The 1976 House Majority Leadership Contest - by Bruce I Oppenheimer & Robert L Peabody (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In this book, Bruce Oppenheimer and the late Robert Peabody analyze a key congressional leadership contest, the 1976 House Majority Leader race, and its place as a turning point in the transition of the House of Representatives into a more party-dominated institution. The core of this book is a lengthy paper on the 1976 House Majority Leader contest that the Peabody and Oppenheimer presented at the 1977 APSA Meeting. The paper is the result of the greatest access that political scientists have ever had to a congressional leadership race. Featuring four formidable candidates, it was arguably the most competitive contest for a major leadership position in congressional history. This new book adds additional chapters that evaluate the accuracy of the original paper and provide richer historical context, showing how Congressional politics changed in the years after the 1976 contest, leading to today's conditional party government"--

Book Synopsis

In this book, Bruce I. Oppenheimer and the late Robert L. Peabody analyze the 1976 House majority leader race and present the result of their unrivaled insider access to this turning point in congressional history. This fierce contest among the Democratic leadership marked the transition of the House of Representatives into the party-dominated institution that is so familiar today.

The 1976 election, in which the Democrats consolidated the gains made in 1974, led to two important changes in House Democratic leadership. After Carl Albert's retirement, Majority Leader Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, Jr., of Massachusetts advanced unopposed to the Speakership. This led to a contest between four formidable candidates for the position of majority leader: Rules Committee Spokesman Richard Bolling of Missouri, Caucus Chairman Phillip Burton of California, Majority Whip John McFall of California, and Representative James C. Wright, Jr., of Texas. It was arguably the most competitive contest for a major leadership position in congressional history. Ultimately, it took extensive campaigning and three ballots before Wright emerged victorious.

During the race, Oppenheimer and Peabody conducted lengthy interviews with the candidates and their principal supporters, resulting in their eye-opening analysis of this contest as a key stepping stone between committee government and conditional party government in the House of Representatives that continues to the present day. The authors first presented their original research on the 1976 House majority leader contest at the 1977 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. With that original groundbreaking paper at its core, this book adds new chapters by Oppenheimer that evaluate the accuracy of the study and provide richer historical context, showing how congressional politics changed in the years after the 1976 contest. Their original study was the result of the greatest access that political scientists have ever had to a congressional leadership race, and it has enduring value for understanding our current political crisis.

Review Quotes

"The outstanding expertise and unusually high levels of access allowed the authors to analyze the 1976 race in impressive detail."--Choice

"The 1976 race for House majority leader was one of the most compelling and consequential in the history of Congress. Oppenheimer and Peabody's study--the best ever written about that race--is, at long last, in print."--Matthew Green, author of Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur, The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership, and Underdog Politics: The Minority Party in the U.S. House of Representatives

"There is no better account of a party leadership contest in Congress. Few leadership contests were more consequential than the battle for House majority leader in 1976. Written by brilliant political scientists Bruce Oppenheimer and Bob Peabody, this monograph is both an unmatched insider account and an insightful theoretical application. What makes this story so truly exceptional is the way Oppenheimer rounds out the story with the perspective he has gained from nearly a half century as one of the keenest observers of congressional politics."--Steven S. Smith, coauthor of Politics over Process: Partisan Conflict and Post-Passage Processes in the U.S. Congress and author of The Senate Syndrome: The Evolution of Procedural Warfare in the Modern U.S. Senate

"The 1976 House Majority Leadership Contest is a scholarly collaboration four and a half decades in the making, and is well worth the wait! Congressional experts Bruce Oppenheimer and the late Robert Peabody combine insider access to a pivotal House leadership race with decades of informed perspective to track the emergence of conditional party government. Highly recommended, especially for anyone interested in history, Congress, or House leadership."--Jeffrey Crouch, author of The Presidential Pardon Power and coauthor of The Unitary Executive Theory: A Danger to Constitutional Government and Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur

"The 1976 House Majority Leadership Contest offers a gripping political narrative and astute analysis of a critical episode in congressional history. Bruce Oppenheimer has done a great service in sharing and contextualizing his important but previously unpublished 1977 research with the late Robert Peabody. The book offers a window onto historical continuities--including the diverse and contingent factors shaping any competitive congressional leadership contest--as well as insight into the emergence of the media-savvy, fundraising dynamos that lead today's House of Representatives."--Frances E. Lee, coauthor of The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era

"This well-written book is a superb and much-needed addition to scholarship about congressional leadership and the rise of partisan polarization in America. By focusing in almost microscopic detail on one pivotal leadership contest from the past, Oppenheimer and Peabody manage to clarify why the modern US House has become so mired in partisan gamesmanship and gridlock, and along the way highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the major theories of lawmaking. A must-read for serious scholars of American national institutions."--C. Lawrence Evans, author of The Whips: Building Party Coalitions in Congress

"Bruce Oppenheimer and the late Robert Peabody offer us the most beautifully written and detailed analysis of a congressional leadership race ever produced, capturing a pivotal moment in the emergence of strong party power in the US Congress. Based on the duo's extraordinary access to Capitol Hill in the 1970s, this work is a masterclass in both narrative and detail. This study has long been known to congressional scholars. Now finally available in published form, The 1976 House Majority Leadership Contest is enhanced by a new addendum from Oppenheimer that sharpens our understanding of how this era shaped conditional party government. The insights here are profound. This is essential reading for every student of Congress."--James M. Curry, coauthor of The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era