>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington D.C.
>> John Cole: Well good
afternoon everyone.
Welcome to the Library of Congress.
There are lots of seats out front
folks, if you'd like to come on up.
I won't point you out at all.
I'm John Cole.
I'm the Director of the Center for
The Book in the Library of Congress,
which is the part of the library
that promotes books and reading
and literacy in libraries.
We are really in the educational
outreach business for the library
and part of a newly organized
department that talks about national
and international outreach.
We have affiliates at very state,
and they help us promote books
and reading, often through
statewide book festivals.
Sometimes through author
awards programs.
Other ways that are local.
And the business they're really in
is promoting writers and authors
and book things in their states.
And so we enjoy having
those state contacts.
And it's important for the work
that we're doing in other areas.
Another major involvement
for us is with the Library
of Congress National Book
Festival, which has existed.
We had our 15th anniversary
this year.
It was created for with
the library by Laura Bush
when she was the first lady.
And she stuck with us, thank
goodness, for all eight years
that the Bushes were here.
And President Obama and Mrs.
Obama became our honorary chairs
after the Bushes left.
And we have picked up steam.
We were, the first 13 years
on the National Mall and sort
of got moved off as the mall
underwent renovation last year.
And we grew rather large.
And we've moved into the
Washington Convention Center
where we have been very happily
ensconced the last two years
and in the future.
The book festival is a
wonderful public outreach event
for the Library of Congress.
And one of the best parts is all of
the Library of Congress volunteers
and others from throughout the
library and our friends help out.
And the Convention Center put
out a statistic last year,
which we didn't do the counting,
nor did we ask for the publicity.
But they said that the National Book
Festival last September 5th was the
largest single event ever held at
the Washington Convention Center.
And they estimated a crowd
between 125 and 150,000,
which was really wonderful.
Well that was, I'll thank you
on behalf of the library and all
of the people who worked on it.
Because it was, it's
just a wonderful event.
Here at the library, to
get down to business,
of one our major programs is the
one you're attending called Books
and Beyond.
And these are book talks by
authors of relatively recent books.
And each of the books has something
to do with the Library of Congress.
And we co-sponsor these often
with our custodial divisions
needing manuscripts or prints
and photographs where very
often the book, the speaker,
the author has done
their work in the Library
of Congress' collections.
Other talks, such as the one today,
have a very obvious connection
with the library in
a functional way.
Often, also, we work with the
Folk Life Center or others
on special projects that
have been of interest
to the Center for The Book.
One example that comes to
mind was the WPA arts projects
and the various books that
have come out relating
to the WPA arts projects.
These programs are all filmed for
the Library of Congress' website.
So I ask you to turn off
all things electronic.
The format will be a presentation by
our speaker, who will be introduced
by a distinguished member of the
congressional research staff.
He will speak for 30 to 40 minutes.
We'll have a chance for
questions and answers.
And we'll have a book signing here
in the back of the room that needs
to start no later than 1:00.
And, of course, our book
today is Underdog Politics.
Our author is Matt Green.
I want to say a couple of
things about the Center
for The Book, a couple more things.
The schedule of future talks
is on the back, in the back.
We also have an evaluation
form, which really focuses
on how you learned
about the program.
So we're trying to coordinate
with the other Library
of Congress programs,
including author programs,
to learn more about
how that happened.
Finally, I would like to
introduce Walter Oleszek,
who is from the Congressional
Research Service.
Walter is a senior specialist,
he said, in congress in general.
He's a generalist who's
been at the Library
of Congress for a number of years.
We actually have rediscovered
our long friendship.
I started in the Congressional
Research Service my first two years
at the library between 1966 and
1968, beating Walter by two years.
But I left CRS, then called
Legislative Reference Service
in 1968, the year that
Walter arrived.
But we had overlap, and we've
said hello to each other
and known each other
in an informal way
for what amounts to
be several decades.
So it's a special pleasure
to introduce Walter,
who will carry on with our program.
Let's give Walter a hand.
[ Applause ]
>> Walter Oleszek: Well thank you,
John, for that kind introduction.
You know I've got to thank John
not only personally, but of course,
the Center for The Book which
sponsors these kinds of programs,
which is really a tremendous
educative event for all LC employees
who are interested in
attending these kinds of forums.
Now we're going to have an
intellectual treat today,
a feast over this lunch hour because
we have Professor Matthew Green
with us, who as we all
know will talk about,
when he gets the podium momentarily,
about underdog politics.
Just a little about Matt is
he's a PhD from Yale University.
He's a very busy and active
researcher at Catholic University
where he's been since he
started his academic career.
He is, in terms of
business, I would commend
that you go look at his website.
Because his website lists his
numerous publications, you know,
all of his articles,
convention papers, blogs,
CSPAN interviews, and it goes on.
So he's going to expand our
horizons in a lot of ways by talking
about this issue of
underdog politics.
Now I also want to highlight
that Matt has published
two very important books
on the United States House, one
in 2010, and that was The Speaker
of the House, a Study in Leadership.
And, of course, now five years
later we have Underdog Politics.
