Extreme Advocacy Leadership in the Pre-Reform House

Wright Patman and the House Banking and Currency Committee

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6228151
AutoresJohn E Owens (0000-0002-8149-0640, autor de correspondencia)
Año1985
Volumen15
Número2
Páginas187-206
Fecha de publicación1985-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBritish Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0007-1234 • E-ISSN: 1469-2112
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0007123400004154
OpenAlexW1965706035
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas24

Committee chairmen in the United States House of Representatives were often very powerful figures until the reforms of the early 1970s – as the numerous tales about those stereotyped villains, the southern Democrats, bear witness. Yet, surprisingly little explicit typologizing about leadership in congressional committees appears in the academic literature despite a growing awareness of the different goals which congressmen pursue and the variety of environments in which they operate. Just two different models of chairmen's power were developed in the context of the pre-reform Congress. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the accepted view, perhaps caricature, was that committee chairmen were autocratic, obstructionist (at least as far as liberals were concerned), conservative, possibly senile, and more than likely representative of constituencies outside the mainstream of national politics. A list of chairmen seen as fitting into this mould would include men such as ‘Judge’ Howard Smith, chairman of the Rules Committee from 1955 to 1967; his somewhat less skilful successor from 1967 to 1972, William Colmer of Mississippi; Graham Barden, the provocative chairman of the Education and Labor Committee between 1953 and 1960; and the authoritative Carl Vinson of Georgia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee for seventeen years until 1966

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