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The Class of '74: Congress after Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship
In November 1974, following the historic Watergate scandal, Americans went to the polls determined to cleanse American politics. Instead of producing the Republican majority foreshadowed by Richard Nixon’s 1972 landslide, dozens of GOP legislators were swept out of the House, replaced by 76 reforming Democratic freshmen. In The Class of '74, John A. Lawrence examines how these newly elected representatives bucked the status quo in Washington, helping to effectuate unprecedented reforms. Lawrence’s long-standing work in Congress afforded him unique access to former members, staff, House officers, journalists, and others, enabling him to challenge the time-honored reputation of the Class as idealistic, narcissistic, and naïve "Watergate Babies." Their observations help reshape our understanding of the Class and of a changing Congress through frank, humorous, and insightful opinions.
These reformers provided the votes to disseminate power, elevate suppressed issues, and expand participation by junior legislators in congressional deliberations. But even as such innovations empowered progressive Democrats, the greater openness they created, combined with changing undercurrents in American politics in the mid-1970s, facilitated increasingly bitter battles between liberals and conservatives. These disputes foreshadowed contemporary legislative gridlock and a divided Congress.
Today, many observers point to gerrymandering, special-interest money, and a host of other developments to explain the current dysfunction of American politics. In The Class of '74, Lawrence argues that these explanations fail to recognize deep roots of partisanship. To fully understand the highly polarized political environment that now pervades the House and American politics, we must examine the complex politics, including a more open and contentious House, that emerged in the wake of Watergate.
513 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 8, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 22, 2018
Quite an interesting and relevant view of an inflection point in the history of Congress.
There are several important things to take from this for today. The reform agendas that shape Congress are usually long-term not short term. They are also often within a party more than in the institution.
If we are at a similar point today there is much to learn, even if the institutional context is quite different
This book is also a phenomenal read.
There are several important things to take from this for today. The reform agendas that shape Congress are usually long-term not short term. They are also often within a party more than in the institution.
If we are at a similar point today there is much to learn, even if the institutional context is quite different
This book is also a phenomenal read.
Read
March 11, 2018I graduated from law school in 1973. John Dean appeared before the Watergate Committee during the time I took the bar exam. The students discussed what happened while we were writing during our breaks. We had no CNN but PBS gave gavel-to-gavel coverage. As I waited for my bar exam results, I was a witness to the denouement of the Nixon administration. I heard of the Saturday night massacre as I drove to meet my parents for dinner at a Boston restaurant. Then there was the sudden guilty plea of Vice President Agnew and the impeachment proceedings against Nixon. Turbulent times which today's times resemble. Out of this political mess came a wave election. Democrats were in the midst of a several generation hold on Congress. They lost the House briefly in the 50's when Mass. Congressman Joe Martin became Speaker.
This book follows the class of 1974. These were the successful candidates in the 1974 wave election. The book may be a little wonky for non-political scientists. I enjoyed John Lawrence's analysis of the political scene, the reform of House rules, the unintended consequences of the liberalization of the rules and the decline of the mostly Southern committee chairs. The group was far less uniform than legend and far more successful than given credit.
This is a very good political science read.
This book follows the class of 1974. These were the successful candidates in the 1974 wave election. The book may be a little wonky for non-political scientists. I enjoyed John Lawrence's analysis of the political scene, the reform of House rules, the unintended consequences of the liberalization of the rules and the decline of the mostly Southern committee chairs. The group was far less uniform than legend and far more successful than given credit.
This is a very good political science read.
September 20, 2018
This was a truly fascinating book, even if it wasn't quite what it said it would be. I started reading it to better understand the extreme partisanship in Congress, and while that was covered a bit in the conclusion, that's the only place it was covered. That said, this book was still a very interesting way of gaining a better understanding for Congressional history. Having grown up in Vermont, it almost felt like my representatives were chosen for me and had been in Congress since the dawn of time and everyone was happy with that. It was very interesting to learn about the flux and about the changes beginning around the 1970s.
