Conservative coalition

rdf:langString Conservative coalition

rdf:langString Conservative Coalition

rdf:langString Conservative Coalition

rdf:langString #808080

rdf:langString United States

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rdf:langString Anti-New Deal

rdf:langString Anti-labor

rdf:langString Early phase:

rdf:langString Later phase:

rdf:langString The conservative coalition, founded in 1937, was an unofficial alliance of members of the United States Congress which brought together the conservative wings of the Republican and Democratic parties to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. In addition to Roosevelt, the conservative coalition dominated Congress for four presidencies, blocking legislation proposed by Roosevelt and his successors. By 1937, the conservatives were the largest faction in the Republican Party which had opposed the New Deal in some form since 1933. Despite Roosevelt being a Democrat himself, his party did not universally support the New Deal agenda in Congress. Democrats who opposed Roosevelt's policies tended to hold conservative views, and allied with conservative Republicans. These Democrats were mostly located in the South. According to James T. Patterson: "By and large the congressional conservatives agreed in opposing the spread of federal power and bureaucracy, in denouncing deficit spending, in criticizing industrial labor unions, and in excoriating most welfare programs. They sought to 'conserve' an America which they believed to have existed before 1933." The coalition dominated Congress from 1937 to 1963, when former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency and broke its influence. Johnson took advantage of weakened conservative opposition and Congress passed many progressive economic and social reforms in his presidency. The conservative coalition, which controlled key congressional committees and made up a majority of both houses of Congress during Kennedy's presidency, had prevented the implementation of progressive reforms since the late 1930s. It remained a declining political force until it disappeared in the mid-1990s when few conservative Democrats remained in Congress. The remaining conservative Democrats formed the Blue Dog Coalition, following the Republican Revolution in 1994. In terms of Congressional roll call votes, it primarily appeared on votes affecting labor unions. The conservative coalition did not cooperate on civil rights bills in unison, requiring a partnership between member Everett Dirksen and President Johnson to unite sufficient numbers of northern Republicans to ally with northern liberal Democrats to push the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to cloture. However, the coalition did have the power to prevent unwanted bills from even coming to a vote. The coalition included many committee chairmen from the South who blocked bills by not reporting them from their committees. Furthermore, Howard W. Smith, chairman of the House Rules Committee, often could kill a bill simply by not reporting it out with a favorable rule; he lost some of that power in 1961. The conservative coalition was not unified with regards to foreign policy, as most of the southern Democrats were internationalists. Most Republicans supported isolationism until President Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953.

rdf:langString Prominent members