[Print] [Email] No, Obama can't govern like FDR in 1933

Washington Examiner ^ | June 19,2009 | Michael Barone

[gusopol3]

The Hoover law took effect automatically after the 1930 Census, effective for the Congress elected in 1932. This resulted in big increases in House members for states with large numbers of immigrants in 1910-30, like New York and Illinois, and decreases for interior states with low population growth, like Missouri and Iowa. In several states that lost House members the legislatures could not agree on redistricting plans, and all members therefrom were elected statewide at-large. But the increases in immigrant-heavy states and the at-large elections in interior states augmented what would have been even without these factors huge Democratic gains.

The House that Franklin Roosevelt faced in 1933 was the only House between 1899 and the present day in which a majority of members were freshmen. (Many years ago I actually went back and did the numbers; the fact that the 1898 election was the first in which a majority of House members were reelected tells you something interesting about the Progressive period, but I’ll save that for a later post.)

[gusopol3]

great history here

[St. Louis Conservative]

Ping.

Michael Barone is awesome.

[wastoute]

I was talking about him the other day with someone and couldn't remember his name but you are correct he is astonishing. I remember watching the election returns in 2003 and he just off the cuff started talking about electoral districts in Ohio and it was stuff like, "There is a Tastee Freeze on one side of the railroad tracks and the neighborhood back there hasn't voted Democrat in 30 years and it is key in the state..." I mean it wasn't that specifically but it was that detailed knowledge of the country that literally no one else has. One has to really love something to spend enough time on it to know it that intimately and he does.

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[Buckeye McFrog]

Michael Barone is awesome. For example, he was the first to note that every Obama statement came with an expiration date.