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Conservative coalition

The conservative coalition, founded in 1937, was an unofficial alliance of members of the United States Congress which brought together the conservative wings of the Republican and Democratic parties to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. In addition to Roosevelt, the conservative coalition dominated Congress for four presidencies, blocking legislation proposed by Roosevelt and his successors. By 1937, the conservatives were the largest faction in the Republican Party which had opposed the New Deal in some form since 1933. Despite Roosevelt being a Democrat himself, his party did not universally support the New Deal agenda in Congress. Democrats who opposed Roosevelt's policies tended to hold conservative views, and allied with conservative Republicans. These Democrats were mostly located in the South. According to James T. Patterson: "By and large the congressional conservatives agreed in opposing the spread of federal power and bureaucracy, in denouncing deficit spending, in criticizing industrial labor unions, and in excoriating most welfare programs. They sought to 'conserve' an America which they believed to have existed before 1933."[1]

Conservative Coalition
Prominent membersHarry F. Byrd
Carter Glass
John Nance Garner
Josiah Bailey
Robert A. Taft
Richard Russell Jr.
Howard W. Smith
Carl Vinson
Founded1937
Dissolved1994
(see below)
Succeeded byBlue Dog Coalition (1995)
IdeologyConservatism
Early phase:
Liberal conservatism[A]
Economic liberalism
Anti-communism
Anti-New Deal
Anti-labor
States' rights
Later phase:
Fiscal conservatism
Social conservatism
Reaganism
Anti-communism
Political positionRight-wing

^ A: Prior to the 1960s, American right-wing referred to themselves as liberals, who opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Liberalism" and called themselves "True Liberalism".[citation needed]

The coalition dominated Congress from 1937 to 1963, when former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency and broke its influence. Johnson took advantage of weakened conservative opposition, and Congress passed many progressive economic and social reforms in his presidency. The conservative coalition, which controlled key congressional committees and made up a majority of both houses of Congress during Kennedy's presidency, had prevented the implementation of progressive reforms since the late 1930s.[2] It remained a declining political force until it disappeared in the mid-1990s when few conservative Democrats remained in Congress.[3] Following the 1994 Republican Revolution, many of the remaining conservative Democrats in congress joined to form the Blue Dog Coalition.

Never a formalized alliance, the conservative coalition, most often appeared on votes affecting labor unions based on Congressional roll call votes. Congressional opponents of civil rights reform, consisting white Southern Democrats and Republicans, despite being an overall minority in both chambers, prevented major congressional action on civil rights during the relevant time period through control of influential committees and by exploiting the Senate filibuster rule. The conservative coalition did not cooperate against civil rights bills however, ultimately enabling President Johnson and Everett Dirksen to convince sufficient numbers of congressional Republicans to ally with Liberal Democrats to invoke cloture and push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[4] However, the coalition did have the power to prevent unwanted bills from even coming to a vote. The coalition included many committee chairmen from the South who blocked bills by simply not reporting them from their committees. Furthermore, Howard W. Smith, chairman of the House Rules Committee, often could kill a bill simply by not reporting it out with a favorable rule; he lost some of that power in 1961.[5] The conservative coalition was not unified with regards to foreign policy, as most Southern Democrats were internationalists. Most Republicans supported isolationism until President Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953.

History edit

Origins edit

In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had won a second term in a landslide, sweeping all but two states over his Republican opponent, Alf Landon. For the 1937 session of Congress, the Republicans would have only 17 senators (out of a total of 96) and 89 congressmen (out of a total of 431). Given his party's overwhelming majorities, FDR decided he could overcome opposition to his liberal New Deal policies by the conservative justices of the Supreme Court, which had struck down many New Deal agencies as unconstitutional. Roosevelt proposed to expand the size of the court from nine to fifteen justices; if the proposal met with success, he would be able to "pack" the court with six new justices who would support his policies.

However, the Southern Democrats, who controlled the entire South at the time with little Republican opposition, were divided between liberal and conservative factions. While the Southern Democrats included many New Deal supporters, there were also many conservatives among them who were opposed to the expansion of federal power. Among their leaders were Senators Harry Byrd and Carter Glass of Virginia and Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas. U.S. Senator Josiah Bailey (D-NC) released a "Conservative Manifesto" in December 1937,[6] which included several statements of conservative philosophical tenets, including the line "Give enterprise a chance, and I will give you the guarantees of a happy and prosperous America." The document called for a balanced federal budget, state's rights, and an end to labor union violence and coercion.[6] Over 100,000 copies were distributed and it marked a turning point in terms of congressional support for New Deal legislation.[6]

Attacking liberal policies edit

Coalition opposition to Roosevelt's "court packing" Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 was first led by House coalition Democrat and House Judiciary Committee chairman Hatton W. Sumners. Sumners refused to endorse the bill, actively chopping it up within his committee in order to block the bill's chief effect of Supreme Court expansion. Finding such stiff opposition within the House, the administration arranged for the bill to be taken up in the Senate. Congressional Republicans decided to remain silent on the matter, denying pro-bill congressional Democrats the opportunity to use them as a unifying force. Republicans then watched from the sidelines as their Democratic coalition allies split the Democratic party vote in the Senate, defeating the bill.

