Representation and Lawmaking in Congress · B4 2 2 C3 3 0 D2 4−2 E1 5−4 Average 3.0 3.0 Source: Adapted from Robert S. Weissberg. “Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress.”

Congress is an exciting place. Real power resides in its members, realsocial conflicts are tamed or exacerbated by its actions, and thou-

sands of people, most of them good public servants, work within its hallsevery day. Much good work is done there. In recent years, Congress haspassed widely applauded bills that have, among other things, provided newprotections for the environment; granted important civil rights to women,minorities, and the disabled; given parents job protection so they can carefor sick children; forced states to reduce barriers to voter registration; ex-panded funding for college students; limited what lobbyists can give to leg-islators; and set the federal government on the road to a balanced budget.

Congress is a frustrating place as well. It is not easy to understand.Its sheer size—535 members and more than twenty-seven thousandemployees—is bewildering. Its system of parties, committees, and pro-cedures, built up over two hundred years, is remarkably complex andserves as an obstacle to public understanding. Perhaps most frustrating isthat its work product, legislation, is spawned by a process marked by con-troversy, partisanship, and bargaining. Even some members of Congressare uncomfortable with the sharp rhetoric and wheeling and dealing thatare hallmarks of legislative politics.

But Congress is also important. No other national legislature has greaterpower than the Congress of the United States. Its daily actions affect the livesof all Americans and many people around the world. If you want to under-stand the policies affecting your welfare, you must understand Congress.

Congress is always changing. It changes because it is a remarkably per-meable institution. New problems, whatever their source, invariably create

1

Representation andLawmaking in Congress

1

new demands on Congress. Elections bring new members, who often alterthe balance of opinion in the House and Senate. And each new presidentasks for support for his policy program. Members of Congress usually re-spond to these demands by passing new legislation. But as lawmakers pur-sue their personal political goals, compete with one another for control overpolicy, and react to pressure from presidents, their constituents, and lobby-ists, they sometimes seek to gain advantage or to remove impediments toaction by altering the procedures and organization of Congress itself. Theresult is nearly continuous change within the institution.

Representation and LawmakingCongress is always serving two, not wholly compatible, purposes—repre-sentation and lawmaking. Members of the House and Senate serve individ-ual districts or states, yet they must act collectively to make law. Collectiveaction on divisive issues entails bargaining and compromise—among themembers of each house, between the House and the Senate, and betweenCongress and the president. For compromise to be possible, at least somemembers must retreat from their commitments to their individual state ordistrict. Determining who must compromise—and how to get them to doso—is the guts of legislative politics. The process can be messy, even ugly. Itis not too surprising that “Congress bashing” is one of the constants ofAmerican politics.

Congress can be properly evaluated only by understanding our own con-flicting expectations about the institution and about the politicians whowork within it. To help you begin to sort out your own thoughts about Con-gress, this text begins with a brief introduction to how representation andlawmaking occur in practice on Capitol Hill. As we shall see as we investi-gate Congress, achieving both perfect representation and perfect lawmak-ing, in the ways we desire each of them, is impossible.

Representation

Representation in Congress takes several forms. The most obvious type isthat provided by each member for his or her district or state. Members ofCongress are expected to be representatives of their constituents back home.But that is not a very precise job description. We might think of a represen-tative’s job as that of faithfully presenting the views of his or her district orstate in Congress—that is, of being a delegate for his or her constituents. Buta delegate-legislator would not have an easy job because constituents oftenhave conflicting or ambiguous views (or none at all) about the issues be-fore Congress. Alternatively, members of Congress might be considered—trustees—representing their constituents by exercising their best judgmentabout the interests of their district or state or the nation as a whole. But it isimpossible to be a good delegate and a good trustee simultaneously. Wemust realize that we cannot have both faithful delegates and wise trustees.

2 | REPRESENTATION AND LAWMAKING IN CONGRESS

A third possibility, one that is probably closer to everyday practice formost members, is to see the representative as a politico—one who behaves asa delegate on issues that are important to his or her constituents but other-wise perceives leeway in setting a personal policy agenda and casting votes.Unfortunately, for many members of Congress constituents are not likely toagree either about which issues are important or about when legislatorsshould act as delegates and when they should exercise their own discretion.1

Even if individual legislators can be considered good representatives fortheir own constituents, we might still wonder whether Congress can ade-quately represent the nation as a whole. Congress could be considered adelegate or trustee of the nation. As a delegate, Congress would be expectedto enact policies reflecting nationwide public opinion, which is at least asconflicted, ambiguous, or undeveloped as public opinion within individualdistricts and states. As a trustee, Congress would be expected to formulatepolicy in a manner consistent with its judgment about the nation’s interests,whatever the balance of public opinion happens to be at a particular mo-ment. Members regularly invoke public opinion (a delegate perspective) orclaim that Congress must do what is right (a trustee perspective) in their ar-guments for or against specific legislation.

In practice, the collective actions of Congress are the product of the ac-tions of its individual members—the institution does not consciously as-sume the role of a collective delegate or trustee for the nation. In fact, thecorrespondence between the quality of representation at the district or statelevel and that at the national level might be quite weak. To see this, imaginean issue with five possible viewpoints. Now imagine that five differentmembers, representing five separate districts, each hold a different view onthis issue. As Table 1.1 illustrates, even if most of the members are not wellmatched to their district, collectively they represent the nation well. Con-gruence between policy and public opinion may be poor at the state or dis-trict level but perfect at the national level. As a general rule, each house ofCongress will be at least as a good a delegate for the nation as are individualmembers for their district or state.2

The logic behind Table 1.1 does not guarantee that Congress will be agood trustee of the nation’s interests, however. The logic fits the houses sep-arately, but it does not guarantee that the House, the Senate, and the presi-dent will agree or that they will enact specific legislation. Indeed, JamesMadison, the chief architect of the Constitution, argued that policy shouldnot necessarily reflect majority public opinion. He justified the creation ofan independent executive branch (the presidency) and a bicameral legisla-ture (the two houses of Congress) on the grounds that policy should not sim-ply reflect majority public opinion. For the same reason, he gave the presi-dent and the members of the two houses terms of different lengths, specifieddifferent means ofselecting them, and gave the president the power to signor veto legislation. He hoped that by increasing the probability that the twohouses and the president would clash, proposals that disadvantage minorityinterests would be either blocked or compromised to incorporate minority

REPRESENTATION AND LAWMAKING | 3

concerns. Madison argued that public opinion should not be equated withthe public interest. If Madison is right, we cannot have a Congress that is si-multaneously responsive to public opinion and committed to the public in-terest, at least not at all times.

A third type of representation is that provided by political parties andother groups. Members of Congress are usually recognized as either Dem-ocrats or Republicans and often are identified with other groups based ontheir gender, race, occupation, age, and other personal characteristics. Legis-lators, presidents, and the public usually see Congress in terms of its partycomposition. We speak of a “Republican Congress” or a “Democratic Con-gress,” reflecting the importance of party control of the institution. Al-though voters choose between congressional candidates only in a single dis-trict or state and no one votes directly for a Republican or Democraticmajority in Congress as a whole, the party of the candidates and voters’views about which party should control Congress influence many elections.In turn, legislators tend to join with others of their own party to enact orblock legislation, to develop and maintain a good reputation with the pub-lic, and to seek or retain majority control. Plainly, a great deal of representa-tion occurs through the party connection.

