Taking its name from the Latin for “coming together,” Congress is the place where elected officials from all parts of the US converge to govern.
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” James Madison reasoned, anticipating that each branch would guard its own prerogatives jealously, preventing an undue concentration of power.
After each census, every 10 years, the House is reapportioned to reflect changes in population. Beginning with 65 members, it grew steadily until it reached 435 after the 1910 census. The House chamber became so crowded that the members’ desks had to be replaced with theater seating. Concerned that anything larger would make the legislative process unwieldy, Congress capped House membership at 435. After every census, some states would then gain seats and others lose them.
Each house of Congress can write its own rules, and the 2 bodies have evolved differently to accommodate their dissimilar representation. Since the late 19th century, the larger House has adopted rules that allowed the majority party to prevail, so long as its members hold together when they vote. The Senate’s rules gave greater voice to the minority. The House grew hierarchical, while the Senate became a body of equals. Despite their vast differences, however, no bill can become law until both houses pass it with exactly the same wording, down to the last semicolon.
Some of the ideas discarded at the constitutional convention might have created a legislative branch closer to a parliament, where the PM and cabinet secretaries are members of the legislature. Congress might have elected presidents and might have been able to remove them for “maladministration,” provisions that could have turned the presidency into something closer to a PM, with tenure dependent on retaining the majority in Congress. There were even suggestions that senators serve for life, at no pay, making the Senate a House of Lords, with the House of Representatives as the House of Commons.
For more than a century, colonial legislatures had generally been divided between an upper house, or governor’s council, and a popular elected assembly. During the American Revolution, some of the states abolished their upper houses, regarding single-body legislatures as more egalitarian. Property holders, however, worried that unchecked democratic legislatures would turn confiscatory, and that way of thinking added extra layers to the Constitution.
He argued that the questions and guffaws that PMs and cabinet officers faced in the British House of Commons could not be compared, “as a form of executive torture, to an all-day inquisition by a standing committee of Congress.” Without the support of a parliamentary majority, the PM’s government falls, but congressional majorities can ignore the president’s legislative proposals, reject his budget, refuse to confirm his nominees, and decline to approve treaties his administration has negotiated.
Party discipline in Congress ebbs and flows over time, and varies between the House and Senate, but in general it is rarely as strong as in a parliamentary system. Senators and representatives hold themselves accountable first and foremost to their constituents.
Other democracies overwhelmingly prefer a parliamentary system. The US Congress, by contrast, is slower, more cumbersome, and less efficient — but that was what the framers of the Constitution intended. They designed a system to resist hasty action and temper any sudden shifts in public opinion, to prevent undue concentration of power, to protect citizens’ rights, and to forge a national consensus of demanding issues.
Contrary to orderly flow charts designed to show how a bill becomes law, legislation often follows a convoluted path through Congress. Many initiatives are bundled into enormous legislative packages, a tactic that requires supporters and opponents to swallow more than they might otherwise. Bundling further heightens tension between the Congress and the president, who must sign or veto these “omnibus” bills. By the time most bills reach the president’s desk, they have acquired so much support, making it hard for him to reject them without suffering adverse political consequences.
The House minority leadership operates at a disadvantage since the rules favor those who have the votes; the House majority can prevail without bothering to consult the minority. The minority leader focuses instead on positioning the minority to provoke the opposition and appeal to the voters. The job of the minority is largely to keep the majority honest, presenting legislative alternatives that have little chances of passing but might attract media attention.
Representatives take pride in calling themselves “the people’s House,” as that body is the only part of the federal government that has always been directly elected. No one can be appointed to the House.
Combined with their overwhelming advantage in fund-raising and name recognition, modern House incumbents enjoy a 96% rate of reelection.
The average congressional district now contains about 690K inhabitants.
Because the Senate does so much of its work by unanimous consent, senators gain power as soon as they take office. Senators therefore attract more media attention, which can fuel presidential ambitions.
- Why did you pour your coffee into your saucer?
- To cool it.
- That is precisely why we created the Senate. To cool it.
He believed that “order, decency, and regularity” would produce “a dignified public body.” Political issues would invariably generate heat and emotion, but tensions could be defused through polite language. Senators should therefore not refer to each other by name and address presiding officer rather than each other in debate. They should not insult each other, question each other’s motives, or disparage each other’s states. Anyone breaking these rules can be ordered to take their seat and stop participating further in the day’s debate.
Senators who left business careers, or were governors, had been used to setting their own schedules. In the Senate, they encountered endless discussion, debate, and delay. Former Governor Henry Bellmon regarded the Senate as a letdown. “Compared to the responsibility, work load, and excitement of the 4 years as governor, serving in the US Senate seemed about as exciting as watching a stump rot.”