In the hard-fought 1938 congressional elections, the Republicans scored major gains in both houses, picking up six Senate seats and 80 House seats. Thereafter the conservative Democrats and Republicans in both Houses of Congress would often vote together on major economic issues, thus defeating many proposals by liberal Democrats.[7] The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was the last major New Deal legislation that Roosevelt succeeded in enacting into law.[8] A confidential British Foreign Office analysis of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1943 stated that although the committee had 15 Democrats, seven Republicans, and one independent, because of the Republican-conservative Democratic alliance only 12 of the 23 members supported Roosevelt's policies.[9] Conservatives also had strong representation in Congress in the post-war years.[10] A handful of liberal measures, notably the minimum wage laws, did pass when the conservative coalition split.

After the New Deal (1940-1960) edit

Some infrastructure bills received conservative support, and funding for more highways was approved under both FDR and President Dwight D. Eisenhower; Eisenhower also expanded public housing. While such liberal successes did happen, they often required negotiations between factions controlling different House committees. With conservatives heavily influencing the House agenda through the House Rules Committee and the threat of possible filibusters in the Senate (which then required a 2/3 majority to break) several liberal initiatives such as a health insurance program were stopped. Much of Truman's Fair Deal in 1949–1951 was defeated, with exceptions such as a public housing provision when conservatives split. Truman was frustrated by continued conservative strength in Congress, in spite of liberal gains in the 1948 midterm elections. As noted by one study, “First of all, only one-third of the Senate is up for election every two years. In spite of the fact that the House has a narrow liberal majority, there are only 38 votes in the Senate wholeheartedly committed to the liberal program endorsed by the American voters last November."[11] Also, while northern Democrats supported the Truman Administration’s social welfare initiatives 91% of the time, the corresponding figure for southern Democrats was 46%.[12]

During his presidency, John F. Kennedy attempted with some success to reduce the conservative hold over the Rules Committee, which had blocked liberal reform measures over the years. As noted by one study, “By the late 1930s, the coalition succeeded in winning enough votes in the Rules Committee to prevent many Roosevelt (and later, Truman) proposals from reaching the floor, even though the measures had been reported by legislative committees of the House. Because of the seniority system, conservatives were able to retain control of the Rules Committee in many Congresses in which, in the House as a whole, liberals were preponderant.” In 1961, the House narrowed voted 217-212 in favour of a plan to enlarge the Rules Committee from 12 to 15 members. The aim of this was to provide committee liberals with a majority on most issues “and thereby prevent conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats on the Committee from blocking House floor action on liberal Administration proposals approved by legislative committees.” In this the plan was successful, as the enlarged House Rules Committee gave liberals a majority; albeit a precarious one.[13] In January 1963 the enlargement of the Rules Committee was made permanent, with the House voting 235-196 in favor.[14]

In its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, the coalition's most important Republican leader was Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio; the leading Democrats in the coalition were Senator Richard Russell, Jr. of Georgia and Congressmen Howard W. Smith of Virginia and Carl Vinson of Georgia. Although the coalition usually voted together on urban and labor issues, they were divided on other economic issues, such as farm and Western issues (such as water). Conservative Southern Democrats generally favored high government spending on rural issues, and in this urban and liberal Democrats supported them while Republicans were opposed. For this reason, Democratic caucuses of 230 to 260 seats were enough to pass Democratic farm programs, whereas on labor issues even Houses with in excess of 280 Democratic Members could not pass labor priorities.[15] Foreign policy goals also presented a contrast. Prior to World War II most, though not all, conservative Republicans were non-interventionists who wanted to stay out of the war at all costs, while most, though not all, Southern conservatives were interventionists who favored helping the British defeat Nazi Germany.[16] After the war, a minority of conservative Republicans (led by Taft) opposed military alliances with other nations, especially NATO, while most Southern Democrats favored such alliances.

During the post-war period, Republican presidents often owed their legislative victories to ad hoc coalitions between conservative Republicans and conservative southern Democrats. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party (elected mainly from Northern cities and Unionized regions), on the other hand, tended to combine with Republicans from the west and the north to put their own legislation through.[17]

Decline and end edit

Civil Rights Era (1960-1972) edit

Under President Lyndon Johnson, who had an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Congress, liberal Democrats, together with Conservative and Liberal Republicans led by Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, convinced all but six Republicans to vote for cloture on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This vote broke a Southern filibuster led by Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Strom Thurmond (R-SC). Though a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats (about 80% versus 60% respectively) voted for cloture and for the bill, the 1964 GOP Presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), voted against cloture; before his presidential campaign Goldwater had supported civil rights legislation but opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on constitutional grounds, believing private individuals had the right to choose with whom they engaged in business. The GOP was massively defeated in 1964, but recovered its strength in the congressional elections of 1966, and elected Richard Nixon president in 1968. Throughout the 1954–1980 era the Republicans were a minority in both the House and Senate, but most of the time they cooperated with Conservative Democrats.

