THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES (Week 15)

(Note: this week’s lecture is entirely from the Hershey textbook, 16^th edition, assigned in a previous class, Chapters 15-16)

A Responsible Party System is like Great Britain's Parliamentary system, where the branches of government are unified in policy terms and implement their policy programs into law. The chief executive is the Prime Minister, and he or she is elected by the majority party in the Parliament.

Why a Responsible Party System would not be good for the United States:

• It would increase conflict; constituents and interest groups would lose influence. (You can already see how increasing party-line votes in recent Congress’ have divided our country.)
• It wouldn't work in the U.S., because our separation of powers between the governmental branches was intended to prevent tyranny, and because divided government (different parties controlling the Presidency and Congress) has often prevailed.

When has the U.S. had Aspects of a Responsible Party System:

• When Strong Presidential Leadership occurs, such as Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and Ronald Reagan's national defense build-up and tax cuts.
• In Times of Crisis, such as the Great Depression (FDR’s New Deal program).
• After party realignments, when one party has controlled the Presidency and both chambers of Congress for ten years or more. Examples included: 1st party era of Democratic-Republican dominance from 1800-1826; 2nd party era of Democratic dominance from 1828-1840; 3rd party era of Republican dominance from 1860-1874; 4th party era of Republican dominance, from 1896-1910 and 1920-1932; 5th party era of Democratic dominance from 1932-1946.
• We potentially could have aspects of such a system today, as the percentage of Republican voters who call themselves conservatives and the percentage of Democratic voters who call themselves liberals has risen since 1972. The percentage of conservative Republicans shot up at two time points- 1994 and 2008. The percentage of liberal Democrats has risen since 2000, and shot up in 2008.

Party Renewal has been taking place in recent years, reversing the party decline of the 1960s:

• The parties have become more ideologically cohesive over the last few decades, as white southerners and religious conservatives have moved more into the Republican Party.
• The numbers of strong partisans have increased back to the levels of the 1960s. The numbers of independent leaners remain at historically high levels, but independent leaners vote for President in as partisan a manner as the partisans do. Indeed, only about 5% of Americans today are pure Independents, with 95% being Democrats or Republicans or leaning towards one of these two major parties (see our textbook, page 11).
• Party identification affects the presidential vote as strongly today as it did in the 1950s. Indeed, only isolated elections have produced party disloyalty. Democrats were more disloyal to their party's presidential candidates in 1968, 1972, and 1980. Republicans were more disloyal to their party's candidates in 1964 and 1992. Those were years when those parties’ candidates lost.
• Split-ticket voting (voting for different parties for president and U.S. House) hit a 50-year low in 2004, and has remained low. As such, today it is increasingly rare for Congress members or Senators to be elected when the other party wins the presidential vote in their districts or states.
• The parties have become more cohesive and united in Congress in recent years. Since 1980 congress members have increasingly voted more frequently with a majority of their party colleagues. Also since 1980, congressional Democrats and Republicans have increasingly become more ideologically polarized.
• The national parties in recent years have become more heavily involved in financing their candidates' election campaigns.
• Ways to make the parties even stronger: perform constituent services, such as by using mobile units in districts represented by the other party's congressman; provide low-cost health insurance or other benefits to party members; air campaign ads that promote the party as a whole instead of just individual candidates (Republicans actually did this in 1980 and 1994). (ideas provided by Sabato and Larson, cited by the Hershey text)