It's an interested
title because generally,
that's the way the
minority party often feels.
That it is the underdog in the House
of Representatives particularly.
It varies over time,
but I'm fond of a quote
by former Speaker Thomas
[inaudible] Reed of Maine
in the late 19th century
when he was speaker.
And he had a comment that
sometimes resonates even today.
And he said that the job of
the minority party is two-fold.
Number one, make a quorum.
Number two, draw your pay.
And the rest of your time, leave
governance to the majority party,
which happened to be the
Republicans at that time.
So without further ado,
because time is limited,
let me now welcome Matt Green
to the podium where he'll speak
for whatever length of time he needs
to run through the PowerPoints.
And then take Q&A.
And then we'll have to break.
So with that, Professor Green.
[ Applause ]
>> Matthew Green: Thank you
Walter for that kind introduction.
I have many people to
thank for being here.
I want to thank Mr. Cole
for having me come to speak
to you today about my book.
I also, in addition to
this book being relevant
because it's about Congress.
Can people hear me, or
should I talk in the mike?
The mike. Mike better?
Okay. In addition to the
book being about Congress,
I also took advantage of the
Library of Congress and did some
of the research for
this book at the Library
of Congress' various
collections, newspaper collections
and also some congressional
record analysis.
And then in addition to that, in a
very early stage of this project,
Colleen Shogan invited me to
present a portion of my research
to the Government and
Finance Division of CRS,
which was extremely helpful
and got a lot of excellent
and helpful feedback and advice
and suggestions for the project.
And actually it was there that
someone from CRS, Jim Saturno,
suggested why don't
you make this a book.
And I hadn't thought about that.
I just thought this was going
to be a little fun project.
And I thought, you know,
that actually would be
quite a lot of fun to do.
And so I ended up several years
later publishing this book.
So I have Mr. Saturno to thank
and also the folks at CRS
and the Library of Congress.
So let me start by, to
introduce this subject,
talk about three policy
changes of varying significance
that have happened in the last
30 years in the United States.
The first is the passage
of the 1981 budget proposal
by President Ronald Reagan,
which dramatically reduced taxes.
The second is the closure of
hundreds of military bases
across the United States in
the last several decades.
And the third is the fact, this
is a little bit more minor,
that the House of Representatives
starts each day
with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Now the reason why I
start with these three is
because they have something
in common.
It's not that they have
a president behind them.
It's not that a majority party
in the House and/or
Senate were behind them.
But that they took place in
part because of the initiatives
and efforts of members
of the minority party
of the House of Representatives.
The Reagan budget got its start with
tax reduction proposal introduced
by then Congressman Jack Kemp, a
Republican from New York who was
in the minority, along with
Senator Roth from Delaware.
BRAC got its start with an amendment
that was proposed by then minority,
member of the minority
Dick Armey of Texas.
And the Pledge of Allegiance got its
start during the 1988 presidential
campaign when the issue of the
constitutionality of the Pledge
of Allegiance became an issue with,
there was a bill the
Dukakis had vetoed.
So Bush was saying
what's your problem
with the Pledge of Allegiance.
So House Republicans started
saying, we should require the Pledge
of Allegiance when the House meets.
And Democrats tried to sort of
hold them off but ultimately agreed
to do it at least informally.
So these are examples of ways
in which we had policy changes
or procedural changes
because of the minority party
in the House of Representatives.
Now I think this is important
for a number of reasons.
One is that the conventional
wisdom is that the minority party
in the House doesn't really matter.
If you have to be in the minority,
it's the Senate where you want
to be, not the House
of Representatives.
It's a majoritarian institution.
The majority sets the rules.
And the majority sets
the agenda, etcetera.
The other thing too, which is what
got me interested in this as well,
is not just contributions to
policy and procedure by members
of the minority, but that even when
the minority party doesn't seem
to have much influence,
it still is active.
It doesn't give up.
And that got me thinking about why
minority parties do what they do.
There were a couple actually
specific incidences in recent years
that piqued my curiosity.
One was the frequent use by the
minority Democrats in the 1990s
and early 2000s of procedural
motions, particularly the motion
to rise and the motion to adjourn,
which I'll talk about in a minute.
Which slow things down, but
they're not exactly a filibuster.
So I started thinking, why would
a minority be doing these things,
just to cause a little bit
of difficulty I suppose.
And the other was in 2008
I was fortunate enough
to bring my then three-month
old daughter to the House floor
in the summer of 2008 when the House
Republicans were staging this sort
of mock session talking
about oil prices.
And it was not televised.
And it was sort of fun to watch.
But I thought, now why are
these folks doing this?
It's not on TV.
Why would they stay here instead
of go home for the summer and talk
to a chamber full of tourists,
if anyone, about oil prices?
So that got me thinking about
the minority party some more.
And I started to do more research
and ultimately ended
up with this book.
So the book addresses, or at
least raises four questions.
The first is why doe the
House minority party,
or what does the minority
party do, right?
There are categories of
activities that they do.
The second is why.
Why do they do the
things that they do?
