Conservative Coalition

For most of the period from about 1930 to about 1980, the situation in the U.S. Congress was as follows. There were Democratic majorities in both houses, but left-wing policy proposals often failed to come to fruition.

Those Democratic majorities included several conservative Democrats from the southeast. That group, in combination with conservative Republicans from other regions, constituted the "Conservative Coalition".

Even though those southerners failed to back much of the Democratic platform, they were counted as Democrats when it came to organizing each house of Congress at the beginning of each Congress, i.e., each two-year period consisting of two annual sessions of Congress.

Therefore, Democrats constituted the majority party in both houses during almost all of that period. That meant that the committee chairmen, and the majority leaders of each house were Democrats. But that didn't automatically translate into getting that party's programs enacted into law.

Then, starting in the 1960s, many conservative southerners switched to the Republican Party. By 1981, the Republicans had a majority in the Senate, including 10 Republicans from southern states (defined as states that were part of the Confederacy). So the Democrats lacked formal power, in addition to actual power, in the Senate at that time.

In 2006, the Democrats regained a majority in the Senate, in part because of victories in some of the more conservative states, including Virginia, Montana and Missouri. This year, when the Democrats are expected to significantly extend their Senate majority, they might gain seats in Alaska, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi.

The reason I dredge up all this history is to consider whether there might be a rebirth of the old Conservative Coalition.

If there are 60 or more Democratic senators (including Independent allies), they would theoretically have enough votes to invoke cloture, and deprive Republicans of their last remaining weapon in the political branches of the federal government: the Senate filibuster. But I question whether senators with more conservative constituencies would do that, in order to pass liberal legislation.

That will be something to look for in the next Congress, if the Democrats do as well in this year's elections as the polls currently predict.

One more note on the historical Conservative Coalition: it did not hold up, when civil rights legislation was under consideration. The coalition in favor of those bills (sometimes successful, sometimes not) consisted of northern Democrats allied with northern Republicans.