Whip (politics) - United States

United States

In the United States there are legislatures at the local (city councils, town councils, county boards, etc.), state and federal level. The federal legislature (Congress), state legislatures, and many county and city legislative bodies are divided along party lines and have whips, as well as majority and minority leaders.

Both houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and Senate, have majority and minority whips. They in turn have subordinate "regional" whips. While members of Congress often vote along party lines, the influence of the whip is weaker than in the UK system. For one thing, much money is raised by individual candidates, and members of Congress are almost never ejected from a party. In addition, because preselection of candidates for office is generally done through primary elections open to a wide number of voters, it is difficult for the national party to deselect a member of Congress who defies his party in a way that pleases his or her constituency.

Because members of Congress cannot serve simultaneously in executive positions, a whip in the United States cannot bargain with a member by using as an inducement the possibility of promotion or demotion in a sitting administration. There is, however, a highly structured committee system in both houses of Congress, and a whip may be able to use promotion or demotion within that system instead. In the House of Representatives in particular, the influence of a single member individually is relatively small and therefore depends a great deal on the Representative's seniority —that is, in most cases, on the length of time he has held office (which usually depends on how well the Representative pleases his constituents, rather than on how well he pleases the other members of his party).

Whips in the United States, then, are less menacing in their techniques than in the United Kingdom. Even so, stepping too far outside the party's platform can limit political ambitions or ability to obtain favorable legislation.

In the Senate, the Majority Whip is the third-highest-ranking individual in the majority party (i.e., the party with a majority or, rarely, plurality of seats). The Majority Whip is outranked by the Majority Leader and, technically, the President pro tempore. Because the office of President pro tempore is largely honorific, usually given to the longest-serving senator of the majority, the Majority Whip is in reality the second-ranking senator in the Majority Conference in terms of actual power. Similarly, in the House the Majority Whip is outranked by both the Majority Leader and the Speaker. Unlike the Senate's presiding officer, the Speaker is the leader of his or her party's caucus in the House.

In both the House and the Senate, the Minority Whip is the second highest-ranking individual in the minority party (the party with the lesser number of legislators in a legislative body), outranked only by the Minority Leader.

The Whip position was first created in the House of Representatives in 1897 by Speaker Thomas Reed (R-ME), who appointed James A. Tawney (R-MN) as the first whip. The first Democratic whip was appointed around 1900. In the Senate, the whip position was created in 1913 by John W. Kern, chair of the Democratic caucus, when he appointed J. Hamilton Lewis (D-IL) as the first whip. Republicans chose James Wadsworth (R-NY) as their first whip in 1915.