[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 196 (Wednesday, December 12, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1654-E1655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





AN INTERVIEW ON WHAT THE CONGRESSIONAL CLASS OF 1974 CAN TEACH US ABOUT 
                            POLITICAL CHANGE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RICHARD M. NOLAN

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 12, 2018

  Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today at the request of Mr. John 
Lawrence. Before this most recent election, Mr. Lawrence wrote a book 
about what the Congressional Class of 1974 can teach the incoming 
Congressional Class. As a member of that class myself, I'm sure others 
will find this interview and the book it's about as interesting as I 
did.

                          The Watergate Babies

                   (Claire Potter and John Lawrence)

       It is less than ninety days until Election. Day in the 
     United States, when Democrats hope to achieve one of the 
     biggest sweeps of Congressional seats in recent American 
     history. Many of these Democratic hopefuls are veterans. As 
     longtime political strategist Joe Trippi put it back in 
     March, these are candidates who are new to the electoral 
     arena, people who ``served the country without worrying about 
     who's a Democrat and who's a Republican'' and just want to 
     ``get the damn thing done.'' And a record-breaking 40% of the 
     Democratic House candidates this primary season are women, 
     some of them veterans as well.
       If the Democrats' hopes are fulfilled, will this be 
     unprecedented? Not really. On July 24 2018, we published an 
     excerpt from a book written by historian John Lawrence, 
     former chief of staff for Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In The Class 
     of '74: Congress after Watergate and the Roots of 
     Partisanship (Johns Hopkins, 2018), Lawrence tracks this 
     earlier revolution, its achievements, and its flaws.
       John sat down to talk to us about the book this week, and 
     its implications for our current political situation.
       Claire Potter: John, thanks for joining us at Public 
     Seminar. You were trained as a professional historian, and 
     then went into politics, a career path that, as you noted in 
     this essay, mystified your advisors at Berkeley. First, I 
     want to ask you: how did a Ph.D. in history prepare you for a 
     career that eventually led you to becoming Speaker of the 
     House Nancy Pelosi's chief of staff?
       John Lawrence: Many of the people working on Capitol Hill 
     in key policy and management roles have legal training or 
     campaign experience. Both are valuable, but don't train 
     people to contextualize current issues into a broader 
     narrative. Training in history provided that skill, 
     particularly research methodology and, perhaps most 
     significantly, writing skills. Politics is often a very 
     presentist business. While attorneys certainly are aware of 
     judicial and legal precedents, historians have the ability to 
     view contemporary debates through a unique prism that helps 
     explain the evolution and nature of complex issues.
       CP: OK, now I want to turn that question around. How did 
     your work in politics support the writing of The Class of 
     '74? What did you bring to writing this book that a scholar 
     who has not spent 38 years working in the House of 
     Representatives would not have?
       JL: Politics is an intensely personal business. Working in 
     Congress for nearly four decades enabled me to develop close 
     relationships with dozens of members, staff, reporters and 
     others whose decisions shape the making of public policy and 
     the design of political strategies and campaigns. These 
     connections enabled me to gather material for The Class of 
     '74 that, I have no doubt, would have been impossible for a 
     researcher without my experience.
       Many who write about Congress without this personal 
     connection often miss the nuances of why legislators make 
     certain decisions because motivations can be tied to personal 
     relationships and other factors that are difficult to 
     quantify. I think this is why political scientists, in 
     particular, who frequently eschew the narrative in favor of 
     data analysis of voting patterns, often miss much of what 
     really explains how Congress, and politics more broadly, 
     works.
       CP: Thanks. Now let's get to the book-prior to 1974, the 
     mood in Congress was changing, and not just because of 
     Watergate. Reflecting some of the disdain for authority that 
     was moving politics in the street, younger Representatives 
     were pushing back against the way the institution ran. What 
     were the issues?
       JL: Certainly, the most significant stimulus to the 
     changing mood in Congress was Vietnam. The war was important 
     on many levels: the reassertion of congressional prerogatives 
     against the Imperial Presidency that developed and promoted 
     the war; the rise in the use of oversight to challenge 
     official accounts of the status of the war; the resistance to 
     the draft; the emergence of an investigative, aggressive 
     journalism that often worked collaboratively with dissidents 
     in Congress.
       There were other issues that raised passionate concerns 
     among newer members of Congress too: civil rights, women's 
     equality, the environment, energy policy, consumer 
     protection, among them. Within Congress, reformers also 
     resented the structure of the institution. Power was lodged 
     largely in autonomous chairmen who did not need to be 
