Congress

1. Congress The Logic of American Politics Chapter Six

2. Today’s Congress: Overview • The House and Senate occupy the center stage in national policymaking. • Electoral politics influences almost everything members of Congress do, collectively and individually. • The majority party, through party leaders, directs and dominates the action in the House and Senate. • The rules and organizational structures the House and Senate adopt have a deliberate and crucial effect on power and policymaking. • It is always easier to stop things from happening in Congress than to make things happen.

3. Congress in the Constitution • The basic structure of Congress is the product of the Great Compromise at the Constitutional Convention. • The Framers created a bicameral legislature with distinct features of each chamber being designed to resolve the conflict. • A House of Representatives, with seats allocated by population and members elected by the citizenry and • A Senate, composed of two members from each state chosen by the state legislature.

4. The Compromise • The institutional structure resolved the conflict of large versus small states. • Also solved the debate over the appropriate degree of popular influence on government. • A two-year term for the House was a compromise between the annual elections advocated by many delegates and the three-year term proposed by James Madison. • A short tenure would keep this chamber close to the people. • The Senate would be more insulated from momentary shifts in the public mood by virtue of a longer term (in addition to their selection by state legislatures).

5. Qualification Differences • Qualifications for office also reflected the Framers’ concept of the Senate as the more “mature” of the two chambers. • The minimum age for the House members was set at twenty-five years, whereas it was set at thirty for the Senate. • House members were required to be citizens for at least seven years, whereas for senators it was nine years. • Both were required to reside in the state they represented.

6. Qualifications for Office Holding • The property-holding and religious qualifications included in many state constitutions were explicitly rejected. • They also rejected a proposal to forbid a member’s reelection to office after serving a term. • The Articles had included a reelection restriction, but the Framers thought it had weakened Congress by depriving it of some of its most effective members.

7. Powers of Congress • The Constitution established a truly national government by giving Congress broad powers over crucial economic matters. • Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution sets out the enumerated powers of Congress (examples: impose taxes, regulate interstate and foreign commerce). • At the end of this list a clause authorizes Congress “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers.…” We refer to this as the necessary and proper (or elastic) clause.

8. The Necessary and Proper Clause • This clause has provided the single most extensive grant of power in the Constitution, giving Congress authority over many different spheres of public policy. • It was under this authority that Congress banned discrimination in public accommodations and housing in the 1960s.

9. Other Areas of Congressional Authority • Congress was given significant authority in foreign affairs as well. • Only Congress may declare war, raise and finance an army and navy, and call out the state militias. • The Senate was granted some special powers over foreign relations. • In its “advise and consent” capacity, the Senate ratifies treaties and confirms presidential appointments. • The Framers believed that the more “aristocratic” and insulated of the two houses would keep a steadier eye on the nation’s long-term interests.

10. Other Areas of Congressional Authority • The Senate also approves presidential appointments to the Supreme Court and top executive branch positions. • To a degree, the Framers envisioned the Senate acting as an advisory council to the president. • Also reflects the Framers’ belief that the more “aristocratic” and insulated of the two houses would keep a steadier eye on the country’s long-term interests.

11. Achieving Balance • In distributing power between the House and Senate, the delegates sought a proper balance of authority. • Much debate was given to which chamber would have the authority to raise and spend money. • The final compromise required that bills raising revenue originate in the House, with the Senate having an unrestricted right to amend them.

12. Achieving Balance • Finally, the president was used as a means to further the balance of power by giving the executive branch the authority to: • Recommend new laws. • Call Congress into special session. • Most important, the power to veto laws passed by Congress, killing them unless two-thirds of each chamber votes to override the veto.

13. The Electoral System • Two choices made by the Framers of the Constitution have profoundly affected the electoral politics of Congress: • Members of Congress and presidents are elected separately. • This is unlike parliamentary systems, where authority resides with the legislature, which chooses the chief executive. • Members of Congress are elected from states and congressional districts by plurality vote -- that is, whoever gets the most votes wins. • Some parliamentary systems use a proportional representation.

