Fighting for the Speakership

Jeffery A. Jenkins; Charles Stewart

Jeffery A. Jenkins and Charles Stewart

Fighting for the Speakership

The House and the Rise of Party Government

In: Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives, 131

Princeton University Press | 2013

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400845460

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the most powerful partisan figure in the contemporary U.S. Congress. How this came to be, and how the majority party in the House has made control of the speakership a routine matter, is far from straightforward. Fighting for the Speakership provides a comprehensive history of how Speakers have been elected in the U.S. House since 1789, arguing that the organizational politics of these elections were critical to the construction of mass political parties in America and laid the groundwork for the role they play in setting the agenda of Congress today.

Jeffery Jenkins and Charles Stewart show how the speakership began as a relatively weak office, and how votes for Speaker prior to the Civil War often favored regional interests over party loyalty. While struggle, contention, and deadlock over House organization were common in the antebellum era, such instability vanished with the outbreak of war, as the majority party became an "organizational cartel" capable of controlling with certainty the selection of the Speaker and other key House officers. This organizational cartel has survived Gilded Age partisan strife, Progressive Era challenge, and conservative coalition politics to guide speakership elections through the present day. Fighting for the Speakership reveals how struggles over House organization prior to the Civil War were among the most consequential turning points in American political history.

Author information

Jeffery A. Jenkins is associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia. Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Reviews

"The Speaker of the House is the third-highest constitutional office in the United States. Yet political scientists and historians have largely ignored how the House chooses the holder of this exalted position. No longer—Jenkins and Stewart have convincingly placed the contest for the speakership at the center of the historical development of Congress."—Nolan McCarty, Princeton University

"This is an ambitious and impressive piece of scholarship with extraordinary historical sweep. Urging scholars to move beyond the study of the majority party's procedural control of the agenda, Jenkins and Stewart grapple with the organizational evolution of the House and the starring role ultimately played in that institutional drama by the majority party caucus. This is a must-read for students of Congress and America's political development."—Sarah Binder, George Washington University and the Brookings Institution

One of Choice's Editors’ Picks for 2013

"Fighting for the Speakership makes a new and important contribution to our knowledge of the role of speakership contests in the development of party organization in the House of Representatives. Most previous scholarship begins with the observation that majority parties firmly control the House's top organizational positions. Jenkins and Stewart show that this was not always the case."—Steven S. Smith, author of Party Influence in Congress

"The development of an 'organizational cartel' has been central to the evolution of political parties in the U.S. House. The parties control access to committee and leadership slots. Whether this has allowed parties to control policy is a separate and contingent matter. Jenkins and Stewart press this theoretical distinction and offer much else in this excellent and authoritative work of congressional history."—David Mayhew, Yale University

An excellent look at the history of majority party leadership in the House.

[T]his is, overall, a sound and illuminating analysis.---R. Scott Burnet, Historian

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
List of Illustrations Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	vii
List of Tables Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	ix
List of Abbreviations Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	xi
Preface Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	xiii
Chapter 1. Introduction Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
Chapter 2. The Evolving Roles and Responsibilities of House Officers in the Antebellum Era Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	25
Chapter 3. Organizational Politics under the Secret Ballot Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	56
Chapter 4. Bringing the Selection of House Officers into the Open Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	76
Chapter 5. Shoring Up Partisan Control: The Speakership Elections of 1839 and 1847 Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	109
Chapter 6. Partisan Tumult on the Floor: The Speakership Elections of 1849 and 1855–1856 Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	151
Chapter 7. The Speakership and the Rise of the Republican Party Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	193
Chapter 8. Caucus Governance and the Emergence of the Organizational Cartel, 1861–1891 Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	241
Chapter 9. The Organizational Cartel Persists, 1891–2011 Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	274
Chapter 10. Conclusion Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	303
Appendixes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	323
References Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	421
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	439

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Fighting for the Speakership

The House and the Rise of Party Government

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