It was a great book, if a bit of a slow read, and definitely recommended to anyone who knows a bit about government (because it will be tough to get through if you don't), but wants to know even more.
It was a great book, if a bit of a slow read, and definitely recommended to anyone who knows a bit about government (because it will be tough to get through if you don't), but wants to know even more.
February 12, 2024
This book has a bit of a hard time finding and keeping its footing. Of course, the titular subject, is the great influx of new congressmen after the 1974 Watergate election, most importantly 76 Democrats (two-thirds replacing Republicans) and 17 Republicans, who would help reshape the Congress. It helped that they 291 Democratic majority, won with 58% of the vote, more than the 287 required to override President Ford vetoes. The new members were young (almost all under 40) and they tended to be more white collar and educated than typical, labor Democrats. But they were not babes in the wilderness: 60% had served in public office, more than the previous standard.
The old House was problematic, as the author often points out. John Blatnik of Minnesota recalled in his Freshman year, 1947, seeing the elderly Carl Vinson, who had arrived in 1914, and was the lead Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, shamble around and think "Well, this guy can't last. I'll be important someday." Vinson served another 18 years, the longest in history to that point, and Blatnik didn't look like he would get a chairmanship anytime soon. The "21 day rule" which allowed congressmen to call for a bill held up in the recalcitrant Rules Committee, lasted only from 1948 to 1967, when it was repealed again. Committee chairs were kings, the caucus was defanged, and the Conservative Coalition ruled.
There had been many attempts at reforms before. The number of committees had been reduced from 62 to 46 back in 1927 (an 1921 Senate reform had shrunk them from 74 to 34), and the 1946 Legislative Reorganization Act further reduced them to 19 (and Senate to 15) and expanded their staff; subcommittees were cut almost in half to 89 in the House the next year and by more in the Senate. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 opened committees to the public, mandated recorded votes in markups, and allowed the majority of committees to do things like schedule votes and allowed minority party members to call their own witnesses. A bipartisan floor amendment to this bill reshaped Congress more than most realized when it allowed a record vote if just 20 members of the Committee on the Whole requested one. The same year the caucus agreed to allow easy votes for anyone nominated for a chairmanship, limited members to chair only one subcommittee, and subcommittee chairs were authorized to hire one staffer independent of the chair and hold independent hearings (congressional reformer Richard Bolling was suspicious of creating dozens of "baronies" in these subcommittees). In 1973 the caucus created a steering committee to allow the Speaker to make committee assignments as opposed to the Ways and Means Committee, allowed 50 members to offer germane amendments of a bill and have those amendments voted on by the full caucus instead of the Rules Committee. The House the same year allowed electronic voting.
After the 1974 these reformers continued: they had the rambunctious, talented but alcoholic Philip Burton elected to Chair of the caucus, gave the speaker the power to appoint the Rules Committee, gave a permanent 2:1 ratio on committees for Democrats (which enraged Republicans), and had each committee establish one subcommittee on investigations. Most famously, they "dethroned" three chairs by vote, Bog Poage of Agriculture, Edward Hebert of Armed Services, and the progressive but aged Wright Patman of Banking. They also got the caucus to take positions on particular subjects, such as ending funding for the Vietnam War.
The problem is that most of the action with the Class comes at the beginning with these caucus votes, and they themselves were just easy votes, as opposed to organizers, of those changes. Otherwise the 94th was a relatively uneventful Congress, punctuated by Ford's many vetoes, albeit with some big changes like the Energy Conservation Act of 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Government in the Sunshine Act, emergency aid to New York City, and an anti-busing amendment (authored by Senator Joe Biden). But the Class itself was secondary to many of these (except Rep. Bob Carr of MI's Vietnam funding resolution.) Using some expanded printing subsidies the Class helped put in, all except 2 members of the Class were reelected (unlike the previous "one term wonders" of 1964), and many went on to illustrative careers. As the author points out, the chairs Max Baucus, Christopher Dodd, Henry Waxman, George Miller, and Tom Harkin that helped pass Obamacare were all class members (When they told Obama about the class he said "I was 13!"). Because of the committee reforms, and the fact that 1976 saw the largest amount of retirements in a quarter century, including five committee chairs (also Wayne Hays stepped down from his chair and one more, Ray Madden of Rules, was defeated in the primary), almost half of committee chairs were new by the beginning of 1977.
