Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:58:26.178Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Policy Making in Congressional Committees: The Impact of “Environmental” Factors*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

David E. Price
David E. Price*
Affiliation:
Duke University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is well established that various characteristics of a congressional committee may shape and, to an extent, standardize its handling of a range of policy areas. This article, however, examines the substantial variations that most committees continue to display as they move from issue to issue. Why is it that the House Commerce Committee, for example, approaches issues like major-disease research, health care delivery, cable television development, and power plant siting in such radically different ways? What determines the incentives of legislators to invest time and effort in a policy area, and to orient themselves toward broad “public” interests, once involved? Focusing on the House and Senate Commerce Committees, the article takes as its data base patterns of legislative action and inaction in major areas of the committees' jurisdiction during 1969–1974. Particular attention is given to how perceived levels of group conflict and of public salience affect a legislator's orientation toward a policy area, and to the level and direction of executive involvement as an intervening variable of major significance. High-salience, low-conflict areas (e.g., health research) generally offer the strongest incentives to congressional involvement, and low-salience, high-conflict areas (e.g., communications regulation) the weakest, while mixed cases (e.g., a high-salience, high-conflict area like health care delivery) display considerable variability. Issues may change considerably with time in their perceived levels of salience and conflict, and legislators can influence, as well as respond to, such changes. Congressional initiatives often respond to perceived “neglect” on the part of the executive, or disagreement with the content of its moves. But particularly in high-conflict areas, congressional activists will often find that their success requires executive involvement.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , June 1978 , pp. 548 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The author wishes to thank Terry Brooks and Susan Skillen for their help in preparing and circulating successive drafts of this manuscript, and Steve Grant and Steve Haeberle for research assistance. For their valuable comments on an earlier version, thanks are due Jerry Hough, David Mayhew, Harris Miller, William Mishler, Brad Pigott, Lester Salamon, and Philip Williams.

References

1 Congressional Government (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), p. 79Google Scholar.

2 See especially Manley, John F., The Politics of Finance: The House Committee on Ways and Means (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970)Google Scholar; Price, David E., Who Makes the Laws? (Cambridge: Schenkman, 1972)Google Scholar; and Fenno, Richard F. Jr., Congressmen in Committees (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973)Google Scholar.

3 See Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 9–10, 311–22, and passimGoogle Scholar.

4 See Lowi, Theodore J., “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies, and Political Theory,” World Politics, 16 (July 1964), 677–715CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 323–27Google Scholar.

5 See Fenno, Congressmen in Committees, Ch. 2; and the review of this book by Price, David E., American Political Science Review, 711 (June 1977), 701–04Google Scholar.

6 For a characterization of the “economic” approach to the study of politics, see Barry, Brian, Sociologists, Economists and Democracy (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1970), Ch. 1Google Scholar. For a suggestive application to congressional behavior, see Mayhew, David R., Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), pp. 1–9 and passimGoogle Scholar. Seymour Scher takes a similar approach in his explication of “the conditions under which committees become involved in agency oversight”: “Conditions for Legislative Control,” Journal of Politics, 25 (08 1963), 526–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 The House committee's jurisdiction was appreciably altered by the Committee Reform Amendments of 1974, which took effect in the 94th Congress. Civil aviation and surface transportation (except railroads) were transferred to the new Public Works and Transportation Committee. Commerce's health jurisdiction was expanded, but Ways and Means retained its claim to health-care programs financed by payroll taxes. The Senate's Committee System Reorganization Amendments of 1977 gave Commerce substantial new science and technology jurisdiction but further reduced its claims on environmental policy.

8 See Lowi, “American Business.”

9 Compare Richard Fenno's description of the settings of the House Appropriations, Ways and Means, Foreign Relations, and Education and Labor Committees: Congressmen in Committees, Ch. 2.

10 Quotations without citations are taken from transcripts, as nearly verbatim as possible, drawn up from memory immediately following interviews with a range of members, aides, lobbyists, and agency and commission personnel. The basic set of interviews was conducted in 1972 by the team studying the Commerce Committees for the Congress Project (see Price, David E., et al., The Commerce Committees [New York: Grossman, 1975], p. 5)Google Scholar. These were supplemented by some two dozen in-depth interviews, more specifically focused on the topic of the present study, conducted by the author in 1973 and 1975.