Senate rules allow more time for debate and delay than in the House, which requires more negotiation and compromise to get anything done. The resulting slow pace frustrates nearly everyone, but shields against hastily enacting flawed bills.
While the House is ruled from the chair, the Senate is ruled from the floor, by its members rather than its presiding officer.
Opponent of a bill may block it by holding the floor and conducting a filibuster. The term comes from the Dutch word for freebooter, or pirate, and has been applied to the minority of senators who seize control of the proceedings against the majority.
Little of consequence happens in the Senate, therefore, unless the 2 party leaders have reached some accord. Even then, dissenter from either party can derail the efforts.
Senator Arlen Specter has compared the Senate’s rules to anarchy and the House rules to despotism, adding that deciding which is better “is a fairly tough choice.”
Young man, I want you to remember, you can’t have everything your own way. There never was an important piece of legislation enacted by Congress which was not the result of compromise. If you want to get along, go along.
The legislative process is one of continuous bargaining. Strong individuals win election to Congress, where they will need to work collectively in order to accomplish anything. The must tailor their ideas to gain majority support, often merging their objectives into larger packages filled with other provisions. They must build coalitions, drum up publicity, plan parliamentary strategy, debate, and haggle to garner enough votes to get the bill passed. That is just to clear one house. The process must start again in the other house. The the 2 versions must be reconciled before going to the president.
Society is composed of a great variety of interests, parties and sects, and the difficulty in creating coalitions to form a majority reduces the danger of the majority trampling the rights of the minority. Congress reflects Madison’s vision of pluralism made of contending self-interests. Members who forge compromises to pass bills implore their colleagues not to “let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Review her single term, she felt that the question she had to answer was: “Do you represent, or do you lead? In the end, one must put aside all the chatter, noise, all the headlines, all the calls, close the door to your office, and make a very tough and often unpopular choice.”
They also want to point out the federal projects they have brought home, on the assumption that constituents will ask: “What have you done for me lately?”
Voters reelect incumbents to allow them to gain seniority and clout in Congress, or turn out in reaction against the drift of national policy. It is an oddity that while opinion polls rank Congress poorly as a whole, voters are most likely to reelect their own senators and representatives. Citizens like the way their own members are representing them; they just dislike everyone else’s.
Senator Richard Russel used to say that the 6-year term permitted senators to spend 2 years as a statesman, 2 years as a politician, and 2 years as a demagogue. But members of the House cannot afford “the luxury of being a statesman, as a senator can. A congressman runs every 2 years. He can’t run very far from basic public opinion in his district or he won’t get reelected.”
The Texas billionaire Ross Perot largely self-funded his 1992 campaign and received 19.7M popular votes, but he did not win a single electoral vote, causing his Reform Party to fade away.
Independents who are elected to Congress need to join one of the major party caucuses in order to get decent committee assignments. “You don’t have to be a political genius to know that if you function alone, there are real limits to what you can accomplish,” commented Bernie Sanders.
As all of the regions became more politically competitive, the Republican and Democratic conferences in the House and Senate grew more internally cohesive, with fewer middle-of-the-road members willing to cross the line for the sake of bipartisanship. Straight party-line votes in Congress, so rare in the past when the parties were internally divided, now became commonplace.
When Carter lost in 1980, his early-evening concession depressed voter-turnout in the West, where the polls remained open for several more hours, costing some prominent Democrats their seats and the majority in the Senate.
Prior to the advent of the primary system for nominating congressional candidates, party bosses routinely selected candidates who had worked their way up through the ranks. Progressive reformers promoted primary elections, to let the people decide, and these often resulted in the election of candidates who were independent entrepreneurs, who could self-finance their campaigns, and who would be less responsive to party discipline.
House majority leader Tom Delay compared the national campaign committees to clubs that exist principally for their members. “The main benefit of membership is the gobs and gobs of campaign cash, or at least access to it, for others who are at risk, and who find themselves in a competitive election. But it’s a 2-way street. In order to have this collective political insurance, you have to pay a premium: You’re expected to contribute a certain amount of money to the club, a negotiable amount based on your seniority, reelection security, committee assignments, etc. And if needed, you must be willing to travel and work on behalf of other at-risk members.”
Fresh from victory, those elected for the 1st time arrive in Congress full of new ideas to enact, often impatient with the glacial pace of legislation. It takes a while to realize that the separation of powers means that their chamber is just part of the government, not the whole. Legislators must package their ideas in such a way not only to convince their leadership, but also the other body, the president, and the courts.
Members who survive close races are said to return to Congress “Housebroken,” more willing to compromise in order to accommodate their constituents’ demands. Those who study voting patterns in Congress observe that the longer that members stay in Congress the more they tend to “regress toward the means,” moderating their ideological views to increase their chances of reelection.