Although we do not often speak of a whitemale-lawyer-dominated Con-gress, many people are conscious of the composition of Congress beyond itspartisan or ideological makeup. A farming background is important forcandidates in many areas of the country, whereas a union background isimportant in other areas. Organized caucuses of women, blacks, Hispanics,and other groups have formed among members of Congress, and groupsoutside Congress have developed to aid the election of more members from


T A B L E 1 . 1

Hypothetical Policy Congruence Between Districts and Their Legislators

District Policy Legislators PolicyPosition on a Position on a Difference Between

District 5-Point Scale 5-Point Scale District and Legislator

A 5 1 4B 4 2 2C 3 3 0D 2 4 −2E 1 5 −4Average 3.0 3.0

Source: Adapted from Robert S. Weissberg. “Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress.”American Political Science Review 72 (1978): 535–547.

one group or another. It is often said that increasing the number of womenand minorities in Congress is essential, because legislators’ personal experi-ences shape their policy agendas. Moreover, the presence of role models inCongress may help motivate other members of these groups to seek publicoffice. We will return to this issue later in this chapter.

Party and group representation bring dilemmas of their own. For exam-ple, in recent decades African Americans, who are disproportionately Dem-ocrats, have debated whether it is more important to maximize the numberof Democrats of any race in Congress or to focus their efforts on improvingthe prospects for black candidates of either party, such as by redrawingHouse districts to create black majorities.

We cannot hope for perfect representation in Congress. Our multiple ex-pectations for representation can all be met only if Congress is filled withwise individuals who make policy choices just as we would if we were intheir place. But given the diversity of Americans’ political perspectives, thatis impossible. Tradeoffs and compromise between the different forms andlevels of representation are unavoidable. For any single American, the rep-resentation provided by his or her senators or representative may not matchthe representation provided by the entire Congress or by the various groupswithin it. And neither individual members nor the institution as a wholecan simultaneously be a perfect delegate and a perfect trustee. In practice,we muddle through with mixed levels and styles of representation.

Lawmaking

For Madison, representative government served two purposes. One was tomake the law responsive to the values and interests of the people. The otherwas to allow representatives, not the people themselves, to make the law.This second purpose was, and still is, controversial. Madison explained inFederalist No. 10 that he hoped representatives would rise above the in-evitable influence of public opinion to make policy in the public interest.These two purposes—responsiveness to the people and making policy inthe public interest—are associated with two attractive but conflicting stylesof lawmaking.3

Adversarial democracy is a model of lawmaking that is closely associatedwith the delegate model of representation. In this model, delegates repre-senting conflicting interests compete for control over the policy choices ofgovernment. In Congress, delegate-legislators articulate their constituen-cies’ competing interests in debate and resolve conflict by the mechanics ofvoting and majority rule. Bargaining occurs when the interests are quite dis-parate and coalitions must be formed to create majorities. Policy changesover time as the number of members representing each conflicting interestchanges with new elections.

Unitary democracy, or deliberative democracy, is associated with the trusteemodel of representation. Although conflicting interests may exist, this per-spective emphasizes the presence of common interests. The purpose of the

REPRESENTATION AND LAWMAKING | 5

legislative process is to discover those common interests—the larger publicinterest, Madison might say—through a process of deliberation. Building aconsensus, rather than resolving conflicts by force of majority vote, is the ob-ject of this process. As a multimember body representing the entire nation,Congress is uniquely suited to fostering the deliberation essential to buildinga consensus and enacting law in the larger public interest.

Both forms of lawmaking have appealing features. Adversarial democ-racy gets conflicts resolved and laws made without undue delay by allowingthe majority to choose a policy. Unitary democracy slows down the processto encourage more complete deliberation and allow a consensus to emerge.Madison clearly preferred unitary democracy over adversarial democracy.And yet, powerful political forces make it likely that members of Congresswill be strongly influenced by local and partisan interests and that the law-making process will take on a strongly adversarial cast. In fact, the more thepeople insist that members of Congress be faithful delegates for their dis-tricts and states, the more adversarial the lawmaking process will become.

In practice, we cannot have a Congress that meets the ideals of both ad-versarial and unitary democracy, although we sometimes pretend that wecan. Commentators sometimes characterize the debate that goes on in com-mittees or on the floor of the House and Senate as deliberative, but moreoften than not it is adversarial. It is conducted by members articulating es-tablished, partisan positions on issues who are quite unwilling to be per-suaded by the arguments of the other side. Genuine deliberation is unlikelyto take place in debates conducted in public forums; it is more likely tooccur in face-to-face meetings among members, staff, and outsiders, awayfrom the public spotlight. Debate and deliberation, although related, are inpractice somewhat incompatible forms of discussion. It is not likely that wecan have the best of both.4

Long-Term TrendsThe tensions that arise from the multiple, sometimes conflicting goals ofrepresentation and lawmaking are played out on nearly every major pieceof legislation. They have become more severe in recent decades as a by-product of several changes in American politics. These changes—includingchanges in the way Congress is covered by the media, evolving standardsfor public ethics, the rise of plebiscitary politics and new information tech-nologies, new forms of organized efforts to influence Congress, new kindsof issues, and even new types of members—have altered the context of con-gressional policy making in basic ways.

Bad News and Low Public Confidence

In recent years, Congress has been under siege. The number of incumbentswho retired or were defeated at the polls reached a four-decade high in 1992and 1994. In August 1993, a Gallup poll conducted for CNN and USA Today


showed that only 23 percent of respondents approved (and 69 percent dis-approved) of how Congress does its job. A movement to limit the number ofterms members of Congress may serve peaked after suffering defeat in Con-gress and in the courts (see Chapter 5), but public support for the idea re-mains strong. And criticism of how Congress performs has been intensify-ing among members themselves. The stress under which Congress and itsmembers have been operating in recent years has been particularly severe.Former Speaker James Wright noted in late 1993 that “when I visit membersin Washington, I feel like a psychiatrist and these guys are on my couch.”5

Demands for reform have come from all points on the political compass.In fact, Congress has never been a very popular institution. As Figure 1.1

shows, confidence in Congress has not been high at any time in the last twodecades (although it has been exceptionally weak in the 1990s). The legisla-tive process is easy to dislike—it often generates political posturing andgrandstanding, it necessarily involvescompromise, and it often leavesbroken promises in its trail. Also, members of Congress often appear self-serving as they pursue their political careers and represent interests and re-flect values that are controversial.

Scandals, even when they involve a small fraction of the membership,add to the public’s frustration with Congress and have contributed to the

LONG-TERM TRENDS | 7

Year1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

40

45

50

Great Deal of ConfidenceHardly Any Confidence

01995

F I G U R E 1 . 1

Americans’ Confidence in Congress, 1973–1996

Question: As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say that you havea great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?

Source: The National Opinion Research Center. Reprinted by permission.

institution’s low ratings in opinion polls in the 1990s. Here are some of thehighlights from the last decade or so:

In 1989, House Speaker James Wright (D-Texas) resigned after Republicanscharged him with ethics violations in connection with his royalties on a book.

In 1991, Senator David Durenburger (R-Minnesota) was condemned in a unani-mously approved Senate resolution for a book deal and for seeking reimburse-ment for expenses for staying in a condo that he owned.

The Senate’s handling of Anita Hill’s charges of sexual harassment againstSupreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas raised questions about fairness andsensitivity in the Senate.

