the inner club where you get together by keeping your head down and waiting is kind of contradicting, but by johnson's own story where he comes in and quickly rises to power, becoming a leader after four years, and you might say he was so skilled, he is just an exception. if you think about the most important republican of the era, bob taft, he has a somewhat parallel story. he enters the senate in 1939. his first year, he gives 44 speeches on the senate floor, so hardly keeping his mouth shut. he launches his first presidential run in august 1939, his first year in the senate. he becomes a acknowledged as the leading republican senator after about 23 years within the senate and becomes the facto leader of the party. both of these leaders are bowed outward looking. they both want to be president. their public figures, quickly

rising to power. does not fit this view of this kind of inner club that is so hard to break into. . it is also worth noting that taft's leadership, his approach is the opposite of johnson. johnson is all about personal connections and understanding each senator. taft was much more about policy, ideology. he had a conservative ideological vision and policy program that he wanted to put forward and was much less concerned with the personal my cities and getting along with people. he could be rude to people but he was also brilliant and ineffective party leader in other ways. so again, this suggests there are multiple avenues for gaining influence in the senate. influence in the senate. a second thing that is missing so dismissed by people like william as wide and lyndon johnson actually were just

isolated individuals. if you think about it, and put them all together, these are people who often were reelected many times and often have a big impact on public debate. they are really public figures working with liberal interest groups among democrats than among conservative causes such as those concerned about domestic communism among the republicans in using the senate as a platform to become important figures in the country , so i think this notion of the maverick is just lacking influence is wrong. you can see that echoed today, in greater frequency with some of the maverick senators today. and then, the final point i would make about this conventional portrait is that one aspect of the johnson senate that people think about is it is an institution where ideological and partisan warfare has receded and you have this normal cooperative institution. my sense is that actually only

captures, to the extent of captures anything, captures only about three years or four years, from 1955 to 1958 so people tend to read back into history assuming there is this coherent whole. if you think about what came before johnson becomes majority leader you have this bitter ideological where fair going on in the 1940s and early 1950s between liberal democrats who wanted to create a social democratic cradle to grave welfare state and republicans and southern democrats who view that as creeping socialism and undermining our core values. they fight it out with nasty investigations of domestic communism and labor run-- labor union alleged wrongdoing. they fight it out over legislation, it efforts to pass national health insurance, new labour policies that rein in unions and they find it out in public that people like joe mccarthy, part of a much wider

set of investigations that try to highlight domestic communism and length that two new deal liberalism. these are all parts of this midcentury senate that tend to get shunted aside as we look back on it today. in other words senate allah kicks in the 1940s are infused with broad ideological and policy disagreements that are battles over the role of governance and this is very different from the senate that we get in this conventional portrait. so just to wrap up, what are the implications of this we are thinking in today's senate? even with these revisions i've suggested i think it is fair to say the senate that today is a very different east from the senate of the 1950s. i think it lobbed taft or richard russell came back today and looked at the senate there are a lot of things that they really wouldn't recognize her would find very distant from their experience. i think it is also wrong to view it as this kind of stable coherent system that was the

smoothly running kind of machine and i think johnson himself wanted us to think of the senate that way because that was consistent with his own goals but really, the partisan warfare of today's senate differs a little bit less than we might think from what was going on and say the 1940s and 50s. it wasn't defined just by party but a nasty ideological warfare that has long been a part of our politics and i think the one thing that is different now is when you take that nasty ideological warfare and combine it with the ability to block action to the filibuster routinely, that is what generates the question of whether you can still govern. that is i suspect a theme that will be picked up by several of my colleagues over the next day. >> thank you. alan. >> okay, that is a great lead-in to what i'm going to talk about, which is how senate elections have changed and how some of the

changes in senate elections have in turn affected the way the senate operates today compared with the way it operated back in the 1950s and 60s when bob dole first entered the united states senate. i think it is fair to say is to start off, i think eric is absolutely correct that some of this view of of the senate at mid century in partisan conflict was minimal and a great deal of adherence to these norms is overstated. there is no question that the senate of the mid-20th century was a very, very different legislative body from the senate that we see today, and i would argue that the most important difference between the senate than in the senate now, because it relates to so many of the other changes taking place has been the rise and partisan polarization. that is the increasing ideological divide between the political parties so while they were ideological battles in the senate back in the 1940s and

