Shribman: Congressional rebellions nothing new

Writing in last winter’s edition of The American Prospect, Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor of history and public affairs, examined the DSG and its extraordinarily powerful leader, Dick Conlon. He found that the Democratic rebels wanted to decentralize power in the House and allow backbenchers to challenge the speaker. They sought, as Zelizer put it, “to support only legislators who voted with the position of the Democratic Caucus majority.”