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Legislative Reform and the Decline of Presidential Influence on Capitol Hill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Eric L. Davis
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Extract

Observers of the American political scene might at times wonder why the 95th Congress, with nearly two-to-one Democratic majorities in both houses, did not take positive action on many of President Carter's important legislative proposals in 1977 and 1978. After all, it was argued when Carter was inaugurated at the beginning of 1977, the return of common party control to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue would bring to an end the legislative-executive confrontations of the Nixon-Ford years. Thus, was not the unwillingness of Congress to approve his major programs an indication that Carter was inept, or even perhaps incompetent, as a legislative leader? If Lyndon Johnson could obtain swift approval of an extensive legislative agenda from the 89th Congress (1965–66), which in partisan composition was quite similar to the 95th Congress, why could Jimmy Carter not achieve comparable results?

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 1979 , pp. 465 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 The 89th House was made up of 295 Democrats and 140 Republicans; in the 95th House there were 292 Democrats and 143 Republicans. The 89th Senate was composed of sixty-eight Democrats and thirty-two Republicans, which compares with sixty-two Democrats and thirty-eight Republicans for the 95th Senate.

2 That this paper is written from a congressional perspective is not meant to diminish the importance of a president's own capabilities as a legislative leader. Indeed, many of Carter's problems on Capitol Hill in the 95th Congress can be traced to his and his staff's lack of understanding of the coalitional nature of congressional politics, to the lack of Washington experience of his legislative liaison staff, and to the inability of the White House lobbying team to take advantage of the help that could be provided them by department lobbyists and interest groups. (For more on these points, see Davis, Eric L., ‘Legislative Liaison in the Carter Administration’, Political Science Quarterly, forthcoming.)Google Scholar Still, however, these problems are unique to the Carter White House. The phenomena described in this paper represent more general trends in legislative-executive relations which will affect the performance of all contemporary presidents.

3 See, for example, Dodd, Lawrence C. and Oppenheimer, Bruce I., eds., Congress Reconsidered (New York: Praeger, 1977)Google Scholar; Ornstein, Norman J., ed., Congress in Change: Evolution and Reform (New York: Praeger, 1975)Google Scholar; and Rieselbach, Leroy N., Congressional Reform in the Seventies (Morristown, N. J.: General Learning Press, 1977).Google Scholar

4 In these four elections, turnover in the Senate was due equally to challengers defeating incumbents (30) and new Senators taking over open seats vacated by the voluntary retirement of incumbents (31). In the House, there was much more voluntary retirement (189) than defeat of incumbents (114).

5 Some of these recently elected members have been defeated in a bid for another term. Still, when the 96th Congress convened in January 1979, 264 of the 303 recently elected House members, and fifty-five of the sixty-one recently elected Senators, were on hand in Washington.

6 These changes of rules were designed primarily to reduce the disparities in influence among members of the House. Since these disparities were substantially less in the Senate than in the ‘pre-reform’ House, such changes were much less necessary in the Senate; thus our focus on the House here. See Polsby, Nelson W., ‘Goodbye to the Inner Club’, in Polsby, , ed., Congressional behavior (New York: Random House, 1971), pp. 105–10.Google Scholar

7 There is now an extensive literature on these points. See, for example, Mayhew, David, ‘Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals’, Polity, VI (1974), 295–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Erikson, Robert S., ‘The Advantage of Incumbency in Congressional Elections’, Polity, III (1971), 395–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kostroski, Warren Lee, ‘Party and Incumbency in Postwar Senate Elections’, American Political Science Review, LXVII (1973), 1213–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferejohn, John A., ‘On the Decline of Competition in Congressional Elections’, American Political Science Review, LXXI (1977), 166–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fiorina, Morris P., ‘The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It’, American Political Science Review, LXXI (1977), 177–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cover, Albert D., ‘The Advantage of Incumbency in Congressional Elections’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1976).Google Scholar

8 It should be noted that although these two developments have occurred simultaneously, it is not logically necessary that they occur together.

9 For a description and an analysis of the ‘unreformed’ Ways and Means Committee, see Manley, John F., The Politics of Finance: The House Committee on Ways and Means (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1970).Google Scholar

10 For a good case study of Mills at work, see Marmor, Theodore R., The Politics of Medicare (Chicago: Aldine, 1973).Google Scholar

11 The nominations of W. R. Poage (D.-Tex.) to chair Agriculture, F. Edward Hebert (D.-La.) to chair Armed Services, and Wright Patman (D.-Tex.) to chair Banking and Currency were all rejected by the Democratic caucus in 1975.

