Orchestrators of Unorthodox Lawmaking: Pelosi and McConnell in the 110th Congress
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Barbara Sinclair
In evaluating leaders, the leader's own criteria or the evaluator's can set the mark and the two may well lead to quite different judgments. If our primary aim is to understand leadership strategy and behavior, we need to focus on the first; but if we also want to say something about how the institution performs, we often need to tackle the second as well. In this essay, I contend that the procedures and practices of unorthodox lawmaking, especially the most actively used ones, are now mostly tools of party leaders--of the majority leadership in the House and, to a considerable extent, of the minority leadership in the Senate. I focus here on how the Pelosi leadership team in the House and the McConnell team in the Senate are employing what used to be unorthodox practices and procedures as central elements of their leadership strategies, and the consequences thereof for Congress as an institution.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
In evaluating leaders, the leader's own criteria or the evaluator's can set the mark and the two may well lead to quite different judgments. If our primary aim is to understand leadership strategy and behavior, we need to focus on the first; but if we also want to say something about how the institution performs, we often need to tackle the second as well. In this essay, I contend that the procedures and practices of unorthodox lawmaking, especially the most actively used ones, are now mostly tools of party leaders--of the majority leadership in the House and, to a considerable extent, of the minority leadership in the Senate. I focus here on how the Pelosi leadership team in the House and the McConnell team in the Senate are employing what used to be unorthodox practices and procedures as central elements of their leadership strategies, and the consequences thereof for Congress as an institution.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Evaluating Majority Party Leaders in Congress
- The Politics of Constraint: House Republicans in Retrospect and Prospect
- Senate Republican Leadership in Tough Times
- Orchestrators of Unorthodox Lawmaking: Pelosi and McConnell in the 110th Congress
- Assessing Nancy Pelosi
- The American Public's View of Congress
- Commentary
- East European 'Model' to Cuban Freedom
- Response or Comment
- Comment on "Searching for Voters along the Liberal-Conservative Continuum"
- Review
- Review of Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age
- Review of Unequal Democracy
- Review of Unequal Democracy
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Evaluating Majority Party Leaders in Congress
- The Politics of Constraint: House Republicans in Retrospect and Prospect
- Senate Republican Leadership in Tough Times
- Orchestrators of Unorthodox Lawmaking: Pelosi and McConnell in the 110th Congress
- Assessing Nancy Pelosi
- The American Public's View of Congress
- Commentary
- East European 'Model' to Cuban Freedom
- Response or Comment
- Comment on "Searching for Voters along the Liberal-Conservative Continuum"
- Review
- Review of Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age
- Review of Unequal Democracy
- Review of Unequal Democracy