National needs, party unity, and presidential pressure often force members to cast difficult votes. “Do what’s right, then go home and explain to your people why you did it. Some votes will take the skin off your back. If you explain, your people back home will put it back on.”
The more directly something affects the voters, particularly economic policy, the more they expect their member to act as a servant of the constituency. Voters will usually show greater tolerance of a member’s independent stance on more indirect issues, such as national defense and foreign policy.
The parties will also look for ways to let vulnerable freshmen score legislative victories that will enhance their prospects for reelection.
Candidates to Congress may get elected by accident, but are seldom reelected by accident. Reelection depends on keeping constituents convinced that they are best representing their interests.
Even the internationally minded Fulbright once interrupted a debate in Geneva over nuclear weapons for NATO to protest European restrictions on importing US chickens. Protecting Arkansas’s chicken producers kept Fulbright in the Senate.
Without bothering to read them, the member voted for the bill because the “for” pile was higher. But another member who received 10K messages opposed to a bill that he supported dismissed them on the grounds that a lot more people than that had elected him.
Tardy or unanswered messages can raise ire among Internet users who expect instant gratification.
Members are aware that those who feel passionately about an issue are the one most likely to write or call and that they will not hear from the vast majority of the constituents. But those who feel passionately are also the ones most motivated to vote, especially in primary elections.
Having won election to the House or Senate, new members immediately scramble for their committee assignments. Committees will shape their legislative careers, helping them create a record, attract media attention, and raise campaign funds.
He memorably described Congress in session as Congress on public exhibition, whereas Congress in its committee rooms was Congress at work. Legislation is crafted more in committee than on the floor of either chamber. A seat on a committee therefore gives a member a greater chance of influencing legislation on that issue than those outside the committee.
At the opening of a new Congress, the parties’ steering committees give the new members their committee assignments, and some of the senior members shift to fill vacancies on more desirable committees. The number of seats on a committee available to each party is generally proportional to the party margins in the full chamber. Party conferences also set limits on the number of committees on which members can serve. Committees receive varying levels of operating funds to hire their own staff, with the majority party controlling the resources and sharing a portion with the minority.
Veterans advise newcomers to be workhorses rather than show horses, but ambitious freshmen still come to Congress with visions of serving on a high-profile committee, wanting one with “star appeal and political intrigue.”
As a senator for 10 years, Truman concluded that a legislator’s greatest accomplishment was preventing bad ideas from getting passed, and indeed most bills die in committee. Of the 14K bills introduced during the 110th Congress (2007-2009), only 3.3% were enacted into law. Some members have introduced hundreds of bills in a single Congress, with no expectation of getting them passed. Instead, they see them as a way to study ideas, to promote personal interests and ideological aspirations, to help a constituent or a contributor, or to advance an economic interest important to their state.
Once member got on to a committee they advanced up the ladder by their length of service, no matter how far they strayed from their party’s core positions. This eliminated the potential for conflict in selecting chairmen in general. For much of the 20th century, chairmen acted as barons who ruled their committees in styles ranging from despotic to democratic. They decided when the committee would meet, whether it would have subcommittees, what issues it would take up, and who would serve on its staff.
Committees call expert witnesses to testify, and they can subpoena reluctant witnesses and punish the uncooperative by charging them with contempt of Congress, which carries the possibility of a fine or imprisonment.
Most bills pass in a form close to the way they emerged from committee, demonstrating that committee members have the largest say about what goes into the legislation.
Because senators serve on more committees than do representatives, they are more generalists than specialists — House members accuse senators of being willing to talk to the media about any subject.
Russell counseled against it, explaining that Congress was not like a state legislature, where the same committee authorized a program and approved the money to pay for it. In the Senate, after an authorizing committee held its hearings on an issue, the Appropriations Committee would hold its own hearing and then appropriate whatever it decided, more or less or nothing at all. “What you want is a seat on the Appropriations Committee, where things happen.”
The congressional power of the purse, covering all federal funds, is the central legislative function.
The standing committees can authorize new projects, but those subjects cannot get under way until funds have been appropriated to pay for them. The early 19th-century House and Senate operated without Appropriations committees, but the authorizing committees naturally wanted to fund all the projects they passed, making apparent the need for gate-keeping Appropriations committees. To better manage the process, Congress created the Budget Bureau (now the OMB) in 1921 and established Budget committees in 1975.
Before the cameras were installed in 1979, House members built their reputations largely in the committee rooms, but televisions allows them to address viewers across the nation.
During his short stay in the Senate, Obama spent little time on the Senate floor, rushing in primarily to cast a vote and then leaving for other pressing business. On those occasions when he presided, there would usually be only a single senator on the floor speaking to a nearly empty chamber. “In the world’s greatest deliberative body, no one is listening.”
Some of the most productive legislators rarely speak out. If they have the votes, they don’t need a speech, they assume; if they need the speech, they don’t have the votes.
