conservative democrats. Interesting thing here, this is the ideological location of everybody who Left Congress in 2010 election, on the democratic side. This is intended to remind me, to remind us, that one of the reason the 2010 election was perform the democrats from the democratic congress. So they had organized in 2010, nancy pelosi wouldve been in big trouble, or the democrats wouldve been in big trouble. John boehner we all know had problems, this is a simpler picture than this one. Which shows the ideological location of everybody who voted against him. So the far right. Theres the ideological mapping to be in response. Ryans problems, this is paul ryans problems, and this is thanks to keith pool. Keith did an interesting cloth, which blood every member of the house of representatives said the news that or republican, by this measure that he produces of ideologies. These are the liberals these are the conservatives, the wire access is how many votes members got in the last election. In the pool duster following exercise. It says what if this is as bad and election republicans as people can imagine . Outswinger will be but whatever . So he says what happens if there is a seven point swing away from the public and party in 2016, four house elections . If so, and these republicans lose. This would be an extreme swing, republicans still have a majority but it might only be ten seats. Look at who stays. Further the right you, are the more likely you are to stay. Ryans best hope is still not going to be happy times. When it comes to organizing. If things get even becket better for the democrats, and there is some miracle that the democrats take the house, the democrats come and are likely to be conservative democrats. So nancy pelosi, or whoever the democratic nominee is going to be, is going to be also not in a good shape either. Because of this ideological battle. So, just to wrap up. Considering the past, thinking about the future in the next few years. Think about the current conflicts over the speakership, there is no evidence so far would i call the organizational, there is no evidence that members want to really give up a system. Where the parties organized things internally. Question is whether they can keep the system going. I think there is an argument, that if you kind of just look at the types of very abstract, the types of contests that happen especially before the civil war, and map those types on the current conundrums the democrats and republicans, its actually democrats who have the bigger problem. The democrats, the democrats who would defect from the nominee, are conservative democrats. They could plausibly walk over to the republicans. And organize with the republicans. Not that it would happen, but they can make that credible threat. It has tea party republicans, which they call the suicide caucus. Its his time not mine, they have nowhere ideological to go. They cannot credibly say, if you dont capitulate will vote with the democrats to organize. Its more likely that the Republican Caucus is going to be like the democrats used to be, remember the old saying . Thats true the Republican Party, and that in fact may not be the case. Democrats have more to lose on the floor. Some other things to think about the, is that some of the ways in which the president is really different from the antebellum period, these two points. Theres presently no third force in american politics. So, its the three quarter contests that are the most vexing. And so, if there were a third force, like donald trump starts his own party, then things could get really really nasty. But there isnt, and actually election laws in the states make it really hard for their parties to come along. And finally the party rules, this is a little bit inside baseball but i think its really important. Party rules are different now. But in the old days, nominations were made the night before before congress convened. Now, especially republicans, actually both republicans and democrats, meet right after the election to decide who they are going to nominee for speaker. They have two months to figure this out. The republicans furthermore have a rule, which says that, to nominate will start balloting. If you want a bunch of people who want to be speaker, will take a vote. Person on the bottom gets dropped off. And then will vote again, purse on the bottom just dropped off. So they actually have a rule, and it eventually gets down to a two person contest, and they pick somebody. So there are rules that are very very different. Then the past. And then finally i just have to mention, back to the brokered convention we may have an old style nomination speaker five politics in cleveland this summer. As i mentioned before, a brokered convention in many ways is the same thing as a speaker so thank you. We happy to take questions. Please raise your hand if you have a question. Fascinating talk. I am again wondering about some of the comparative situations here, im thinking of the british system where you also have obviously greater steaks. The person who gets voted on is not just the speaker but is the prime minister. But there is not just that you organize the house of commons, you also determined policy. How far do you actually have Party Government, and the American Congress where you may organize the house, but you still dont have assurance that