Woodrow Wilson's Congressional Government and the Modern Congress: The "Universal Principle" of Change

In Congressional Government Woodrow Wilson analyzes change in Congress during its first century of development. This essay argues that Wilson's analysis of the 19th century Congress, which explains congressional behavior as an outgrowth of both institutional and societal forces, provides a more useful interpretation of change than the institutionalist perspective dominant in the specialized studies of the modern Congress. The essay illustrates the value of Wilson's analysis to contemporary scholars by tracing its impact on the evolution of the author's interpretation of the congressional reforms and changes of the 1970s. The essay attributes the continuing value of Congressional Government to its broad and unified portrait of Congress as a whole.     

Acting on the Hill: Congressional Assertiveness in U.S. Foreign Policy

A controversy has developed in recent years pitting those who see a resurgent Congress in U.S. foreign policy against those who argue that Congress remains largely acquiescent and uninvolved. This article addresses the disagreement, using a database of congressional foreign policy activity from 1946 to 1997 to weigh the competing claims. Our results show that congressional foreign policy activity has declined over the post-World War II era while congressional foreign policy assertiveness, relative to the administration's requests, has increased during this same period. Congress is thus less active but more assertive. Based on these results, we offer a two-dimensional model of congressional foreign policy behavior that better reflects the variety of congressional roles in U.S. foreign policy.     

Neutral Bystander,Intrusive Micromanager,or Useful Catalyst?

An analysis of Forest Service-related legislative activity found that increasingly Congress is becoming involved in agency activities and decisionmaking. Congress's growing scrutiny and management of the Forest Service is indicated by rising trends in requests for agency testimony at congressional hearings, in the number of Forest Service-related bills and amendments introduced in Congress, and in the amount of Forest Service-related legislation enacted. Anecdotal evidence of direct political pressure imposed upon agency personnel by congressional members also indicates that much congressional influence occurs outside of these legislative activities. An examination of activities such as these and directives attached to annual appropriation bills also shows that not all congressional actions are productive in fostering positive agency change. The results of this study indicate the likelihood that Congress has been playing a major role in instigating change within the agency.     

Alvis,J. David,Jeremy D. Bailey,and F. Flagg Taylor,IV. The Contested Removal Power, 1789–2010.

Abstract

In this article, we use legislative correspondence to determine who gains access to key staffers in a congressional office. To evaluate our theory of the office power hierarchy, we test hypotheses using an original dataset of more than 3,000 correspondence records from the office of former member of Congress James R. Jones. Our empirical analysis is supplemented by an e-mail interview with Representative Jones. We find that key senior staffers are more likely to pay attention to powerful individuals and nonroutine matters. Letters from women and families and those dealing with routine legislation are more likely to be answered by lower-ranked staffers. These results are important because they reveal that even something as simple as constituent correspondence enters a type of power hierarchy within the legislative branch where some individuals are advantaged over others.     

When Will New Programs be Mandatory? Determinants of the Decision Between the Mandatory and Discretionary Budget Designs

When creating a new program, an authorizing committee must choose a budget structure, either using mandatory funding or creating an authorization for appropriations to enable the appropriation committees to use discretionary funding. One hypothesis we examine is based on the strategic interplay by congressional committees seeking to control their policy domains. Based on expected purposes of a nascent program, an authorization committee must calculate, whether, if a program is designed as requiring appropriations for spending, will the appropriators provide the funds? Or if instead, a program is funded through mandatory spending, will those funds be blocked by appropriators? For example, when a new program is likely to offer credit claiming opportunities to Congress, such as through legislative earmarks, the authorization committees are less likely design a program to rely on mandatory funding. An alternative hypothesis is that where there is greater expected difficulty in predicting likely program needs—e.g., predicting the annual spending needs for unemployment insurance—a mandatory structure would be expected. We find that the hypothesis associated with the committees' pursuit of autonomy is supported, whereas the rational design hypothesis associated with reduced transaction costs is not supported.     