In defining the size of the Conservative Coalition in 1964, one study noted that

As of adjournment Oct. 3, the potential strength of the conservative coalition was 56 of the 100 votes in the Senate and 280 of the 429 votes in the House (there were 5 vacancies and the House Speaker is not counted because he rarely votes). This constituted a winning majority in each chamber. The figures are based on a lineup of 33 Republicans and 23 Southern Democrats in the Senate and 176 Republicans and 104 Southern Democrats in the House. Counting only bare majorities of the two blocs in the coalition (the point at which the coalition is defined in this study), its strength, assuming all Members voted, would be 17 Republicans and 12 Southern Democrats in the Senate (29 total) and 89 Republicans and 53 Southern Democrats (142 total) in the House. In neither chamber would the coalition have a winning majority. Therefore, whether the coalition won or lost depended not only on how large a majority of Southern Democrats and Republicans it could muster, but also on how many votes it would win away from the opposing faction, the Northern Democrats.[18]

In 1968, Nixon and native Southerner and American Independent candidate George Wallace carried the same number of states in the South. The coalition "found itself frequently allied with a conservative President against the restricted power of the Congressional liberals" in Nixon's first year as president in 1969, according to the 1969 Congressional Quarterly almanac.[19] Conservative senators blocked an amendment that would have blocked the Safeguard anti-ballistic missile but lacked the votes to confirm Supreme Court nominee Clement Haynsworth.[19]

Post-Watergate Era (1973-1994) edit

With Nixon's reelection and sweep of the South—as well as nearly every state in the country—in 1972, the Democratic stronghold of the Solid South had fallen to the GOP at the presidential level, save for 1976, 1992, and 1996, when a Southern Democrat was the Democratic nominee. However most of the state and local elections were still dominated by Democrats until the 1990s; at first these long-serving Southern Democrats still wielded great power due to the seniority system through chairing powerful committees; however, the strong Democratic victory in 1974 following the Watergate scandal led to a tremendous number of Northern and liberal Democratic freshmen in House, tilting the balance of the Democratic Caucus away from the Southerners. These Watergate Babies joined forces with more senior liberals and stripped committee chairmanship from three senior Southern Democrats: Wright Patman, William R. Poage, and F. Edward Hébert, and otherwise reformed the House, making it more responsive to the overall Democratic Caucus and leadership, and with less power for committee chairs (and the minority party.)

Over in the Senate, the similarly large Democratic majority modified Rule 22, which governs the filibuster, shrinking the required majority to invoke cloture in most cases from two-thirds of the Senate to the current three-fifths, or 60 votes. These actions together greatly reduced the power of the Southern Democrats to steer and block legislation in the House and Senate, and reduced the institutional benefits of being loyal to the Democratic Party. Many surviving Southern Democrats switched parties and became Republicans after that party gained a majority in 1995.[20] As a result of the 1994 "Republican Revolution," Republicans became the majority of Southern members of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Reconstruction era, also replacing many conservative Democratic congressmen. A few Democratic Congressmen switched parties, such as Alabama Senator Richard Shelby. After declining in the 1980s, the conservative coalition ended after 1994. However, many similarly conservative Democrats served until the 2010 midterm elections.[21] The Blue Dog Coalition is considered the main successor to the conservative coalition amongst Democrats, as it began after the 1994 midterm elections.

Main members edit

Senators
Representatives
Other

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Patterson, James T. (1967). Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal. University Press of Kentucky. pp. vii–viii. ISBN 9780813164045.
  2. ^ Mack C. Shelley, "Presidents and the conservative coalition in the U.S. Congress." Legislative Studies Quarterly (1983): 79-96 online 2021-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Jeffery A. Jenkins and Nathan W. Monroe, "Negative Agenda Control and the Conservative Coalition in the U.S. House" Journal of Politics (2014). 76#4, pp. 1116–27. doi:10.1017/S0022381614000620
  4. ^ Katznelson, 1993
  5. ^ Bruce J. Dierenfield, Keeper of the Rules: Congressman Howard W. Smith of Virginia (1987)
  6. ^ a b c Kicker, Troy. "Taking on FDR: Senator Josiah Bailey and the 1937 Conservative Manifesto". from the original on 2020-10-04. Retrieved 2016-02-02..
  7. ^ for example, Time magazine reported, " "Five Southern Democrats and four Republicans sat smiling at a lady one day last week in the cramped, dim-lit House Rules committee-room.... The nine smug gentlemen, key bloc of the conservative coalition now dominating the House, could afford to be gracious to hard-plugging Mary Norton, Labor committee chairlady, because they had just finished trampling roughshod over her." TIME Aug 7, 1939
  8. ^ Lubell, Samuel (1955). The Future of American Politics. Anchor Press. p. 13.
  9. ^ Hachey, Thomas E. (Winter 1973–1974). (PDF). Wisconsin Magazine of History. 57 (2): 141–53. JSTOR 4634869. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 21, 2013.
  10. ^ Ideologies and Institutions American Conservative and Liberal Governance Prescriptions Since 1933 By J. Richard Piper, 1997, P.126
  11. ^ The Elevator Constructor Volumes 46–47 1949 P.1
  12. ^ Race, Money, and the American Welfare State By Michael K. Brown, 1999, P.107
  13. ^ House Enlarges Rules Committee An article from CQ Almanac 1961
  14. ^ Adopting House Rules in a New Congress: From Democratic Deliberation to Partisan Monopoly by Donald R. Wolfensberger, P.12
  15. ^ Mayhew, David, Party Loyalty among Congressmen: The Difference between Democrats and Republicans 1947–1962 Harvard University Press (1966), pp. 165–68
  16. ^ John W. Malsberger, From Obstruction to Moderation: The Transformation of Senate Conservatism, 1938–1952 (2000) ch 2
  17. ^ The Penguin Dictionary of Politics by David Robertson, Second Edition 1993
  18. ^ ‘CONSERVATIVE COALITION’ APPEARED ON 15% OF ROLL CALLS, 1964 CQ ALAMANAC, P.746,
  19. ^ a b "Conservative coalition remains potent in Congress" (PDF). 1969 CQ Almanac. Washington: CQ Press. 1969. pp. 1052–1059. (PDF) from the original on January 29, 2022. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
  20. ^ "Southern Democrats Coaxed to GOP Dance". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. from the original on 2023-01-05. Retrieved 2023-01-05.
  21. ^ "The long goodbye". The Economist. Retrieved 2013-03-12.

