Everyone remembers the old Will Rogers line, “I’m not a member of any organized political party; I’m a Democrat.” I’ve always begrudgingly accepted this as fact. Dems just aren’t in the GOP’s league in enforcing any sense of party discipline.
Maybe it’s a symptom of our ideology, but the Democratic congressional leadership has traditionally been unwilling, or unable, to keep the caucus together consistently in recent decades. Dem lawmakers have never seemed too concerned about parting with the caucus when it suited their purposes. No one even seemed to be keeping track.
That is, until now.
Terence Samuel wrote a fascinating item for The American Prospect on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s efforts to crack the whip, so to speak, and keep the caucus together when it counts.
Pelosi is signaling that she intends to punish, or at least not reward, those House Democrats who don’t toe the line on important votes. This is causing a bit of a stink among some who worry about their own level of loyalty. But this, like any effort at disciplining Democrats, ought to be a true spectacle, because we are, after all, talking about Democrats.
“Democratic Party discipline used to be an oxymoron, but no longer,” quipped a Democratic aide. This is the party of Will Rogers (“I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat”) and Zell Miller, the Georgia senator who recently declared the Democrats dead and has been dancing on their grave ever since. This week Miller announced that he will head up “Democrats for Bush” (which means he’s dancing in a red tux).
So Pelosi has her work cut out for her. But she must know that. While she is forever touting the diversity of the Democratic caucus as a strength, she knows that the road from diversity to division is a short, straight one.
You’ve got to hand it to Pelosi; she’s been doing a great job under challenging circumstances. Telling Dem House members that the party leadership actually cares about how they vote must seem startling, but Pelosi has seen first hand how effective party discipline is within the GOP.
And so, like the Republicans, Pelosi has crafted a “carrot and stick” plan of her own.
Pelosi and her team are changing the rules on how party members get the plum leadership assignment on subcommittees. The intention is to ensure that representatives understand that life is full of consequences. Members of the superstar committees — Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Commerce — will not get those leadership slots if they defect too often.
“If we need someone on a key vote, we want to make sure we have some leverage,” a member of the senior leadership told Roll Call’s Erin Billings. “We want them to do the right thing.”
Sure, it’s a tough balance. Lawmakers can’t vote with their party on controversial bills all of the time if it’ll cost them too much support back home. There’s no point in voting with your caucus if you’ll lose in November and make your caucus smaller.
Obviously members have to consider the politics in their district and promises for campaign assistance don’t always mean much. Just as northeastern Republicans feel pressure to vote with the party, even though they know the leadership can’t help get them re-elected, southern Dems are in the same predicament. Tom DeLay can’t head up to Connecticut to give Chris Shays a hand; it would be counterproductive and they both know that. Likewise, Pelosi probably won’t be making any trips to Georgia on Jim Marshall’s behalf.
But ultimately, if Dems are going to win serious legislative battles, they’ll need to learn to stick together, at least more often than they do now. Pelosi seems to realize that and is willing to do something about it. Good for her.