     responsive to the views of the broader membership because 
     their chairmanships were virtually guaranteed by the 
     seniority system--instituted after the 1910 revolt against 
     Speaker Joseph Cannon. Increasingly in the late 1960s and 
     early 1970s, it became evident to the younger reformers that 
     it was essential to challenge the awarding of chairmanships 
     on the basis of duration of service alone. If chairmen did 
     not have to be responsive to the broader membership, then the 
     issues that the younger, more progressive, cohort wished to 
     elevate could be (and often were) suppressed by more 
     conservative chairs.
       CP: In 1974, in a far bigger sweep than was anticipated, 76 
     Democrats were elected to the House, 49 replacing Republican 
     incumbents. What set the stage for this colossal shift in 
     power?
       JL: Longstanding disapproval of the Vietnam policy played a 
     significant role in encouraging reformers to run and in their 
     winning. So, too, did the recent oil embargo which had 
     elevated public anxiety and accentuated the need for a 
     national energy policy. By 1974, Watergate, with all of its 
     turmoil within the Executive Branch and Congress, as well, 
     helped create a demand for reform of what was viewed as a 
     corrupt White House. Certainly, the revelation of the Nixon 
     tapes and Nixon's subsequent resignation complicated the re-
     election of many loyalists who had stood by the President as 
     the crisis deepened.
       President Ford's pardon of Nixon, coming just weeks before 
     the election, further cemented the idea that corruption was 
     rampant in Washington and a housecleaning was in order. 
     Lastly, the continuing poor economy, and the ineffectual 
     response of the Ford Administration--the Whip Inflation Now 
     campaign--created a toxic political environment for many 
     Republicans: corruption, recession, energy disruptions and 
     price hikes. The climate was perfect for new, optimistic, 
     earnest young candidates like the Class of '74.
       CP: Sounds like a perfect political storm. Vietnam was 
     obviously huge, as was inflation that would soon push the 
     American economy into a real crisis. What were the other 
     concerns these ``Watergate babies'' had in common--and what 
     policy problems divided them?
       JL: The issues around which the Class of '74 were most 
     united were the internal reforms that disseminated power in 
     Congress. The changes they made, effectuated in December, 
     1974, gave heightened power to the Caucus and strengthened 
     the role of subcommittees on which freshmen and other 
     reformers enjoyed disproportionate strength, enabling them to 
     raise and promote issues. These changes benefitted all new 
     members by increasing their participatory rights, regardless 
     of their ideology or view on specific issues.
       When the freshmen were faced with policy questions where 
     their constituents had particular interests, or where 
     constituents had strongly held views--issues like abortion, 
     school busing, labor law and energy--the unanimity within the 
     freshmen caucus proved somewhat more difficult to maintain. 
     However, it should be noted that overall, the freshmen not 
     only voted with significant consistency but they were also 
     among the most loyal to the Democratic leadership's 
     positions.
       CP: 1974 was also, in some ways, the twilight of Republican 
     liberalism: you point out in the book that while many 
     Republicans shared the majority's ``goal of democratizing 
     House procedures,'' their ``objectives were quite 
     different.'' Can you describe these differences?
       JL: Newer members in both parties stood to gain from 
     changes that extended greater participation to those with 
     less seniority. And Republicans in general were supportive of 
     reforms that not only benefitted the minority (for example, 
     the ability to hire more staff on committees) but members in 
     general. Whereas Democratic freshmen used expanded rights to 
     raise issues and offer amendments in committee and on the 
     floor to promote more progressive ideas, Republicans 
     increasingly became skilled at exploiting the more open rules 
     to force less secure Democrats into casting controversial 
     votes that could render them vulnerable to political 
     challenge.
       Similarly, Republicans very successfully learned to utilize 
     the coverage of committee and floor proceedings by television 
     cameras to send messages to supporters and to raise issues 
     that favored GOP policies. When Democrats rescinded some 
     reforms that constrained the ability of Republicans to 
     exploit divisive issues, strategists like Newt Gingrich were 
     able to make a case against the majority for being heavy-
     handed and unfair, which they cited as justifying a change in 
     control of the House.
       CP: By the late 1970s, the political terrain in the United 
     States was quite different: what changed in the 1970s, and 
     how did that set the stage for the polarized politics of the 
     21st century?
       JL: The signs of a more polarized politics were developing 
     quite markedly in the mid-to-late 1970s, although many date 
     the emergence of a revitalized conservatism to the 1980 and 
     the Reagan Era. Many of the key changes were driven by 
     demographics, especially the movement of many conservative 
     white voters from the Northeast and Midwest to the border and 
     southern states in search of jobs. Reaction to the civil 
     rights movement, the anti-Vietnam and student protests and 
     the whole litany of ``sex, drugs and rock-and-roll'' cultural 
     divisions all