The third is have the things that
the minority party, does the things
that they do, has it
changed over time?
And the fourth is whether it has
any effects on politics or policy.
Now I am not going to answer
all four questions in my talk.
Some of those are answered in
the book, and in the interest
of time I don't want
to go through each.
I should also, as a caveat,
mention the last question
is the hardest to answer.
And in the book I suggest an
answer to it, and it may vary
by the tactic that's used.
But I don't have a
definitive answer.
It's very hard to draw
causal connections
between the things a
party does in the minority
and the political outcomes
that they may be seeking.
Alright, well let me start actually,
and I'll just go back just a second,
the order in which I'm going
to tackle these questions.
I'm going to start with number two,
talk about why the minority
party does what it does.
Then I'll talk about what
the minority party does.
And I'll give some examples.
The book is chocked full of
these things that they do.
And I'm not going to
talk about all of them.
And then I will, in doing so,
talk a little bit about four
and maybe touch on three at
the end, time permitting.
And I should mention one other
thing too about the presentation.
You're going to see some graphs.
You're going to see some tables.
But this book is I would
say relatively unusual
for a political science book,
particularly about Congress.
There's no formal models,
no mathematical models.
There's not a single regression
equation in it anywhere.
My purpose was to make it
readable and interesting.
And, you know, so I
hope I succeeded.
Okay. So let me start by talking
about what the minority party,
why the minority party
does what it does.
Well the obvious and most important
thing to a minority party is
to not be a minority anymore.
It is not fun to be in the minority
in the House of Representatives.
So their primary goal is to
be a majority, to win seats,
to win seats from the majority
and to be a majority party again.
Now, the conventional
wisdom would stop there.
That's what the minority
cares about.
But what I argue in the book
is that that's incomplete.
That doesn't help us
explain things that they do.
They may be out of the public eye,
or they are relevant to voters.
Other things going on there.
So there's three other
important collective goals
to the minority party I argue.
The second is a policy.
Because even though
they're in the minority,
members of the minority
party are law makers.
They want to make the law.
They want to influence legislation.
And so to the extent that they
can do that, it's important
to the party collectively.
The third important goal of the
minority party is the protection
of its procedural rights.
Now for the most part, these
rights are a necessary precondition
to do other things.
You've got to have
certain powers in order
to influence policy for instance.
But I argue that these
rights are also important
to the minority in
and of themselves.
They're especially sensitive to it
because they have fewer
rights under the rules.
And so they want to protect the
prerogatives that they have.
And they can get quite
passionate about it if they feel
that those rights are being violated
or their powers are being mitigated.
And the fourth thing that matters
to the minority is a
successful presidential party.
Now this matters to the
majority party too, of course.
But especially to the
minority because you want
to have some allies somewhere
in the national government
who can help you, can carry
out your policy goals.
If you are in the so-called deep
minority, so you don't have,
your party does not have the
Senate or the White House,
then you are truly powerless.
So I argue these are four very
important things to the minority.
Now an important thing to note here,
these aren't all equally important.
Most of the time this
is in the order
in which they matter
to a minority party.
But it will also vary
by circumstances.
So in the 1970s, for instance,
many House Republicans saw no way
to get into the majority.
They just could not
see a way to do it.
So for many of them, the second
goal was the primary goal.
Well if we can't win back the House,
let's at least try
to influence policy.
And this became a major conflict
when Newt Gingrich was elected
to the House because he was
trying to convince the party
that majority status should
be number one versus others
who were there saying, that's silly.
We should be number two.
One other thing I want to note
before I talk about some things
in particular that the
minority party does.
That table, it's sort of a,
kind of what you might call
in political science a
rational choice approach.
So the idea is that the
party is calculating.
They think about what
matters most to them.
And they figure out how to get them.
Well something that's important
that I discovered in my interviews
that I did for this book
and other research is
that that's a little simplistic.
That other things matter
as the minority too.
And I open the book
with these two quotes.
And I highlight two key words there
to underscore an important common
sense that the minority party has.
Frustration and freedom.
So on the one hand it's very
frustrating to be in the minority
and to lose over and
over and over again.
On the other hand, you
have no obligations.
You're not governing.
You can do what you like.
And so because these are two
important characteristics of life
in the minority, there's
some consequences
to how a minority party behaves.
Morale. Morale is very hard to keep.
It's very hard to keep good morale
when you're in the minority.
And it's a constant struggle
for leaders to keep the morale
of their fellow partisans high.
If you can't, they may leave.
They may not cooperate or work with
the party on things that they need.
So this is often a sort
of an underlying theme
of minority party politics is
keeping people's morale high.
Emotion also matters.
Sometimes the majority does
something that's so infuriating
to the minority that they
just do something, alright.
They stage a protest,
or they try something.
More out of anger and
frustration than out
of a calculate analysis
of what will work.
And then also action
is its own reward.
A couple of folks I talked
to said that, you know,
leaders felt the need
to do something.
You got to show the troops
that you're doing something,
even if it's not going
to bring you back
into the majority any time soon.