Further reading edit

  • Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: vol 3: Master of the Senate (2002).
  • Carson, Jamie L. "Electoral and Partisan Forces in the Roosevelt Era: The US Congressional Elections of 1938." Congress & the Presidency 28#2 (2001) 161–183 https://doi.org/10.1080/07343460109507751
  • Domhoff, G. William, and Michael J. Webber. Class and Power in the New Deal: Corporate Moderates, Southern Democrats, and the Liberal-Labor Coalition (2011)|
  • Fite, Gilbert. Richard B. Russell, Jr, Senator from Georgia (2002)
  • Goldsmith, John A. Colleagues: Richard B. Russell and His Apprentice, Lyndon B. Johnson. (1993)
  • Hill, Rebecca. "The History of the Smith Act and the Hatch Act: Anti-Communism and the Rise of the Conservative Coalition in Congress." in Little ‘Red Scares’ (Routledge, 2016) pp. 315–346.
  • Jenkins, Jeffery A. and Nathan W. Monroe. "Negative Agenda Control and the Conservative Coalition in the U.S. House" Journal of Politics (2014). 76#4, pp. 1116–27. doi:10.1017/S0022381614000620
  • Katznelson, Ira, Kim Geiger and Daniel Kryder. "Limiting Liberalism: The Southern Veto in Congress, 1933–1950," Political Science Quarterly Vol. 108, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), pp. 283–306 in JSTOR
  • MacNeil, Neil. Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives (1963)
  • Malsberger, John W. From Obstruction to Moderation: The Transformation of Senate Conservatism, 1938–1952 (2000) online edition
  • Manley, John F. "The Conservative Coalition in Congress." American Behavioral Scientist 17 (1973): 223–47.
  • Mayhew, David R. Party Loyalty among Congressmen: The Difference between Democrats and Republicans, 1947–1962, Harvard University Press (1966)
  • Margolis, Joel Paul. "The Conservative Coalition in the United States Senate, 1933–1968." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1973.
  • Moore, John Robert. "The Conservative Coalition in the United States Senate, 1942-1945." Journal of Southern History 33#3 (1967), pp. 368–376. online; uses roll call data sets.
  • Patterson, James T. "A Conservative Coalition Forms in Congress, 1933–1939," The Journal of American History, (1966) 52#4 pp. 757–72. in JSTOR
  • Patterson, James. Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933–39 (1967) online edition
  • Patterson, James T. Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft (1972)
  • Reinhard, David W. The Republican right since 1945 (UP of Kentucky, 2014) online.
  • Schickler, Eric. Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (2001)
  • Schickler, Eric; Pearson, Kathryn. "Agenda Control, Majority Party Power, and the House Committee on Rules, 1937–52," Legislative Studies Quarterly (2009) 34#4 pp. 455–91
  • Shelley II, Mack C. The Permanent Majority: The Conservative Coalition in the United States Congress (1983) online edition 2009-06-04 at the Wayback Machine
  • Shelley, Mack C. "Presidents and the Conservative Coalition in the U.S. Congress." Legislative Studies Quarterly (1983): 79-96 online
  • Rohde, David W. Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House (1991)
  • Williams, Arthur R., Karl F. Johnson, and Michael P. Barrett. "Cutting the Deck: New Deal, Fair Deal, and the Employment Act of 1946: Problems of Study and Interpretation." in Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress (Routledge, 2019).

