The Model Kevin McCarthy Should Follow After the Shutdown Fight—but Probably Won’t

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy finally bowed to the obvious on Saturday and allowed his chamber to vote on a stop-gap spending bill that did not include spending cuts or policy changes—what's known as a clean continuing resolution (CR) in Capitol Hill lingo—in order to keep the government open. Doing so could cost McCarthy his speakership, as far-right rebels have spent weeks threatening that passing such a bill with Democratic votes could prompt them to offer a motion to remove McCarthy from the job.

New book explores Mansfield-Dirksen’s bipartisan cooperation during turbulent 1960s

Can you imagine U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sending Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a box of his favorite candy?
Not so long ago, when politics was less about bloodsport, the leaders in the Senate were more cordial and collegial. Even though Sen. Everett Dirksen, a Republican from Illinois who was the minority leader, was the opposite in almost every sense of the word from his more reserved counterpart, Sen. Mike Mansfield, a Democrat from Montana who was the majority leader, they enjoyed a strong friendship that was tested during the turbulence of the 1960s. A new book by prominent historian Marc C. Johnson explores their relationship and concludes that the warm friendship helped guide the nation through the rocky times.

'Bipartisan Giants' looks at Dirksen and Mansfield's unique collaborative approach, and a window into why it's lacking today

The politicians of today's U.S. Senate could stand to learn a thing or two from Everett Dirksen and Mike Mansfield. 
That's a central argument author Marc C. Johnson makes in his new book, Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate. 
Johnson, a former broadcast journalist and aide to former Gov. Cecil Andrus, D-Idaho, said the relationship between Mansfield, a Democrat from Montana; and Dirksen, a Republican from Illinois, was unique in modern American politics. 
"Totally different personalities, from very different states from very different parts of the country, very different political ideologies," Johnson said. "But still, somehow during the very tumultuous time of the 1960s, they managed to work together on a vast array of things that have continued to shape American politics and civic life. So quite an extraordinary partnership." 
The Senate leaders were pivotal in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the creation of Medicare, and building a consensus for ratification of the limited nuclear test ban treaty.

The Last Honest Man: Idaho Sen. Frank Church’s legacy and the American intelligence community

Frank Church’s important legacy and place in Idaho and American history has, thankfully, been resurrected by an important new book that places Idaho’s greatest senator at the center of the history of his own times – and ours. 

Prize-winning reporter and historian James Risen arrives at this particularly fraught moment in American history with The Last Honest Man, a compelling and persuasive assessment of Church’s career that ends up focusing on what Risen argues is Church’s great legacy – his massive, and massively consequential investigation of the American intelligence community. 

Three States and a Funeral (for the Republican Party)

If you want to see the future of the Republican party, there’s no need to wait. It’s happening right now in state legislatures across the country.
Political sorting has created a country in which even local elections are highly polarized. In practice this means that divided government is uncommon even at the state legislative level. Forty-seven states have both branches of the legislature controlled by the same party. (The exceptions are Minnesota, Alaska, and Nebraska’s unicameral.),
Of these, Republicans overwhelmingly dominate—meaning either complete control of both branches or veto-proof legislative majorities with a Democratic governor—in 25 states, giving party leaders carte blanche to set the agenda and pass bills.

This Day in History: Idaho's 'most controversial' senator arrested for using 'Blacks only' entrance.

During a political rally in Alabama, then-Idaho Sen. Glen Taylor was arrested after using a door marked "Black only" on May 1, 1948. That arrest was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to his political career.
Taylor's colorful political past is what gave him the title as one of Idaho's most controversial politicians, according to political historian and author Marc Johnson (No, not THAT Mark Johnson).

The far right’s big money strategy has poisoned our politics and it’s only going to get worse.

Senate campaigns in 2020 cost over $1.1 billion and included nine of the top 10 most expensive campaigns ever — a jaw-dropping amount that promises to only go up in 2022.

This trajectory was best epitomized by the two Georgia runoffs that gave Democrats control of the Senate in January. The four candidates in the two races raised nearly $500 million (much of which isn’t included in the $1.1 billion figure), making the campaigns by far the most expensive Senate races ever.

The McCarthy Era in Idaho

The short period from 1947 to 1956 may well have been the most tumultuous and also the nastiest period in Idaho political history. In under a decade, eight different men represented Idaho in the United States Senate, four incumbent senators — two from each party — lost re-election, the state was represented three times by appointed senators, two incumbents died in office and one senator, Glen Hearst Taylor, one of the few Democrats ever elected to the Senate from Idaho, bolted his party in 1948 and ran for vice president on the Progressive Party ticket.

The Man Behind Montana's Contradictory, Confusing, and Occasionally Crazy Political Culture

The story of Montana’s independence starts with an odd bit of dependence: For nearly 75 years the state’s economy was dominated by a gigantic multinational corporation, the Anaconda Mining Company—properly named after the giant snake, since Anaconda maintained a stranglehold on the state’s politics.

The Montana Roots of The Plot Against America

Philip Roth’s novel, a tale of a fascist takeover of America in 1940 where rampant anti- Semitism prevails, imagines a counter-factual history in which Charles Lindbergh, campaigning on a promise of “America First,” defeats Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. In Roth’s telling, Montana’s once powerful Senator Burton K. Wheeler becomes Lindbergh’s vice president and eventually the “acting president.” During a period of widespread anti-Semitic riots he imposes martial law and orders the arrest of prominent American Jews. Roth’s revisionist account of how fascism came to America 80 years ago resonates anew in our time when a president with authoritarian instincts and a penchant for stoking division dominates American political life.