House Republican factional divisions

[Bacon King]

The recent events in Congress led me to analyze the membership of several major ideological/factional organizations in the House Republican Conference. I figured I should share, so here's some mediocre Venn diagrams!

Note that given the Freedom Caucus's secret membership, I only used the 36 Congressmen who have publicly gone on the record declaring their membership.

The way to make sense of this: in the first image, it's telling you that 22 people are members of both the Freedom Caucus and Liberty Caucus, while 14 are members of Freedom but not Liberty and 13 are members of Liberty but not Freedom.

[Torie]

Well we all know now about the Freedom Caucus, more than we want to know for some of us. What is the schtick of these other groups? Isn't there a moderate group, with some name? It used to be the Wednesday Club or something, and maybe now it is the Tuesday group. Gibson is my Congressperson, planning to run for governor, so that name caught my eye, and given there is an overlap between the Freedom Caucus and Liberty Caucus, that causes me to wonder, since he is careful now to nurture his moderate profile.

Nice Venn's by the way!

[Bacon King]

Well we all know now about the Freedom Caucus, more than we want to know for some of us. What is the schtick of these other groups? Isn't there a moderate group, with some name? It used to be the Wednesday Club or something, and maybe now it is the Tuesday group. Gibson is my Congressperson, planning to run for governor, so that name caught my eye, and given there is an overlap between the Freedom Caucus and Liberty Caucus, that causes me to wonder, since he is careful now to nurture his moderate profile.

Nice Venn's by the way!

Thanks!

The Liberty Caucus is the group of "Libertarian Conservatives" led by Justin Amash. Note that two-thirds of them are also public members of the Freedom Caucus- if I was trying to find the remaining unknown members of the Freedom Caucus, this would be the first place I'd look.

The Republican Study Committee includes about 70% of the GOP Conference as members. It espouses a "mainstream" right-wing philosophy. They don't want to cooperate with Democrats, but they aren't diehard obstructionists. It represents the bulk of the caucus.

The Mainstreet Partnership is essentially the moderate group. Charlie Dent is a prominent member of this caucus, to give you a reference for their perspective on the current leadership struggle.

The Tuesday Group apparently still meets, but given that the rise of the Tea Party has turned "moderate" into a dirty word, they seem to be keeping out of the public eye as much as possible. I could not find any recent reference to their activities. The few names I could find associated with the Tuesday Group are also members of the Mainstreet Partnership - there appears to be a large degree of overlap.

[Torie]

Thanks again. Getting down to the really important stuff, does the Liberty Caucus favor pot legalization, and letting non violent druggies out of prison, and filming the actions of police?

[Bacon King]

Thanks again. Getting down to the really important stuff, does the Liberty Caucus favor pot legalization, and letting non violent druggies out of prison, and filming the actions of police?

Most of them don't seem to be that kind of libertarian, unfortunately. Some names you might recognize from the Liberty Caucus include: Louie Gohmert, Trey Gowdy, Tom McClintock, Mark Meadows, Thomas Massie, Justin Amash, Dana Rohrabacher and Mark Sanford

(Full member list here)

[Bacon King]

Ok there are a few things to take from this, I think.

1. The House Freedom Caucus and House Liberty Caucus have considerable overlap - two-thirds of both groups are the same people.

2. Both of these hardliner groups are generally active within the Study Committee, especially the Freedom Caucus.

3. Slightly under half of the Mainstreet Partnership are also active within the Study Committee, but there's almost no overlap with the Freedom/Liberty Caucuses: the views of the RSC have basically become the ideological center ground of the House GOP, when it was once firmly on the right wing of the party.

4. In spite of the establishment affiliation of certain MSP types, and the inordinate pull the Freedom Caucus has over the party's actions, the "average" member of the Republican Conference is a member of the Study Committee and no other group.

[Ebsy]

Here's my contribution:



Please forgive any inaccuracies. If you can point some out, I can somewhat easily remedy them.

[muon2]

Great chart Ebsy! I don't see Davis (IL-7) who should be in the CBC and Progressive Caucus.

It is interesting to note that 2 of the remaining Blue Dogs are from IL and 5 IL Pubs are in the Main Street Caucus. That puts 7 of 18-member delegation in those parts of their parties.

[Bismarck]

Iowa's Blum and King suprise me, you'd think their affiliations would be flipped.

[Torie]

Hanna for some reason is not on the list, and Katko is a member of the Main Street Partnership. In fact, all of the Pubs from NY are in the Main Street Partnership. Go NY!   When you look at most of the districts the members come from, one can see why they are members. Very interesting. It's a good object lesson in the joys of having more marginal CD's, and more urban based ones.