12 At the same time, the White House must devote more attention to the Speaker and other party leaders, who have gained some power as the committee chairmen have lost some of theirs. However, the effects of the decline of parties and the concomitant rise of interest groups do not make the party leaders especially important givers of cues to the rank-and-file members. In addition, it could be argued that the proliferation of subcommittees has increased the number of ‘subgovernments’ (the well-known ‘triple alliances’ of Congress, bureaucracy, and interest groups) arraying themselves in opposition to the president's programs.

13 Personal interview.

14 In the House elections from 1956 to 1964 the percentage of incumbents winning at least 60 per cent of the major party vote averaged 61 per cent. In the elections from 1966 to 1974 the comparable figure averaged 72 per cent. See Cover, Albert D. and Mayhew, David R., ‘Congressional Dynamics and the Decline of Competitive Congressional Elections’Google Scholar, in Dodd, and Oppenheimer, , Congress Reconsidered, 54–72, p. 55.Google Scholar

15 In the 1976 and 1978 congressional elections, Senate incumbents were much more vulnerable than House incumbents to electoral defeat. Of those seeking another term in the general election, 97 per cent (1976) and 95 per cent (1978) of the House members, as opposed to 64 per cent (1976) and 68 per cent (1978) of the Senators, were winners. While two elections do not point to firm conclusions, one should be somewhat wary of attributing the same advantages of incumbency to Senators as to House members.

16 See Mayhew, David R., Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; and Fiorina, Morris P., Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

17 The 1978 CBS News/New York Times Election Day survey found that 53 per cent of respondents believed it more important for a congressman to ‘help people in his district who have a problem with the government’, compared to 47 per cent who said a congressman should ‘work in Congress on bills of national interest’ (Public Opinion, 1 (1978), p. 22Google Scholar). On the different representational styles adopted by House members, see Fenno, Richard F. Jr., Home Style: House Members in Their Districts (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1978).Google Scholar

18 This form of appeal is typical of the tactics of presidential persuasion described in Neustadt, Richard E., Presidential Power (New York: Wiley, 1960).Google Scholar

19 For background on the conservative coalition, see Manley, John F., ‘The Conservative Coalition in Congress’, American Behavioral Scientist, XVII (1973), 223–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 16 12 1978, p. 3442.Google Scholar

21 Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 16 12 1978, p. 3442, and 7 01 1978, p. 3.Google Scholar

22 It also should be noted that seven out of the twenty House Democrats who ran behind Carter represent districts in Georgia or states immediately adjoining Georgia.

23 Carter's Gallup approval rating drifted steadily downward from 67 per cent in July 1977 to 39 per cent in July 1978. After the Camp David summit, the President's approval rating shot up to 56 per cent in September 1978, and then declined to 50 per cent in October 1978 (‘Carter Still Low in New Gallup Poll’, San Francisco Chronicle, 21 08 1978, p. 1Google Scholar; and ‘Carter Retains Most of Popularity’, San Francisco Chronicle, 21 11 1978, p. 12).Google Scholar

24 These members were quoted in ‘The Dwindling Band of Liberals’, Wall Street Journal, 15 01 1979, p. 20.Google Scholar

25 A House member supported the ADA's position by, for example, voting to halt the importation of Rhodesian chrome, to transfer budget authority from defence to domestic programs, not to reduce the current automobile emissions standards, to allow federal funding of abortions for low-income women, and not to deregulate the price of natural gas. COPE's position would have been supported when a member voted to permit common-site picketing at construction sites, not to reduce appropriations for health, education, and old-age programs, not to eliminate food stamp benefits for strikers, not to deregulate the price of natural gas, not to allow a ‘subminimum’ wage for teenagers, and to aid union organizing and bargaining, among other issues. See Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 15 04 1978, pp. 923–9.Google Scholar

28 The Chamber of Commerce took stands against a $50 per person tax rebate in 1978, against common-site picketing, for the deregulation of natural gas prices, for a ‘subminimum’ wage for teenagers, and against widespread use of class action suits in anti-trust cases, among other issues. ACA's positions included opposition to public works programs to stimulate the economy, support for a greater defence budget, support for budget cuts in the health, education, and old age programs, and support for the deregulation of natural gas prices.

27 Fenno, Richard F. Jr., Congressmen in Committees (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1973), Chap. 1.Google Scholar