Comment: Party Discipline in Dominant Parties

The Republicans have shown great party discipline, and that has caused great damage over the last few years. The party leadership – Bush, Frist (Lott before him), DeLay, Hastert – and the most influential lobbyists are on the hard right edge of the Republican landscape. So party discipline for the Republicans now means control of the party by the party’s ideological (and tactical) extremists.

Why have moderate Republicans consented to this? It may be a matter of history, and the hard-dying nature of old habits.

Party discipline is an entirely different creature in a one-party government than it is in a divided government. Right now, the Republicans control a one-party government – with control of both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. The last time the Republicans were in this position was 1952. Party discipline in a one-party government means the institutions of government are controlled by the party leadership – a tiny rump minority of the elected officials. Party discipline in this context is gravely undemocratic.

Party discipline is much safer when the party in question is in the minority. In this context, party discipline helps (especially in the Senate) to prevent action by tepid majorities. Discipline among the minority party means that the majority party can act only if there is near-unanimity on the question among that party (or if – as we see these days – the majority party is itself highly disciplined and can corral the votes of members who disagree with what they’re voting on). Even when the disciplined party has a majority in both houses of Congress but the president is from the other party, party discipline is much less dangerous than when the party dominates in a one-party government. In that case – the Clinton presidency after 1994 – the two institutions can lock each other up, but the leadership of one party cannot control all the power of government.

Democratic legislators are notoriously undisciplined. But for a good part of the time since FDR the Democrats controlled both the Congress and the White House. A dominant party doesn’t need party discipline in order to assert itself – as a dominated party does. The Democrats didn’t need disciplined legislators as the Republicans did. And it is good that it worked out that way. A dominant party with disciplined legislators means a government controlled by the small number of people in the party leadership – a group that is unlikely to represent even that party, let alone the country at large.

I suspect that the moderate Republicans have submitted to the customary Republican party discipline out of deeply ingrained habit. There is not a Republican in the Congress who was in office the last time the Republicans were a dominant party. They don’t have a feel for the different environment, the different needs, the different effects of party discipline. Perhaps they are slowly adjusting. The defection – perhaps only temporary and perhaps ultimately futile – of a few Republican senators on the judicial filibuster issue may indicate that some Republicans are beginning to see the dangers of discipline in a dominant party.