Primary sources edit

  • Cantril, Hadley and Mildred Strunk, eds.; Public Opinion, 1935–1946 (1951), massive compilation of many public opinion polls online
  • Gallup, George. The Gallup Poll: Public opinion, 1935-1971 (3 vol 1972) vol 1-2-3 online 1935–1948.

conservative, coalition, conservative, coalition, founded, 1937, unofficial, alliance, members, united, states, congress, which, brought, together, conservative, wings, republican, democratic, parties, oppose, president, franklin, delano, roosevelt, deal, addi. The conservative coalition founded in 1937 was an unofficial alliance of members of the United States Congress which brought together the conservative wings of the Republican and Democratic parties to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosevelt s New Deal In addition to Roosevelt the conservative coalition dominated Congress for four presidencies blocking legislation proposed by Roosevelt and his successors By 1937 the conservatives were the largest faction in the Republican Party which had opposed the New Deal in some form since 1933 Despite Roosevelt being a Democrat himself his party did not universally support the New Deal agenda in Congress Democrats who opposed Roosevelt s policies tended to hold conservative views and allied with conservative Republicans These Democrats were mostly located in the South According to James T Patterson By and large the congressional conservatives agreed in opposing the spread of federal power and bureaucracy in denouncing deficit spending in criticizing industrial labor unions and in excoriating most welfare programs They sought to conserve an America which they believed to have existed before 1933 1 Conservative CoalitionProminent membersHarry F ByrdCarter GlassJohn Nance GarnerJosiah BaileyRobert A TaftRichard Russell Jr Howard W SmithCarl VinsonFounded1937Dissolved1994 see below Succeeded byBlue Dog Coalition 1995 IdeologyConservatismEarly phase Liberal conservatism A Economic liberalismAnti communismAnti New DealAnti laborStates rightsLater phase Fiscal conservatismSocial conservatismReaganismAnti communismPolitical positionRight wingPolitics of United StatesPolitical partiesElections A Prior to the 1960s American right wing referred to themselves as liberals who opposed Franklin D Roosevelt s New Liberalism and called themselves True Liberalism citation needed The coalition dominated Congress from 1937 to 1963 when former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency and broke its influence Johnson took advantage of weakened conservative opposition and Congress passed many progressive economic and social reforms in his presidency The conservative coalition which controlled key congressional committees and made up a majority of both houses of Congress during Kennedy s presidency had prevented the implementation of progressive reforms since the late 1930s 2 It remained a declining political force until it disappeared in the mid 1990s when few conservative Democrats remained in Congress 3 Following the 1994 Republican Revolution many of the remaining conservative Democrats in congress joined to form the Blue Dog Coalition Never a formalized alliance the conservative coalition most often appeared on votes affecting labor unions based on Congressional roll call votes Congressional opponents of civil rights reform consisting white Southern Democrats and Republicans despite being an overall minority in both chambers prevented major congressional action on civil rights during the relevant time period through control of influential committees and by exploiting the Senate filibuster rule The conservative coalition did not cooperate against civil rights bills however ultimately enabling President Johnson and Everett Dirksen to convince sufficient numbers of congressional Republicans to ally with Liberal Democrats to invoke cloture and push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 4 However the coalition did have the power to prevent unwanted bills from even coming to a vote The coalition included many committee chairmen from the South who blocked bills by simply not reporting them from their committees Furthermore Howard W Smith chairman of the House Rules Committee often could kill a bill simply by not reporting it out with a favorable rule he lost some of that power in 1961 5 The conservative coalition was not unified with regards to foreign policy as most Southern Democrats were internationalists Most Republicans supported isolationism until President Dwight D Eisenhower took office in 1953 Contents 1 History 1 1 Origins 1 1 1 Attacking liberal policies 1 2 After the New Deal 1940 1960 1 3 Decline and end 1 3 1 Civil Rights Era 1960 1972 1 3 2 Post Watergate Era 1973 1994 2 Main members 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 5 1 Primary sourcesHistory editOrigins edit Main article Conservative Manifesto In 1936 President Franklin D Roosevelt had won a second term in a landslide sweeping all but two states over his Republican opponent Alf Landon For the 1937 session of Congress the Republicans would have only 17 senators out of a total of 96 and 89 congressmen out of a total of 431 Given his party s overwhelming majorities FDR decided he could overcome opposition to his liberal New Deal policies by the conservative justices of the Supreme Court which had struck down many New Deal agencies as unconstitutional Roosevelt proposed to expand the size of the court from nine to fifteen justices if the proposal met with success he would be able to pack the court with six new justices who would support his policies However the Southern Democrats who controlled the entire South at the time with little Republican opposition were divided between liberal and conservative factions While the Southern Democrats included many New Deal supporters there were also many conservatives among them who were opposed to the expansion of federal power Among their leaders were Senators Harry Byrd and Carter Glass of Virginia and Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas U S Senator Josiah Bailey D NC released a Conservative Manifesto in December 1937 6 which included several statements of conservative philosophical tenets including