Yet the problems with reform are prominent here. By the early 1980s there were 154 committees and subcommittees, the latter with more power than ever. The number of recorded votes, which had risen from 177 in 1969 to 537 in 1974, grew to 800 in 1976. The fact that Republicans often used these open rules to force difficult votes on social issues soon led the Democrats to increase the number of votes required for an open vote, and by the 1980s they had largely gone to completely limited rules. The more "open" Congress was also a more fractured and partisan Congress, one where Republicans had more chance to gain public attention. Thus much of the "goals" of the reformers was not achieved, and the Class that supported them (the "reinforcements" as Bella Abzug called them) often ended up disappointed (many retired in 1994 before the wave). But they did help create a fundamental change in how Congress worked, for better or worse.
The old House was problematic, as the author often points out. John Blatnik of Minnesota recalled in his Freshman year, 1947, seeing the elderly Carl Vinson, who had arrived in 1914, and was the lead Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, shamble around and think "Well, this guy can't last. I'll be important someday." Vinson served another 18 years, the longest in history to that point, and Blatnik didn't look like he would get a chairmanship anytime soon. The "21 day rule" which allowed congressmen to call for a bill held up in the recalcitrant Rules Committee, lasted only from 1948 to 1967, when it was repealed again. Committee chairs were kings, the caucus was defanged, and the Conservative Coalition ruled.
There had been many attempts at reforms before. The number of committees had been reduced from 62 to 46 back in 1927 (an 1921 Senate reform had shrunk them from 74 to 34), and the 1946 Legislative Reorganization Act further reduced them to 19 (and Senate to 15) and expanded their staff; subcommittees were cut almost in half to 89 in the House the next year and by more in the Senate. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 opened committees to the public, mandated recorded votes in markups, and allowed the majority of committees to do things like schedule votes and allowed minority party members to call their own witnesses. A bipartisan floor amendment to this bill reshaped Congress more than most realized when it allowed a record vote if just 20 members of the Committee on the Whole requested one. The same year the caucus agreed to allow easy votes for anyone nominated for a chairmanship, limited members to chair only one subcommittee, and subcommittee chairs were authorized to hire one staffer independent of the chair and hold independent hearings (congressional reformer Richard Bolling was suspicious of creating dozens of "baronies" in these subcommittees). In 1973 the caucus created a steering committee to allow the Speaker to make committee assignments as opposed to the Ways and Means Committee, allowed 50 members to offer germane amendments of a bill and have those amendments voted on by the full caucus instead of the Rules Committee. The House the same year allowed electronic voting.
After the 1974 these reformers continued: they had the rambunctious, talented but alcoholic Philip Burton elected to Chair of the caucus, gave the speaker the power to appoint the Rules Committee, gave a permanent 2:1 ratio on committees for Democrats (which enraged Republicans), and had each committee establish one subcommittee on investigations. Most famously, they "dethroned" three chairs by vote, Bog Poage of Agriculture, Edward Hebert of Armed Services, and the progressive but aged Wright Patman of Banking. They also got the caucus to take positions on particular subjects, such as ending funding for the Vietnam War.