you have policy . Im thinking of my particular area of tax policy. Theyre a lot of cases were both the chairman of the and House Speaker want something. The members simply dont vote for it. So how much power, do the parties actually have . Not as much i should mention that the very first paper that i wrote when i started this research now, about 20 years ago, had a title the inefficiency and thats an illusion to who wrote this history of english constitution, which he called the efficiencies secret. It turns out that this is the interesting thing about intellectual van buren is developing theories about caucus anglophile parliaments are coming up with solutions to this problem of getting together coalitions. And it is very clear that van buren, wanted the caucus to be a binding caucus policy. And, van buren tries it any fails. And they end up being times in the 18 nineties, to 1920s, we have seen and more recent history attempts to create biden caucuses, and sometimes there is a little flash in the pan. Like with the democrats, but then they go away. So the biden caucus on policy, which was a gleam in van burens eyes, is the one part of the van buren plan that never got, never got enacted. But Everything Else did. We can talk at length about that, but certainly van buren wanted it to go there. If i can have a followup, tom reade resigned speakership, Speaker Boehner resigned the speakership. Could either of them survived given their particular personalities, and political ideas . Could they have survived without resigning . Right. And could they have been effective in the house of representatives . Of course, tom reade was a little before my time. So reads problem was, was with the administration. Disagreement about policy, whereas boehner it seems to be in some ways similar, that is the party was divided about policy, and it seems to be a bit more than inside baseball type of thing. I wasnt on the hill at the time, i dont know if dana could have survived. But it did strike me that he did not want to survive, and that was probably good enough. I dont have a good answer to that question. The question about clay being elected as speaker as a freshman, yes he was elected a speaker in the very first day was member of the house. Keep in mind he had been speaker kentucky legislator in but senator couple of times. It was exactly likewise pennington was elected speaker in his first term as well. Although pennington had been a governor of new jersey, and in fact i did not get into the details about, although he was in the fight in the house of representatives, he was the key player in disputed election case involving new jersey, when he had been the governor new jersey. He was well aware kind of like clay was definitely a different guy. Special guy. It seems like a lot of what were talking about today as centralize power, the fascination of the speakers theres a lot of power centralized in the office. Particular, like you have a very topdown structure. That was not necessarily the case, committees have also been incredibly powerful throughout the course of the history of the houses, speakers have delegated powers to the individual chairman, and in the 19th century, in particular, how powerful in your pinion was the office of the speaker . Especially kind of in this up until one clay become speaker and especially after they become speaker. That is a whole other book, in fact we address some of that in our book, ill say a couple of things. First of all, i think you described well will kind of the conventionally believed by the house. I think there is a lot of truth to it. Having said that, one of the things so the striking looking at history, the members act as if, even during the period we know this observation ali that the committee sometimes will just undo wildly unpredictable things. The speaker elections proceed as if its really kind of striking even when you know. Little bibliography here, James Stirling young wrote the most famous books in congressional history. He has a great chapter, section about henry clay in which he says, clay is seen as being the father of american paul around three power. But they wiped the floor with him so many times. He lost so many things, he couldnt stat committees davis live, all sorts of failures. And yet he is held up as being the strong speaker in the period. Thats why he kept getting reelected. So youre right. Observation leave the committee is weak. But they are fighting tooth and nail, over this position. So either they are diluted, or there are things still worthwhile being speaker, as mellow groups once said, its good being king. And i think if nothing else, he did get some things i believe our time is about expired, we want to get charles another round of applause for a really erudite and informative presentation. [applause] weeknights this month, were featuring american week 19 b programs on cspan 3. There is the night, a look back at a union prisoner of war camp during the u. S. Civil war, and a myron new york, where almost 3000 confederate p. O. W. s died. Zak max field is the author of how my, are the unions most p. O. W. Camp of the civil war, he talked about the conditions of the president and some of the officers in charge, that starts at 8 pm eastern. That starts on american tv this week, and every weekend on cspan 3. 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