The disclosure that many House members had repeatedly overdrawn their ac-counts at the House bank led people to believe that members enjoyed specialprivileges, and it led to news stories about cheap haircuts, special parking privi-leges, and other perks for lawmakers.

Questions about the propriety of campaign contributions were raised in the“Keating Five” affair, which concerned the relationship between five senatorsand a prominent savings-and-loan owner seeking to block an investigation of hisfinancial dealings.

Two top House employees pleaded guilty to charges of taking money from oper-ations they had supervised.

In 1995, a long investigation of sexual harassment charges against Senator RobertPackwood (R-Oregon) led to his forced resignation from office.

In 1995, Representative Dan Rostenkowski (D-Illinois), former chairman of theHouse Ways and Means Committee, was found guilty of illegally receiving cashfor personal use from the House post office. He later served a prison term.

In 1995, Representative Enid Waldholtze (R-Utah) retired after her husband wascharged with felonies in conjunction with raising funds for her campaign.

In 1997, Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) agreed to pay $300,000 in finesbased on charges that he used nonprofit organizations for political purposes andmisled the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

In 1998, Representative Jay Kim (R-California) pleaded guilty to charges involv-ing over $250,000 in illegal campaign contributions.

Congress seems to be a never-ending source of comic relief, like the jokeabout the senator who dozed off during a roll-call vote, was jerked awakewhen his name was called, and reflexively yelled out, “Not guilty.” Or theone about the member who kept referring to the presiding officer as “YourHonor.”6 But seriously . . . it seems fair to say that a large majority of today’smembers behave ethically. It is even reasonable to argue that today’s cohortof members is at least as ethical as any past cohort. No doubt the standardsof ethics applied by the public, the media, and Congress itself are higher


today than at any other time. Yet, there is no denying that the disclosuresand charges of the past few years have been unusually numerous and haveharmed Congress’s standing with the American people.

The extended economic recession of the early 1990s, the struggle with thefederal government’s budget deficit, and the festering problems of pollu-tion, crime, and the nation’s decaying infrastructure may have contributedto Congress’s low ratings. Of course, Congress does not act alone, so it is notsurprising that ratings for Congress paralleled those of the president and forgovernment as a whole. People who give low ratings to the president andthe government in general and who are dissatisfied with the economy tendto give Congress the lowest ratings. When the economy improved in themid-1990s, particularly after President Bill Clinton and the Republican Con-gress managed to agree on a plan to balance the budget in 1997, both thepresident’s and Congress’s ratings improved.

Still, Congress seems to suffer generally from low ratings, which someobservers believe represents a long-term trend. Political scientist NormanOrnstein notes that changes in the electronic and print media have led to agreater emphasis on the negative and sensational side of Congress. Herefers to this as the “tabloidization” of media coverage:

The drive to emulate the National Enquirer and the Star has spread to the most re-spectable newspapers and magazines, while network news divisions have begunto compete with tabloids like “Inside Edition” and “Hard Copy” with their owntabloid shows like “Prime Time Live” and “Dateline: NBC,” and with changedcoverage on the nightly news.

Stories or rumors of scandal—both individual and institutional—have dom-inated news coverage of politics and politicians in the 1990s more than atany time in modern history, and not just in terms of column inches orbroadcast minutes but in emphasis as well:

The expansion of radio and cable television talk shows also seems to have in-creased the speed with which bad news about Congress is disseminated and thefrequency with which bad news is repeated. On many of these programs, there isa premium on a quick wit and a good one-liner and little time for sober, balancedcommentary.7

Groups supporting term limits for Congress and other reforms probablyhave influenced public opinion as well. Such groups have made the casethat congressional incumbents are a privileged class and have created a sys-tem in which various benefits of office—including free use of official re-sources, fund-raising leverage, cozy relations with lobbyists, and so on—give them an unfair advantage that can be overcome only through radicalreform. The more extreme versions of this argument suggest that incum-bents have been corrupted by their experience in Washington. Incumbentsare said to have developed an “inside-the-beltway” mentality—a referenceto the freeway that encircles the District of Columbia and its inner suburbs.


Politicians, of course, quickly latch on to themes that resonate with thepublic. As a result, running for Congress by running against Congress, anold art form in American politics, has gained an even more prominent placein recent campaigns. Indeed, many recent arrivals on Capitol Hill promisedto end “business as usual” in Washington and to push through reforms to“fix” Congress—to end the system of congressional perks, to stop the influ-ence of special interests, and so on. The repetition of anti-Congress themesin recent years has contributed, no doubt, to the declining ratings for Con-gress and its members in public opinion polls.

Plebiscitary Politics

Political scientist Robert Dahl argues that Congress suffers from the in-creasingly plebiscitary nature of American politics, referring to the trendtoward increased direct communication between the public and elected of-ficials and the demise of intermediaries—such as parties and membershiporganizations—that once served to represent public opinion to elected offi-cials.8 Plebiscitary politics is facilitated by new technologies. For example,public opinion polls have become more affordable because of advance-ments in telephone and computer technology. Radio and television talkshows enable nearly every constituent to talk directly to a member of Con-gress from time to time. “Town meetings” broadcast on radio and televi-sion have the same function. Computerized mass mailings flow in and outof Washington every day. Satellite technology allows members to easilyand inexpensively communicate with groups in their home state or district.Constituents can reach most members by electronic mail. To help membersexploit these technologies, Representative Ron Klink (D-Pennsylvania) pro-posed that Congress create a bipartisan Congressional Office of PublicOpinion Research and Assessment to help members gauge national opin-ion. (The idea was not pursued after the Republicans gained a majority in1994, however.)

There seems to be a nearly irresistible temptation for members of Con-gress to take advantage of the new information technologies. Members loveto demonstrate their commitment to keeping in touch with their con-stituents by being among the first to use a new innovation in communica-tions. Besides, members face real problems reaching constituents in districtsand states with ever-growing populations. The average member of theHouse now has about six hundred thousand constituents, up from aboutthree hundred thousand in 1940 and four hundred thousand in 1960.

On its face, plebiscitary politics might seem to be a good thing: It seemsbetter to have public opinion influencing members’ decisions than to havehighly paid lobbyists representing organized interests swaying their votes.But as Dahl notes, the effects of direct communication between the peopleand their representatives on Capitol Hill may not be so desirable. For exam-ple, elected officials might manipulate direct communication to their advan-tage. If the politicians are the ones who choose the time and place for direct


communication, the process may create nothing more than a deceiving ap-pearance of responsiveness.

More important, plebiscitary politics may undermine both representationand deliberation in legislative policy making. With respect to representa-tion, the “public” that is likely to communicate directly to members may notbe representative of members’ larger constituencies. They will be peoplewho are intensely interested in politics generally or in a single issue and canafford and know how to use new information technologies. Thus, there isreason to worry that members’ impressions of public opinion may be dis-torted by such communication.

With respect to deliberation, direct communication with more con-stituents could lead members to make public commitments on more issuesand consequently reduce their flexibility in negotiating compromises in thelegislative arena. The likely result is that demagoguery, chest pounding,and grandstanding would take precedence over resolving conflicts andsolving problems, and public opinion would hold sway over the public in-terest. Presidents and congressional leaders could find that reaching com-promises to build majorities in Congress becomes a longer, more public,and more frustrating process.