[[Page E1655]]

     helped fuel a revitalization of the long-dormant Republican 
     Party in the South, especially after the George Wallace 
     campaign of 1968 convinced many conservatives to bolt from 
     the Democratic Party.
       The renewal of southern Republicans was also aided by a 
     highly politicized evangelicism, and cultural issues proved 
     crucial to the success of this strategy. Changes in federal 
     laws made it easier for a significant expansion of 
     independent campaign fundraising and grassroots mobilization 
     based around single issues rather than being subject to party 
     leaders. The election of many conservative Republicans in the 
     South in the late 1970s and early 1980s deprived Democrats of 
     the security of an invincible majority, and the heightened 
     competition for majority control drove money, activism and 
     legislative strategy into increasingly partisan directions.
       While the reforms of 1974 did not ``cause'' partisanship, 
     the availability to raise and promote divisive issues that 
     was permitted by a more open and participatory Congress 
     inadvertently provided Republican with greater opportunities 
     than they would have enjoyed under a more closed system.
       CP: Finally, John, we have an election in less than three 
     months, one in which the House seems to be, once again, up 
     for grabs. A key theme driving this reversal is the Trump 
     presidency. Some commenters see a possible Democratic House 
     as a check on the Trump policies that Congressional 
     Republicans have mostly supported; others talk about the 
     possibility of the new majority moving forward on 
     impeachment.
       Are we back in 1974?
       JL: The idea of a Democratic House as a check on the Trump 
     agenda seems to me to have the most salience. Even though the 
     President would retain significant authority through the use 
     of executive orders and other presidential powers, a 
     Democratic House would check legislative attacks on key 
     Democratic policies like the Affordable Care Act, the Clean 
     Air Act and the Endangered Species Act.
       Of course, a Republican Senate would still enable Trump to 
     appoint people of his choosing to the federal courts and 
     executive agencies, but a Democratic House would have the 
     power of oversight and subpoenas to investigate possible 
     misuses of power that today go unexamined. I suspect there 
     would be strong resistance in a Democratic majority to moving 
     ahead with impeachment: here are no prospects for success in 
     the Senate. More importantly, there would be a clear 
     perception in this new freshman class that the American 
     people had voted for Democrats in order to pursue other 
     policies in the area of economics, children, the environment, 
     energy and corruption in government.
       However, should Special Prosecutor Mueller ultimately 
     recommend that Congress look into presidential abuses of 
     authority, it would be very difficult to dampen the demands 
     for an impeachment inquiry.
       CP: What advice would the Class of 1974 have for today's 
     Democratic party?
       JL: If you asked those in the Class who were most 
     successful during their careers, I think they would likely 
     advise newcomers to learn how the institution works, develop 
     close relations with colleagues, find areas of policy on 
     which they would like to focus (rather than be a gadfly with 
     something to say on every issue.) Newcomers will want to pay 
     attention to building and strengthening your networks with 
     constituents, without whom you have no power to accomplish 
     your goals.
       As I say in my book, ``before you save the world, you have 
     to save your seat.'' I also think that, at least some would 
     advise the freshmen of 2019 not to spend a lot of time 
     looking over their shoulders trying to avoid controversial 
     positions that some voters might dislike. Many in the Class 
     of '74 were surprised to have won in the first place, and 
     they were determined to make their impact as swiftly and 
     decisively as possible because they did not expect to remain 
     in Congress very long.
       So, I think the message would be, ``Don't spend a lot of 
     time trying to figure out if an issue or a vote plays 
     positively or negatively. Do what you think is right, explain 
     your position frankly to your constituents, and you'll be 
     surprised how often they support your decision.''

                          ____________________