1950s they didn't coincide to nearly the same extent as they do today with party lines. what we see today is that the party divide is much sharper than it was back in the 1950s and 60s. there is a handout that has figures and tables that illustrate these points. figure one shows the distribution of ideology in the current senate. it estimated the location of senators based on locations in the 110th previous senate and estimating where new senators would he based on the state they represent in their party. if you look at that graph you can see a couple of interesting things about it. first abolishes a high degree of polarization. there's a big divide their. there is a bimodal distribution and the democrats are all to the left and the republicans are all to the right.

there is no overlap at all between the parties. this is different from what the senate look like in terms of ideology back in the 1950s and 60s. in table one, i summarized the difference between two senate, the 91st minute and a 111 senate. 90% was the senate that circa 196069 to 1970, and you can see there there is a great difference between the two bodies. in the 91st you had a large percentage of moderates and that was true-- they came from both parties, and far fewer strong liberals and conservatives. when you get to the 111th you can see there are almost no moderates and a much larger proportion of what i call strong liberal conservatives. so this of course has profound consequences for everything about the way the senate works

for floor voting, for the committee system, for the confirmation process in just about everything that goes on. of course this is true of the house of representatives as well but i would argue the rise in polarization has had even greater consequences for the senate than it has had for the houston at the house is sort designed to operate along party lines, to be a very partisan body. it has been that way for a long time so while it is different today, it can function. i would argue the rise of partisanship has really made it very difficult for the senate to operate as it really undermines these traditional decision-making processes which are based on norms of reciprocity and consensus and those norms are constrained and impact are pretty pretty much broken down completely under the pressure of this kind of partisan, what i call artists

and ideological polarization so the senate is even more dysfunctional than the house of representatives. i want to argue that the rise in polarization has not been confined to political elites, to officeholders, candidates and activists, that as congress has become more polarized so has the american electorate and this is an important consequences for senate elections and for the senate itself. one cannot in my view understand polarization in congress without taking into account the rise of polarization in the american electorate. first of all we can look at evidence from the american national election studies that show in a very fundamental way the composition of the democratic and republican electorate coalitions have been divergent, both in terms of two very important characteristics, race and ideology. figure two shows the growing disparity between the racial composition of the democratic and republican electorate

coalitions. over the past 50 years of course the racial composition of the american electorate has changed quite a bit. back in the 1950s, the american electorate was overwhelmingly white. nonwhites made up about 4% of the voters in the united states and the 2008 presidential election, nonwhites made up 26% of the voters so there is pending rather dramatic change and a lot of that occurred in the last 16 years. what has happened with that the changes that nonwhites, both african-americans and latinos and to some extent other nonwhites have come to comprise a substantial share of the democratic electoral coalition, about 40% of democratic voters, but their share of the republican electorate coalition has not increased very much at all. there are less than 10% of republican electoral coalitions so we have seen this big

disparity in terms of race and at the same time a growing disparity in terms of ideology as well. if you look at figure three you can see how over time the average position of a democratic and republican senate vote-- voters has diverged. this is on a seven-point self-identification scale but you see the same thing when you look at specific issues. the parties have been moving apart. the democratic voters are becoming more liberal and republican voters becoming more conservative, and so we are looking at two parties now due to a much greater extent than 30, 40 or 50 years ago are really representing very very different electoral coalitions. another important point to keep in mind here is that this ideological polarization is actually greatest when we look at the electorate among the public. co-is greatest among the most interested, informed and active