11 The White House in 1974 allowed OTP to send forward a long-range funding proposal long sought by CPB advocates. But various intra-industry and intra-congressional conflicts delayed enactment until the 94th Congress–and then only as a five-year authorization shorn of the unusual concurrent appropriations provisions which proponents had sought (P.L. 94–192).

12 See Paris, John, “Communications,” in Price, , et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 240–51Google Scholar; and the wry, sometimes bitter, comments by FCC Commissioners Lee, Johnson, and Wiley on the commission's OTP-induced reversal: Final Cable Television Decision (Washington: Television Digest, 1972), pp. 142–52Google Scholar.

13 The first episode came in 1960 when the cable forces, led by Oklahoma's Senator Robert Kerr, turned back an attempt led by Pastore and supported by commercial broadcasters to put cable under FCC regulation. The second confrontation occurred in the House in 1966 as the Commerce Committee reported but the Rules Committee killed a bill “confirming” the FCC in the jurisdiction over cable it has assumed. The commission's claims were ultimately upheld in the Southwestern Cable case, 329 U.S. 157 (1968).

14 Broadcasting, 02 2, 1976, p. 19Google Scholar; April 12, 1976, p. 26.

15 On Senate Subcommittee Chairman John Pastore's caution in the license-renewal area, see Paris, , “Communications,” pp. 219–23Google Scholar. The House and Senate committees in 1974 reported bills which strengthened the presumptions in favor of incumbent license holders but which provided for only four- and three-year license terms respectively. In both cases, the bills were amended by overwhelming floor votes to include the five-year term sought by the broadcasters. The rebuffed House committee leaders subsequently dragged their feet, however, and a House-Senate conference was never convened.

16 A considerably bolder effort was initiated by Lionel Van Deerlin, who inherited the House subcommittee from MacDonald in 1976. A former broadcaster long interested in communications policy, Van Deerlin began hearings in the 95th Congress aimed at a “basement to attic” revamping of the Communications Act. Early indications, however, were that the project had attracted little public interest, that the Senate committee was lukewarm, and that the broadcasters' attitudes ranged from suspicion to hostility; the rewrite, Van Deerlin acknowledged, would be a “longer range proposition than I first thought.” See Broadcasting, 12 12, 1977, pp. 21–22Google Scholar; December 19, 1977, p. 21.

17 See Eads, George C., The Local Service Airline Experiment (Washington: Brookings, 1972)Google Scholar.

18 Congressional Record (daily), 10 10, 1974, p. 18899Google Scholar.

19 See the account in Weiner, Andrew, “Aviation,” in Price, , et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 200–11Google Scholar.

20 On the obstacles posed by the Eisenhower and Johnson administrations to legislators wishing to broaden and expand the Federal Airport Act of 1946, see Ripley, Randall B., “Congress Champions Aid to Airports, 1958–59,” in Cleaveland, Frederic N., et al., Congress and Urban Problems (Washington: Brookings, 1969), pp. 20–71Google Scholar; and Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1968, pp. 621–23Google Scholar. On the general-commercial aviation and city-state conflicts involved in the 1946 legislation, see Ripley, , “Congress Champions Aid,” pp. 24–25Google Scholar.

21 The bill (S 1739, 93rd Congress) was never brought to a vote in the Senate. For an account of the crossfire among lobbyists and the desire of senators to avoid the issue (“Either way you vote you're in trouble”), see Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, September 29, 1973, pp. 2593–94Google Scholar.

22 The exception that proves the rule is a bill (H.R. 8298) approved in 1970 which blocked an ICC decision unfavorable to regulated water carriers. The complexities of intermodal rivalry were outlined by a Senate aide:

The best example [of one mode effectively outmaneuvering its rivals] is a very complicated one: the water carrier mixing rule…. The railroads were successful in holding off action for a long time, but the water carriers finally got smart. They [the regulated carriers] joined with the railroads in supporting a bill that would screw the unregulated water carriers. That got the bill through the House. Then they came over to the Senate, where the railroads didn't do as well. The final bill pleased [both classes of] water carriers; the railroads were finessed. But the whole business comes up again this year, and it may very well come unstuck.