14. Single-Member Districts/Plurality Winners • Under a proportional system a party wins a share of seats in the legislature matching the share of votes it wins on election day. • Voters choose among parties, not individual candidates, and candidates need not have a local connection. • Members of Congress are elected from states and congressional districts by plurality vote -- that is, whoever gets the most votes wins. • Congressional candidates get their party’s nomination directly from voters, not from party activists or leaders.

15. Congressional Districts • After the first census in 1790, each state was allotted one House seat for every 33,000 inhabitants for a total of 105 seats. • Total membership was finally fixed at its current ceiling of 435 in 1911 when House leaders concluded that further growth would impede the House’s work. • However, the size of each state’s delegation may change after each decennial census as state/region populations shift.

16. Congressional Districts • Federal law may apportion House seats among states after each census. • But each state draws the lines that divide its territory into the requisite number of districts. • This has been the focus of a number of Supreme Court cases, as politics has intruded into the process of drawing districts.

17. Redistricting and the Law • In 1964 the Supreme Court ruled in Wesberry v. Sanders that districts must have equal populations. • In Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) the Court ruled that district lines may not dilute minority representation, but neither may they be drawn with race as the predominant consideration. • Within these limits states can draw districts pretty much as they please.

18. Redistricting and the Law • If one party controls the legislature and the governorship, it may attempt to draw lines to favor its own candidates. • This is called gerrymandering. • The constitutionality of this practice has been challenged in court, but without great success. • In Davis v. Bandemer (1986), the Court held that a gerrymander would be unconstitutional if it were too unfair to one of the parties. • As yet, no districting scheme has run afoul of this vague standard.

19. Racial Gerrymandering • The Court’s 1985 Thornburg decision required that legislative district lines not discriminate, even unintentionally, against racial minorities. • Widely interpreted as directing mapmakers to design districts in which racial and ethnic minorities constituted a majority of voters wherever residence patterns made this feasible.

20. Redistricting and the Law • North Carolina legislators carved out two majority-black districts that eventually came before the Court. • The Court decided in 1993 that such irregular districts went too far; in 1995 it ruled that districts could not be drawn solely to benefit one race.

21. Unequal Representation in the Senate • The fifty Senate constituencies -- entire states -- may not change boundaries with each census, though they vary greatly in size of population. • Senator Feinstein of California -- 35 million people. • Senator Enzi of Wyoming -- 494,000 people. • Average U.S. House member represents 669,000 people. • Nine largest states are home to 51 percent of total U.S. population. • Leads to unequal representation. Does this matter? • Sometimes it does.

22. Unequal Representation in the Senate • Until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, senators were chosen by state legislatures. • Most Americans had long since concluded that this method of selection was undemocratic and corrupting. Charges of bribery. • But it was not until the peak of Progressivism that senators were convinced to agree to a constitutional amendment providing for their popular election.

23. Congress and Electoral Politics • The modern Congress is organized to serve the goals of its members. • Primary goal: keep their jobs! • Thus a career in Congress depends on getting elected and reelected again and again.

24. Candidate-Centered versus Party-Centered Electoral Politics • The post-World War II era of Democratic majorities in Congress coincided with the emergence of a candidate-centered pattern of electoral politics. • Similarly, the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 coincided with a modest resurgence of party-centered electoral politics. • Neither was accidental.

25. Candidate-Centered versus Party-Centered Electoral Politics • Two different strategies: • An electoral politics in which candidates operate largely as independent political entrepreneurs. • An electoral politics in which candidates run more as a party team, emphasizing national issues and a common program of action.

26. Candidate-Centered versus Party-Centered Electoral Politics • During the long period of Democratic majorities, members of both parties won election to Congress and stayed there due to their own efforts. • “Recruited themselves.” • Organized their own campaigns. • Raised their own money. • Party organizations and PACs. • Ran under party label but campaigns were personal and centered on local interests and values. • Local component not always dominant. • Party-line voting during much of the nineteenth century. • When parties weakened: ticket-splitting.