And that can be inherently
rewarding,
and there are certainly some members
of the minority who
just like the fight.
They just enjoy the
battle for its own sake.
And then uncertainty.
So there's a lot of uncertainty.
Sometimes the people in the
minority just try things.
They don't know if it's
going to work or not.
If it doesn't, it probably
won't make a difference.
So these are four important
themes of the book,
or sort of late motifs of the book.
Okay, what I'd like to
do now is talk about each
of these four categories of tactics
that the minority party uses.
Now here on the slide I
show all of the things
that I discuss under each headline.
I'm not going to talk about all
of those in my presentation.
I'm going to highlight
one as an example for each
of these four categories.
So electioneering, messaging,
obstructing and legislating.
Let me start with electioneering.
And the example I want to give is
the use, by really both parties,
of a technique to identify
strong candidates and help them
with training and fundraising.
So this is one way
a minority can try
to get back the majority
is find people running,
particularly if they're
running against incumbents
in the other party and
say, you're promising.
We're going to help you raise
more money and help you succeed.
So these are, for instance,
the red to blue program
that the Democrats
started in the early 2000s.
And the young guns program the
Republicans started in 2010.
And they've been fairly successful.
So, you know, Kirsten Gillibrand was
elected as a red to blue in 2006.
Allen West from Florida was
elected in the young guns program.
But what I want to talk about is
not whether it led to Democrats
or Republicans winning
but a more immediate goal.
Did it actually help these
candidates raise more money?
Was it successful?
So let me just show
one example of this.
I've got more examples in the book.
This is early 2006.
This is the year the
Democrats retake the House.
And the red to blue program is
targeting a number of Democrats
that they find promising.
So what I have here on the table,
the blue are Democrats running
who get put into or accepted
into the red to blue program.
And the first set of bars
are before they are put
in the program or allowed in.
And then the second
set are afterwards.
And I compare each of those
red to blue candidates
with another Democrat running from
a similar district who has showed
at least some degree
of fundraising acumen.
So not extremely minor
candidates but fairly strong ones.
The first thing to see, of course,
is that you don't get into the red
to blue program unless you're
already good at raising money.
That shouldn't be a surprise.
But, what I show here, and I also
show elsewhere in the book is
that after they're in one of
these programs like red to blue,
these candidates do better
at raising money than those
who are not in the program.
In this case, the red to
blue candidates raised
about $120,000 collectively over
and above what they had raised
in the first quarter of 2006,
whereas the matched pairs,
the ones in red, only raised
about half that much, 60,000.
So it's an example of ways in
which the minority party tries
to win seats.
And of course, again, the
majority party does this
as well you should know.
Alright, next I want to
talk about messaging.
Messaging is something that you
see all the time in Congress.
And it's something that is
particularly emphasized,
or at least has been
recently by minority parties.
So John Boehner, for instance, after
Republicans lost the house in 2006,
was quoted as saying, you know,
we have to forget that
we're legislators.
But we can be communicators.
That's what we have to do.
And both parties when they're
in the minority have emphasized
communication and messaging.
So there's all kinds of ways that
you can get your message out.
And what I want to talk about today
is just one kind of messaging tool
which are one-minute floor speeches.
So this is at the beginning
of each session when a number
of members prepared to give their
speeches, they ask unanimous consent
to address the floor for one
minute, and they can talk
about really whatever they want.
Although, as I discuss in the book,
it's becoming increasingly the
party agenda what they talk about.
So I usually, I like to have one
Democrat and one Republican here,
but I couldn't help myself.
I had to put Jim Traficant
on this because he was
such a colorful speaker
in his one minute,
both in them majority
and in the minority.
So what I do in the book
is I look at whether
or not these things might
influence public opinion.
I mean messaging can have all kinds
of effects that are hard to measure.
But one immediate possible effect
would be does it move the public
in the direction that
the party wants it to?
So I looked at, there's so
many of these one minutes,
and I could not code them all.
So I took samples every five
years and coded them for content.
And then I'll talk about a case
study involving really a sort of use
of these and whether
it moves the public
in the direction that
the party wanted.
So this is a chart that shows
the percent of one minute given
by the minority and majority party
that talked about the president
or the presidential candidate.
The circles are the majority party.
The squares are the minority party.
In addition, if they're hollow,
it means that the party does
not control the White House.
So it's the opposite party
that's in the White House.
And what I found, I sort of thought
well maybe the minority would be
biased towards the president
or something like that.
What I actually found is both
parties care about the president,
but really only when the
president is of the opposite party.
That's when you see
a larger percentage
of their one minutes
talking about the president.
So, for instance, in 1990, for
example, I want to say 1985.
It doesn't really matter,
1985, the Republicans are
in the minority, and
Reagan is president.
But it's the majority
party, Democrats,
that are talking about
the president.
So there's a way in which both
parties sort of see their roles
as oppositional in their messaging
with respect to the president,
depending on who that president is.
There is, however, a
definite difference
between the majority/minority
party on partisanship.
The majority tends to talk more
about party and partisanship
than the majority party does.