Public Presidential Appeals and Congressional Floor Votes: Reassessing the Constitutional Threat

The assertion that public appeals by presidents can create electoral threats to noncompliant members of Congress is central to arguments about the value of "going public" as a legislative strategy. Although recent scholarship suggests a link between popular presidential rhetoric and the likelihood of bill passage, researchers have yet to examine the impact of public presidential appeals on individual legislators. This study examines the logic of electoral threats imposed by going public. We test whether a president's going public with increased intensity leads individual members of Congress to increase their support for presidential preferences on congressional floor votes. We employ several measures to assess the intensity of presidents' public appeals, including domestic speeches, nationally televised addresses, and speeches in legislators' home states. Several logistic regression models are tested to determine whether congressional support for presidential preferences on the floor is influenced by the interaction between members' electoral vulnerability and presidents' use of popular appeals. The findings suggest that presidential speechmaking has very little impact on the likelihood that members of Congress will support the president's position on roll call votes. We argue that this suggests a necessary revision of criticisms of the "rhetorical presidency." Public presidential appeals do not seem to present a considerable threat to a constitutional order that is predicated on congressional autonomy and deliberation.     

Before the Honeymoon Ends: Presidential Leadership and Congressional Response

Academicians and journalists inevitably pass judgment on the progress of a president's major "honeymoon period" initiatives. Obviously, the success of those initiatives will depend on how Congress responds to new presidents. Data on aggregate congressional response to the "honeymoon" initiatives of the Carter and Reagan presidencies are presented in order to explore how members of Congress react as they evaluate and interact with a new president. Evidence suggests that, despite the conventional wisdom regarding Carter's limited political ability and inflexible nature, members of Congress were more inclined to emphasize organizational deficiencies. Conversely, while Reagan was perceived to be almost as inflexible as Carter, he received superlative marks for organizational efficiency and for providing access to Congress. The analysis then considers the importance of organization to future presidential effectiveness, and the importance of organizational concerns with respect to personal characteristics for overall presidential success.     

District Voter Turnout and Dyadic Representation in Congress

One of the most important tools by which citizens can influence their elected officials' behavior is through voting—the electoral connection. Previous studies demonstrate that the opinions of voters are better represented than the opinions of nonvoters within an electoral jurisdiction, but we do not know whether jurisdictions with higher levels of aggregate voter turnout are better represented by their elected officials compared to those with lower levels of turnout. Using data compiled across five congressional sessions (2003–2013), this article investigates whether congressional districts with higher voter turnout are better represented by their member of Congress (MC). We find evidence that district voter turnout positively conditions the relationship between district opinion and MC voting behavior even after accounting for the possible effects of electoral competition and district income and racial demographics. In addition, we uncover evidence that partisan differences exist in this conditioning effect such that higher voter turnout enhances roll call voting responsiveness among Democratic MCs but not among Republican MCs. These findings suggest that congressional districts as a whole benefit from a political responsiveness standpoint when more of their constituents turn out to vote and contribute to literatures on political representation, political participation, democratic accountability, and the U.S. Congress.     

Eisenhower's Veto Threats: Full of Nothing,Signifying Sound and Fury

The veto is one of the few formal powers accorded to the president of the United States, yet it plays a central role in many theories of the executive branch and in theories of congressional action as well. To be more precise, the threat of a future veto is generally held to be the important component. However, there have been few empirical or theoretical studies of veto threats. This article presents new systematic data on the veto “threats” of President Dwight Eisenhower. These data are analyzed to test novel theories regarding the relation of future veto threats to the outcomes of past veto threats. Specifically, this theory extends concepts of credibility of threat to include information that is specific to both the president in question and that president's then-current history of congressional interactions. Support is found for the theory that a president who “cries wolf” and fails to carry out threats will find Congress less responsive to future threats, unless and until the president's credibility is reestablished.     

What Carl Schmitt Picked Up in Weber's Seminar: A Historical Controversy Revisited

The intellectual relationship between Carl Schmitt and Max Weber has been a point of controversy for at least half a century. At the 1964 convention of the German Sociological Association, in honor of Weber's centenary, Schmitt was famously referred to as Weber's “legitimate student.” This article uses the chapter Schmitt specifically wrote for an edited volume in Weber's memory, published in 1923, as the starting point for juxtaposing the two scholars, and then expands the analysis to encompass a range of sources and commentaries. The comparison focuses on the approach of each of the two scholars to methodology and didactics, theory and conceptual use, as well as to the society/social science nexus. The article concludes by arguing that Schmitt performed a double rhetorical move: while styling himself as Weber's student, he then drew on that authority to assault Weber's liberalism and concept of scientific integrity.     