In fact, the agreement did not come unstuck but was given permanent status by P.L. 93–201. As the same aide reflected in 1975: “I thought the whole thing would blow up, but it went through very easily…. I guess the railroads just decided, what the hell, they could live with it. They probably didn't want to upset the water carriers at a time when they were trying to get the Surface Transportation Act through [see below]. And they must have thought that they weren't really giving up much; the bill just ratified a de facto situation they'd been living with for a long time.”

23 See the account by Fellmeth, Robert and Low, Jonathan, “Surface Transportation,” in Price, et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 160–83Google Scholar.

24 CQ Weekly Report, October 2, 1971, p. 2022.

25 Congressional Record (bound), 07 28, 1971, p. 27633Google Scholar.

26 On the role of shippers in this and subsequent confrontations, see Malbin, Michael J., “Rail Reform Issue Divides Carriers, Major Shippers,” National Journal Reports, 02 2, 1974, pp. 171–80Google Scholar.

27 Less important was the fact that some legislators grew increasingly wary of the electoral impact of appearing too subservient to the industry. “The loan guarantee giveaway was the worst part of the bill,” one counsel recalls. “But we couldn't get anybody interested in focusing on that. That's what Jack Anderson stressed. But the senators were mainly concerned with other provisions, those that drew fire from opposing interests.”

Anderson portrayed (Washington Post, June 6, 1972, p. B11) “Hartke and other friends of the railroads and big truckers” as “sneak[ing] through a bill that could cost the taxpayers more than $5 billion…. Ralph Nader's transportation experts call it the worst such bill they have ever seen.” This had some effect on Hartke, whom an aide described as then “at his nadir politically in Indiana.” “He pulled back…. He stuck by the bill but just didn't go out of his way.” But full committee chairman Magnuson and other members responded to the earners' blandishments to keep the bill alive, and backed off only when the crossfire of opposing interests became intense.

28 Congressional Record (Daily), December 10, 1974, p. H11501Google Scholar.

29 The “balanced transportation” proposal (S. 2279, 92nd Congress) “never got anywhere,” recalls one aide. “The carriers were suspicious, and the administration was dead-set against it.” As for farther-reaching proposals to use highway trust fund monies to develop other modes of transportation: “Magnuson has equivocated on that one…. Part of the problem has been a reluctance to offend another chairman [the Public Works Committee is responsible for highway policy]; also, Magnuson fought for a separate aviation trust fund and doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. Still, if Magnuson's staff had been able to convince him that ‘balanced transportation’ was a good PR issue, he might have pushed it more strongly.”

30 More particularistic proposals were often justified in these terms as well. “This is everybody's problem,” explained astronaut Wally Schirra in an industry advertisement on behalf of the Surface Transportation Act. “If America can't deliver the goods, we'll all pay the price, higher prices, for fewer goods…. Who needs the Surface Transportation Act? We all do.” Fellmeth and Low, “Surface Transportation,” p. 179.

31 Eighteen surface transportation measures became law during the 91st-93rd Congresses: three railroad safety and hazardous materials control bills, two extensions of the experimental high-speed ground transportation program, four AMTRAK authorizations, three bills responding to the Penn Central and other bankruptcies and providing for continuing rail service in the northeast, a bill providing loans to cover rail damage done by summer floods in 1972, the two formulations of the water carrier mixing rule, and three minor administrative measures. This excludes ten public laws in the area of railway labor, most of them minor in scope and relatively noncontroversial but of particular interest to House Commerce Chairman Harley Staggers because of the character of his West Virginia constituency.

32 Included among the 37 merchant marine bills were 8 regular and supplemental authorizations; a 1969 bill continuing the subsidy programs and the Merchant Marine Act of 1970, which revamped them extensively; five bills pertaining to boat and waterway safety; nine industry-backed bills which liberalized the conditions for transferring cargo among barges carried by foreign vessels, permitted the sale of subsidized (but laid-up) passenger vessels, allowed terminal operators and stevedores to acquire a lien on vessels they supplied or serviced, loosened restrictions on ship-construction assistance, liberalized the mortgage guarantee program to promote investment in shipbuilding, made cruise and mail business more accessible to U.S. flag passenger vessels, and raised load limits for ships on international voyages; and thirteen additional minor measures.