And, and here's where one of those
other collectively goals comes
into play.
The minority talks a
lot more about procedure
than the majority does
in their one minute.
Now they don't talk
that much about it.
No more than about 5 1/2 % of their
one minutes are on that subject.
But that's something that
also matters to the minority.
It's procedure and how
the House is working.
And most of these speeches
are, unsurprisingly,
complaining about procedure
and the way it's being
misused by the majority party.
So do these have any effects?
Well, as I said, what I
do in the book is I look
at the relationship
with public opinion.
So let me give a case study
here of a use of one minutes
by House Republicans in
mid-2009, July, 2009.
The Republicans decide their
big theme is going to be jobs.
So they have everybody go to the
floor and give one minute speeches
and use the same phrase,
where are the jobs?
They repeat that over
and over and over.
Where are the jobs?
Where are the jobs?
That's in every one-minute
speech practically.
So there's a Republican polling firm
that asked the question of folks,
what matters most to
you when you're thinking
about your vote for Congress?
And they asked this
question in early June, 2009.
And they found out 37% that
responded said the economy.
And 5% said jobs.
After Boehner had the, Majority
Leader Boehner, another Republican,
had done this where are the jobs,
campaigned the same polling firm,
asked the same question,
and this was the result.
Yeah. Exact same percentage
on the economy and 1% increase
in those same jobs, which of course
is well within the margin of error.
And I discuss in the
book other cases
in which you don't see the
public moving as a result
of these kinds of messaging.
Now does that mean
messaging doesn't work?
Not necessarily.
It could have longer term effects.
It could also do some of the
things that I talked about earlier.
It could boost morale for the
party, make some members feel
like they're doing something to try
to get out of the minority status.
But if the goal is to move
the needle of the public,
public opinion, in one
direction, it doesn't seem
to have much of an effect.
Okay, third category of tactics
is delaying and obstructing.
This is one that I,
this is a chapter
that I particularly enjoyed
writing because it just strikes me
as peculiar to think about
the minority in the House
as trying to delay and obstruct.
This is not the Senate.
They don't have a filibuster.
So what kinds of things can
they do to slow things down?
There are things, in fact, that
they can do to slow things down.
And I talk in the book about
some notorious examples
which I can discuss in Q&A later.
One of my favorites
involved Don Rumsfeld in 1968
and something that he led.
But, I'm going to talk
instead today about motions
to rise and motions to adjourn.
So these are procedural motions
in the House of Representatives.
The motion to adjourn is a motion
to basically end the session,
to be done for the day.
Motion to rise is if the House
is meeting and the committee
as a whole to consider amendments.
And then you rise, this would be to
end that portion of the discussion
and leave the committee as a whole.
So I ask two questions in the book.
One is, why are they being done?
And second of all, do
they yield results.
So let me just first show a chart
demonstrating how often these
are done.
You can see they were very rare.
These were done by, this is
minority party motions to rise
and adjourn I should say.
Very, very rare.
Became more popular in the early
90s, really took off a couple
of key Congresses,
and it sort of died
down again in terms of popularity.
These are useful for slowing
things done, not a whole lot
because you do one,
you have a roll call.
That takes 15 minutes.
But sometimes the minority
does them over and over
and over and over and over again.
That can slow things
down considerably.
So what I did for these motions
is I looked to see if the member
of Congress who offered
them gave an explanation.
So went to the floor and said,
you know I'm really mad you
wouldn't let me offer my amendment.
I move we adjourn.
Or, it's ridiculous we're
debating gun control.
We should be debating
something else.
I move that the committee rise.
Now only about half of these
motions is there an explanation.
But of those half,
this is the percentage
that fall into each category.
I categorized them based on
the general concern, complaint,
comment that was being made.
And just the takeaway point
from this is that some of these,
yeah they could be explained by the
minority caring about reelection,
because if you can't
offer your amendment
because of an unfair floor rule,
then you can't get your message out.
You can't change a bill the way
you want, so also policy concerns.
But some of these things
are very arcane, you know,
violation of regular order.
Some other abusive power.
And I would hear quote
Robert Michael,
former Republican minority
leader who called of these kinds
of debates MEGO, my eyes glaze over.
And this is boring
stuff for most people.
They don't care about
motions to, they don't care
about the restrictiveness of a rule.
So here's where it's important
to understand the minority
caring about how it's treated.
About its procedural rights.
And here's something that I
found interesting that it's hard
to necessarily trace the causal
connection that these motions
to rise are generally used, and then
this change happened as a result.
But nonetheless, a good percentage
of these were then followed
by some kind of change,
either a bill being changed
or amendments being allowed,
or the agenda being altered,
to help the minority party.
So this at least suggests
that these can effective.
Not in the majority of times,
but they can be effective
in helping the minority.
Alright, the last subject that I
want to talk about, or last category
of tactics, is legislating.
So this is one in which I actually
originally wasn't, I wasn't going
to have this in the book.
I thought, well the minority
doesn't really legislate that much.
But the reviewer said you've
got to talk about legislating.
