olitics.
For eighteen of the twenty two years since 1968, excluding only the four years of the Carter administration, the United States has been in a state of divided government, with the Presidency controlled by one political party, and at least one branch of Congress controlled by the other. Between 1980 and 1986, the Republicans controlled both the White House and the Senate, but Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. During Reagan's last two years, and through the whole of the Nixon Ford and Bush administrations, to date, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.
This division did not always stalemate the Republican administrations; for much of this period, Republican presidents could win over enough "boll weevil" conservative Southern Democrats to obtain a working majority in floor votes. But these conservative Democrats still contributed to a Democratic majority on those procedural votes which determine the internal structure of Congress; consequently, Democratic committee chairmen could often bot
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