When Liberals Were Organized by Julian E. Zelizer AMERICAN PROSPECT

[Demeter]

http://blog.prospect.org/article/when-liberals-were-organized

Progressives seeking a model for an effective Congress could learn from the nearly forgotten history of the Democratic Study Group...When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, one of Speaker Newt Gingrich’s earliest moves was to end the public funding for the Democratic Study Group (DSG), a caucus of liberal Democrats that had been created in 1959. It was one of Gingrich’s shrewdest maneuvers. As Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, a staunch conservative then and now, wrote in an internal memo, “The demise of the DSG severely damages the power structure of the House Democrats.”

Roberts was right. The DSG is almost forgotten today, but its history suggests lessons for the current generation of Democrats. Since 1994, congressional liberals have failed to replicate a powerful, independent organization like the Democratic Study Group. They have been dependent on a House leadership that is sometimes but not always sympathetic to their goals. The closest thing to a DSG, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been a pale imitation of its predecessor, a fragile informal coalition that has lacked the same kind of leadership, money, publications, communications strategy, or clout. As liberals prepare for the start of the 114th Congress and hope for stronger Democratic returns in 2016, they would benefit from looking back at the history of the DSG to see just how much a vibrant and robust caucus can offer.



Americans may think of the 1960s as a liberal heyday. In fact, a powerful conservative undertow persisted, especially on Capitol Hill. However, liberal Democrats of that era organized effectively—on the streets, in the workplace, and notably in the halls of Congress...Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, obstructionist committee chairmen dominated Congress. Southern Democrats, often with safe seats in the one-party region of Dixie, wielded disproportionate power via the committee system. In a conservative coalition with Republicans, they used their power to block key liberal measures on civil rights, education, health care, and union protections.


The Obstructionist: Rules Committee Chairman Howard Smith of Virginia

House Rules Committee Chairman Howard Smith of Virginia, a lanky southerner in his late seventies when President Kennedy took office in 1961, used every available procedural tool to stifle liberal proposals. Once, when “Judge” Smith (an honorific from his onetime service on the bench) said that he couldn’t return to Washington for a vote on a civil rights bill in 1957 because there was a fire in his Virginia barn, Speaker Sam Rayburn quipped, “It’s the first time a man tried to burn down his barn in order to stop the legislative process.” The Speaker might have derided Smith’s tactics, but Rayburn and the rest of the leadership were deferential to the southern committee chairs. As a result of such obstructionism, the liberal agenda languished in the 1950s despite a Democratic majority in Congress and a moderate Republican president. Among liberals and political scientists, talk of a dysfunctional and deadlocked Congress was commonplace. Southern Democrats were famous for parliamentary prowess; liberals were known for their chronic disarray. Missouri Representative Richard Bolling, among the shrewdest liberal strategists of the era, observed, “One of the greatest weaknesses of the North, East, and West group in the Democratic Party is the great lack of legislative technicians. The obscure congressman from the South knows the tools of the trade pretty well … Ideals are like the stars—you use them to guide you, but you never reach them. Learn the methods that get you there.” The number of liberals in the House had steadily grown during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency. Toward the end of the decade, a liberal coalition of northern and western Democrats resolved to organize.

On January 8, 1957, Congressmen Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, Lee Metcalf of Montana, and Frank Thompson of New Jersey released the “Liberal Manifesto,” calling for the government to do more to ensure civil rights, adequate health care, access to education, and affordable housing. The Manifesto blasted the obstructionist tactics of the southerners. With the support of about 80 members from some 20 states, one of the first projects of “McCarthy’s Mavericks” was to provide assistance to liberals who were running in the 1958 midterm elections. The elections were a huge success for liberals. Republicans lost 48 seats in the House and 13 in the Senate. The new, younger liberals had little patience with the Dixiecrats. The road to the Great Society started with them. When Congress convened in 1959, they officially formed as a caucus, the Democratic Study Group.

From its founding, the DSG lobbied the Democratic leadership to appoint liberals to serve on influential committees, to support procedural reforms that would weaken committee chairmen, and to back legislation to expand the role of the federal government. The DSG regularly assembled task forces to develop legislation on key issues. The leaders created their own whip system, with 12 Democrats assigned to check on promised votes. They produced and disseminated first-rate research for members and the press, exposing conservative tactics and offering weekly legislative updates on their key issues. In the committee era of Congress, this kind of information was both novel and crucial, since so much of the legislative process was secretive and committee chairs retained tight control over staff and data. The political scientist James Sundquist described the DSG as “the most elaborately organized ‘party within a party’ in the history of the House of Representatives.” When the Rules Committee bottled up a civil rights bill in 1960 (though it was extremely mild), members of the DSG sought to force it out of committee through a “discharge petition,” a process requiring 218 votes. Chairman Smith was counting on the fact that the signatures on a discharge petition were kept secret. Engaging in guerrilla warfare, the DSG leaked the names of those who had signed the petition to the New York Times so that civil rights organizations could pressure the non-supporters. The strategy worked, and the bill made it through committee and was passed by Congress. “The importance of the Democratic Study Group,” wrote Robert Remini, the late historian of the House, “cannot be emphasized too strongly in the ongoing struggle to safeguard civil rights.”


MUCH MORE AT LINK--AN IMPORTANT READ---OCCUPY CONGRESS!


About the Author

Julian E. Zelizer is a political historian at Princeton University and a fellow at New America. His new book, published by Penguin Press, is The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society.

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. It seems that we wish to harken back to some golden age ...

that really never existed; but, without recognizing/acknowledging the difference(s) in the characters ... today's politicians (liberal and conservative) are far more narcissistic and "into it" for themselves, and mask it as "independentness."

You will never find unity in groups of people seeking only to manage their brand.

[Demeter]

2. They would flock to Elizabeth Warren, given a reason

no matter how narcissistic, even Democrats don't like losing.

[1StrongBlackMan]

3. Would they? ...

Even Warren's DU-faithful wavered (briefly), the moment she ascended to a sit at the Democratic leadership table.

No ... Democrats/liberals, these days, just have a problem with following the/a leader, lest they/we be accused of losing our "independentness", or doing the lock-step thing ... or worse, conforming/submitting to authority!

[Demeter]

5. If the People were loudly behind her....and they are

Much more vocal support for Elizabeth than for anyone else in the line up...including Hillary.

Can you imagine Hairy Reed or Off-the-table Pelosi having such popular appeal? The only way they could gain public approval would be by finally retiring.

[Scuba]

4. K&R