Surely that, it's Congress,
right, okay.
So I did. So I added a
chapter about legislating.
And I look at different ways
the minority can legislate.
Can influence legislation.
Yes the minority is outnumbered, but
that doesn't mean that it can't win.
The most common way of measuring if
a minority wins in a floor vote is
through what's called
a majority roll.
That's if a majority,
the majority party,
votes against something,
but it still passes.
We colloquially call this a
violation of the Hastert Rule.
And we've seen that
violation a number of times,
so it's not technically
a rule, more of a norm.
So we've seen that this can happen,
and it can happen on
really big bills.
But a lot of scholars say, well
this doesn't happen that much.
So really minority doesn't
have that much influence.
One of the things that I argue in
the book is, besides these happen
on pretty important things,
is that there are other
ways the minority wins
on floor votes besides these rolls.
So this chart shows
three kinds of votes.
The blue line shows the percentage
of votes on final passage
in which the majority was rolled,
a violation of the Hastert Rule.
So you can see it doesn't
happen very often.
However, if you include
amendments, that's the red line,
it does happen more often.
And then if you look at the times
that the majority either
loses a bill it wants to pass,
or a bill passes that
it wants to lose.
In other words, the majority
votes for it, but it fails.
The majority votes
against it, or it succeeds.
You see even more frequently
that happens.
It's still not that much.
I mean it's still under 20%.
The point is that the minority
party can win floor votes,
and does win floor votes.
I would note on this chart
that there might be a slight
downward trend going on there.
And that's an important
theme of the book.
One of the things that I should have
mentioned is that this is talking
about the minority party, but
I take a historical approach.
So I start from 1970 and
go through 2010, 2012.
And so part of the book is about
how things have changed over time.
So let me talk about
that in just a sec.
This chart, this slide just
summarizes what I said.
The minority party cares
about more than just power.
And its actions, things it does
are at times associate success.
Not always, but at times.
But things have changed.
No doubt about it.
In 1970 the minority party had
more opportunities to legislate.
Most, or a majority of
floor rules for the rules
for considering bills were
open, or largely open,
so that you could offer amendments.
There was more of a focus on
legislating arguably than messaging.
What's happened is, for a number
of reasons I discuss in the book,
opportunities for the minority party
to legislate directly have shrunk.
And so, if you think about a
stream and block that stream,
the water still has
to flow somewhere.
So the minority party either finds
other ways to influence legislation,
or it finds other avenues for,
or outlets for its energy.
And one of the biggest
ones is messaging.
Messaging is very important.
So now amendments aren't necessarily
offered to influence a bill
but rather to send a message.
Roy Blunt, who is, when he was
in the House of Representatives,
after the 2006 elections and the
Republicans were in the minority,
he wrote a memo to
Republicans saying look,
we need to offer key amendments
or motions to recommit,
which is the guaranteed
amendment to the minority party,
that will either win, they'll pass,
or they'll make Nancy Pelosi
and Democrats look bad.
Either way, we win, right.
So messaging becomes central
to what the minority party does
with the more classic legislative
tools that are at its disposal.
And at the end of the book I talk
about whether I think
that's good or bad.
It's my chance to get on the
soapbox and give my two cents.
But I'll refrain from doing that,
not unless people want me to.
So that's the book, and I'm happy
to answer any questions
that you may have.
[ Applause ]
Yes. Rochelle.
>> This might be a little off-base,
but could you make an argument
that in this part of Congress,
the majority party is acting
as if it almost were
still in the minority.
That because it's so splintered,
it's having difficulty
moving its agenda.
And especially how it
deals with the White House.
That it acts as if it
were in the minority.
And its basic tactic
is one of obstruction.
>> Matthew Green: I'm glad
that you mentioned that.
Because I think you're right.
I think there's two
specific aspects to that.
So part of it is about the divisions
within the Republican party.
And as I discuss in the book, unity
for a minority is really important.
Especially relative
to the majority party.
Because if they're more unified,
they can really put the
majority party on the spot.
If you imagine the House
Democrats being more divided
than House Republicans, then
perhaps, you know, Boehner
and now Ryan would have
an easier time of it.
But because the Democrats
stay unified,
it really forces the
Republicans to have to deal
with the conservative
wing of their party.
It makes it difficult
for them to govern.
Now whether they're acting
as a minority in that respect
or just a very frustrated
majority, I'm not sure,
but unity is an important
theme for a minority.
They've got to stay unified.
You see Nancy Pelosi say
that, John Boehner say
that when they were in the minority.
You've got to be unified to
exploit those opportunities.
But the other thing you mention
about their strategic approach
to Obama is a theme that
I touch upon in the book,
probably not as much as I should,
which is that a party can be
in the majority but still act
like they're in the minority.
And likewise, a party can be
in the minority but still act
like they're in the majority.
So some of the interviews I did
for the book were with Democrats
who had been in the House after
1994, and they were frustrated
that no one there, almost without
an exception, knew what it was
like to be in the minority.
So they were saying,
well we'll just work
with Gingrich, and we'll figure.
