Can Republican Leadership Revolutionize the Senate?
In the aftermath of the 1994 election, the Republican revolution in the House was successful in cementing “conditional party government” as the operating premise for that institution. The concept of conditional party government centers around strong governing parties. Its prerequisites are that the parties be highly polarized and that they each have a cohesive membership. When these conditions exist, members of the two parties do not overlap on most issues, and cross-partisan or bipartisan coalitions do not form to pass legislation. Instead members give their party leaders additional powers that can be used to hold their membership in line with party policy positions. That is precisely what happened following the 1994 election in the House. Among other things, Republicans gave Speaker Gingrich sufficient powers so that his leadership team could keep even reluctant members supporting party positions. This allowed the party leadership to pursue and to pass a party agenda that was at the