If Dahl is right, then new information technologies may further intensifypublic frustration with Congress and encourage even more catering topublic opinion by members. The emergence of a plebiscitary syndrome inCongress—marked by hypersensitivity to public opinion, grandstanding,rigidity, and paralysis, with new policy enacted only when the risk of inac-tion becomes too severe—may be the result. Furthermore, the naturalresponse of elected officials and their challengers to such circumstancesmay be to encourage even more plebiscitary democracy.

Governing as Campaigning

A close cousin to the rise of plebiscitary politics is the weakening distinctionbetween governing and campaigning. Elected officeholders can be expectedto seek reelection whenever they view their offices as politically or person-ally valuable. And the desire for reelection is the primary means by whichelected officials, or the government more generally, is held accountable tothe people. In broad strokes, at least, campaign promises are (and shouldbe) related to governing, and election outcomes are (and should be) shapedby performance in office. Inevitably, then, the line between governing andcampaigning becomes blurred. But in recent decades, campaigning has be-come more fully integrated with governing. No longer is governing done inWashington and campaigning done at home.

The daily routines of rank-and-file members of Congress have beengreatly affected by the demands of raising large sums of money for theircampaigns. Few members retire from Congress without complaining abouthow much it costs to successfully seek reelection. Returning members maynot have time to complain. In recent years, the average victor in a Senate


race spent $4.5 million dollars, and the average House victor spent wellover $500,000. Many races were far more expensive. For an incumbent seek-ing reelection, that is an average of more than $11,000 for each week servedduring a six-year Senate term and about $5,000 for each week served duringa two-year House term. These figures reflect a rapid rise in campaign ex-penditures in the 1970s and early 1980s, some leveling off in the mid-1980s,and significant increases since the early 1990s. Indeed, the new Republicanmajorities in Congress have demonstrated remarkable skill at raising andeffectively leveraging campaign dollars. Competitive pressures have pro-duced a never-ending search for cash on the part of the typical member.

Congressional leaders have changed their ways, too. To assist their partycolleagues, most party leaders spend many evenings and weekends atfundraising events. Many leaders have developed their own political actioncommittees (leadership PACs, they have been called) to raise and distributemoney. Leaders have formed public relations task forces within their par-ties, and the campaign committees of the congressional parties have greatlyexpanded their activities. Perhaps most important, congressional leadersnow often use technology developed for campaigning in legislative battles.Professional consultants and pollsters help fashion legislative priorities andtactics. Opposition research—digging up dirt on your election opponent—isnow conducted against congressional colleagues of the opposite party.Media campaigns are now planned for major legislative proposals, with theassistance of television advertising specialists.

New Forms of Organized Influence

The number of interest groups in Washington and the rest of the countryhas multiplied many times over in recent decades.9 By one count, thenumber of groups increased from about one thousand in the late 1940s towell more than seven thousand in the early 1980s.10 This is primarily a by-product of the expanding scope of the federal government’s activity—asmore interests were affected by federal programs, more interests soughtrepresentation in Washington. Technological developments in transporta-tion, information management, and communications have enabled scatteredpeople, firms, and even state and local governments to easily organize, raisemoney, and set up offices and staff in Washington. The process feeds on it-self, with new groups forming to counter the influence of other recentlyformed groups. The result has been a tremendous increase in the demandsplaced on members of Congress by lobbyists from organized groups.

Not only have interest groups multiplied, they have also become morediverse. In addition to groups associated with economic interests, many ofthem representing new industries, “citizens’” groups sprouted in the 1960sand 1970s and continue to grow in number. These groups are often out-growths of national movements—such as those for civil rights, women’srights, children’s rights, the elimination of hunger, consumers’ rights, wel-fare rights, gay rights, environmental protection, the homeless, and so on.


Many of these groups now enjoy memberships numbering in the hundredsof thousands.

Campaign finance reforms in the early 1970s enabled all interest groups,including both profit and nonprofit organizations, to create political actioncommittees and become active contributors to legislators’ election cam-paigns. Needless to say, campaign contributors have an edge over others ingaining the attention of legislators. More than that, the availability of moneyfrom political action committees has greatly reduced candidates’ reliance onparties for the resources critical to winning elections.

New technologies have altered lobbyists’ strategies. For decades, inter-est groups have used specialized magazines and other publications to ed-ucate and activate their membership on behalf of their causes. Efforts touse these publications to get the public to contact members of Congresscame to be known as grassroots lobbying. By the early 1980s, interestgroups were using computerized mass mailings to encourage their mem-berships and other targeted groups to generate public pressure on mem-bers of Congress. By the late 1980s, computerized telephone messages al-lowed groups to communicate with many thousands of people within afew hours. Technology now allows a group to telephone its own members,a targeted group (such as one House member’s constituency), or the gen-eral public; briefly interview the respondents about their views on a sub-ject; and, for respondents who favor the group’s position, provide a fewmore facts to reinforce their views, solicit them to write letters to membersof Congress, and quickly transfer the calls to the appropriate Capitol Hilloffices before the respondents hang up. Several groups have developedtelevision programs—some shown on the many cable television channelsthat are available in most communities—as a way of reaching specific au-diences. Lobbyists are already planning ways to take advantage of elec-tronic mail and interactive video technologies to flood Congress with con-stituents’ messages.

Plainly, the roots have been taken out of grassroots lobbying. New tech-nologies provide the ability to make highly targeted, highly efficient ap-peals to stimulate constituency demands on Washington. As a result, for agroup with money, the absence of a large membership is not much of an ob-stacle to generating public pressure on members of Congress.

These developments have reshaped the working environment of mem-bers of Congress. All members face demands from organized groups tochampion specific causes. More lobbyists are at the door and on the phoneasking that a member sponsor or block a particular bill or amendment. Ofcourse, this gives members opportunities to pursue issues with the backingof groups and their staffs. Even junior members get approached, becausethey are viewed as being available and in the market for an issue that willattract attention. Some enterprising members take advantage of these op-portunities to develop a nationwide constituency in a certain policy area,which may prove useful later for fundraising or when running for higheroffice. Thus, the entrepreneurial activity of lobbyists and members loads


more issues, often minor ones, onto the agendas of committees and theirparent chambers.

These new forms of lobbying complicate the lives of most members. Inaddition to having to field more demands from lobbyists and constituents,members have difficulty distinguishing spontaneous surges in constituencycommunications from those that are stimulated by lobbyists. For example,not too long ago members could discount receiving hundreds of identicalpostcards on an issue because they knew that some interest group had sim-ply included them in a mass mailing. But computer-generated letters, tele-phone calls, and e-mail make discounting a swell of communication on anissue an increasingly tricky business. Cutting through the avalanche of com-munications lawmakers receive to reach some reasonably valid assessmentof how many constituents care about an issue, even an apparently unimpor-tant one, is proving more and more difficult.

New Issues

New issues—such as national health care reform—always present some dif-ficulty for Congress. They often create problems for congressional commit-tees, whose official jurisdictions were defined years earlier when the new is-sues were not anticipated. Committees scramble to assert jurisdiction, andcommittee leaders or the parent chambers are asked to referee. After someamount of infighting and delay, committees eventually manage to adjust. Inthe view of some observers, however, new issues are surfacing at an in-creasing rate of speed, and Congress’s ability to adjust in a timely way is be-coming more and more strained.

