“To make a faction is one thing,” writes Edwin J. Feulner Jr. “For it to achieve success demands two essentials: the staff to research and prepare material, and members who are willing to take the lead.” In Conservatives Stalk the House: The Republican Study Committee 1970-1982 (Green House Publishers, Inc.; Caroline House, dist.; 722 Columbus Street, Ottawa, Ill. 61350; $14.95) he presents the history of the RSC from the time of its founding to the present. If indeed the Committee be a faction—and why, after all, mince words—it possesses the attributes of an effective, never mind a welcome, one. “Today, congressional ideological factions such as the DSG [Democratic Study Group] and the RSC have broken new ground in the political process; they serve as catalysts for ‘new’ or ‘revived’ political concepts, give members an outlet for their ideological beliefs, and pressure their party leadership in accordance with their persuasions.”
The RSC was formed early in the 1970s when a group of conservative congressmen, taking their cue from the highly successful DSG, forswore their highly individualistic, even maverick, habits and organized in the interests of more effective legislative action. The DSG, dating from the Fifties, was the precursor of numerous special-interest policy groups established in the House in the Sixties and Seventies to represent blacks, women, environmentalists, and farmers; conservative Republicans, noting their success, felt impelled to follow suit. By 1981 the RSC comprised 150 dues-paying Republican members and boasted an efficient staff, as well as a reputation for being the conservative conscience of the House of Representatives, where it opposes Democratic legislation and, very often, offers programs of its own.
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