President Clinton and the Republican Congress, 1995-2000: Political and Policy Dimensions of Veto Politics in Divided Government

This article melds alternative theoretical perspectives on veto threats to explain President Clinton's influence over legislative outcomes in the 104th-106th Congresses (1995-2000). Formal models of executive-legislative relations–in particular the "coordination model"–yield an incomplete understanding of veto politics and executivelegislative conflict from 1995-2000. Explaining Clinton's success through veto politics requires a recognition of the unique context of legislative conflict from 1995-96. Presidential- congressional relations in the 104th Congress turned on "blame-game" politics that Clinton manipulated to his advantage. Clinton's second term heralded a return to "normal politics" during which the Republican majority's response to his veto threats coincided better with the basic tenets of the coordination model. Quantitative analysis of Clinton's public threats and secondary analysis of bill histories are brought to bear to test the theoretical framework.     

Differing approaches to congressional outreach: comparing Australia and New Zealand

Both Australia and New Zealand, in addition to engaging with the US executive branch, also protect and advance their bilateral relationship by engaging with the US Congress. Since 1987, Australia has pursued congressional outreach, or diplomatic lobbying, to protect and advance its security and trade interests. As a result, Australia has won both security and trade benefits. New Zealand's congressional outreach, on the other hand, has had a more challenging task of improving bilateral relations due, in part, to US objections to New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy. This article extends existing research on Australian and New Zealand congressional outreach, develops a framework for examining embassy-based congressional outreach and, through comparative analysis of Australian and New Zealand congressional outreach, gives greater insight into the nature and character of their efforts on Capitol Hill.     

A Transformed Triangle: Court, Congress, and Presidency in Civil Rights

The relative permeability of the three elements of a triangle-the Supreme Court, Congress, and the president-to civil rights interest groups has varied over time. For almost two decades after World War II, the Supreme Court was the groups' preferred arena because Congress was resistant and presidents could thus do little or were hesitant to act. For a brief time in the mid-1960s the president and Congress became supportive of civil rights groups' claims while the Court also remained accessible. Starting in the late 1960s executive and legislative support for civil rights moderated, with presidential support declining significantly in the 1980s. When the Supreme Court adopted that latter stance, Congress became the body through which to protect civil rights by reversing the Court's decisions. In this examination of the "transformed triangle" in civil rights policymaking, we look at this change over time and at "flip-flops" in litigation as one administration changes the position espoused by its predecessor, and we also give some attention to the Supreme Court's response to congressional reversal of its rulings.     

Presidential Impeachment and Institutional Dynamics in the Iran-Contra Affair and the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal

This paper analyzes institutional dynamics affecting Congress's impeachment decisions regarding the Iran-Contra Affair and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. While other scholars have explained the Clinton impeachment by pointing to differences in the nature of the scandals–a decoupling of public opinion from legislative action, increasing partisanship, and a new media regime–these explanations overlook the nature of impeachment as an institutional confrontation, governed by institutional choices and dynamics. Taking an institutional approach, we argue that congressional decisions were strongly affected by the institutional arrangements adopted by Congress to handle the scandals' investigations. In brief, the earlier strategic approaches of party leaders and the congressional investigatory approach restrained inclinations to impeach President Reagan, while later ones promoted President Clinton's impeachment. More broadly, this analysis demonstrates the important interaction between institutional choices and party leaders' powers and strategies in affecting congressional action.     

A Tale of Three Variables: Exploring the Impact of Alternative Measures of Presidential Approval On Congressional Voting

This study explores the impact of three distinct measures of public approval on congressional voting. Specifically, we test for the relative impact of a president's national approval, his partisan approval, and his district- (or state-) level approval on congressional support, measured at the level of individual members of Congress. Though we remain consistent with other arguments that hold presidential approval is likely to act as a background variable rather than a determinant of congressional voting, we maintain that theoretically more meaningful relationships between public opinion and congressional voting can be developed. Specifically, we argue that a more relevant test can be made which includes opinion measured closest to where that opinion is likely to matter to members, namely among electoral copartisans and district-level constituencies. We estimate various models (bivariate and integrated multivariate), and find strong support for our hypotheses that, to the extent members of Congress use public approval as a voting cue, they do in fact pay far more attention to partisan and constituency interests than they do to national opinion.     

