1976 House Majority Leadership Contest

Bruce I. Oppenheimer is professor emeritus of political science at Vanderbilt University and is the author Sizing up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation.Robert L. Peabody was a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Leadership in Congress: Stability, Success, and Change.

The 1976 race for House majority leader was one of the most compelling and consequential in the history of Congress. Oppenheimer and Peabody’s study—the best ever written about that race—is, at long last, in print.""—Matthew Green, author of Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur, The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership, and Underdog Politics: The Minority Party in the U.S. House of Representatives""There is no better account of a party leadership contest in Congress. Few leadership contests were more consequential than the battle for House majority leader in 1976. Written by brilliant political scientists Bruce Oppenheimer and Bob Peabody, this monograph is both an unmatched insider account and an insightful theoretical application. What makes this story so truly exceptional is the way Oppenheimer rounds out the story with the perspective he has gained from nearly a half century as one of the keenest observers of congressional politics.""—Steven S. Smith, coauthor of Politics Over Process: Partisan Conflict and Post-Passage Processes in the U.S. Congress and author of The Senate Syndrome: The Evolution of Procedural Warfare in the Modern U.S. Senate""The 1976 House Majority Leadership Contest is a scholarly collaboration four and a half decades in the making, and is well worth the wait! Congressional experts Bruce Oppenheimer and the late Robert Peabody combine insider access to a pivotal House leadership race with decades of informed perspective to track the emergence of conditional party government. Highly recommended, especially for anyone interested in history, Congress, or House leadership.""—Jeffrey Crouch, author of The Presidential Pardon Power and coauthor of The Unitary Executive Theory: A Danger to Constitutional Government and Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur

• Preface and AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I The House Majority Leadership Contest, 19761. Abstract and Introduction2. An Application of Game Theory3. The Institutionalization of Party Leadership4. An Overview of the Majority Leadership Candidates, 19765. O’Neill's Neutrality6. Aligning Support7. The Final Drive for Commitments8. The Caucus Acts9. Analysis of the Outcome10. Some Now and Future ConsequencesPart II: Looking Back and Looking Forward11. Hindsight12. The House Transitions: The Pathway to Conditional Party Government13. AftermathNotesIndex