Beyond the velocity with which issues now appear, it is also fair to saythat the issues facing Congress are becoming more technical and complex.Increasingly, expertise in science, engineering, economics, or other fields isrequired to understand policy problems and alternatives. Congress oftensolves this problem by setting broad policy goals and delegating the powerto make the necessary technical decisions to experts in the executivebranch.11 In this way, Congress is able to respond to demands for action—but it does so at the cost of enhancing the executive branch’s power over thedetails of public policy. At other times, Congress seeks to legislate the tech-nical details, but the cost then is that only a few members and staff assis-tants can understand the legislation and participate effectively in makingimportant decisions. Scientific and medical research, defense programs, en-vironmental protection, the regulation of financial institutions, internationaltrade, and many other fields of public policy are no longer within the com-mon experiences of elected officials. Thus, most members must look to com-peting interpretations of proposed legislation offered by staff specialists,lobbyists, and a wide array of outside experts.

The increasing complexity of the issues facing Congress is a result of theincreasing complexity of American society and of the integration of the in-ternational and domestic economies. Fewer major policies can be debated in


isolation from other major policies. Health care reform, for example, con-cerns employer-employee relations, economic growth, welfare reform, andtax policy, among other things. This complexity leads Congress to craft un-wieldy bills, often written by multiple committees, laden with technical lan-guage, and reaching several hundred pages in length. (Figure 1.2 shows theincreasing length of the average bill enacted by Congress in recent decades.)Even if the component parts of a bill are easily understood, the many waysin which they might interact can make it difficult to understand how a pol-icy, or set of policies, will work in practice.

To make matters worse, Congress also confronts the politics of scarcitytoday. The services Americans expect government to provide—quality edu-cation, bridges and highways, water and sewer systems, medical and scien-tific research, and so on—require renewed financial commitments at a timewhen the federal government is struggling to maintain a balanced budget.Popular initiatives in health care, job training, information networks, andother fields are held back because of fiscal constraints. Congress is faced withchoosing between basic priorities, often forcing some segments of society togo without the level of government services they have previously enjoyed.This task is not pleasant and may be politically impossible for elected officials.


Congress80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

Pages of Public Bills EnactedNumber of Public Bills Enacted

0102

F I G U R E 1 . 2

Number and Length of Public Bills Enacted, 1947–1994

Source: Norman J. Ornstein, Thomas E. Mann, and Michael J. Malbin, Vital Statistics on Congress,1993–1994, Congressional Quarterly, 1994, p. 158. Copyright © 1994 by Congressional Quarterly,Inc. Reprinted by permission.

Political scientist Lawrence Dodd believes that Congress, at least as itnow operates, cannot cope with the important issues of our time. In hisview, the problem lies in the relationship between members and their con-stituents:

The voters may see the decay of urban infrastructure, sense the declining educa-tional and job opportunities of their children, acknowledge the ecological damageof industrial pollution, and worry about the long-term effects of a mountingdeficit. But as they consider their vote for senator and representative, the citizensoverride any broad concerns they may have with collective issues and vote in ac-cord with ensuring immediate benefits; they do so by voting for the powerfullocal incumbent who can assist with a desired local defense contract or who canhelp them with their veterans claim or Medicare benefits. They do so because ofthe immediate influence that a powerful incumbent legislator can have on theirparticularized interests. Likewise, the legislators may share a growing concernwith collective societal and economic reversals. But their efforts to maintain elec-toral security and exercise personal influence in Congress are best served by fo-cusing on those particularized programs that mobilize group support, that helpthem build a solid reputation as effective legislators, and that ensure election. Theemerging collective problems of the new era thus go unacknowledged and tearaway at the fabric of society.12

If Dodd is right, then the public’s ratings of congressional performance willbe low for many years to come.

Congress’s tendency is to allow the president to define solutions to thenation’s problems and then to criticize those solutions from narrow, oftenparochial perspectives. Unfortunately, plebiscitary politics, the proliferationof interest groups, and the new ways technology has provided of influenc-ing members of Congress reinforce this tendency. Rather than encouragingmembers to pursue the national interest and exercise good judgment aboutthe complex issues they confront, modern politics puts more pressure thanever on members to explain themselves in terms that are readily understoodby the folks back home. Scholar and congressman David Price (D-NorthCarolina) observes, “Members must constantly explain themselves and theiractions in terms of ordinary knowledge. A decision that does not lend itselfto such an explanation often has a heavy burden of proof against it. In theera of television journalism, of thirty-second ads and negative advertising, adefensive deference to ordinary knowledge has probably become more im-portant in congressional behavior than it was before.”13 The gap betweenwhat legislators do and what they can explain seems to be widening.

Changing Membership

In recent decades, demographic and social changes in American societyhave altered the composition of Congress in important ways. One impor-tant change has been in the allocation of House seats to the states. The 435seats of the House are reapportioned every ten years to reflect changes in


the distribution of the nation’s population across the states. Populationshifts have allowed certain states in the South and West to gain seats in theHouse of Representatives at the expense of several Atlantic and midwesternstates. The regional shifts are visible in the map shown in Figure 1.3. CensusBureau projections suggest that the South and West will gain even moreseats after the national census in the year 2000—again at the expense of theindustrial Northeast and Midwest.

The redistribution of seats away from the northern industrial states hasreduced those states’ political clout at a time when they could use it. Theneed for infrastructure repairs, worker retraining, low-income housing, andother government services are more severe in the old industrial states thanin other regions of the country. Yet, these states’ declining influence in theHouse is reducing their ability to acquire financial assistance from the fed-eral government. Indeed, the shift of power to the more conservative re-gions of the country has undercut congressional support for a major federalrole in the rehabilitation of the industrial cities of the northern-tier states.

The population growth in the South is the result of that region’s eco-nomic growth, an influx of workers from the older industrial states, and theexpansion of the region’s middle class. The most obvious consequence ofthese developments is that the South is no longer a one-party region, as itwas just three decades ago. Republicans are now competitive in Senateraces throughout the South and hold many House seats as well. As recently


Representative Nydia Velazquez (D-New York)

as 1960, Republicans held no Senate seats and only 6 of 104 House seats inthe states of the old Confederacy. After the 1992 elections, Republicans held13 of the 22 Senate seats and 48 of the 125 House seats in the region, withthe largest numbers in Florida and Texas. The southern Senate seats werecritical to Republicans between 1981 and 1986, when they controlled theSenate and again after 1994.

Beyond the changes in regional representation and partisan compositionin Congress, Capitol Hill has also acquired a sizable contingent of womenand minorities. The growing strength of women’s and minority groups, theacquisition of political experience by women and minority politicians instate and local government, and new voting laws have contributed to therecent improvement in these groups’ representation in Congress. In 1993,the Senate gained its first Native American, Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colorado), who later switched parties, and its first black woman, CarolMoseley-Braun (D-Illinois). Figure 1.4 shows the gains that women andblacks have made in Congress in recent years, and even more—manymore—women and blacks have been running for Congress. More than onehundred women have been major party candidates for Congress in eachelection since 1992.


1960

1990

108125

17 24

5269

Pacific Coast

Rocky Mountain

South

Border

36 32 Mid-Atlantic

New England

Midwest

88 74 8466

25 23

Plains

27 22

F I G U R E 1 . 3

Apportionment of Congressional Seats by Region, 1960 and 1990

Source: Norman J. Ornstein, Thomas E. Mann, and Michael J. Malbin, “Vital Statistics on Congress,1993–1994,” Congressional Quarterly, 1994, p. 158. Copyright © 1994 by Congressional Quarterly,Inc. Reprinted by permission.