members of the public. when you look at the american public today the more interested in politics people are, the more informed they are about politics and the more active they are about politics, the more polarized they are. that is, the more divided they are and the more it divergence you see between democrats and republicans. so it is in a sense of those americans who best the dolby ideal to the democratic citizenship who are the most polarizing and it is in contrast among those who are relatively uninterested, uninformed, uninvolved in the political process that moderation and political independents flourished. it is what is contrary to a lot of people's myths about the american electorate. we think about what is a good citizen but the fact is that you just don't find very many independents or moderates who are engaged in the political process. this is very significant for

representation and core behavior of elected officials. it has had a number of consequences for senate elections. first of all there has been with this ideological diversions, we have seen a marked increase in party loyalty and a decrease in ticket splitting rings between presidential and senate elections. in addition, we have also seen an increase in geographic polarization. more states dominated by one party, few were battleground states. table two illustrates that change how it's quite traumatic. and this is based of looking at the margins of victory at the state level and presidential elections over time. if you go back and look at the presidential elections of the 1970's, particularly the competitive ones, you find that

there are far more battleground states. those include everyone of the biggest states but states like new york, california, illinois, texas, they were all hotly contested in those elections. what we see more recently and in 2008 is that there are very few highly competitive states. only six states were decided by a margin of five points or less. in contrast, over half of the states were decided by a margin of 15 points or more. this of course has important consequences for senators, as well. it means that more senators represent states the strongly represent their own party. it also results in declining

seats. mpetition for senate seats at table five shows the trend over time in terms of the numbers of senate proportion that were highly competitive versus those that were blowouts and you can see that in the most recent period we have more of low outs and we have fewer close contest. interestingly, the at the same time this was going on, and despite the decreasing competitiveness of the individual races, we are seeing an increase in the size of the party seats and increase competition for control of the senate. how is that possible? the reason it is possible is that first of all, we have narrow majorities in the senate and the more recent period. the average majority size in recent senate is quite a bit smaller than it was back in the earlier times. of course the current senate is an exception with 59 seat majority. that is a very large majority

but as i will explain in a moment i think that is an exception and not likely to last very long. in addition to the smaller majorities, we often see however larger swings on average in elections, and that i think it's a reflection of a greater influence of national issues in these elections, which leads to increased consistency and party turnover. the seats that are switching are switching in one direction, to a much greater extent than was true 30 or 40 years ago. ..

couple of reasons. first of all has a small state bias because of the fact each state has two senators the 20 least populist states in the united states have fewer people than the state of california. those 20 states and i won't mention any states they might be in right now. [laughter] those 20 states are like four of

the united states senators. now and there is a republican tilt to the small states. of those 20 states actually 12 have consistently voted for republican presidential candidates in the last three presidential elections. only five consistently voted for democratic candidates. right now that republican tilt or bias is not evident, is not very clear because the democrats have been to hold actually 11 of the 24 seats from the 12 states. that's not going to last, okay. i think it is highly unlikely to last. and in fact, if you look at table nine, you can see that the democrats are facing a high risk of loss in the next several elections because they are highly exposed, meaning that there are now 11 democratic senators representing states that voted republican in all three of the most recent presidential elections versus only negative what, three

republican senators in states like that and that includes scott brown who is now one of those three. and there are 11 other democratic senators in the states that voted republican to of the last three. so 22 of the 59 democratic senators are sitting in states that are really republican leaning states based on the recent presidential voting history. so what are the consequences for the senate of all of this? first i would argue position within the electorate reinforces polarization within the senate. the reason the senators are finding it so hard to get together and across party lines and the conflict is so we intense is not because they don't like each other and, you know, the nasty, it's because they're actually representing the people who elected them and you can see this very clearly on the issue of health care reform which has been so much in the news lately and figure five shows the distribution of opinion of democratic and republican senate voters on the issue of health care reform.

