90th Congress: when the ideological party cleanup started

by: skeptic06

Mon Aug 13, 2007 at 17:22

The 90th House (list culled from the list of reps in 1-109 on the Voteview site) shows an ideological and geographical spread vastly different from that in the 110th. [I take the 90th as the first House elected after the Great Society reforms had been enacted - with a considerable bounce-back for the GOP after the pretty disastrous post-assassination elections of 64.]

For instance, there is no ideological separation between the parties. As measured by DW-NOMINATE 1st dimension scores, the most conservative Dem (Rarick LA-6) is the 432nd most liberal (out of 437 reps ranked) at 0.528. (The scale runs from -1 (most liberal) to +1.)

No fewer than 183 GOP reps were more liberal than Rarick!

Already, the GOP had made substantial inroads into the Confederacy (beyond the odd seat in VA and eastern TN they'd managed before): 24 seats (including Daddy Bush's TX-7).

(In the 87th, by comparison, the GOP had only 7 reps from the Confederacy.)

In the 90th, the GOP was largely a Midwest party (counting in PA to stretch a point): 14 reps from the old Federalist New England heartland, 30 seats in NJ/NY, three dozen from the West, and that's it.

While roughly half the House Dem party were from the Confederacy or border states (which I rate as MD/MO/WV/KY/OK).

Of course, mere numbers can't convey the dominance of the Confederacy in the operation of the Congress and the Congressional Dem party - a dominance which had suffered its Stalingrad in the passage of the CRA and VRA, but was a good way from its Berlin

But conservative Dem MCs had the benefit of long incumbency (there will be stats somewhere!) under a long period of virtual one-party rule in their home states with which to fight a rearguard action.