AHC: less seniority system in U.S. Congress and earlier Civil Rights Movement?

The argument is that the South was essentially a one-party region where Democratic members of Congress and Senators stayed in office forever. And because of this, many southerners held key committee chairs and made civil rights legislation quite a bit harder. And this was all the way through the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. This only started to erode in the '80s with the 'Reagan Revolution.'

Well, there was civil rights legislation, a little bit in the '50s, and then very substantially in the '60s.

If there had been less of an entrenched seniority system (which is a tall order!), could all of this have happened earlier?
 
Last edited:
For example, there could have been an insurgency movement among less senior members of Congress, perhaps most conveniently following the 1932 elections, but since a lot of these things hinge on personality conflicts, maybe '28 or '30 as well.

I think it would be 'discharge'(?) petitions? To discharge a proposed piece of legislation without necessarily getting the approval of the committee chair.

And since there's a lot more members who aren't chairs, if the momentum gathers past a certain point, there might well be such an insurgency movement.

And maybe senior leadership sees the writing on the wall, asks for a few token compromises for purposes of saving face, and there you have it.
 
Last edited:
It was not primarily the seniority system that blocked civil rights legislation, it was the filibuster, and the difficulty of getting cloture. To quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine, "it only took 33 senators out of 96 to block cloture, and [Robert] Caro argues that not only would the South solidly oppose cloture on a stronger bill, but it might find allies in conservative senators from the farm belt and Rocky Mountains. These senators were inclined to see the filibuster as an important weapon for the smaller states; moreover, they wanted the support of Southerners on farm bills, etc. Caro quotes one Southerner as saying 'You get up to 33 real fast'..."
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/C-bj2q5UCXM/fukDBtgD84gJ
 
Let's say in the 1930s, senior leadership in the U.S. army and navy has two differing opinions regarding African-Americans in the service: in one view, it's a manpower issue and frankly we need black sailors and soldiers, and in the second view, it will be too much of a distraction to try to have integrated units.

And let's suppose the compromise position is that we'll have segregated units of black sailors and soldiers. And during a war, replacement personnel will be on a nonsegregated basis.

Well, that's pretty much what happened in OTL! (but just late in the game). If only we had gotten rolling earlier . . . things might have been very different.
 
Last edited:
You've got me!

In fact, I'd probably be defending the filibuster. That it gives more time for a deliberative process. That a Senator is not going to do something which embarrasses himself or herself in their home state. I might even be arguing that it seems to work alright in practice.

All I can say is that I've observed different things as citizen and think I'm asking the (?)better questions. I realize that may not be much of an answer!
 
https://www.princeton.edu/csdp/events/Congress/PearsonSchicklerHoC.pdf

2nd page of PDF:

" . . One reason has been that until 1993, the names of the members who sign the petitions were only made public in the 48 cases in which the petition reached the threshold number of signatures and was printed in the Congressional Record.[1] . . "
This same poly sci article says the discharge petition process was started in 1924. So, forty-eight successful petitions between this time and either 1976 or 1993. (the period between '24 and '76 is the focus of the article) Forty-eight times seems rather sparse. Well, perhaps like poker, the implied threat thereof was effective on other occasions.
 
Last edited:
Top