And their leaders said
no, we can't do that.
We're not legislators anymore.
We're not going to get anything.
Particularly with Gingrich
and the leadership.
So we have to be more oppositional.
And I've heard the same
argument with Republicans,
that even though they're in the
majority, they were in the minority
for so long that there's still
legacy, there's still a legacy
from that, you know, from 30
years ago now, 20 years ago.
Still acting as if they need to
message and they need to oppose,
and supposed to legislate.
So there is a way in which how
many seats you have is not,
it's necessary, but not
sufficient condition
to having the mentality you need.
Yes sir.
>> I'm particularly struck by your
findings on one minute speeches.
I'm going to keep that in mind
the next time my boss asks me
to write one.
But, I was wondering, in which way
is the minority party has been most
effective at leveraging the
[inaudible] the narrative.
Where is the correlation
in the various things?
Whether it's one minutes
or special orders
or anything else that [inaudible].
>> Matt, could you
repeat the question?
>> Matthew Green: Yes, right.
So the question is, did I find
any examples or incidences
in which messaging in
general was most effective.
Is that correct?
Well the short answer is in the
contemporary congress, not many.
The best examples that I
could find are from times
when new messaging tactics
were first developed.
So the use of one minutes in a
partisan fashion, which really came
about in the late 70s,
Republicans started doing it.
That really, really, Democrats
really didn't know what
to do about that at first.
And said why are you so
angry at us and talking
about Ronald Reagan all the time?
And then again, Republicans
in the 1993, 94,
they were still in the minority.
They had developed, Robert
Michael had developed this in part
because he was concerned
about Newt Gingrich possibly,
you know, being so assertive.
He wanted to show he was
also a leader of the party.
So he set up a team of Republicans
who would use one minutes.
But they used them
in a different way.
They did sort of top ten
lists and catchy song tunes.
And that got the press' attention
more than the previous use had been.
So there's a way in
which now it's hard
to see standard messaging
tactics having much of an effect,
or at least getting much attention.
But as I argue in the book,
innovation and, well innovation,
coming up with new ideas,
new ways of doing things,
can be more effective, at
least in the short run.
Yes.
>> Did you look at
the committee process
and the minority's [inaudible].
>> Repeat again.
>> Matthew Green: Yes.
Did I look at committees in
the book, and the answer is no.
I, it was really about, it
was really sort of the scope.
I had to limit it at some point,
which is a shame because I think
that itself could be
a whole other book.
There are, first of
all on the one hand,
ways in which minority party
members can have more influence
in a committee, depending on who the
chair is and the balance of power
and what the issues are,
if it's transportation
versus let's say, judiciary.
At the same time, some of the best
examples I found of obstruction
and messaging were in committees,
which I just didn't use in the book.
But so in some ways,
committees can be a model
for more collaborative
governance and less partisanship.
On the other hand, they
can be just a microcosm
of the way the House
is as a whole operates.
But maybe that will
be my next project.
Yeah.
>> I can think of a lot of things
to say, which is a compliment.
But just to limit myself to
maybe one thing that's more
of a comment than a question.
Number one, I think that
you, in stating what's,
we talk about obstruction by
means other than filibustering,
and I think that I will
caution [inaudible],
any use of the word filibustering
and it would make it essentially
synonymous with obstruction.
And it would not include
only extended debate,
which the possibilities of which are
limited by the rules of the House.
And there are other
uses of the term too.
So, I wouldn't even have made
the remark about whether,
what they do [inaudible]
filibustering or not.
But the point about it being
obstruction stands on its own.
More as a query, I
was a little surprised
that in discussing
messaging tactics,
you didn't include
amendment as a possibility.
Certainly, putting up an
amendment, you did talk about that
in effect later on in terms of,
well we'll put up this proposition
that you're either going to have
to vote in favor of or look bad.
That's essentially the message,
the kind of activity
I would have thought.
So it doesn't even come
under that category or fall
under that class as well.
>> Matthew Green: Right.
So I had to be, first of all, the
first point is very well taken.
And I guess I used the word
filibustering because that is sort
of the understand, oh it's
the Senate doing [inaudible].
But obviously, it's
more than just that.
I appreciate that point
of clarification.
With regards to amendments
as messaging, yes.
I mean I talk about
that in the book.
But I had to be careful in
creating these categories
between the vehicle,
the actual thing, right.
Is it an amendment or is it
a speech, and its intent.
So if I put amendments
into messaging,
then that I was worried
would confuse things.
Because that's not the same thing
as giving a one-minute speech,
which is clearly messaging.
Or press conferences,
which I also talk about.
But I do discuss that in the book
and in the legislating chapter,
as well as in the conclusion,
that these legislating tools,
whether it's amendments, motions
to recommit, discharge petitions.
These have become effectively
messaging tools.
So actually, for instance, I
think it was in the 2008, 2007,
2008 Republicans wanted
a bill to be considered
that would have eased
regulations on oil drilling.
And they did at least two or three,
maybe four discharge petitions
on the same bill basically.
