Whistling in the Dark

I think this editorial in the Washington Post is an exercise in whistling in the dark. The editorial board takes comfort in the fact that the incoming Democratic House majority includes more members with MBAs than members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). It suggests that the Democrats who won competitive districts will exert a moderating influence on the party.

Perhaps. But I think the editorial board is overlooking something important: the way the House of Representatives actually works.

The House is not a democracy in which every member exercises equal influence. It’s a hierarchical institution in which seniority matters enormously. The speaker exercises extraordinary power over the legislative agenda. Committee chairmen exercise substantial power over what legislation is considered, what form it takes, and whether it ever reaches the floor.

Those positions are not distributed proportionately among the ideological factions of the majority. Nor are they distributed according to which members were most responsible for securing that majority.

They’re largely determined by seniority and the internal politics of the majority party.

And that presents a problem for the argument being made by the Post.

Members representing reliably Democratic districts tend to have longer tenures than members representing competitive districts. That’s hardly surprising. A representative whose principal electoral challenge is winning a Democratic primary has a much greater prospect of remaining in office for decades than one who must win a competitive general election every two years.

Furthermore, the electorates in those reliably partisan districts tend to be more ideologically committed than the electorates in competitive districts. Consequently, the seniority system tends to convey an institutional advantage on members whose views are further from the political center.

This is not a new phenomenon. For much of the twentieth century, conservative Southern Democrats dominated important House committees for precisely the same reason. Their districts were overwhelmingly Democratic, they accumulated enormous seniority, and they exercised influence far out of proportion to their numbers. The congressional reforms of the 1970s were, in part, an effort to break their grip on the institution.

That isn’t true only of the Democratic Party. It’s the case with Republicans as well. MAGA Republicans from reliably Republican districts have more influence in the Republican Party, too.

Today the same structural forces can favor the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Consider that Nancy Pelosi was a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Hakeem Jeffries was also a member. That does not make either of them a democratic socialist or does it mean that the Progressive Caucus and the DSA are interchangeable. They’re not. But it does illustrate how thoroughly progressive Democrats have become integrated into the party’s institutional leadership.

And consider the senior Democrats positioned to chair major House committees: Rosa DeLauro on Appropriations, Frank Pallone on Energy and Commerce, Maxine Waters on Financial Services, Jamie Raskin on Judiciary, and James McGovern on Rules. All are members of the Progressive Caucus.

Those are positions of substantial institutional power.

To be sure, seniority is not an absolute rule. Committee chairmanships are subject to party decisions, and senior members can be passed over. But that doesn’t eliminate the structural advantage enjoyed by long-serving members of reliably partisan districts.

There is another problem with the editorial’s argument. An MBA is an academic credential, not a political philosophy. Possessing one tells us remarkably little about a representative’s ideological commitments. Nor does it imply membership in an organized political faction.

The comparison between 19 members with MBAs and eight DSA members is therefore peculiar on its face.

Even assuming that all 19 MBA holders are moderates, what influence will they exercise? Nineteen backbenchers aren’t going to determine the direction of a House majority simply by virtue of having business degrees. They would need to organize, acquire leverage over leadership, or accumulate the institutional authority that their more senior colleagues already possess.

The Democratic Socialists of America, meanwhile, are an organized ideological movement. Their influence cannot be measured solely by counting their members in the House. Neither, for that matter, can the influence of the broader progressive movement.

Of course, moderates can exercise leverage in a closely divided House. But that depends on their willingness to act together and on the size of the majority, not on their educational credentials.

There’s an irony here. The Democrats who win competitive districts may be indispensable to obtaining a House majority while having relatively little influence over what that majority actually does. They supply the votes that make the majority possible. Their more senior colleagues exercise much of the authority that comes with it.

I don’t doubt that the incoming Democratic majority contains a substantial number of moderates. What I doubt is that their numbers tell us very much about the direction of the party.

If the Post wants to reassure its readers that the Democratic Party will be governed by its moderate wing, it should examine who will hold the speakership, who will chair the committees, who will control the Rules Committee, and who will determine which legislation comes to a vote.

Counting MBAs won’t answer those questions.