[Ebsy]

Fixed the errors that several people pointed out. Thanks to those of you that lent an extra pair of eyes.

[hopper]

Fixed the errors that several people pointed out. Thanks to those of you that lent an extra pair of eyes.

I'm surprised there is a "New Democrats Caucus" since the term "New Democrat" is so 1990's. The "Progressive Caucus" is pretty much the political center of the party now in my opinion. I guess the names outside(on the bottom) of the "Blue Dog Coalition" and "New Democrat" circles don't belong to any kind of caucus. In comparison to Democrats most rank and file Republicans belong to some kind of  respective caucus.

Where is the "Tea Party Caucus" at on the "factions map"? I don't see it.

[hopper]

Iowa's Blum and King suprise me, you'd think their affiliations would be flipped.

No, Blum voted against Boehner for Speaker in January so he is an "outsider". King is like borderline Establishment since he was first elected to Congress in 2002. He didn't support the "Amash Amendment" for NSA either a couple years ago I don't think.

[muon2]

Fixed the errors that several people pointed out. Thanks to those of you that lent an extra pair of eyes.

I found another. You have Davis (R, IL-13) in two places. Both in the RSC and in the RSC/Mainstreet overlap. You can delete him from the RSC only list on your next iteration.

[Nyvin]

I didn't realize how weak the blue dogs are....14 members?    Wow.

[Bigby]

I didn't realize how weak the blue dogs are....14 members?    Wow.

The Democrats are too culturally urban now for blue-collar, rural aligned voting blocs. The Blue Dog base is firmly GOP now.

[smoltchanov]

I didn't realize how weak the blue dogs are....14 members?    Wow.

The Democrats are too culturally urban now for blue-collar, rural aligned voting blocs. The Blue Dog base is firmly GOP now.

Exactly. Especially - since 2008. Obama is just opposite of them: black, urban, white-collar with excellent education, very liberal (especially - on social issues), and so on. And he is a face and a symbol of party. Naturally - vast majority of them doesn't want to have anything in common with such party.

Even state parties in mostly rural states (in the South, for example) began to resemble national one much more then, say, half century ago, when (again - for example) Democratic parties in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi were much more conservative then national party. Now these parties are mostly "black parties", and generally similar in ideology to national one (may be - somewhat more conservative on some social issues, but - not by much)

[All Along The Watchtower]

I didn't realize how weak the blue dogs are....14 members?    Wow.

The Democrats are too culturally urban now for blue-collar, rural aligned voting blocs. The Blue Dog base is firmly GOP now.

Exactly. Especially - since 2008. Obama is just opposite of them: black, urban, white-collar with excellent education, very liberal (especially - on social issues), and so on. And he is a face and a symbol of party. Naturally - vast majority of them doesn't want to have anything in common with such party.

Even state parties in mostly rural states (in the South, for example) began to resemble national one much more then, say, half century ago, when (again - for example) Democratic parties in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi were much more conservative then national party. Now these parties are mostly "black parties", and generally similar in ideology to national one (may be - somewhat more conservative on some social issues, but - not by much)

Additionally, white men (working class and/or rural)  have declined dramatically as a share of the unionized workforce in America, which is related to the sharp decline in unionized employment in the private sector.

[smoltchanov]

I didn't realize how weak the blue dogs are....14 members?    Wow.

The Democrats are too culturally urban now for blue-collar, rural aligned voting blocs. The Blue Dog base is firmly GOP now.

Exactly. Especially - since 2008. Obama is just opposite of them: black, urban, white-collar with excellent education, very liberal (especially - on social issues), and so on. And he is a face and a symbol of party. Naturally - vast majority of them doesn't want to have anything in common with such party.

Even state parties in mostly rural states (in the South, for example) began to resemble national one much more then, say, half century ago, when (again - for example) Democratic parties in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi were much more conservative then national party. Now these parties are mostly "black parties", and generally similar in ideology to national one (may be - somewhat more conservative on some social issues, but - not by much)

Additionally, white men (working class and/or rural)  have declined dramatically as a share of the unionized workforce in America, which is related to the sharp decline in unionized employment in the private sector.

Yeah, this is also true...

[Frodo]

Here's my contribution:



Please forgive any inaccuracies. If you can point some out, I can somewhat easily remedy them.

Excellent pie graphs.  One little problem -Nebraska's acronym is 'NE' I believe, not 'NB'.  Unless Rep. Brad Ashford also represents New Brunswick....    

You also might want to fix this problem for Representives Jeff Fortenberry and Adrian Smith.