Leaving on a Jet Plane: Polarization,Foreign Travel,and Comity in Congress

No political observer, politician, or political scientist doubts that party polarization has weakened the social fabric of Congress. Measuring that effect, however, is exceedingly difficult. In this article, we operationalize the congressional social fabric by examining the foreign travel behavior of members of Congress over time. We evaluate the social disintegration in Congress by examining if and whether changes in member travel can explain why the social connectedness of members has waned. Using a unique dataset of foreign travel for House members from 1977 to 2012, we find that Republican House members, in particular, have altered their foreign travel patterns. Ideologically extreme members have always been less likely to take foreign trips, but extremely conservative Republican have become much more likely to travel only with co-partisans as polarization has increased in Congress. Ideologically moderate Republicans, while still traveling as members of bipartisan delegations, have also increased their willingness to travel only with fellow Republicans. Our results suggest that bipartisan foreign travel is a victim of the partisan war waging in Congress.     

THE ALLURE OF DARK TIMES: MAX WEBER,POLITICS, AND THE CRISIS OF HISTORICISM

This article argues that realist invocations of Weber rely on an unrealistic reading of Weber's realism. In order to escape the allure of Weber's dramatic posture of crisis, we place his seminal lecture on “Politics as a Vocation” (1919) in its historical and philosophical context of a revolutionary conjuncture of dramatic proportions, compounded by a broader crisis of historicism. Weber's rhetoric, we argue, carries with it not only the emotion of crisis but is also the expression of a deeper intellectual impasse. The fatalistic despair of his position had already been detected by some of his closest contemporaries for whom Weber did not appear as a door‐opener to a historically situated theory of political action but as a telling and intriguing impasse. Although the disastrous history of interwar Europe seems to confirm Weber's bleakest predictions, it would be perverse to elevate contingent failure to the level of retrospective vindication.     

Max Weber on Causal Analysis,Interpretation, and Comparison

Max Weber's methodological writings offered a model of singular causal analysis that anticipated key elements of contemporary Anglo‐American philosophy of the social and cultural sciences. The model accurately portrayed crucial steps and dimensions of causal reasoning in these disciplines, outlining a dynamic and probabilistic conception of historical processes, counterfactual reasoning, and comparison as a substitute for counterfactual argument. Above all, Weber recognized the interpretation of human actions as a subcategory of causal analysis, in which the agents‘ visions of desired outcomes, together with their beliefs about how to bring them about, cause them to act as they do.     

Patterns of Change in the Congressional Budget Process, 1865-1974

This paper examines five periods of congressional budget reform, from 1865 to 1974, and asks two sets of related questions: (1) What are the external and internal factors that seem to precipitate reform? and (2) Are there systematic differences in the ways Congress responds to internal and external pressures for change? If so, in the process of formulating successful (i.e. adopted) reforms, how are the responses to external stresses balanced against those designed to deal with internal questions? The research indicates that economic difficulties engendered by war and major changes in presidential-congressional relations with respect to fiscal policymaking are the crucial external variables. Internally, major shifts in the power relations of those involved in congressional spending decisions appear to facilitate budget reform. In responding to external pressures on its budget process, Congress tends to centralize its budget procedures. In response to internal pressures, Congress tends to decentralize those procedures.     

Owning Valence Issues: The Impact of a “Culture of Corruption” on the 2006 Midterm Elections

The 109th Congress commenced with a huge ethical cloud hanging over the Capitol. In January 2005, prominent Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff admitted conspiring to defraud Native American tribes and corrupt public officials. As a result, the Democratic Party chose to adopt corruption as a central theme of their 2006 congressional campaign. They argued that the scandal resulted from a “culture of corruption” fostered by Republicans, who controlled Congress. Although past research shows that voters do punish at the polls congressional incumbents under criminal investigation, little is known about whether the mere appearance of wrongdoing can be assigned to an entire party and cost its candidates votes. Utilizing data from a variety of sources, we find that systemic efforts by House Democratic leaders to frame Republicans as “owning” the scandal—whether individual members actually received Abramoff funds or not—were largely successful in the polls and at the ballot box. These findings suggest that scholarly views of the influence of corruption may have been overly restrictive and that voters are willing, at least in this case, to punish public officials who “appear” to be corrupt.