[To say that
this year’s midterm
elections are significant is, I believe, to significantly understate the
case. But crucial as they are, they won’t be the first such significant
midterms, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy five other major midterms, leading up
to a special weekend post on this year’s results. And oh yeah: vote!]
On the
illustrative and iconoclastic sides to a newly elected Senator.
As you might
expect, the 1930 midterm
elections did not go well for the Republican Party. The Depression was just
over a year old in November 1930, and even if President Herbert Hoover and his
GOP colleagues had been a bang-up job with managing that economic and social
catastrophe, it’s likely that the voters would have taken out their fears and
frustrations on the party that controlled the White House and both chambers of
Congress at the time. But by most measures
and most
historians’ reckonings Hoover et al didn’t respond well at all to the
deepening crisis, and so the significant Democratic victories of 1930 were even
more predictable. Democrats gained 52 seats from Republicans in the House of
Representatives, gaining control of that chamber for the first time in more
than three decades. They also gained 8 Senate seats, earning a split of power
in that chamber (although Republican Vice President Charles Curtis served as a
tie-breaking vote for the GOP). Over the next three election cycles Democrats
would gain 118 additional seats in the House, making 1930 the start of a truly
sizeable blue wave (to coin a phrase, although of course Democratic in 1930 didn’t
necessarily mean what it does in 2018—someone tell Dinesh D’Souza!) that
reshaped American politics throughout the Depression era.
One of the newly
elected Senators in 1930 was none other than controversial Louisiana Governor (still
in the midst of his gubernatorial term at the time! On which more in a moment) Huey Long. Long’s seat wasn’t one of those
8 Democratic pickups, as it had already been occupied by a Democrat. But Long
did run against and defeat an entrenched incumbent, Senator
Joseph E. Ransdell, handily besting Ransdell in a Democratic primary that
was by default the full election as well (as the GOP didn’t run a candidate for
the seat). Ransdell had been in the Senate since 1912, and had been in the
House of Representatives for 14 years before that; those 32 years in Washington
made him quite the symbolic embodiment of “politics as usual” and made Long’s
ousting of him a striking reflection of the sea-changes underway across the
nation in 1930. As usual, Long articulated
such radical sentiments bluntly, defending his continuing as governor rather
than immediately assuming the Senate seat (on which, again, more in a moment!) by
arguing, “with Ransdell as Senator, the seat was vacant anyway.” Long’s
plainspoken populism (while complex and
fraught as such populisms tend to be) likewise reflected the broader trends
that contributed to this 1930 rejection of Hoover and company and the subsequent
moves toward new perspectives and the New Deal.
So in some
important ways Long’s 1930 victory was a telling example of those larger
national trends. But in other ways it, like Long itself, was entirely unique
and kind of ridiculous. Again, while his Senate term began in March 1931, Long
simply didn’t occupy the seat for nearly a year, finishing out most of his term
as governor before moving to Washington in January 1932. Long being Long, he
also took things significantly further than that; when Lieutenant
Governor Paul Cyr, a former Long ally who had turned against the governor,
correctly noted that Long really couldn’t serve in both roles and attempted to
assume the governorship, Long fought back, kind of literally: he called Cyr’s
actions a coup e’tat and ordered the state National Guard to surround the
Capitol Building. He then went
to the state Supreme Court to argue that Cyr had vacated the Lieutenant
Governor position through his actions, won that lawsuit, and replaced Cyr with
a crony, State Senate President Alvin
Olin King; it was King who took over for the final few months of Long’s
gubernatorial term when he finally moved to DC to assume the Senate seat. All
of which is to say, as undoubtedly extreme as this year’s midterm elections
feel, things could always get more unique and crazy.
Last midterm
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other elections or contexts you’d highlight?
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