33 Lawrence, Samuel A., United States Merchant Shipping Policies and Politics (Washington: Brookings, 1966), pp. 295–96Google Scholar.

34 The House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, for example, sought in 1971 (H.R. 155) to ensure flexible operating conditions for U.S. barge-carrying ships sailing between foreign ports by modifying a restrictive U.S. statute which invited foreign retaliation. House Committee Chairman Garmatz presented the bill as “strongly supported by all shipping management, labor, and the Government agencies” (Congressional Record [bound], 05 3, 1971, p. 12998Google Scholar), but protests from Sealand and other container-ship operators, which in certain situations competed with the barge carriers, threatened the bill and led to Senate amendments restricting its applicability. This sort of conflict, a former Senate Commerce aide recalls, is quite common:

It was really a ‘nothing’ bill, but it ended up taking lots of time because Sealand didn't like it. Some senators began to choose sides…. My main job was to keep bills [like this] from exploding in the laps of members, to keep Magnuson out of intra-industry conflict…. [Even when a bill was passed] we would always avoid these conflicts–pass them along to the administering agency, though they should have been decided as a matter of policy…. I can show you language in a dozen reports where we avoided coming down on one side or the other.

For another example, this time involving labor-management conflicts, see the account of the delay of a bill permitting the sale of five laid-up passenger vessels: Price, et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 282–84Google Scholar.

35 For a somewhat veiled discussion of the accommodations reached on these questions see Committee on Commerce, U.S. Senate, 91st Congress, Report to accompany H.R. 15424, August 10, 1970, pp. 19, 30–31, 55–59.

36 Ibid., pp. 34, 63; and Senate Committee on Commerce, Subcommittee on Merchant Marine, Hearings on S. 3287, 91st Congress, March 2, 1970, p. 126.

37 See Lawrence, , U.S. Merchant Shipping, p. 307Google Scholar.

38 Lawrence, , U.S. Merchant Shipping, p. 315Google Scholar.

39 On the factors making for the defeat of recent cargo-preference proposals, see Price, et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 284–87Google Scholar; Cohen, Richard, “Cargo Preference Faces Rough Waters in Congress,” National Journal, September 24, 1977, pp. 1494–96Google Scholar; and CQ Weekly Report, 10 22, 1977, pp. 2223 ffGoogle Scholar.

40 See Joseph Albright's three-part coverage in Newsday, July 20–22, 1970.

41 Wenk, Edward Jr., The Politics of the Ocean (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), pp. 308–11Google Scholar.

42 Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 67–68Google Scholar.

43 The ten remaining measures included four implementing international fisheries conventions, one authorizing the president to ban the importation of fish products from nations violating international conservation programs (aimed mainly at Danish salmon operations), one defining lobster as a protected continental shelf resource, a bill authorizing a U.S. contribution (and hence continued claim to the resource under treaty) for the restoration of salmon stocks in British Columbia, and three additional minor measures.

44 See the list of objectives developed in 1969 by the National Council on Marine Resources and Engineering Development: Wenk, , Politics of the Ocean, p. 310Google Scholar.

45 See Price, , et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 33, 69–72, 280Google Scholar.

46 The remaining public laws included five bills extending and amending earlier consumer-protection measures (flammable fabrics, traffic safety, and fire research and safety) and four additional minor bills.

47 See Nadel, Mark V., The Politics of Consumer Protection (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971), pp. 46–59Google Scholar; Gardner, Judy, “Spread of Departmental Consumer Offices Fails to Abate Pressure for Separate Agency,” National Journal Reports, 11 3, 1973, pp. 1627–35Google Scholar; and Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 26–31, 96–99Google Scholar.

48 Nadel, , Politics of Consumer Protection, p. 81Google Scholar; cf. Turner, Judith A., “FDA Pursues Historic Role amid Public, Industry Pressures,” National Journal, 02 15, 1975, pp. 250–59Google Scholar. For an assessment of FDA, FTC, and CPSC operations (and those of the FCC, ICC and EPA as well), see “Federal Regulation and Regulatory Reform,” Report of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 94th Congress, October, 1976.