To be sure, women and minorities are still underrepresented in Congress,but few doubt that women and minority lawmakers have already had asubstantial impact. Most obviously, the Congressional Caucus for Women’sIssues, the Congressional Black Caucus, and, to a lesser extent, the Congres-sional Hispanic Caucus, which had fifteen members in 1993, have becomeimportant factions within the House Democratic party. More generally, is-sues important to these groups have been given higher priority by partyleaders, and the interests of women and minorities have been given greaterprominence in debates on many pieces of legislation. Indeed, social and eco-nomic problems seem to be more frequently discussed in the first persontoday—that is, more members refer to their personal experience when ad-dressing their colleagues and constituents. And although female and minor-ity members of Congress have not yet been elected to the top party leader-ship posts, several have held second-tier party positions, and even morehave gained sufficient seniority to chair important committees and subcom-mittees.14

For many Washingtonians, the increasing influence of congressionalwomen and minorities was symbolized by Senator Moseley-Braun’s suc-cessful effort in 1993 to reverse a Senate vote extending a governmentdesign patent for an organizational insignia that many minorities found


Congress80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100

20

30

50

60

0102

40

10

Number of Women

Number of Blacks

F I G U R E 1 . 4

Number of Women and Blacks in Congress, 1947—1993

Source: Norman J. Ornstein, Thomas E. Mann, and Michael J. Malbin, “Vital Statistics on Congress,1993–1994,” Congressional Quarterly, 1994, p. 158. Copyright © 1994 by Congressional Quarterly,Inc. Reprinted by permission.

deeply offensive. The Senate Judiciary Committee, at the senator’s request,turned down a request from the United Daughters of the Confederacy torenew the design patent for the group’s insignia—the flag of the Confeder-acy, encircled by a wreath. Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina) thensought Senate approval of a floor amendment that would have granted thepatent extension. With few senators giving the amendment much thought,the Senate approved a preliminary motion, 52 to 48. The action outragedMoseley-Braun, who came to the floor and delivered a blistering attack onthe amendment. Threatening to filibuster if the Senate did not reject theHelms amendment, Moseley-Braun asserted that “the issue is whether ornot Americans such as myself who believe in the promise of this country . . .will have to suffer the indignity of being reminded time and time again thatat one point in this country’s history we were human chattel.”15


An excerpt of an interview with twomembers of the House of Representa-tives on CBS’s “This Morning” programon October 12, 1993, follows. The hostwas Paula Zahn.

PAULA ZAHN: . . . joining us this morningare Democrat Eva Clayton of NorthCarolina, who’s the president of thefreshman class, and California Demo-crat Lynn Woolsey. . . . Let’s start off bytalking about your attempts to crackthe boys’ club. What is the biggest sin-gle challenge you’ve had in that re-gard in your first year in office?

REP. CLAYTON: Well, for me it’s to betaken seriously.

MS. ZAHN: That is still a problem?

REP. CLAYTON: Well, I find it a problem.

MS. ZAHN: Now, tell me how that mani-fests itself.

REP. CLAYTON: Well, it manifests itselfwhen you want to put an idea on thetable and you’re not given as seriousdebate as you think your male col-leagues are. There’s not the rudeness,but it’s just the “How dare you?”

Still a Boys’ Club?

MS. ZAHN: Do you find the attitude dis-missive?

REP. CLAYTON: Well, it’s—surely it is. It’snot respectful. It’s not demanding. Wecame to Congress to be serious mem-bers of Congress, not to be placated,not to be put on a shelf, but to betaken seriously in our debate. That forme has been the most frustrating.

MS. ZAHN: Have you had that same frus-tration?

REP. WOOLSEY: Well, my frustration,Paula, is that women’s issues aren’tyet concentrated on like they need tobe. Really, being a woman or notbeing a woman doesn’t, I don’t think,play any part in my legislating. But Ithink our issues are on the secondshelf. And until we get even morewomen—I think we’re making a bigdifference just having 24 more newwomen, but 48’s not enough out of435.

MS. ZAHN: What would be the conse-quences of having even more con-gresswomen on the Hill? What kind ofissues are we talking about that

Senator Moseley-Braun’s speech and her later exchanges with other sena-tors captured the attention of the entire Senate and of many congressionalobservers. Senators’ reactions were unusually emotional, and several ofthem commented on how important it was to have Moseley-Braun in theSenate. The Senate then voted 75 to 25 to set aside the Helms amendment.Moseley-Braun later observed that she had “given the Senate some hopethat we can break out of the kind of business-as-usual mode that this insti-tution has so long been known for.”11

Notable changes have occurred as well in members’ occupational pro-files. Congress is still dominated by lawyers and business executives, withnearly 250 lawyers and 150 executives. The number of farmers has de-clined—down from about seventy-five in the 1950s to about twenty-five in1994. Educators have become more numerous. Overall, the occupational


would get more air time and moredeliberation?

REP. CLAYTON: Family issues, first; issuesabout equity of pay, day care, issuesabout pro-choice. . . .

MS. ZAHN: What might surprise us aboutwhat you continue to encounter on aday-to-day basis? I mean, we thoughtit was ridiculous that you had to fightfor months just to get the bathroomon the same floor where you work.But what other kinds of things couldyou share with us this morning thatmight surprise our audience, thethings that you might have thoughtwould have been stamped out yearsago but you’re still exposed to them?

REP. WOOLSEY: Well, I have a storyabout the first time I spoke on thefloor. And after it was over, a very se-nior member of one of my commit-tees came up to me and said, “Iwatched you while you were on thefloor. I was in a committee meeting.We didn’t have the sound up. But one

of the other men in my committeesaid, ‘Oh, who’s that good-lookingbroad?’”

MS. ZAHN: Oh, come on.

REP. WOOLSEY: No, no, true. And myfriend on the committee said, “She’son my committee.” And he thoughthe was giving me a compliment.

MS. ZAHN: I’m not going to ask you whothis person was.

REP. WOOLSEY: No, and I’m not going totell you.

MS. ZAHN: Did you give him a piece ofyour mind?

REP. WOOLSEY: No, I just said, “Youthink that’s a compliment, don’t you?”and then went off and did somethingelse. But they didn’t listen to mywords.

Source: Interview by Paula Zahn on “ThisMorning,” October 12, 1993. Copyright ©1993 by CBS. Used by permission.

backgrounds of members are now somewhat more diverse than they werethree or four decades ago.

These trends in the membership of Congress—the shift to the Sunbelt,the increasing numbers of women and minority members, and the greaterdiversity in members’ previous experience—are likely to continue well intothe next century. They are likely to continue as sources of change in the wayCongress conducts its business and in the policy choices Congress makes.

Changing Party Control

Perhaps the most conspicuous change in Congress is recent years was theadvent of Republican control after the 1994 elections. Although the Republi-cans did have a majority in the Senate from 1981 to 1986, they had not con-trolled both houses of Congress since 1954. Whether the Republicans can re-tain this control is an open question, but there is little doubt that they havesubstantially improved their competitiveness in congressional elections.The immediate consequences of the Republicans’ regaining control of Con-gress are noted throughout this book.

Political scientist Richard F. Fenno, Jr., argues that frequent changes inparty control keep the arrogance of the majority party in check.16 It may alsoreduce the temptation for a new majority to overreach itself once in office.