27. The Advantages of Incumbency • The decline in party loyalty among voters offered incumbents a chance to win votes that once would have gone routinely to the other party's candidate. • When they realized their advantage, they sought to increase it by voting to give themselves greater resources for servicing their districts. • More money for staff, travel, local offices, and communications. • In 2001 allowances ranged from $980,699 to $1,469,930 per legislators in the House and from $1,926,296 to $3,301,071 in the Senate.

28. The Incumbency Advantage • Success of efforts: • Average vote shares of votes won by House incumbents increased from 61 percent in the 1940s to 68 percent in the 1980s to 64 percent in the 1990s. Went to 67 percent in 2004. • If they are so successful, why do incumbents work so hard?

29. The Advantages of Incumbency • Their service orientation has been one of the reasons for their high return rate to office. • But incumbents tend to act as though they are going to lose reelection. • Incumbents win reelection because they work so hard at it. • They work to discourage opponents. • They are highly responsive to their constituencies.

30. Constituent Service • Decisions on legislative issues are shaped by the potential need to explain and defend them. • Most members spend time at home, keeping in touch and staying visible. • They solicit and process casework. • Requests for information and help in dealing with government agencies. • Example: lost Social Security check; mix-up with veterans’ benefits.

31. Vulnerable Senators • Although senators engage in many of the same constituency-building activities, they are typically not as successful at keeping their jobs. • They are three times more likely to lose their seats than House incumbents. • Why?

32. Vulnerable Senators • States are more populous and diverse than congressional districts -- most senators unable to develop the personal ties to constituents that House members can. • States more than districts have balanced party competition. • Senate races attract more experienced, politically talented, well-financed challengers. • States have media markets that make it easier for challengers to get out their messages. • Senators more readily associated with controversial and divisive issues.

33. National Politics in Congressional Elections • National forces have always been a component of congressional election politics and are still important. • In general, congressional candidates are advantaged when their presidential candidate wins. • Today, winners may have shorter presidential coattails than they did in the nineteenth century, but they are still significant.

34. National Politics in Congressional Elections • In midterm elections the president's party almost always loses congressional seats, but the size of its losses depends in part on the performance of the national economy and the president. • Losses are fewer if the economy is strong and the president is popular. • Although the Democrats lost seats in 1994, as Clinton's approval ratings sagged and voters had doubts about the economy, they actually gained seats (against many predictions) in 1998. • Clinton's public approval rating was twenty points higher and the economy was booming in 1998. • George W. Bush’s leadership in the war on terrorism produced high approval ratings in 2002 that helped his party achieve small gains in the House and Senate.

35. Representation versus Responsibility • Different electoral processes produce different forms of representation: • Party centered. Here legislators represent citizens by carrying out the policies promised by the party and are held responsible for their party's performance in governing. • They work to ensure the success of the party in government. • Candidate centered. Here there is more incentive to be individually responsive rather than collectively responsible.

36. The Electoral Logic of Congressional Members • Electoral logic induces members to promote narrowly targeted programs, projects, or tax breaks for constituents without worrying about the impacts of such measures on spending or revenues. • Pork-barrel legislation. • We see the manifestation of this logic in behavior such as logrolling. • The legislative practice in which members of Congress agree to reciprocally support each other's vote-gaining projects or tax breaks. • 1994 revolt by voters against collective irresponsibility.

37. The Electoral Logic of Congressional Members • Electoral incentives make legislators hesitant to impose direct costs on identifiable groups in order to produce greater but more diffuse benefits to all citizens. • At times congressional majorities have been able to solve this dilemma by: • Delegating authority to the bureaucratic agencies or state governments. • Framing their choice in a way that highlights credit for the general benefits while minimizing individual responsibility for the specific costs. • More broadly, making the electoral payoffs from disregarding special interests to benefit a broader public outweigh the costs.