49 See the exchange between NCPSC Chairman Elkind and Senator Moss, Hearings on S. 983 and other bills, Committee on Commerce, U.S. Senate, 92nd Congress, July 19, 1971, p. 143.

50 Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1964), pp. 510–15Google Scholar. More apropos is E. E. Schattschneider's discussion of broadening the “scope of conflict” as a political tactic: The Semi-Soveign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960), Ch. 1 and passimGoogle Scholar.

51 This interpretation bears out Nadel's treatment of the press and consumer advocates as information brokers, facilitating the transfer of consumer politics to a wider public arena. But this is not primarily accomplished by lowering the information and organizational costs that inhibit collective action on a broad front; those costs remain formidable, and the “potential group” largely unorganized. What happens, rather, is that consumer affairs comes to be perceived as politically relevant by legislators; citizens with low incentives to consumer activism may nonetheless deem such issues relevant to their vote. See Nadel, Politics of Consumer Protection, Chs. 5, 7; Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 35–36, 59–60Google Scholar.

52 On the rise of the public salience of environmental policy see Downs, Anthony, “Up and Down with Ecology–the ‘Issue-Attention Cycle’,” The Public Interest, Summer, 1972, pp. 38–50Google Scholar; and Jones, Charles O., Clean Air: The Policies and Politics of Pollution Control (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975), Ch. 5Google Scholar.

While the ORC data does not permit a precise comparison of the salience of environmental and consumer affairs, Figure 1 indicates that levels of public support for federal activity in the latter area are remarkably high and stable. Environmental affairs has been subject to more variation, sharper increases and decreases in salience. While consumer matters have never made the lists in the Gallup Poll's open-ended “most important problem” surveys, pollution and ecology hovered in the 5 percent range in 1971–1973. Energy has received a similar share of mentions since 1973, but with a temporary jump to 46 percent in early 1974. See The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935–1971 (New York: Random House, 1972) and relevant numbers of the Gallup Opinion IndexGoogle Scholar.

53 See the National Journal Reports pieces of December 22, 1973, pp. 1911–15Google Scholar; March 23, 1974, pp. 431–38; April 13, 1974, pp. 533–43; and Match 6, 1976, pp. 306–09.

54 The ORC questions, not precisely comparable, tapped the extent to which respondents favored new federal laws to protect the health and safety of consumers, were inclined to view air pollution as a “serious” problem, and believed the energy shortage would last “a long time.”

55 Jones, , Clean Air, pp. 175–91Google Scholar.

56 See the discussion in Price, , et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 270–78Google Scholar.

57 Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 61–75Google Scholar; Wenk, Politics of the Ocean, Ch. 2.

58 Wenk, p. 149.

59 Wenk, p. 365.

60 On these initiatives and the 1972 struggle to establish a coastal zone program, see Price, , et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 288–300Google Scholar.

61 The two remaining bills were an administration measure authorizing the development of deepwater ports and a renewal of the National Sea Grant College and Program Act; Commerce shared jurisdiction with the Interior and Public Works committees on the first, and with Labor and Public Welfare on the second.

62 Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 216–27Google Scholar.

63 Iglehart, J. K., “Maldistribution of Physicians is Focal Point of Manpower Debate,” National Journal Reports, 06 8, 1974, pp. 837–46Google Scholar; September 7, 1974, pp. 1357–58.

64 See Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 216–21Google Scholar; and Strickland, Stephen P., Politics, Science and Dread Disease (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), Chs. 5–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 See Rettig, Richard A., Cancer Crusade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Strickland, Politics, Science and Dread Disease, Chs. 9–10, 12; Price, et al., Commerce Committees, Ch. 6; Schmeck, Harold, “Cutbacks and Low Morale Trouble NIH,” New York Times, 02 22, 1974, p. 36Google Scholar.

66 Such intergovernmental conflicts gave House health bills a relatively high mortality rate: five successfully vetoed in 1969–1974, three deadlocked in conference, four never acted on in the Senate.

67 The 59 health bills included, in addition, a diluted HMO measure (see below), a bill altering federal assistance programs for mental retardation (which died in conference), and six relatively minor food and drug and public health amendments.

