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- Title
Heterogeneous Parties And Political Organization: The U.S. Senate, 1880-1920.
- Authors
Brady, David; Brody, Richard; Epstein, David
- Abstract
The turn of the century has been identified by scholars as a time when both the House and Senate had strong leaders who were able to implement the Republican's legislative program. We wish to show that a necessary condition for the strong, centralized leadership exhibited in the Senate by the Aldrich oligarchy was the existence of a party membership that was homogeneous in its policy preferences. In particular, we show that the electoral realignment of 1894-96 created in the: Senate a high degree of homogeneity within the Republican party. While Republicans enjoyed large majorities in the Senate, all important committees were dominated by members who represented the views of party leaden, and those Republicans who had more Progressive poIicy interests were consistently denied influential committee assignments. The breakdown of homogeneity brought on by the continuing rise of the Progressives within the Republican party marked the decline of strong leadership and more powerful committee assignments for Senators who represented Progressive constituencies.
- Subjects
UNITED States; POLITICAL parties; UNITED States. Congress. Senate; UNITED States. Congress; ORGANIZATIONAL structure; VOTING; ASSOCIATIONS, institutions, etc.; POLITICAL science; LEADERSHIP; POLITICAL participation
- Publication
Legislative Studies Quarterly, 1989, Vol 14, Issue 2, p205
- ISSN
0362-9805
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/439757