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WORK TITLE: The Class of ’74
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1949
WEBSITE:
CITY: Washington
STATE: DC
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
https://bsos.umd.edu/academics-research/john-lawrence; Work Phone: 974-6341
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1949.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, government staff member, and educator. U.S. House of Representatives, staff member in various positions, including staff director of the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Natural Resources, as chief of staff and legislative director to Congressman George Miller, and as chief of staff to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 1975-2013; University of Maryland College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, College Park. University of California, visiting professor; Georgetown University, McCourt School for Public Policy, instructor; lecturer at other schools and universities, including Princeton University, Rutgers University, Columbia University, and Oberlin College.
AWARDS:John W. McCormack Award for Excellence, U.S. House of Representatives, 2013.
WRITINGS
Also author of a blog, “DOMEocracy.”
SIDELIGHTS
John A. Lawrence is a writer, educator, and retired senior staff member who served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Lawrence spent thirty-eight years in the House, retiring in 2013. During his career, he was the chief of staff and legislative director for Congressman George Miller, noted a writer on the University of Maryland College of Behavioral Sciences website. During his last eight years, he was the chief of staff to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Lawrence held other positions throughout his career, such as the staff director of the Committed on Education and the Workforce and of the Committee on Natural Resources.
Since retiring, Lawrence has become a visiting professor at the Washington campus of the University of California. He also holds teaching positions at Georgetown University’s McCourt School for Public Policy. He has taught or lectured at several other schools, including Rutgers University, Columbia University, Princeton University, and Oberlin College.
Lawrence delves into both political history and his own experiences in the House of Representatives in his book The Class of ’74: Congress after Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship. Here, Lawrence profiles the freshman members of the 94th Congress and how they were affected by the tumultuous political and social conditions that were prominent in 1974. A young staff member of the House during this time, Lawrence lived through many of the events and changes he writes about in his book.
The year 1974 was notable for several reasons. The Vietnam War was still ongoing, and the United States was still deeply involved in the conflict. U.S. President Richard M. Nixon had recently resigned in disgrace in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and subsequent investigation. There were large numbers of incoming new legislators, an electoral response influenced largely by Watergate and Nixon. Lawrence shows what happened with these new members of the House, a mostly Democratic group that faced an unprecedented time of political unrest, distrust by the people, and the need for dramatic changes in the way politics was done in Washington. At the same time, the author also dissects how the changes brought about by the newly elected House members form the basis of the bitter partisan politics that creates gridlock and worse in more recent times.
“Lawrence’s account of this largely young, liberal, and impatient cohort in the House of Representatives and what they wrought is detailed and thoroughly researched. He resurrects a time that seems like ancient history in many ways, but he manages to connect it to today’s partisan hijinks inside the Capitol Building,” commented Christian Science Monitor contributor David Holahan. A writer in Kirkus Reviews concluded that Lawrence’s book is an “essential work of congressional history.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Christian Science Monitor, April 12, 2018, David Holahan, “The Class of ’74 chronicles a young, liberal, and impatient House of Representatives,” review of The Class of ’74: Congress after Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship.
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2018, review of The Class of ’74.
ONLINE
University of Maryland College of Behavioral Sciences website, http://bsos.umd.edu/ (June 12, 2018), biography of John A. Lawrence.
John A. Lawrence is a visiting professor at the University of California's Washington Center. He worked in the House of Representatives for 38 years, the last eight as chief of staff to Speaker and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
John A. Lawrence
John A. Lawrence served for 38 years as a senior staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives, the last eight as Chief of Staff to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). He also served as staff director of the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Natural Resources, as well as chief of staff and legislative director to Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.). Upon his retirement in February 2013, Speakers John A. Boehner and Nancy Pelosi recognized his dedication to the House and to bipartisanship by conferring on him the John W. McCormack Award for Excellence. He currently is a visiting professor at the University of California (Washington Campus), and also teaches at the McCourt School for Public Policy at Georgetown University. He has lectured at Princeton’s Wilson School of Public Policy, the Eagleton Institute for Public Policy at Rutgers, Columbia University, Oberlin College and other institutions. He blogs on Congress and public affairs at DOMEocracy.
Lawrence, John A.: THE CLASS OF '74
Kirkus Reviews. (Feb. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lawrence, John A. THE CLASS OF '74 Johns Hopkins Univ. (Adult Nonfiction) $29.95 4, 1 ISBN: 978-1-4214-2469-9
A compelling account of a vital era in the history of the U.S. Congress.
Presidential historians are ubiquitous. They can earn a level of semi-fame (and exalted status) by writing books on topics that are neither especially new nor underexplored. Meanwhile, congressional historians, who write about a government branch that is every bit as important--and possibly more so, since legislation, after all, originates in Congress--do not enjoy anywhere near the same measure of fame. In this significant book on the massive (and overwhelmingly Democratic) freshman class of the House of Representatives that won election in November 1974, Lawrence, who worked in the House for 38 years, including eight as the chief of staff for Nancy Pelosi, serves up a timely reminder of why we need more prominent histories of the complex business that goes on in the Capitol. The author provides a fine rendering of the so-called "Watergate Babies"--a term Lawrence avoids as condescending--and the way that they helped to reform the House by challenging the rules of seniority and some of the procedures that they perceived as anti-democratic impediments to passing legislation. Lawrence argues that at least some of these changes would backfire on the Democrats when the Republicans and Newt Gingrich took over the House in the wake of the 1994 elections. Writing about Congress is unquestionably challenging. There are hundreds of individuals and no one giant figure who can bend the branch to his or her will, and the procedures are Byzantine and complicated. Yet Lawrence, who combines the lived experience of working in Congress with the academic credentials to provide scholarly ballast, successfully navigates these choppy waters, telling a complicated story while making convincing arguments about the significance of the 94th Congress. The epilogue offers brief biographies of each of the members of the "Class of 1974."