The problem is that most of the action with the Class comes at the beginning with these caucus votes, and they themselves were just easy votes, as opposed to organizers, of those changes. Otherwise the 94th was a relatively uneventful Congress, punctuated by Ford's many vetoes, albeit with some big changes like the Energy Conservation Act of 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Government in the Sunshine Act, emergency aid to New York City, and an anti-busing amendment (authored by Senator Joe Biden). But the Class itself was secondary to many of these (except Rep. Bob Carr of MI's Vietnam funding resolution.) Using some expanded printing subsidies the Class helped put in, all except 2 members of the Class were reelected (unlike the previous "one term wonders" of 1964), and many went on to illustrative careers. As the author points out, the chairs Max Baucus, Christopher Dodd, Henry Waxman, George Miller, and Tom Harkin that helped pass Obamacare were all class members (When they told Obama about the class he said "I was 13!"). Because of the committee reforms, and the fact that 1976 saw the largest amount of retirements in a quarter century, including five committee chairs (also Wayne Hays stepped down from his chair and one more, Ray Madden of Rules, was defeated in the primary), almost half of committee chairs were new by the beginning of 1977.
Yet the problems with reform are prominent here. By the early 1980s there were 154 committees and subcommittees, the latter with more power than ever. The number of recorded votes, which had risen from 177 in 1969 to 537 in 1974, grew to 800 in 1976. The fact that Republicans often used these open rules to force difficult votes on social issues soon led the Democrats to increase the number of votes required for an open vote, and by the 1980s they had largely gone to completely limited rules. The more "open" Congress was also a more fractured and partisan Congress, one where Republicans had more chance to gain public attention. Thus much of the "goals" of the reformers was not achieved, and the Class that supported them (the "reinforcements" as Bella Abzug called them) often ended up disappointed (many retired in 1994 before the wave). But they did help create a fundamental change in how Congress worked, for better or worse.
January 30, 2018
I think you'd have to be a hardcore political junkie to enjoy this exceedingly well-researched but extremely dense work of nonfiction. Although I wouldn't say that it was thoroughly uninteresting, the fact that it has to details the accomplishments of a large group of people leaves it without a single protagonist or even a small handful of protagonists to root for. If you're a habitual reader of more accessible political histories, you're likely to find this more academic than your usual fare.
June 17, 2025
John A. Lawrence does a good, but not great, job at discussing the history of the 1974 class of House of Representatives - but it is worth noting that this truly is not a book for all types of readers. Academically written and meandering in its central theme, it drags on throughout the middle part and almost solely focuses on the Democratic side of the House.
What the book does well is that it provides necessary context to an integral and important historically impactful class that drastically changed the history of the House. The two takeaways I best learned were the impact of the Southern Democrats on hampering the largely half century controlled Democratic House and the impact of the 1970s reforms of seniority on modern day partisanship. Lawrence also does a good job painting pictures of the members and their stories, fleshing out each of their personality’s and backgrounds.
The book largest issue is that it struggles to find a central theme. While Lawrence opens explaining that he will prove how this class shouldn’t be defined by Watergate, he continually fails in doing so, and returns to the impact of it nearly every chapter. I also understand that his experience is in the House, but I was disappointed to basically only get the story of really one side of one of the two legislative bodies elected in the class of 1974. (Also including Senate)
For those involved on the Hill or interested in the nuance of House procedure, I would surly recommend, otherwise, it might not be the most invigorating or engaging read.
What the book does well is that it provides necessary context to an integral and important historically impactful class that drastically changed the history of the House. The two takeaways I best learned were the impact of the Southern Democrats on hampering the largely half century controlled Democratic House and the impact of the 1970s reforms of seniority on modern day partisanship. Lawrence also does a good job painting pictures of the members and their stories, fleshing out each of their personality’s and backgrounds.
The book largest issue is that it struggles to find a central theme. While Lawrence opens explaining that he will prove how this class shouldn’t be defined by Watergate, he continually fails in doing so, and returns to the impact of it nearly every chapter. I also understand that his experience is in the House, but I was disappointed to basically only get the story of really one side of one of the two legislative bodies elected in the class of 1974. (Also including Senate)
For those involved on the Hill or interested in the nuance of House procedure, I would surly recommend, otherwise, it might not be the most invigorating or engaging read.
