To understand the modern House of Representatives, a scholar should know about Thomas Brackett Reed. Reed was among the most impactful House members in its history serving as Speaker of the House in the 51st (1889–1891), 54th (1895–1897), and 55th (1897–1899) Congresses. Speaker Reed established parliamentary reforms, known as “Reed’s Rules,” that transformed the House of Representatives from a filibustering body toward a partisan-majoritarian one.
Robert Klotz’s engaging new book on Thomas Brackett Reed adds missing context essential to a full understanding of both the man and Congress during the Gilded Age. Drawing on library archives and other primary sources, Klotz gives a rich history of Reed’s Rules. Additionally, Klotz analyzes and builds on political science theories of legislative organization integrating these insights into a highly readable history of Reed’s Rules. This book will interest scholars of Congress, American political development, and political leadership.
Klotz begins the book with a brief overview of Reed’s legislative philosophy of power politics for partisan ends. Reed believed that the House majority party should control the agenda and, thus, be held accountable for legislative outcomes. Congress should be a governing institution, a place of action. His philosophy discounts legislative deliberation and position-taking and elevates majoritarian responsiveness. Reed’s leadership style fit well with his philosophy. Klotz captures Reed’s character—his physically domineering nature, his wry (sometimes withering) wit, and his sharp commentary on minority partisans.
The book gives an engaging account of Reed’s rise to congressional power. Reed was a product of a one-party Maine legislature dominated by Republicans. He methodically moved from the State House to State Senate and then to the Attorney General of Maine. Reed’s ambition led him next to run for a vacant U.S. House seat in 1876, and his transition to the House of Representatives gave him an early socialization to party leadership. Reed gained a national stage on the Potter Committee defending the 1876 election of Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden. His prosecutorial style in cross-examination and his sharp, sardonic exchanges with opposing partisans showed his promise as a party leader. Reed’s political skills fit with the Gilded Age’s partisan political times of contested party elections, party machines, the patronage system, the lingering partisan press, and the sectional divides of the post-Civil War.
The book focuses on Reed’s appointment to power first as the Republican minority leader in the 50th Congress and then as Speaker of the House in the 51st Congress. Reed was principled but practical. As the Republican minority leader, he was a skillful obstructionist using diverse dilatory tactics to prevent House Democrats from advancing floor legislation. Reed served early in his tenure on the Rules Committee, further exposing him to the importance of House procedure. During the Gilded Age, House Republicans were generally the more progressive party advocating higher taxes (tariffs), greater federal spending, and broader social freedoms. Correspondingly, the Democrats generally advocated for smaller government, lower taxes, and less social change. After Republicans won a narrow majority in the 1888 election, Reed returned for the 50th Congress lame duck session again as minority leader, again working with Republicans and Democratic factions to prevent Democratic party action. Reed won the Speakership over his rival, William McKinley, on the second ballot largely by winning support from northeastern Republicans and the western Republicans being split.
In the 51st Congress’s first session, now Speaker Reed was poised to challenge existing parliamentary rules of the House operating under a rare and tenuous Republican unified government. Reed didn’t follow custom by first proposing House rules for the 51st Congress; instead, he baited Democrats to obstruct on a vote over a West Virginia contested election. On this roll call, the Republicans failed to produce a quorum majority given member absences due to sickness and travel. The majority quorum was further complicated by the minority party’s regular dilatory practice of remaining mute during quorum calls despite being physically present, the so-called disappearing quorum. To the minority’s shock, Reed proceeded to name and recognize as present those Democrats inside the chamber. A firestorm of protests followed. After considerable parliamentary wrangling, a precedent was established empowering the Speaker to deny the “disappearing quorum.” Two days into the debate, Reed refused to recognize minority motions to adjourn. This precedent established the Speaker’s power to declare a motion as intentionally dilatory. By establishing the Speaker as a parliamentary power to limit minority obstruction and dilatory motions, Reed shifted floor agenda control power to the majority party.
In addition to establishing the majority party’s floor agenda control, Reed also set parliamentary precedent for the majority party’s floor scheduling power. He was the first to use the House Rules Committee to pass bill-specific special rules. He originated the practice of structured, restrictive rules, the overwhelming norm in the contemporary House and the basis of contemporary floor scheduling power held by the House majority.
The new parliamentary rules took on the Speaker’s name, Reed’s Rules, and they transformed the House into a governing body controlled by the majority party. Reed’s Rules ended the disappearing quorum and limited dilatory motions. They built on Reed’s earlier precedent to establish special rules, and they significantly sped up the flow of floor debate. Klotz also portrays Reed as more than a parliamentarian, a legislator who is intellectually curious and strong-willed. He learns French while serving as a leader and writes a daily journal in French. He is outspoken in his defense of an elections bill that would have expanded the federal role in the South. In the end, the 51st Congress was a dramatic change from the 50th Congress with House Republicans transforming parliamentary procedures and enacting the McKinley tariff reform, Sherman Silver Purchase Act, naval expansion, and Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Klotz concludes with insights into contemporary theories of legislative organization that can be derived from this careful historical study. He argues that Reed’s procedural changes were not entirely in sync with a current theory of conditional party government. Reed’s Rules established a more autocratic Speakership that was only weakly constrained by majority party rank-and-file. This autocratic party leadership would be partly undone by the 1910 revolt of Speaker Joe Cannon. Additionally, Reed’s Rules empowered Speakers with negative agenda control but less positive agenda control. It was not until House reforms in the 1970s that the majority party gained a two-to-one advantage on the Rules Committee, contributing to the prevalence of restrictive special rules. These 1970s reforms contributed to the House majority party’s positive agenda control conditional on the majority’s intra-party factionalism.
Klotz closes with thoughts about Reed’s Rules broadly in American politics. He notes that Reed “envisioned a political system in which one party governs and the other party watches” (p. 231). He then asks readers to question whether this lack of minority input is problematic in a system of shared powers. This question presents Reed’s legacy for today. Has the House of Representatives become too partisan? Would the House govern more effectively if procedures gave minority party members a more formative legislative role? We can speculate how a partisan yet principled Reed might answer. Robert Klotz’s excellent book significantly enriches our understanding of Reed and his enduring impact on the contemporary House.
