Hillarysworld

RealClearPolitics HorseRaceBlog

By Jay Cost   |   January 28, 2010

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Could Nancy Pelosi Lose Control of the House?

At its essential level, a political party is an extra-governmental conspiracy to control the government. Our constitutional system disperses power across three branches, two chambers of Congress, and federal, state, and local levels. The parties are centralizing forces, trying to unite all governmental power under the party banner. They accomplish this task when conspiring officials across the government coordinate their activities with others whose views are similar.

To be successful, a conspiracy requires a shared belief among the conspirators that their interests are linked - something to the effect of, "Whatever happens, we sink or swim together." This is really the only glue that binds a political party together. American party structures are very weak; partisans participate in the "conspiracy" only if they believe it will help them in the long run.

For some time, it's been clear that the efforts to pass the health care bill have tested the Democrats' ability to conspire. With the bill's apparent failure, stories abound suggesting backbiting among party leaders across branches of government. This was the report in a recent Politico story:

President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be all smiles as the president arrives at the Capitol for his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, but the happy faces can't hide relationships that are fraying and fraught.

The anger is most palpable in the House, where Pelosi and her allies believe Obama's reluctance to stake his political capital on health care reform in mid-2009 contributed to the near collapse of negotiations now.

But sources say there are also signs of strain between Reid and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and relations between Democrats in the House and Democrats in the Senate are hovering between thinly veiled disdain and outright hostility.

Senate Democrats are mad at House Democrats. House Democrats are mad at Senate Democrats. And everybody is mad at the President. This is not the mark of a well-functioning conspiracy!

But things could get worse. House roll call votes from late in 2009 suggest that there might be a backbench revolt brewing that could undermine Democratic control of the government.

Remember, the Democrats control the House only because they can muster the needed 218 votes to pass legislation or execute procedural maneuvers. That's the essence of the House conspiracy. But, again, it's an entirely voluntary one. If Blue Dogs, moderates, or at-risk members start defecting in large enough numbers, and Pelosi can't pull in the needed half-plus-one of the chamber - she loses effective control of the legislative appartus.

By the end of December, there was a surprisingly large number of backbench defections. Let's run through a list of the big ones from June onward.

These were all partisan votes in that Republicans mostly voted against the Democratic leadership. Two of the bills - HR 2454 (cap and trade) and HR 3962 (health care reform) - were high profile pieces of legislation that attracted a lot of attention. But the rest did not garner nearly as much focus, and several of them are downright obscure. And yet the number of defectors was still high.

It's striking to see 29 Democrats defect on a concurrent resolution providing for the adjornment of Congress. Or how about 39 Democrats defecting on a bill "to permit continued financing of government operations." That's an increase of the debt limit. How could so many vote against it? After all, the House voted through all the spending that required an increase in the debt limit. Yet Pelosi could only muster 218 Democrats to do what absolutely, positively had to be done!

This is the mark of a partisan conspiracy that is in some jeopardy.

All of these bills passed, defectors aside. Yet the concern for Democrats should be that, as we approach the 2010 midterm, the number of defectors begins to hit 40 or more. That will happen if Democratic backbenchers sense a need to put more distance between themselves and the leadership. In that case, the Democrats will need Republican votes. They got enough on cap-and-trade, but the GOP caucus might not be so amenable in the future.

Something like this happened in the summer of 1994. Rich Lowry referenced it on the Corner recently. What happened was that, in the course of passing President Clinton's crime bill, the Democratic leadership suffered huge defections on what should have been a worry-free procedural vote. Michael Barone offers a recap in the 1996 Almanac of American Politics:

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