This is an example of what a 2 line photo caption will look like, note this will be replaced witha real photo caption in pages.

According to Fenno, because the Democrats had dominated the House forforty years, when the Republicans took over in 1994 they were both inexpe-rienced and impatient. The Republicans overstated their mandate from the1994 elections, translated that inflated mandate into rigid and ultimately un-successful legislative strategies, and perhaps contributed to the reelection ofDemocrat Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1996.

Fenno also observes that the long era of Democratic rule led the Republi-cans, prior to their 1994 takeover, to adopt radical measures to end it. TheRepublicans assumed an uncompromising stance in Congress, making leg-islating more difficult and heightening partisanship. And after the Republi-cans gained control, Speaker Gingrich led a rhetorical assault on the very in-stitution his party had fought to control, contributing to a further loss ofpublic support for Congress.

If Fenno is right, then alternating control of Congress will producegreater flexibility in party policy positions, more pragmatic party strategies,greater civility in political discourse, and perhaps greater public support forthe institution. Preliminary evidence may support his argument. In late1996, hoping to do well in the upcoming elections, the House Democraticleadership was quoted as saying, “Our themes will be to make the institu-tion look reasonable, to take moderate steps for average Americans and tomake sure that the public understands what we are doing.”17 In 1997, afterexperiencing a lopsided defeat in the presidential election and a scare in theHouse elections of 1996, congressional Republicans proved considerablymore willing to bargain with the president over the single most importantmatter before Congress, the budget (see Chapter 12). A political “uncer-tainty principle”—that an uncertain electoral future breeds political moder-ation—may have contributed to the outcome.

Tempered Decentralization Within Congress

These changes in public expectations; the issues before Congress; mem-bers’ policy preferences, strategies, and characteristics; campaigning; theinterest group community; and party control have already produced greatchange in congressional rules, committee and party organization, and leg-islators’ decision-making processes in recent decades. The speed of changein Congress makes the identification of eras in congressional politics aprecarious business. Nevertheless, political scientists see the Congressesof the 1980s and early 1990s as distinctive enough to warrant a speciallabel. They call this period the “post-reform” era. This term requires someexplanation.

The House and Senate went through a period of reform in the early1970s that led observers of the day to warn about the dangers of fragmenta-tion in congressional policy making. Power was flowing away from centralparty and committee leaders and toward subcommittees and individualmembers. The coordinating and integrating influence of the central leadersappeared to be waning, and Congress seemed to be losing whatever ability


it had to enact coherent policy. All of this happened at a time when thepressures brought by new interest groups, new lobbying strategies, andnew issues were mounting. Although Congress had become a more openand democratic institution, its capacity to manage the nation’s affairsseemed diminished. The mixed legislative record of the Carter years(1977–1980) confirmed the fears of most proponents of a strong nationallegislature.18

By the mid-1980s, however, Congress—particularly the House—had notturned out as many had expected based on the experience of the 1970s.Members’ individualism had moderated a little, the congressional agendahad become more focused, party leaders and party organizations showedsigns of revitalization, and the decentralization of power to the subcommit-tees had been tempered. Although Congress did not revert to its old ways,it acquired a new mix of characteristics that justified a new label. A brief re-view of the characteristics of the post-reform Congress serves as an intro-duction to many of the topics addressed in later chapters.19

Tempered Individualism. Whatever other changes occurred between the1970s and 1980s, the entrepreneurial spirit of individual members remainedstrong. In fact, it is almost a cliché to call members of today’s Congress po-litical entrepreneurs. The term is used to indicate members’ relative inde-pendence from local and national parties. Candidates for congressional of-fice now develop their own campaign organizations, raise their own money,and set their own campaign strategies. This independence from the nationalpolitical parties tends to carry over when the winners take office. Once inoffice, members use official resources and exploit their relationships withinterest groups and political action committees for political advantage.Knowing that they are on their own when it comes to getting reelected, theytake full advantage of taxpayer-supported travel opportunities and commu-nications technologies to maintain a high profile at home. They also have lit-tle reason to be deferential to party or committee leaders, who have rela-tively few resources that can influence members’ reelection prospects. Thesetopics are addressed in Chapters 4 and 5.

By the late 1970s, members had become weary of the surge in committeeand floor activity that was the by-product of reforms and unchecked individ-ualism. Part of the concern was that members were spending longer days onCapitol Hill, away from their families and their home states and districts.And part of the concern was political—members faced more numerous andmore hazardous political choices as their colleagues introduced more billsand offered more amendments in committee and on the floor. In the House,some members, even some of those responsible for the reforms, began to askcommittee and party leaders to reassert some control. The most conspicuousresponse was more restrictions on floor amending activity in the House, atopic that is addressed in Chapters 5 and 7. But more generally, both repre-sentatives and senators now seem to appreciate leaders who are willing to


set some direction, narrow the agenda, and reduce scheduling and politicaluncertainties. Individualism appears to have tempered somewhat.

In recent years, the entrepreneurial spirit has taken on a new twist. Mem-bers have become quite sensitive to charges that congressional incumbentsenjoy special benefits. To show their commitment to the values they sharewith their constituents, incumbents have engaged in one-upmanship to re-duce the perquisites of office. Some members have refused to accept salaryincreases. Others have turned back unspent allocations for staff or office ex-penses. Still others have moved to reduce the extent to which parking, exer-cise facilities, restaurants, and haircuts are subsidized on Capitol Hill. Moreimportant, members have voted to trim budgets for staff and to eliminatesome committees to show their commitment to cutting spending. Somemembers legitimately fear that these cuts will reduce their ability to meettheir constituents’ demands and will undermine Congress’s ability to com-pete with the executive branch.

Individualism was tempered even further when the Republicans gained amajority in the House after the 1994 elections. Eager to demonstrate theirability to govern, and committed to passing a policy program, labeled the“Contract with America,” that they had campaigned on, the House Republi-cans licensed their leader, Speaker Gingrich, to set an extremely firm agenda.The House had not experienced such domination by the Speaker since thefirst decade of the twentieth century. The Republicans imposed cuts in com-mittee budgets, which reduced the funding for subcommittee staffs, anddropped the rules the Democrats had adopted in the 1970s that guaranteedsubcommittee chairs some independence from full committee chairs.

Changing Budget Constraints. The large federal budget deficit was adominant force in legislative politics during the period from 1980 to 1995.Few new federal programs were initiated, and much, if not most, of theperiod’s important legislation consisted of large budget bills, particularlybudget reconciliation bills. These bills, which are discussed in Chapter 12,are the handiwork of many congressional committees and affect the fullrange of federal programs over multiple years. This emphasis on large, all-encompassing budget bills further reduced the ability of committees andindividual members to pursue policy initiatives.

During the same period, many members seemed to turn from wanting toclaim credit for legislative accomplishments to seeking to avoid blame formaking unpopular choices. Not only did this reduce comity on Capitol Hilland make service in Congress less enjoyable, it changed lawmakers’ basicapproach to policy making. Major decisions were made in closed-door ses-sions between top party and budget leaders and top administration officialsrather than in open meetings in dozens of committees and subcommittees.The desire to avoid blame was also evident in the policy choices Congressmade. Instead of considering the merits of individual programs, lawmakerspassed broad spending caps or across-the-board spending freezes. TheHouse voted to automatically increase the national debt ceiling rather than


try to peg it at a specific level or reduce it. When faced with politically sensi-tive issues such as congressional salary increases and choosing which mili-tary bases to close, Congress created outside commissions to deal with theproblem.