An essential work of congressional history.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lawrence, John A.: THE CLASS OF '74." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461363/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=36982943. Accessed 10 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525461363
'The Class of '74' chronicles a young, liberal, and impatient House of Representatives
David Holahan
The Christian Science Monitor. (Apr. 12, 2018): Arts and Entertainment:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The Christian Science Publishing Society
http://www.csmonitor.com/About/The-Monitor-difference
Full Text:
Byline: David Holahan
It was quite a year, 1974. President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal, and his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him two months before the midterm elections. The Vietnam War, which Nixon professed in 1968 to have a "secret plan" to end, had not ended.
On the economic front, the price of gasoline had jumped 50 percent due to the OPEC oil embargo that ended in March; the economy was in recession; inflation was close to 10 percent; and a relentless bear market had caused the DJIA to lose more than 45 percent of its value between January 1973 and December 1974.
Small wonder that the American people were restless. Their good opinion of the US Congress, which, unlike the executive branch was controlled by Democrats, had dropped from 64 percent in 1964 to just 15 percent by 1974 (where it has hovered ever since). If ever there was a time for change, the election of 1974 was the time.
John A. Lawrence chronicles that change in The Class of '74: Congress After Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship. It is the author's first book, but his credentials are impeccable: He had a front row seat to observe the times as they were a-changing. He came in with the class of 1974, serving as chief of staff for freshman Democratic Rep. George Miller and later for Nancy Pelosi right up until 2013.
Lawrence's account of this largely young, liberal, and impatient cohort in the House of Representatives and what they wrought is detailed and thoroughly researched. He resurrects a time that seems like ancient history in many ways, but he manages to connect it to today's partisan hijinks inside the Capitol Building. That said, the author sometimes gets lost in the weeds and, in spots, the level of inside-the-Beltway minutia is likely to be off-putting for the general reader.
It is easy to forget how the Democratic Party, which has struggled of late, dominated the legislative branch during much of the last century. For more than six decades, from 1933 until 1994, it ruled the House of Representatives for all but four years. Prior to 1981, the Republicans had not controlled the US Senate since 1955.
The election of 1974 would increase that supremacy. There were 91 new House members, 76 of them Democrats - incoming novices dubbed the "Watergate babies." Rather than battling with the outgunned Republicans, the Democrats fought among themselves: freshmen against their elders, liberals against more conservative party members, and northerners versus southerners.
The early fights were not about passing legislation but rather over how to get bills out of the clutches of senior committee chairmen, who were fellow Democrats, and onto the House floor for a vote. Perhaps the most egregious of the crusty committee czars who reigned based on seniority was Louisiana's F. Edward Hebert, 73. The chair of Armed Services Committee was an avowed segregationist and made the mistake of addressing a gathering of the Class of '74 as "girls and boys." He lost his chairmanship soon thereafter, as did two other bureaucratic dinosaurs.
Once the freshmen Democrats liberalized the House rules to give newcomers like themselves more power, they tackled the issues that had inspired them to run. First and foremost, they wanted to end the Vietnam War, and Congress cut funding to the South Vietnamese government almost in half, to $700 million. They also passed an energy bill that established for the first time efficiency mandates for cars as well as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Other laws addressed transparency in government, individuals with disabilities, and control of toxic substances. Their efforts to expand health care coverage failed.
On the downside, the author contends that the very success of the campaign to loosen the House rules inadvertently jump-started the gridlock and partisanship that afflicts Congress today. With more subcommittees, more amendments, and more roll call votes, the opportunities to expose and attack the opposition multiplied. He writes, "Few Democrats appreciated that the reforms might unintentionally help to undermine [the House's] bipartisan traditions or provide Republicans with enhanced means for planning an assault on the House majority."
Lawrence cites other contributing factors, arguably more telling, for the decline of bipartisanship and the ethic of compromise, not least of which was the Republicans' sheer frustration at being in the minority decade after decade and of being ignored or outmaneuvered by the Democrats.
Then, of course, there was the appearance in 1979 of freshman House member Newt Gingrich, who thought the time was ripe for a full frontal assault on the hegemony of the Democrats. The Georgia Republican was wont to deploy extreme epithets in battle - what some wags termed the new "politics of personal destruction." The opposition wasn't just wrong, they were dangerously or immorally so. Agreeing or compromising with them was almost akin to treason.
A few of the class of '74 survived the political wars. In 2010, Rep. George Miller and Sen. Christopher Dodd were among the handful of alums still standing. They helped President Barack Obama pass the Affordable Care Act.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Holahan, David. "'The Class of '74' chronicles a young, liberal, and impatient House of Representatives." Christian Science Monitor, 12 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534465575/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=191639c9. Accessed 10 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534465575