Where’s the Pivot Point?

11 thoughts on “Where’s the Pivot Point?”

1. Informative post.  I had read how the Democratic caucus is more cohesive now, but this really drives home that point with good info.  I never appreciated how far we’ve already come to “better” Democrats.  

2. Wonderful analysis!

3. Clinton’s extra Democrats were all southern Democrats, and conservative ones at that.  The totals outside of the south are even comparing 1992 woth 2006; the South was down 26 (it;s closed with the specials) One of the fruits of Republican districting in the south (and House “pension” changes re: unspent campaign funds)was to replace a very large number of conservative southern Democrats with a mix of rougghly 2/3 Republicans, nearly 1/3 southern black Democrats and less than a handful of white Democrats.

   This is very much reflected in your charts.

   Btw, some people claim that Steny Hoyer is about as powerful as Nancy Pelosi (I personally disagree).  A move towards a vastly more profressive/New Dem structure would cut the legs off of Steny.  Who knows, maybe he could be replaced in leadership by a less treacherous sort if we made huge gains.  Oh, happy day.

4. I think the analysis is interesting, but misses the broader point. Legislation now has to satisfy either Bush’s preferences (so as not to provoke a veto), or, if it does provoke a veto, the preferences of the veto-override pivot (the pivot at the 2/3 of the House). So, in fact, the whole thing does not pivot around Mahoney.

   In the current context (think SCHIP), the Dems passed a bill that was too far away from Bush’s ideal point where he would have been willing to compromise with some increase in child health care spending. So, with the bill passed, the Democrats proceeded to try to override Bush’s veto. The problem, however, was that the bill the Democrats passed was also too far away from the ideal point of the veto override pivot (think somewhere in the Joe Knollenberg – Vernon Ehlers area – although I’m not sure how they actually voted). So the Democrats could consistently get a majority, but also consistently failed to get the support of enough moderate Republicans to expand SCHIP.

   In the current context of divided government, the most important pivots are the President’s and the veto override pivot (which is currently a moderate Republican).

   Of course, an Obama adminstration changes the game significantly, because House Democrats will no longer have to deal with a Republican president and Republican veto pivot (the veto pivot will probably become unimportant). In this context, Stoller is right, and the focus should then turn to the Senate, where satisfying the demands of the filibuster pivot is most important.

   All those interested should read some of political scientist Keith Krehbiel’s work.

5. Continuing down Stoller’s line, the more the tipping point improves, it can end up with a bit of an exponential impact. If 15 MoCs need to be swung on a particular bill, it might be tough. But if it’s only 5, you can individualize things and the threat to other holdouts of ending up marginalized long-term becomes greater.

   1. The block of southern Democrats made it virtually impossible for the Republicans to gain more than an occassional majority (very occassional) in the House.  Just add 25 more seats to the Democratic total (20 even) and the whole 1994-2006 period where Republicans controlled the House doesn’t happen.  Republican policy gains were mostly based on compromises with Tip O’Neill, etc. (who had the southern Dems as an important bloc).

      So yes, that was bad.  Certainly from my standpoint.  Otoh, even though Democrats controlled the House, those extra seats did not push the magic power point very far towards enacting progressive legislation.

   2. due to our demographics.  We are generally extremely easy to box into D+10-40 seats leaving lots and lots R+1-5 seats.  And then to compound that with the Voting Rights Act, even more screwed over.

      The one nice thing when making Hispanic majority seats at least is they lean Dem but many still have R+ PVI’s and are not like majority black seats that vote 85% Democrat.

      Imagine the damage we could do in a place like Georgia if we didnt have to follow the Voting Rights Act and we just split the black vote up in Atlanta among all the CD’s around the area, we could probably gain 3 seats right there.

6. I did a fist pump when I saw the new pivot would be Kirkpatrick (or any of the other ones).  That’d be a fine place to be.

   Where do you come up with all of this stuff?  I may have to steal an idea and expand on it when I do my big American Politics thesis for my senior sem.

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