the line Give enterprise a chance and I will give you the guarantees of a happy and prosperous America The document called for a balanced federal budget state s rights and an end to labor union violence and coercion 6 Over 100 000 copies were distributed and it marked a turning point in terms of congressional support for New Deal legislation 6 Attacking liberal policies edit See also 1938 United States elections Coalition opposition to Roosevelt s court packing Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 was first led by House coalition Democrat and House Judiciary Committee chairman Hatton W Sumners Sumners refused to endorse the bill actively chopping it up within his committee in order to block the bill s chief effect of Supreme Court expansion Finding such stiff opposition within the House the administration arranged for the bill to be taken up in the Senate Congressional Republicans decided to remain silent on the matter denying pro bill congressional Democrats the opportunity to use them as a unifying force Republicans then watched from the sidelines as their Democratic coalition allies split the Democratic party vote in the Senate defeating the bill In the hard fought 1938 congressional elections the Republicans scored major gains in both houses picking up six Senate seats and 80 House seats Thereafter the conservative Democrats and Republicans in both Houses of Congress would often vote together on major economic issues thus defeating many proposals by liberal Democrats 7 The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was the last major New Deal legislation that Roosevelt succeeded in enacting into law 8 A confidential British Foreign Office analysis of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1943 stated that although the committee had 15 Democrats seven Republicans and one independent because of the Republican conservative Democratic alliance only 12 of the 23 members supported Roosevelt s policies 9 Conservatives also had strong representation in Congress in the post war years 10 A handful of liberal measures notably the minimum wage laws did pass when the conservative coalition split After the New Deal 1940 1960 edit Some infrastructure bills received conservative support and funding for more highways was approved under both FDR and President Dwight D Eisenhower Eisenhower also expanded public housing While such liberal successes did happen they often required negotiations between factions controlling different House committees With conservatives heavily influencing the House agenda through the House Rules Committee and the threat of possible filibusters in the Senate which then required a 2 3 majority to break several liberal initiatives such as a health insurance program were stopped Much of Truman s Fair Deal in 1949 1951 was defeated with exceptions such as a public housing provision when conservatives split Truman was frustrated by continued conservative strength in Congress in spite of liberal gains in the 1948 midterm elections As noted by one study First of all only one third of the Senate is up for election every two years In spite of the fact that the House has a narrow liberal majority there are only 38 votes in the Senate wholeheartedly committed to the liberal program endorsed by the American voters last November 11 Also while northern Democrats supported the Truman Administration s social welfare initiatives 91 of the time the corresponding figure for southern Democrats was 46 12 During his presidency John F Kennedy attempted with some success to reduce the conservative hold over the Rules Committee which had blocked liberal reform measures over the years As noted by one study By the late 1930s the coalition succeeded in winning enough votes in the Rules Committee to prevent many Roosevelt and later Truman proposals from reaching the floor even though the measures had been reported by legislative committees of the House Because of the seniority system conservatives were able to retain control of the Rules Committee in many Congresses in which in the House as a whole liberals were preponderant In 1961 the House narrowed voted 217 212 in favour of a plan to enlarge the Rules Committee from 12 to 15 members The aim of this was to provide committee liberals with a majority on most issues and thereby prevent conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats on the Committee from blocking House floor action on liberal Administration proposals approved by legislative committees In this the plan was successful as the enlarged House Rules Committee gave liberals a majority albeit a precarious one 13 In January 1963 the enlargement of the Rules Committee was made permanent with the House voting 235 196 in favor 14 In its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s the coalition s most important Republican leader was Senator Robert A Taft of Ohio the leading Democrats in the coalition were Senator Richard Russell Jr of Georgia and Congressmen Howard W Smith of Virginia and Carl Vinson of Georgia Although the coalition usually voted together on urban and labor issues they were divided on other economic issues such as farm and Western issues such as water Conservative Southern Democrats generally favored high government spending on rural issues and in this urban and liberal Democrats supported them while Republicans were opposed For this reason Democratic caucuses of 230 to 260 seats were enough to pass Democratic farm programs whereas on labor issues even Houses with in excess of 280 Democratic Members could not pass labor priorities 15 Foreign policy goals also presented a contrast Prior to World War II most though not all conservative Republicans were non interventionists who wanted to stay out of the war at all costs while most though not all Southern conservatives were interventionists who favored helping the British defeat Nazi Germany 16 After the war a minority of conservative Republicans led by Taft opposed military alliances with other nations especially NATO while most Southern Democrats favored such alliances During the post war period Republican presidents often owed their legislative victories to ad hoc coalitions between conservative