ABSTRACT
Thomas Brackett Reed and Dan Rostenkowski might seem at first an odd pair to focus on in an essay on leadership and change in Congress. Reed, Speaker of the House during the late 1880s and 1890s, was a Maine Yankee known for his parliamentary skill, devastating wit, and unwillingness to bend on matters of principle. Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee since 1981, is the grandson of Polish immigrants and a master practitioner of the Chicago school of machine politics, in which tangible rewards for personal and group loyalty, and sometimes not too subtle forms of intimidation rather than principled rhetoric or fine points of procedure, are the stock-in-trade of political leadership. How might a comparison of Reed and Rostenkowski as leaders help in understanding why Congress changes?
