Why There Are Fewer Conservative Democrats

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
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Has anyone seen this kind of analysis in a US paper? I haven't:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4960893,00.html

Conservative Democrats Vanishing in South

Monday April 25, 2005 7:46 AM

By JEFFREY McMURRAY

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - In consecutive days last month, Alabama lost two legends from a disappearing movement - Southern Democrats who were powerful in Washington because of their party's majority and powerful back home because of their tendency to buck it.

Look around Congress these days and you'll find few conservative Democrats in the mold of the late Sen. Howell Heflin or Rep. Tom Bevill. Those who remain are almost as likely to represent the Midwest or Great Plains as the once-solid South.

According to Congressional Observer Publications, only one current House member voted against his party at least a third of the time last year. That was Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota.

In 1998, there were 13 in that category, including eight Southerners, and three of them opposed Democratic leaders more than half the time.

Virtually all those maverick-more-than-not lawmakers have either joined the Republican Party or retired. Most dramatic of all was retired Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, the keynote speaker at the 2004 Republican National Convention, who voted with President Bush's party a staggering 94 percent of the time last year.

Merle Black, an Emory University political scientist, says more than 80 percent of white conservatives in the South now belong to the Republican Party, and only 10 percent are Democrats.

Unlike in the past, when seniority alone dictated leadership positions for the party, Black says parties now hand-pick their committee leaders. For Democrats, he said, that means the rewards tend to go more often to liberals.

``It's almost impossible to have a leadership position in the House Democratic Party if one behaves as a conservative,'' Black said.


Remaining Southern Democrats with conservative voting records would argue that the movement made famous by Heflin and Bevill and resurrected by Miller is alive and well. But even they acknowledge times are different.

For one thing, Republicans have ruled the chamber for more than a decade. Thus, some conservative Democrats in search of majority clout have found it through switching parties. Others scoff at that idea.

``I'd rather be in the minority the rest of my life than sell my convictions down the river,'' said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark.

``Sometimes I don't think my leadership gets it,'' said Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala. ``If they're to really stand the chance to take the House back, they've got to leave those members plenty of room to vote where their district is coming from rather than where the national party is coming from.''

Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, a former Democrat, has encouraged Cramer for years to follow in his footsteps. Cramer says he's not uncomfortable enough with his party right now to take that leap.

Arkansas provides Democrats a model for broadening their Southern base. In 2000, the state's six-member congressional delegation was split - three Republicans and three Democrats. But Ross and Sen. Mark Pryor upset Republican incumbents, giving Arkansas Democrats their current 5-1 majority.

Arkansas and West Virginia are now the only Southern states where congressional delegations aren't dominated by Republicans.

[...]
 

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