Republicans and conservative southern Democrats The liberal wing of the Democratic Party elected mainly from Northern cities and Unionized regions on the other hand tended to combine with Republicans from the west and the north to put their own legislation through 17 Decline and end edit See also Republican Revolution and Blue Dog Coalition Civil Rights Era 1960 1972 edit Main articles Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Lyndon Baines Johnson Under President Lyndon Johnson who had an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Congress liberal Democrats together with Conservative and Liberal Republicans led by Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen convinced all but six Republicans to vote for cloture on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 This vote broke a Southern filibuster led by Senators Robert Byrd D WV and Strom Thurmond R SC Though a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats about 80 versus 60 respectively voted for cloture and for the bill the 1964 GOP Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater R AZ voted against cloture before his presidential campaign Goldwater had supported civil rights legislation but opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on constitutional grounds believing private individuals had the right to choose with whom they engaged in business The GOP was massively defeated in 1964 but recovered its strength in the congressional elections of 1966 and elected Richard Nixon president in 1968 Throughout the 1954 1980 era the Republicans were a minority in both the House and Senate but most of the time they cooperated with Conservative Democrats In defining the size of the Conservative Coalition in 1964 one study noted that As of adjournment Oct 3 the potential strength of the conservative coalition was 56 of the 100 votes in the Senate and 280 of the 429 votes in the House there were 5 vacancies and the House Speaker is not counted because he rarely votes This constituted a winning majority in each chamber The figures are based on a lineup of 33 Republicans and 23 Southern Democrats in the Senate and 176 Republicans and 104 Southern Democrats in the House Counting only bare majorities of the two blocs in the coalition the point at which the coalition is defined in this study its strength assuming all Members voted would be 17 Republicans and 12 Southern Democrats in the Senate 29 total and 89 Republicans and 53 Southern Democrats 142 total in the House In neither chamber would the coalition have a winning majority Therefore whether the coalition won or lost depended not only on how large a majority of Southern Democrats and Republicans it could muster but also on how many votes it would win away from the opposing faction the Northern Democrats 18 In 1968 Nixon and native Southerner and American Independent candidate George Wallace carried the same number of states in the South The coalition found itself frequently allied with a conservative President against the restricted power of the Congressional liberals in Nixon s first year as president in 1969 according to the 1969 Congressional Quarterly almanac 19 Conservative senators blocked an amendment that would have blocked the Safeguard anti ballistic missile but lacked the votes to confirm Supreme Court nominee Clement Haynsworth 19 Post Watergate Era 1973 1994 edit See also Watergate Babies and Senate filibuster With Nixon s reelection and sweep of the South as well as nearly every state in the country in 1972 the Democratic stronghold of the Solid South had fallen to the GOP at the presidential level save for 1976 1992 and 1996 when a Southern Democrat was the Democratic nominee However most of the state and local elections were still dominated by Democrats until the 1990s at first these long serving Southern Democrats still wielded great power due to the seniority system through chairing powerful committees however the strong Democratic victory in 1974 following the Watergate scandal led to a tremendous number of Northern and liberal Democratic freshmen in House tilting the balance of the Democratic Caucus away from the Southerners These Watergate Babies joined forces with more senior liberals and stripped committee chairmanship from three senior Southern Democrats Wright Patman William R Poage and F Edward Hebert and otherwise reformed the House making it more responsive to the overall Democratic Caucus and leadership and with less power for committee chairs and the minority party Over in the Senate the similarly large Democratic majority modified Rule 22 which governs the filibuster shrinking the required majority to invoke cloture in most cases from two thirds of the Senate to the current three fifths or 60 votes These actions together greatly reduced the power of the Southern Democrats to steer and block legislation in the House and Senate and reduced the institutional benefits of being loyal to the Democratic Party Many surviving Southern Democrats switched parties and became Republicans after that party gained a majority in 1995 20 As a result of the 1994 Republican Revolution Republicans became the majority of Southern members of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Reconstruction era also replacing many conservative Democratic congressmen A few Democratic Congressmen switched parties such as Alabama Senator Richard Shelby After declining in the 1980s the conservative coalition ended after 1994 However many similarly conservative Democrats served until the 2010 midterm elections 21 The Blue Dog Coalition is considered the main successor to the conservative coalition amongst Democrats as it began after the 1994 midterm elections Main members editSenatorsJosiah Bailey D NC John W Bricker R OH Harry F Byrd D VA Everett Dirksen R IL Barry Goldwater R AZ Richard Russell Jr D GA Robert A Taft R OH Strom Thurmond D SC later R SC Arthur Vandenberg R MI Joseph McCarthy R WI William F Knowland R CA RepresentativesLeslie C Arends R IL Howard W Smith D VA Carl Vinson D GA Howard Buffett R NE Charles A Halleck R IN OtherVice President John Nance Garner D TX See also editAmerican Liberty League Democratic Study Group Court Packing Plan New Deal