Matt Yglesias

House GOP Leadership Gets More Conservative

You expect the House Republican leadership to be conservative. But Mike Brady’s chart based on DW-NOMINATE scores shows that the 110th Congress GOP leadership was somewhat to the right of the median House Republican, and that the proposed new leadership for the 111th Congress is even further right:

One assumes that, in general, the median 111th Congress Republican is going to be to the right of the median 110th Congress Republican because as the GOP caucus shrinks it’s more-or-more dominated by members with very conservative districts. But either way, these guys are going to be led by a team that’s way to the right of the typical member of congress.

31 Responses to “House GOP Leadership Gets More Conservative”

1. Wisconsin Reader Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 2:53 pm

   Also notice the newly installed “leadership” of the Republican Governors Group are from: Georgia, Mississippi, Florida and South Carolina. . . Anyone thinking “Secession?”

2. Ed Smithe Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 3:03 pm

   Cantor is no conservative…He’s a neocon.

3. Ed Smithe Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

   Mike Pence is an idiot too. How about someone like Jeff Flake? The guy is principled and a decent fellow. My only qualm with him as of late is that he was completely against doing something about Wall Street. Instead we’ve got three neocons and a really nice guy in Paul Ryan.

4. mkd Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

   Yeah- But voters punished the Republicans in the last two election cycles for not being conservative enough, remember? The easiest way to regain control of congress is for the party to move ever further to the right. Everyone knows that…

5. John Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

   Also notice the newly installed “leadership” of the Republican Governors Group are from: Georgia, Mississippi, Florida and South Carolina. . . Anyone thinking “Secession?”

   Crist is pretty liberal, though.

6. fester Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 3:52 pm

   @ DTM in #1 — I don’t think the moderates running for cover and avoiding leadership is a good theory as there are not enough moderates remaining. I think what we are seeing is institutional politics combine with the glue of the ‘moderate’ GOP networks losing and falling apart combined with the fact that the remaining GOP Reps are coming from very Bush friendly districts and therefore have minimal fear of a general election challenge but a very real fear of a Club for Growth primary challenge.

7. dannity Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

   I think fester nails the “Club for Growth” threat, but I also think we’re seeing the effects of the cultural ideology that the right has. Basically, they purposely eschew political moderation.

   The argument is moderates get nothing done, so the more extreme the idea or the candidate, the better. Therefore, a political moderate that challenged a far-right conservative for a leadership position wouldn’t just be rebuffed, he’d be actively punished. Moderation doesn’t play well in today’s Republican party, so all those guys just keep their heads down, and do as they’re told. Which is basically what passes as a moderate now a days in the GOP anyway.

8. Sam Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

   Wouldn’t the mean be more to the right but the median be roughly the same if not somewhat to the left? After all the mean can be skewed by extreme outliers, but the median shouldn’t be effected.

9. Njorl Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

   They want this Mike Pence for leadership?:

   http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/mike_pence_2.php

   Are there cliffs to be gone over?

10. wml Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

    I would be careful of making TOO much of this. For example, Nancy Pelosi is from one of the 20 most liberal districts. Would you want to claim that the House Democratic leadership is inevitably and necessarily hyper-liberal?

    Furthermore, Nominate scores can be corrupted by partisan voting. Being scored “conservative” can mean being inherently conservative (and thereby wanting to use their leadership positions to advance conservative policies), or it can mean high party voting loyalty to the Republican party, (which would mean using leadership positions to advance the electoral prospects of the Republican party) or some combination.

11. TW Andrews Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 4:57 pm

    One of the ironic things about this election is that even as congress overall became (somewhat) more liberal (er, sorry, progressive), the center of each party has moved right. The Republicans lost many of their moderates, and the Democrats gained their more-conservative-than-the-average-democrat replacements.

    I don’t know what effect that will have on the legislation which passes the House and Senate–I have a feeling that the overall composition of the chambers is more important that the relative compositions of the parties–but it’s interesting nonetheless.

12. bh Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

    I would be careful of making TOO much of this. For example, Nancy Pelosi is from one of the 20 most liberal districts. Would you want to claim that the House Democratic leadership is inevitably and necessarily hyper-liberal?

    This might be a valid comparison if the two sides of the idealogical spectrum were symetrical, but as Larry Bartels and others have shown, that’s just not the case. Mike Pence is way out to the right on this scale because he’s a bona-fide extremist nutjob. If you prefer qualitative data, there are no shortage of examples of this — just start with the old MY post linked to above.

    Furthermore, Nominate scores can be corrupted by partisan voting. Being scored “conservative” can mean being inherently conservative (and thereby wanting to use their leadership positions to advance conservative policies), or it can mean high party voting loyalty to the Republican party, (which would mean using leadership positions to advance the electoral prospects of the Republican party) or some combination.

    There are plenty of legitimate objections you could raise to a two-dimensional idealogical mapping, but its inability to divine which votes reflect what’s ‘really’
    in their hearts is NOT one of them.

    I know political journalists spend enormous amounts of time trying to guess this stuff, but it’s just irrelevant if you’re actually focused on policy outcomes.

    It does, however, provide opportunites for politicians canny enough to exploit the press’ fixation with pop psychodrama. See McCain, John for examples.

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