What they were doing was saying,
this is how much we care about it,
and those Democrats
are bottling it up.
That's a messaging tool, right.
So I'm glad you raised that.
But I did want to distinguish
that so it didn't get
confusing for the reader.
Yes sir.
>> How prevalent was the Hastert
Rule philosophy before Hastert.
>> Matthew Green: So before
Hastert, there was an understanding
that you avoided bringing bills
to the floor that would pass
because of the minority party.
But it was never discussed
as an actual rule.
And so before Hastert, and certainly
before Gingrich, there were speakers
who did quote/unquote
violate the Hastert Rule.
Tom Foley did it, for instance,
with the North American
Free Trade Agreement.
The majority of Democrats voted
against it, but it still passed.
And it was seen then as some kind
of vote of no confidence, right.
You did it sparingly.
But if it was important to you
or to the party or the country
or the president, then you would do
it, and it was sort of understood.
I think what's interesting now
that not only is it called a rule,
which is somewhat confusing
to people,
but that some Republicans have
actually wanted to make it a rule
and change the House Republican
rules so that you can't do that.
But I think we've seen in
recent years if you do that,
that really ties the
hands of party leaders.
Sometimes you just got
to get something passed.
And you know your party's
not going to like it.
But it's got to get done.
So there's a way in which it's a
useful tool or useful technique
for party leaders, albeit
one that is used sparingly.
Yes.
>> In terms of tactics, did you look
at all new [inaudible] not new
anymore, communication technologies
and the ability of the minority
party develop constituencies beyond
their traditional district
[inaudible].
>> Can you repeat that?
>> Yeah, so the question is did I
look at novel forms of communication
and technology by lawmakers.
Short answer is no.
But it is a really
important topic actually.
Because the book takes a 40-year
span, I kind of wanted to kind
of control it for as
many things as possible.
And at the time I started doing
this, it was still pretty new,
the use of Twitter and
Facebook by the minority party.
So I opted to kind of leave that
off the, you know, leave that out.
Having said that though, I think
it'd be, it's a great subject,
and it's clearly being used.
And I would not be
surprised if the data shows
that the minority party
has done it first.
In fact, I, my guess would
that's absolutely right.
So if you're in the minority, how
do you get the word out to people.
Well, you Tweet.
Oh those Democrats, look
what they did today.
Oh I can't get to the floor,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then what happens, again,
is you have innovation.
And then you have replication.
So the other party says oh,
well we should do that too.
You do the majority in the morning,
and then they start doing it.
A lot of innovation of tactics come
from the minority party
in the House.
Because they have fewer options.
They got to come up with new things.
So I didn't look at it,
but it's really important
and would be a good project.
Yeah. Yes.
>> On the motion to adjourn
where you found there
had been some success,
what was the mechanism for that?
And was there negotiation during the
[inaudible], or how did that happen.
>> Matthew Green: Yeah, because it's
aggregate, we're talking a number
of cases, so I couldn't
do a case-by-case analysis
to figure it out.
Sometimes there were news reports
where they said, you
know, this happened.
A lot of it was just kind
of behind closed doors.
That's why I say, inference.
It's hard to know for sure.
But it certainly seemed to be the
case that you would have someone
in the minority complain
and do one of these motions.
And especially if they kept doing
them over and over and over.
And sometimes the majority would
just pull the bill from the floor
and say we're done for the day.
And then the next day they would
come back and something had changed.
So it certainly would
suggest there was some kind
of negotiation going on.
>> Is the speaker [inaudible]
delay [inaudible].
>> Aha, right.
So it's a privileged motion,
but the House rules also say
that the speaker does not have
to entertain dilatory motions.
I can't think of an example
of a speaker refusing,
at least in modern era, recognizing
someone to do a motion to rise
or adjourn for that purpose.
Usually what happens is they
just, the Speaker just adjourns,
goes into recess kind of thing.
So for instance, Republicans
did this on an agriculture bill,
ag spending bill in early 1990s.
They were upset about
something else,
but they introduced an amendment
that would cut spending by 50,
I think it was $50,050, which
was exactly 1% of the budget.
And then they just got up and talked
and talked about child healthcare.
And then that amendment failed.
And then someone introduced an
amendment that cut $100,100.
And then they just
talked more about.
Now at that point I suppose
the speaker could have said,
I'm not going to recognize
the next amendment.
But instead they just
adjourned for the day.
Yeah. I think we're out of time,
so thank you all very much.
[ Applause ]
>> John Cole: Thank you Matt.
>> Matthew Green: Thank you.
>> John Cole: That was great.
Well I want to thank Matt.
His presentation is
as clear as his book.
He really worked hard at
making this understandable.
One of the things I liked best
was all this positive talk
about government and politics.
It really is refreshing
in many ways.
And it gave us some nice insight
into CRS and a very important,
obviously an important part of
our library and one that I hope
that we'll participate in
helping us co-sponsor other books
and be on programs.
There's going to be a book
signing for Matt right in the back.
Please buy the book at the
Library of Congress discount,
and let's close by giving
Matt Green another round
of applause for a great job.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
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