(There are loads of votes in the House each year which are not key votes: in the sense of being on bills which are on insignificant topics (naming post offices is a favorite), bills which are motherhood and apple pie, and procedural votes (on special rules, and on the previous question) on which leaderships are more or less guaranteed the support of their troops regardless of ideology or personality.)

Now, the degree of agenda control which the rules of the House afford to the majority party leadership is impressive, usually ineluctable.

But - as I've explored before, and will do again - there is some room for a cross-party coalition to defy the will of the majority leadership in order to pass a bill. (The example always quoted is the 1981 Reagan budget - which I'll deal with later in this series (if it holds up that long!).)

Clearly, there is no chance of such a coalition emerging where there is not a minority of the majority party which is prepared to vote against its leadership.

The Bowers' 2005 key votes are a dataset in which that willingness might be gauged.

The top 30 Dem reps (listed in descending order of votes against their party) are these (percentages for both the Kerry vote and that of each rep are for the two-party vote):

Now, it's certainly true that the Kerry 04 score (which is the two-party vote) for around half of the Top 30 came within 10 points or so of the Bush 04 score. But in 10 of the CDs, Kerry got only just over 40% or less of the two-party vote:

Perhaps some of those Dems with the higher Kerry scores could be vulnerable in a Lamont-style primary in 08; in the meantime, I expect most of them (obviously not Ford and Case!) will be reelected to the 110th and represent an opportunity for the GOP minority leadership, at the very least, to threaten mischief.

Of the Top 30, 26 are Blue Dogs, 10 are NDC, 2 (Ford and Bishop) are CBC: nine NDC are also Blue Dogs.

Now, I'm not suggesting that there will be any precipitate movement on the party of any faction of Dem reps to kiss up to the GOP leadership: for one thing, internal questions like leadership elections and committee assignments will bulk large in the weeks following the election.

Perhaps the GOP will fall to pieces, and won't be in a position to take advantage of any inclination to rebel amongst some Dems.

What the Top 30 (and others somewhat below them in the list) represent is a group of folks with whom the GOP might seek to find common ground on specific issues.

The futility of any formal Conservative Coalition was shown in the times (40s, early 50s) when the term was in use: party allegiances are too strong to deny formally.

But they are not (in the system as it's stood for decades) incompatible with failures of discipline in particular cases.

(Much as, so the saying goes, a tax system breathes through its loophooles.

Mind you, I doubt that's a very popular sentiment in the IRS!)

More to come.