68 The HMO bill fell victim to House committee delays and to the opposition of the administration and organized medicine in the 92nd Congress. In 1973 the House passed a bill that was of pilot-project dimensions compared with the Senate version. See Price, et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 261–69Google Scholar. Legislation authorizing FDA to regulate medical devices, pending in Congress for more than a decade, was enacted in 1976.

69 See Lasswell, Harold D. and Kaplan, Abraham, Power and Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), p. 73Google Scholar.

70 It may also be true that under certain conditions conflict helps produce public salience. “The logic of audience maintenance,” writes Edward Jay Epstein in a study of television news, assumes “that scenes of potential conflict are more interesting to the audiences than scenes of placidity. Virtually all executives and producers share this view,” News from Nowhere (New York: Vintage, 1974), p. 262Google Scholar. Certainly legislators often try to heighten apparent conflict as a means of calling attention to their efforts; recall Ribicoff's and Hartke's handling of the auto manufacturers during the 1966 hearings on traffic safety (Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 50, 54–56Google Scholar). But conflict per se is surely no guarantee of salience, and even in high-salience areas, most legislators, most of the time, have high incentives—in light of both electoral and institutional-maintenance considerations—to avoid or to mute conflict.

71 See John Gardner's testimony before the Select Committee on Committees, U.S. House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, Hearings on Committee Organization in the House, October 4, 1973, p. 242; Lowi, Theodore J., The End of Liberalism (New York: Norton, 1969), pp. 111–12Google Scholar; Griffith, Ernest S., Congress: Its Contemporary Role, 3rd ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1961), pp. 50–51, 158–59Google Scholar; and Cater, Douglass, Power in Washington (New York: Vintage, 1964), pp. 16–22Google Scholar.

72 See Nadel, , Politics of Consumer Protection, p. 152Google Scholar. Charles Jones' examination of Congress' handling of environmental policy leads him to hypothesize that perceptions of public and media salience make non-incremental policy decisions, the overriding of group opposition and agency reluctance, and “leaps” beyond approaches of proven feasibility more likely. Clean Air, Ch. 7.

73 Brian Barry's conceptual distinctions between private and public interests will suffice for our purposes here. Political Argument (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 190 and passimGoogle Scholar.

74 The term is used by David Mayhew to point up the relatively superficial character of the policy ventures which the desire for electoral visibility encourages. Congress, pp. 61–73, 110–25. But Mayhew may underestimate the incentives to “follow through” that stem from the quest of the legislator (particularly if he or she holds a position of committee or subcommittee leadership) for a “professional reputation” within the chamber and in the Washington community.

75 For a summary of the evidence that the electorate has become “more informed and activist” since the fifties, see Boyd, Richard W., “Electoral Trends in Postwar Politics,” in Choosing the President, ed. Barber, James David (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1974), Ch. 7Google Scholar.

76 Mayhew, , Congress, pp. 49–77Google Scholar.

77 “Onto the old Magnuson, interested mainly in fishing, shipping, and Boeing aircraft, and running a rather sleepy committee, was grafted a new one: the champion of the consumer, the national legislative leader, and the patron of an energetic and innovative legislative staff.” Price, et al., Commerce Committees, p. 15Google Scholar.

78 For fuller accounts, see the expanded version of the present article forthcoming in the Institute of Government Research Publication Series (Tucson: University of Arizona Press); and Price, , et al., Commerce Committees, pp. 65–75Google Scholar.

79 See Salamon, Lester B. and Wamsley, Gary L., “The Federal Bureaucracy: Responsive to Whom?” in People vs. Government: The Responsiveness of American Institutions, ed. Rieselbach, Leroy N. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), pp. 151–88Google Scholar.

80 See Lowi, , “American Business,” pp. 692–715Google Scholar; and Price, , Who Makes the Laws? pp. 322–29Google Scholar.

81 Compare Manley's, John discussion of “compensatory representation” on the revenue committees, Politics of Finance, pp. 354–68Google Scholar.

82 See Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 20–22, 26–31, 96–99, 189–94, 280–84, 327–29Google Scholar.

83 For a summary see Price, et al., Commerce Committees, Ch. 1.

84 On this point compare Fenno, Congressmen in Committees, Ch. 1; Mayhew, , Congress, pp. 2–6Google Scholar; and Price, , Who Makes the Laws?, pp. 306–11Google Scholar.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.