this is from a question in the 2008 american national election studies that asked people about whether they would support or oppose a plan to have a single payer health care system which was quite a bit beyond what was just passed. but you can see that there is a very sharp party divide on this that the democrats are plastered on the left and republicans are clustered on the right. they are relatively few voters in the middle. so, this was before this debate even began. so it is hardly surprising we see the democrats and republicans in the senate and house are having such a hard time agreeing. second i think the growing intensity of the partisan conflict this contributes to this polarization of electric contributes to the intense partisan conflict of traditional senate norms and procedures. in essence i think in some words the senate is becoming more like the health of representatives

but of course with these rules that obstruct or make it much more difficult for the majority to work its will in the institutions so the big question going forward, one of the big question to the senate is going to be whether these special rules and procedures the senate has operated under for so long can survive in an institution that is so decided and which position is so great. and we are already seeing increased signs of pressure on the rules and procedures particularly on the filibuster rule for example with the use of reconciliation procedure of health care by the democrats in the senate and i think we are going to see more and more of this and perhaps even efforts to modify or get rid of the filibuster all together at some point because we are in a much more partisan year of and it

just doesn't fit with that new political environment. so i will stop at that and take questions later if you have any. >> thank you. diman to go ahead? >> sure. i'm going to look at -- in looking at congressional careers from 1960 to 2010 of course through the current it's hard to tell. scott brown may be here for a few months. he might be here 30 years from now. we really don't know. but there has been one constant over the last three years, and that has been robert byrd, who is still there. and it would seem to be there is

some real continuity but i think it was most striking in many ways to the amount of change in the congressional career and particularly the senate career. and again it's appropriate follow eric and elbe with a 50's as the baseline here for the type of career that the fault in that particular era and elections as a major part of the context of change and you can go to the election of 1958, a big swing of democratic senators. new senators, more liberal senators, ones who arguably expected to participate a little earlier in the process and as the beginning of change and the large scale change in the u.s. senator and that class of 1958 their entrance reverberated for a year to come.

still, generally speaking the study of political careers hasn't paid off a lot. it turns out the background of legislators doesn't make that much difference in how they operate. it's hard to link a relationship to out comes in various careers. they change fairly slowly. it's difficult to get a handle on careers as an important element of the senate, and if you look at the senate today and 50 years ago, the types of careers do change. and i think they are important elements of the institution. so how careers on fold can tell us some things largely because they are about choices. the choice to seek election in the first place. who runs for the senate.

what is the pool of candidates for the senate? people who will do this, take this on? pathways' within the senate. what happens once you get there? and as eric pointed out, we have i think the committee pathway in the 50's it was extended by the leadership for people like taft and the johnson wasn't at all. a different career paths and we have seen the value of partisan positions and committee positions change over the years. and exit, leaving the senate. sometimes its and enforced decision, and forced by the electorate. that an unwelcome exit sometimes surprising to the senator. but more often it's a choice.

you choose to retire, perhaps to go on to something else, perhaps just as i say to spend more time with the family. [laughter] and perhaps to avoid perspective defeat. chris dodd right now, prominent senter, important center in health care financial services, very -- but also want it is extraordinarily vulnerable and has decided i think under pressure to retire. so, we may learn something about our senators and institution of the senate and held a careers are structured, how individual members choose. for a simple to the cost of running for the senate. first in dollars but also

psychic expense in this polarized electric. the same people who run for the senate in the 1950's run today. you've got to be pretty ambitious. others psychological mabey as political science are finding we are hard wired to do some of this stuff. but we also may find senators are wealthy, john gloor sign de beat de -- corzine willing to spend an amount of money to get elected, or they have access to the funds. that's crucial to running for the senate. and it strikes me that it helps to be partisan and it helps to have a very thick skin. other kind of candidates may be less inclined to run in this environment or to serve with

highly charged partisan elements to both running for the senate and serving in the senate. used to personal attacks, willing to take on personal attacks. but sometimes from your colleagues even that often certainly from your opponents, often in personal ones. it's not fun. i think we have time after time >> indeed we find patterns differ some. this is worse more professional politicians coming into the senate. fewer people from the private sector. particularly, people from legislative backgrounds but one of the common observations is.