Congress

We have seen the strength and role of the party in the legislature increase recently, as the cleavages between the two major parties have widened, parties have become more homogenous and unified. This can be partly explained by the disappearance of the Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans, many of whom have switched parties or failed to be reelected. Moderates now vote far more in line with their parties, especially on major issues such as the stimulus bill.

As inter-party heterogeneity increases and the majority party becomes more similar, and as intra-party homogeneity increases and the parties become more different from one another, the majority leaders can pursue policies that are further from the center as they have stronger party backing in the House. The stronger the party in the legislature, the closer policy will be to their end of the interest spectrum.

With unified government under the Democrats, I think the role of the Republican (minority) party is to attempt to persuade peoples’ desires and feelings about current government so that they can attempt to win back seats from the Democrats and hopefully take a majority in Congress again. Of course the number one goal of the individuals in the party is to win reelection, so they need to continue to appeal to voters in core Republican areas to at least hold those seats.

By unifying as a party to represent and defend core Republican values, the minority party can show its force and possible power, so that if things don’t work out for the majority party, their policies aren’t effective quick enough etc., voters will know there are other choices than the current government and that there’s a possibility to go on a different course. The Republicans in Congress right now need to show up to work to show their unity and strength, to hopefully win a majority again. They have done this on the voting for the stimulus package because of the nature of the legislation; although there’s really no way to defeat the bill right now, and most probably don’t want to given the economic situation, the Republicans still showed their opposition, and some compromises were made between the parties over certain aspects of the bill.

This relates to the calls for bipartisanship that we often hear: it seems to make sense that in an ideal democracy, the interests of all citizens would attempt to be met. However, parties play an important role in the election of candidates, and those who often deviate from the party are called flip-floppers, etc. Bipartisan compromise is ideal as it potentially pleases more citizens, but the majority party is still going to have more power and is going to try and advance their own causes first.