With the Peoples Consent

Howard Baker Leads the Senate 19771984

By (author) Michael P. Bobic

Publication date:

01 December 2014

Length of book:

294 pages

Publisher

UPA

ISBN-13: 9780761865018

With the People’s Consent explores Howard Baker’s ability to lead the United States Senate at a time when it was divided by partisanship and ideology. This book features a quantitative analysis of Senate leadership through roll call analysis, an evaluation of the advantages and difficulties in roll call data, and a discussion of data used to evaluate Baker’s leadership in the 95^th to 98^th Congress. With the People’s Consent addresses how the current instability of the Senate could be improved by looking toward Baker’s own success during a tumultuous time.

List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Howard Baker and Leadership in the United States Senate
Chapter 2: Defining Terms and Approaches to Analyzing Roll Calls
Chapter 3: Modeling Baker’s Leadership in the Senate
Chapter 4: Howard Baker in the 95^th Congress: Leading through Cooperation
Chapter 5: Howard Baker in the 96^th Congress: Leading a Divided Senate
Chapter 6: Howard Baker as Majority Leader:Leadership through Coordination
Conclusions
Appendix A:The Clustering Method9
Appendix B: Explaining Poor Performance of the NOMINATE Measure
Bibliography
Index

Bobic’s With the People’s Consent is a study of Howard Baker’s leadership in the Senate from 1977 to 1984. Most scholars of the Senate find that party leaders have little ability to shape legislative outcomes because the Senate’s individualistic rules require the accommodation of other members . . . Bobic evaluates Baker’s leadership through a series of statistical models analyzing the record of roll call votes on the Senate floor. He uses the results to argue that members who voted with Baker did so because of something he did rather than because of their underlying preferences or other reasons. . . .Summing Up: Recommended. Research collections.