Word: parliamentarian
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...this book he frequently employs a rather unusual approach--that of using the correspondence of a comparatively obscure parliamentarian to illuminate the characteristic political maneuverings of his period. One of these nonentities was Daniel Pulteney, who joined parliament, Namier tells us, primarily to avoid his debts. Except for achieving this aim, Pulteney seems to have accomplished nothing. However, during the 1780's when Pulteney held office, the relation of the ministry to the House was undergoing a notable evolution. As Namier brings out, Pulteney, "though a parasite throughout, sensed and recorded during his short parliamentary career the change that...
...demolished the long-accepted interpretation of 18th century English politics. Englishmen had been taught that the noble heroes of Parliament had battled wicked King George III to preserve English liberties. Namier sifted speeches of the period, records, diaries and letters. When he was stumped by the character of a Parliamentarian, he consulted a psychoanalyst. He finally gathered all his biographical sketches into two massive volumes, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III and England in the Age of the American Revolution, which proved that there had been no ideological battle in 18th century England. Parliament was composed...
...hoped to avoid sending their measure to the Judiciary Committee, which, under Mississippi's Senator James Eastland, has been a graveyard for civil rights legislation. They hoped instead to have it referred to Mansfield's Senate Rules Committee. But Vice President Lyndon Johnson, advised by the Senate parliamentarian, ruled that it had to go to Judiciary. The setback will be only temporary, Mansfield promised. If the Judiciary Committee does not act within 90 days, he will attach his proposal as an amendment to unrelated legislation...
...only to the President. "The Speaker," said Speaker Thomas B. Reed, "has one Superior and no peer." When he and the President are of the same party, the Speaker is expected to be the chief White House ally on Capitol Hill. The Speaker must be a skilled and cool parliamentarian, in complete control of the 437 men and women of the House, able to interpret, to arbitrate, and to act swiftly and certainly. Through his various powers, controls and discretions, he can exercise enormous influence on the flow of legislation. No law may be enacted without the Speaker...
Nicholas Longworth, a Cincinnati Republican, married "Princess Alice" Roosevelt, Teddy's daughter. He was an elegant, scrupulously fair presiding officer, and a skilled parliamentarian who won friends on both sides of the aisle and prestige for the House through his assumption that all Representatives were as honorable and gentlemanly as himself. With his bipartisan "Big Five," he set the pace for the famed "Board of Education," an informal gathering where the leaders of both parties could get together after each day's session for drinking and legislative planning...