Now that it appears that the federal budget will be in balance for theforeseeable future, the politics of blame may be supplanted by a politics ofclaiming credit. At the start of 1998, the Congressional Budget Office, Con-gress’s budget and economic forecasting agency, projected no deficits andmeasurable surpluses to the year 2008. Predictably, new policy initiativeswere proposed by Democratic president Bill Clinton on such issues ashealth care for the elderly and day care for the children of working parents.Republicans urged more tax cuts and a few initiatives of their own. Thisearly experience with a balanced budget suggests that congressional poli-tics will have a very different tone in the next decade compared with thepast two.

Revitalized Parties. In the post-reform era, parties and their leaders havetaken on greater importance than was predicted in the 1970s. Frustra-tions with unrestrained individualism and an emphasis on balancing thebudget—an issue that had long divided the parties—also contributed to theassertiveness of top party leaders during the 1980s and early 1990s. Thereplacement of some conservative southern Democrats by conservativeRepublicans made the Democratic cohort in Congress more liberal on bal-ance and reinforced the conservatism of congressional Republicans. Di-vided control of Congress and the presidency seemed to further intensifypartisanship in the 1980s, as each institution and party tried to avoid blamefor ballooning deficits, unmet demands for action on social problems, andeconomic hard times. Top party leaders began to speak more authorita-tively for their parties, and party regulars looked to their top leaders tomore aggressively promote party views in the media. And at least for a yearor so after the Republicans gained a majority of House seats in 1994,Speaker Gingrich came to be recognized as the most powerful Speaker sinceJoseph Cannon (R-Illinois) in the first decade of the twentieth century. Hehas not maintained that lofty reputation since then, but he and his partyremain remarkably active in all major policy decisions. These developmentsare detailed in Chapter 6.

Less Autonomous Committees. Chapter 7 details the substantial changesthat have occurred in the role of the congressional committees in makinglaw. Multiyear budget pacts, more assertive party leaders, the referral ofmore legislation to multiple committees, and less deferential parent cham-bers have altered the place of committees and their subcommittees in thepolicy-making process. When committees may act and the kinds of legisla-tion they may propose are now more highly constrained, and when they doact, committees are quite likely to be second-guessed by members whentheir legislation reaches the floor. Some committees have shifted their em-


phasis from writing new legislation to overseeing executive-branch imple-mentation of existing laws, although most members continue to believe thatthey should take oversight of the executive branch still more seriously thanthey do. Thus, although committees remain central features of congres-sional policy making, they do not enjoy the autonomy that they once did.

The Changing CongressThe ways in which representation and lawmaking are pursued in Congresshave evolved in important ways in recent decades. As this chapter has im-plied, not all of these developments have improved representation or law-making. In the chapters that follow, many of these developments are givena closer look. But however serious we judge the problems of today’s Con-gress to be, we should remember that Congress is a remarkably resilient in-stitution. Its place in the political process is not threatened. It is rich in re-sources; critics even charge that it is too strong. And despite any attacks onCongress from critics, the legitimacy of its decisions are not seriously ques-tioned by the chief executive, the courts, the states, or the American people.

N O T E S

1. Roger H. Davidson, The Role of the Congressman (New York: Pegasus, 1969).

2. Robert S. Weissberg, “Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress,”American Political Science Review 72 (1978): 535–547.

3. Jane J. Mansbridge, Beyond Adversarial Democracy (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1983).

4. Steven S. Smith, Call to Order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate (Washington,D.C.: Brookings Instituion, 1989), chap. 8.

5. Richard E. Cohen, “Some Unity!” National Journal, September 25, 1993, p. 2290.

6. Paul Boller, Congressional Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press,1991), p. 18.

7. Norman J. Ornstein, “Congress Inside Out: Here’s Why Life On the Hill IsMeaner Than Ever,” Roll Call, September 20, 1993, p. 27.

8. Robert A. Dahl, “Americans Struggle to Cope with a New Political Order ThatWorks in Opaque and Mysterious Ways,” Public Affairs Report (Institute of Govern-mental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, September 1993), pp. 1, 4–6.

9. Robert H. Salisbury, “The Paradox of Interest Groups in Washington—MoreGroups, Less Clout,” in Anthony King (Ed.), The New American Political System, 2nded. (Washington, D. C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1990), pp. 203–229. For ananalysis of the effects of these developments on Congress, see Barbara Sinclair, TheTransformation of the U. S. Senate (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989),pp. 57–64.

THE CHANGING CONGRESS | 27

10. Kay Lehman Scholzman and John T. Tierney, Organized Interests and AmericanDemocracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), pp. 66–67.

11. See Theodore J. Lowi, “Toward a Legislature of the First Kind,” in William H.Robinson and Clay H. Wellborn (Eds.), Knowledge, Power, and the Congress (Washing-ton, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1991), pp. 9–36.

12. Lawrence C. Dodd, “Congress and the Politics of Renewal: Redressing theCrisis of Legitimation,” in Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer (Eds.), Con-gress Reconsidered, 5th ed. (Washington, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1993),p. 426.

13. David E. Price, “Comment,” in Robinson and Wellborn (Eds.), Knowledge,Power, and the Congress, p. 128.

14. In recent years, female members of the House Democratic Caucus have ex-pressed dismay at the small number of women in senior positions of their party. SeeJuliet Eilperin, “Democratic Women Hit a Hous Glass Ceiling,” Roll Call, Novem-ber 25, 1996, pp. 1, 21. On women in Congress, see Karen Foerstal and Herbert N.Foerstal, Climbing the Hill: Gender Conflict in Congress (Westport, Conn.: Praeger,1996), and Marcy Kaptur, Women of Congress (Washington, D.C.: CongressionalQuarterly Press, 1996). On African Americans in Congress, see Carol M. Swain, BlackFaces, Black Interests (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). Also seeCarol M. Swain, “Women and Blacks in Congress, 1870–1996, in Lawrence C. Doddand Bruce I. Oppenheimer (eds.), Congress Reconsidered, 6th ed. (Washington, D. C.:Congressional Quarterly Press, 1997), pp. 81–99.

15. Ruth Shalit, “A Star Is Born,” The New Republic, November 15, 1993, p. 19.

16. Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Learning to Govern: An Institutional View of the 104th Con-gress (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1997). On the consequences of alter-nating party control of Congress, also see Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppen-heimer, “Congress and the Emerging Order: Conditional Party Government orConstructive Partisanship?” in Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer (Eds.),Congress Reconsidered, 6th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press,1997), pp. 390–413.

17. “Capitol Hill’s Uncertainty Principle,” National Journal, November 2, 1996,p. 2365.

18. For a review of the conditions leading up to the reforms of the late 1960s and1970s, see James L. Sundquist, Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and John-son Years (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1968), and The Decline and Resur-gence of Congress (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1981). For a more de-tailed analysis of House reforms, see Roger H. Davidson and Walter J. Oleszek,Congress Against Itself (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977). Also see LeroyRieselbach, Congressional Reform (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press,1993).

19. For an excellent set of essays on the post-reform Congress, see Roger H.Davidson (Ed.), The Postreform Congress (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992).


Documents

Representation and Lawmaking in Congress · B4 2 2 C3 3 0 D2 4−2 E1 5−4 Average 3.0 3.0 Source: Adapted from Robert S. Weissberg. “Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress.”