38. Who Serves in Congress? • Congressional members are not “representative” of the public at large. • Most are college graduates (41 percent have law degrees). • Many have business backgrounds, but most come from professional fields in general. • Only a few have blue-collar backgrounds. • Most held prior elected office. • Women and racial minorities continue to be underrepresented. • Numbers are increasing.

39. Who Serves in Congress? • After the 2004 elections the Senate included: • Fourteen women, one African American, two Hispanics, and two Asian Americans. • The House included: • Sixty women, thirty-seven African Americans, twenty-three Hispanics, and six Asian Americans. • Congress remains overwhelmingly white and male. • Why? Because white males still predominate in the lower-level public offices and private careers that are the most common stepping-stones to Congress.

40. The Basic Problems of Legislative Organization • While the Constitution outlined a basic framework for Congress, throughout two centuries the institution has evolved into a complex mix of rules, procedures, and customs. • To understand the House and Senate, one must understand: • What representatives and senators want to accomplish. • What obstacles they have to overcome to achieve their goals.

41. The Basic Problems of Legislative Organization • To exercise the powers conferred on them by the Constitution, the House and Senate had to solve some basic problems: • How to acquire information. • How to coordinate action. • How to resolve conflicts. • How to get members to work for common as well as personal goals.

42. The Need for Information • A legislator cannot regulate the the stock market or attack environmental pollution without having key information related to these areas. • Congress has attempted to solve the problem by utilizing division of labor and specialization as tools. • By becoming specialists (or employing them) in policy areas, and by creating a support foundation of information gatherers and interpreters, legislators can make more informed decisions.

43. Coordination Problems • Coordination (trying to act in concert) becomes more difficult (and necessary) the greater the group’s workload and the more elaborate its division of labor. • As Congress has grown, it has had greater need for traffic management. • Dividing up the work, directing the flow of bills through the legislative process, and scheduling debates and votes. • Congress has used its party leaders to act as the “traffic cops,” giving them power to manage the business of legislating and control over the agenda.

44. Resolving Conflicts • Legislation is not passed until the majorities in both houses agree to its passage. • Many of Congress’s rules, customs, and procedures are aimed at resolving or deflecting conflicts so it can get on with the business of legislating. • Norms of collegiality. • Parties are ready-made coalitions.

45. Collective Action • The problem: what members do to pursue individual goals may undermine the reputation of their party or of Congress as a whole. • The tension between individual and collective political welfare -- the standard prisoner’s dilemma -- pervades congressional life. • The committee system, however, gives members individual incentives to work for collectively beneficial ends. How? • Members who contribute to Congress’s performance by becoming well informed about issues in their subcommittee’s jurisdiction are rewarded with preeminent influence over policy in that area.

46. Collective Action • In trying to meet its many challenges, Congress must cope with another pressing problem: high transaction costs. • The price of doing politics. • Congress has organized itself to reduce those costs that can be reduced. • One way is the use of fixed rules to automate decisions. • Seniority rule. • Follow precedent.

47. Time Pressures • Ticking clock: within the one-year session of Congress and over the two-year tenure of each Congress. • Authority: power of the purse. • Pressure: failure to pass the budget. • Budgetary process: must be on schedule. • Other legislation has to pass through all the hurdles within the two-year life of a Congress.

48. Organizing Congress • The two most crucial institutional structures created to exercise Congress’s constitutional powers are: • The parties. • The committee system. • Without them it would be difficult to overcome the barriers to effective collective action.

49. Development of Congressional Parties • Parties began to form in the first session of the First Congress. • Conflict over policy between Jefferson/Madison and Hamilton. • To prevail Jefferson and Madison need more votes in Congress. • Sought to increase their numbers by recruiting and electing like-minded men to the House.

50. Development of Congressional Parties • Factions soon had names: • Federalists and Republicans. • When the House and Senate divided into parties, congressional and party leadership merged. • Formal leadership established more quickly in the House, as it was larger and busier. • Speaker of the House. • Given authority to appoint committees, make rules, and manage the legislative process.