coalition Solid South SouthernizationReferences edit Patterson James T 1967 Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal University Press of Kentucky pp vii viii ISBN 9780813164045 Mack C Shelley Presidents and the conservative coalition in the U S Congress Legislative Studies Quarterly 1983 79 96 online Archived 2021 05 14 at the Wayback Machine Jeffery A Jenkins and Nathan W Monroe Negative Agenda Control and the Conservative Coalition in the U S House Journal of Politics 2014 76 4 pp 1116 27 doi 10 1017 S0022381614000620 Katznelson 1993 Bruce J Dierenfield Keeper of the Rules Congressman Howard W Smith of Virginia 1987 a b c Kicker Troy Taking on FDR Senator Josiah Bailey and the 1937 Conservative Manifesto Archived from the original on 2020 10 04 Retrieved 2016 02 02 for example Time magazine reported Five Southern Democrats and four Republicans sat smiling at a lady one day last week in the cramped dim lit House Rules committee room The nine smug gentlemen key bloc of the conservative coalition now dominating the House could afford to be gracious to hard plugging Mary Norton Labor committee chairlady because they had just finished trampling roughshod over her TIME Aug 7 1939 online Lubell Samuel 1955 The Future of American Politics Anchor Press p 13 Hachey Thomas E Winter 1973 1974 American Profiles on Capitol Hill A Confidential Study for the British Foreign Office in 1943 PDF Wisconsin Magazine of History 57 2 141 53 JSTOR 4634869 Archived from the original PDF on October 21 2013 Ideologies and Institutions American Conservative and Liberal Governance Prescriptions Since 1933 By J Richard Piper 1997 P 126 The Elevator Constructor Volumes 46 47 1949 P 1 Race Money and the American Welfare State By Michael K Brown 1999 P 107 House Enlarges Rules Committee An article from CQ Almanac 1961 Adopting House Rules in a New Congress From Democratic Deliberation to Partisan Monopoly by Donald R Wolfensberger P 12 Mayhew David Party Loyalty among Congressmen The Difference between Democrats and Republicans 1947 1962 Harvard University Press 1966 pp 165 68 John W Malsberger From Obstruction to Moderation The Transformation of Senate Conservatism 1938 1952 2000 ch 2 The Penguin Dictionary of Politics by David Robertson Second Edition 1993 CONSERVATIVE COALITION APPEARED ON 15 OF ROLL CALLS 1964 CQ ALAMANAC P 746 a b Conservative coalition remains potent in Congress PDF 1969 CQ Almanac Washington CQ Press 1969 pp 1052 1059 Archived PDF from the original on January 29 2022 Retrieved January 29 2022 Southern Democrats Coaxed to GOP Dance Christian Science Monitor ISSN 0882 7729 Archived from the original on 2023 01 05 Retrieved 2023 01 05 The long goodbye The Economist Retrieved 2013 03 12 Further reading editCaro Robert A The Years of Lyndon Johnson vol 3 Master of the Senate 2002 Carson Jamie L Electoral and Partisan Forces in the Roosevelt Era The US Congressional Elections of 1938 Congress amp the Presidency 28 2 2001 161 183 https doi org 10 1080 07343460109507751 Domhoff G William and Michael J Webber Class and Power in the New Deal Corporate Moderates Southern Democrats and the Liberal Labor Coalition 2011 Fite Gilbert Richard B Russell Jr Senator from Georgia 2002 Goldsmith John A Colleagues Richard B Russell and His Apprentice Lyndon B Johnson 1993 Hill Rebecca The History of the Smith Act and the Hatch Act Anti Communism and the Rise of the Conservative Coalition in Congress in Little Red Scares Routledge 2016 pp 315 346 Jenkins Jeffery A and Nathan W Monroe Negative Agenda Control and the Conservative Coalition in the U S House Journal of Politics 2014 76 4 pp 1116 27 doi 10 1017 S0022381614000620 Katznelson Ira Kim Geiger and Daniel Kryder Limiting Liberalism The Southern Veto in Congress 1933 1950 Political Science Quarterly Vol 108 No 2 Summer 1993 pp 283 306 in JSTOR MacNeil Neil Forge of Democracy The House of Representatives 1963 Malsberger John W From Obstruction to Moderation The Transformation of Senate Conservatism 1938 1952 2000 online edition Manley John F The Conservative Coalition in Congress American Behavioral Scientist 17 1973 223 47 Mayhew David R Party Loyalty among Congressmen The Difference between Democrats and Republicans 1947 1962 Harvard University Press 1966 Margolis Joel Paul The Conservative Coalition in the United States Senate 1933 1968 Ph D dissertation University of Wisconsin Madison 1973 Moore John Robert The Conservative Coalition in the United States Senate 1942 1945 Journal of Southern History 33 3 1967 pp 368 376 online uses roll call data sets Patterson James T A Conservative Coalition Forms in Congress 1933 1939 The Journal of American History 1966 52 4 pp 757 72 in JSTOR Patterson James Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress 1933 39 1967 online edition Patterson James T Mr Republican A Biography of Robert A Taft 1972 Reinhard David W The Republican right since 1945 UP of Kentucky 2014 online Schickler Eric Disjointed Pluralism Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U S Congress 2001 Schickler Eric Pearson Kathryn Agenda Control Majority Party Power and the House Committee on Rules 1937 52 Legislative Studies Quarterly 2009 34 4 pp 455 91 Shelley II Mack C The Permanent Majority The Conservative Coalition in the United States Congress 1983 online edition Archived 2009 06 04 at the Wayback Machine Shelley Mack C Presidents and the Conservative Coalition in the U S Congress Legislative Studies Quarterly 1983 79 96 online Rohde David W Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House 1991 Williams Arthur R Karl F Johnson and Michael P Barrett Cutting the Deck New Deal Fair Deal and the Employment Act of 1946 Problems of Study and Interpretation in Franklin D Roosevelt and Congress Routledge 2019 Primary sources edit Cantril Hadley and Mildred Strunk eds Public Opinion 1935 1946 1951 massive compilation of many public opinion polls online Gallup George The Gallup Poll Public opinion 1935 1971 3 vol 1972 vol 1 2 3 online 1935 1948 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Conservative coalition amp oldid 1191092303, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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