Harry Reid and Health Care Reform in the Senate: Transactional Leadership in a Transformational Moment?
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Vincent G. Moscardelli
On December 24, 2009, the United States Senate passed H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, by a vote of 60-39. Final passage was the culmination of over a month of behind-the-scenes negotiations and strategy sessions coordinated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). In this paper, I trace and evaluate Harry Reid’s coalition-building efforts on health care reform in the months leading up to the Christmas Eve vote using concepts drawn from the political science literature on legislative leadership. I conclude that Reid adopted precisely the transactional, "keep-the-chains-moving" leadership posture that matched both the institution he leads and his limited personal investment in the issue of health care prior to 2009. Efforts to paint Reid's performance on this issue as a failure of leadership ignore the extent to which contextual factors in the Senate were stacked against reform.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- The Scenic Road to Nowhere: Reflections on the History of National Health Insurance in the United States
- Harry Reid and Health Care Reform in the Senate: Transactional Leadership in a Transformational Moment?
- Problem Solving in a Polarized Age: Comparative Effectiveness Research and the Politicization of Evidence-Based Medicine
- Simulating Representation: Elite Mobilization and Political Power in Health Care Reform
- Why the "Death Panel" Myth Wouldn't Die: Misinformation in the Health Care Reform Debate
- After the "Housequake": Leadership and Partisanship in the Post-2006 House
- Loss Aversion and the Framing of the Health Care Reform Debate
- Public Opinion on Health Care Reform
- Why Major Health Reform in 2009-10 Won't Solve Our Problems
- Review
- Review of Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush
- Review of Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- The Scenic Road to Nowhere: Reflections on the History of National Health Insurance in the United States
- Harry Reid and Health Care Reform in the Senate: Transactional Leadership in a Transformational Moment?
- Problem Solving in a Polarized Age: Comparative Effectiveness Research and the Politicization of Evidence-Based Medicine
- Simulating Representation: Elite Mobilization and Political Power in Health Care Reform
- Why the "Death Panel" Myth Wouldn't Die: Misinformation in the Health Care Reform Debate
- After the "Housequake": Leadership and Partisanship in the Post-2006 House
- Loss Aversion and the Framing of the Health Care Reform Debate
- Public Opinion on Health Care Reform
- Why Major Health Reform in 2009-10 Won't Solve Our Problems
- Review
- Review of Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush
- Review of Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South
