Population, ideological shifts diminish Northeast’s congressional clout

WASHINGTON – Think fast. Who’s the highest-ranking Northeasterner in Congress? If you came up with Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, you clearly qualify for political junkie status.

The Northeast routinely used to produce a who’s who of Washington – presidents, House speakers, Senate leaders and chairmen of the most influential committees – but no more.

There still are well-known names – Sens. Joe Lieberman, Edward M. Kennedy and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Rep. Barney Frank, among others – but the nation’s population and ideological shifts have greatly reduced the region’s clout.

In the House, no Northeasterner holds a top position in either party’s leadership. The region’s sole committee chairman, Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., presides over the Science Committee, considered a second-tier panel.

The situation is only marginally better in the Senate where in addition to Santorum, Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., and Bob Smith, R-N.H., chair the Labor and Environment committees.

“We used to take it for granted that we ran everything, now we don’t,” said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican. “We have to change our strategy and do what the Southern states did when the Northeast controlled things and send people to Washington for a long time.”

The Northeast consists of the six New England states – Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont – and the four Middle Atlantic states – Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

The region’s power in Washington peaked in the 1930s, when New York’s Franklin D. Roosevelt was president and 123 of the 435 House members were from the Northeast. Its influential senators included Banking Committee Chairman Robert Wagner, D-N.Y., and Education Committee Chairman David Walsh, D-Mass. In the House, Rep. John O’Connor, D-N.Y., chaired the Rules Committee, which set guidelines for debate.

As people moved South and West during the mid-to-late 20th century, the Northeast’s influence started to wane.

The region has lost representation in the House after every census since 1930 and now has just 89 seats, nearly one-third fewer than 70 years ago. It will lose five more seats in 2003 due to redistricting – two each in New York and Pennsylvania and one in Connecticut.

While the population shifted, so did the political landscape, most notably in 1964. Conservative Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater defeated moderate New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller for the GOP presidential nomination, then was beaten by President Lyndon Johnson, a Texan who frequently criticized the disproportionate influence of the Northeast in the Democratic Party.

The region hasn’t produced a president since. Its only nominee, Democrat Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, lost by a landslide in 1988 after then-Vice President George Bush labeled him a liberal.

Thanks to Goldwater, the GOP became a Southern- and Western-based conservative party. Goldwater once said he wouldn’t mind if the Northeast was cut off from the rest of the country and allowed to fall into the Atlantic Ocean.

Bill Clinton’s emergence made the Democratic Party more moderate and tilted its power base toward the South.

The shift has left the Northeast’s moderate Republicans and liberal Democrats on the sidelines in party leadership.

“The Southern takeover of Congress is complete. While in the past the parties have sought a balanced leadership, that is not the case now,” Brown University political scientist Darrell West said.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter conceded that fellow moderate Republicans “have had to work to get the party to listen to us” and that conservative views on social issues and the environment don’t jibe with most Northeasterners.

The power shift also has meant fewer federal dollars for the region.

For example, Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation was unable to stop the closing of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, a huge blow to the local economy.

By contrast, during the same series of base closings, Georgia suffered no losses despite having a bigger military presence than Pennsylvania. Georgia’s interests were protected in part by its congressional delegation, which included then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Sam Nunn, the top Democrat on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

Elsewhere, Pentagon contracts at the Naval Submarine Base at Groton, Conn., have declined 30 percent over the last seven years and shifted to facilities in Mississippi and Virginia. Those states are represented by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner.

Not everyone thinks the Northeast is necessarily hurt by its lack of congressional leaders.

Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker contends the caliber of an individual member is more important than their position. He notes the House’s two main sponsors of legislation to change the way campaigns are financed are Northeasterners who are not members of the leadership: Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., and Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.

“Even in as big a place as the House, someone not in the leadership can make a difference,” Baker said.