November 25, 2018
I love politics, particularly political history. I love reading about congressional leaders long forgotten, their committee assignments, their legislative victories, their winning electoral maps down to the county and precinct level. Given those interests, this type of history, recounting the individual members of the House class of 1974 and the events that led to its elevation seems tailor-made to readers like me. And Lawrence, a former top aide to George Miller and Nancy Pelosi, knows modern congressional history and its players, the stories, where the sausage was made and the bodies buried, better than maybe anyone else alive similarly situated. This would be tough sledding as a textbook, let alone a book. Lawrence desperately needed an editor and a prose doctor, someone to add flair and life to his story, but neither of which were likely available with an academic press. This is a shame, because the history here is fascinating and important. But the material is simply too dense.
October 21, 2024
Each chapter started with a handful of interesting quotes that were intended to set the stage for that section of the book. It really ticked me off that without fail, the author immediately used those quotes within the first few pages of the chapter instead of spreading them out evenly.
November 22, 2018
You watch the video of my interview of John Lawrence about the book at https://www.legbranch.org/legbranch-c...
Lots of good reviews have already been posted. Let me add these brief points. First, folks decry the present-day Congress as dysfunctional and corrupt. As Lawrence shows, before the Class of '74 arrived, the House had major problems, like autocratic, bigoted chairmen. (One of whom sent the African American mayor of Washington, DC a truck load of watermelons.) Second, reading this book also helps show why Newt Gingrich and hard-edged Republicans went to war against Democrats. Democrats ran the House and frequently sidelined Republican legislators. The mindset was, "You are a permanent minority, so you'll follow our lead and get some small benefits. Or you will get nothing."
Lots of good reviews have already been posted. Let me add these brief points. First, folks decry the present-day Congress as dysfunctional and corrupt. As Lawrence shows, before the Class of '74 arrived, the House had major problems, like autocratic, bigoted chairmen. (One of whom sent the African American mayor of Washington, DC a truck load of watermelons.) Second, reading this book also helps show why Newt Gingrich and hard-edged Republicans went to war against Democrats. Democrats ran the House and frequently sidelined Republican legislators. The mindset was, "You are a permanent minority, so you'll follow our lead and get some small benefits. Or you will get nothing."
August 2, 2018
This was a tough book to rate- more like 3.5 stars. I appreciated the detail and the inside information throughout the book. It definitely illuminates the moment in time after the 1974 election when a new breed of Democrats stoked massive majorities in the House. But it's so hung up on lamenting partisanship and settling certain points about who was responsible about institutional reform that a lot goes missing - why certain chairmen were singled out, or what ideological policies the Class adhered to. I just think there was a better story to tell here, even though this one has some value.
July 28, 2018
Former House staffer John Lawrence has written the definitive history of the House Class of 1974. The Class of '74 recounts the reforms that opened up Congress, broke the power of the old Southern committee chairman, and, ironically, paved the way for a GOP takeover. Anticipating a Democratic takeover in this year's midterms, caucus members and leadership would do well to take note of what a big freshman class can do.
July 10, 2019
Lawrence brings the people and policies of the class to life with grace and documentation
Great for those who want to know how we got here, who’s still influencing the landscape (RIP Tip and John Dingell and Phil Burton. )
Good riddance to Newt Gingrich and Bob Bauman! The latter a self righteous Obstructive Republican loudly professing his Christianity...until he got caught soliciting a young male prostitute on 14th St. In DC
Great for those who want to know how we got here, who’s still influencing the landscape (RIP Tip and John Dingell and Phil Burton. )
Good riddance to Newt Gingrich and Bob Bauman! The latter a self righteous Obstructive Republican loudly professing his Christianity...until he got caught soliciting a young male prostitute on 14th St. In DC
November 28, 2019
Tried twice to read it. Could never get engaged. Even though my first political boss was a messed within the class of 74 and the fact that I have high regard for John L.
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