Eugene McCarthy, who served in both bodies, took a cynical attitude toward their rules and procedures, and advised new members against spending much time trying to learn them. “The Senate rules are simple enough to learn, but they are seldom honored in practice. House rules are too complicated. Use the parliamentarian.”
“There are times, I can tell my colleagues without any reservation, when I wish I were the Speaker of the House,” a Senate majority leader said wistfully. “The Speaker of the House doesn’t have to worry about the minority, they run over everybody.”
Whenever a party has held a large majority, it has not been unusual for the House to debate many amendments on major bills, such as defense authorizations. “It was easy to be magnanimous and allow minority amendments with a sizable majority that doomed them,” noted one House staffer. But narrower margins make the outcome uncertain, causing the majority party to restrict efforts to offer amendments.
The opposition may introduce an amendment that is unrelated to the subject of the bill, just to provoke a fight. If the chair rules the amendment out of order, the opponents can make a motion to overrule the chair, setting up a further vote to table the appeal. Even though the minority knows it will lose, it can force vulnerable members from swing districts to go on record on issues that might jeopardize their reelections, even when voting on procedural rather than substantive motions. Amendments dealing with taxes, for instance, can produce negative ads in the next election.
Votes may put members’ loyalty against their popularity at home. Party leaders know that it is self-defeating to ask members to commit political suicide, and they grant leeway in matters of state interest. But every vote can be critical.
The House is famous for the rough and tumble of its floor proceedings, and some fierce battles have been fought there throughout history. While comity and cooperation would always be welcome, real legislative achievement has come through political stamina and persistence. Representatives argue that conflict is an integral part of governing, that their differences of opinion reflect the diversity of views in the country, and that even angry debate can produce legislation and reform.
A single member can hold up business in the Senate, making it a personality-driven institution. House leaders frequently call on their Senate counterparts to show some backbone and stand up to the opposition, but Senate leaders respond that they simply do not have the same legislative and procedural strength and power as the House.
This neatness can be deceiving, since the proceedings will be anything but orderly. The Senate passes hundreds of bills over the year but debates only a few dozens of them. The vast majority of bills and resolutions pass by unanimous consent agreements or voice votes, without protracted debate and roll calls. Agreements are worked out in the committees and cloakrooms, narrowing the areas of contention requiring floor fights.
The Senate now does the bulk of its business by unanimous consent. Such agreements can suspend the regular rules to save time. For instance, the Senate has a rule requiring that a bill have 3 readings before passage, which is routinely suspended by UC, unless a senator wants to delay action and objects, forcing the clerks to spend hours reading hundreds of pages of text aloud.
A single senator can thwart the will of the Senate, the House, and the president.
More than one majority leader has compared trying to lead a body of such strong individuals to herding cats. Lyndon Johnson once commented that he had only the power of persuasion to rely upon.
The cost of a filibuster today is very cheap. All you have to do is say: I am going to filibuster. Then there is a cloture vote, and 60 votes are not obtained, and the issue goes away.
Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made. A mix of persuasion, pressure, and bargaining will be ground into every bill that becomes law. Managing legislation through to enactment involves finding something to offer to as many members as possible.
They have compared this situation to a “seminar on the run,” as they try to determine how to vote from notes stuffed in their pockets, briefing books, whispers from staff, hurried briefings from colleagues, and last-minute call from the WH.
Serving on fewer committees, representatives often become experts in the legislation handled by those committees. In conference, they can demonstrate their knowledge of the bill, line by line.
By avoiding a conference, the majority can exclude the minority from the discussion and reduce the ability of its own mavericks to side with the minority.
The two-thirds requirement makes vetos hard to overturn, and just the possibility of a veto can persuade Congress to change a bill to the president’s liking.
Jackson viewed himself as the representative of the entire people and therefore more competent than individual members of Congress to judge the public will.
Members of Congress say that their constituents will complain that they hold the majority but cannot override a veto. When they try to explain about the two-thirds requirement, they find that people outside of Congress care little about the mechanics of legislation. They just want results.
“Congress does from a third to a half of what I think is the minimum that it ought to do,” Teddy Roosevelt once commented, “and I am profoundly grateful that I get that much.”
Herbert Hoover, having come out of a highly successful administrative career in business and government, regarded Congress as a nuisance to be avoided as much as possible, a mindset that contributed to his failed presidency.
Bork verbally sparred with senators at his hearing, largely talking himself out of the job.
A WH congressional liaison advised them to accept the fact that the hearings will not be fair: “You have no rights, there is no provision for ‘objecting.’ Hearsay questions are allowed. A US senator can ask any question he or she chooses. So be polite and deferential. The goal is to demonstrate your qualifications while getting out unscathed.”
By and large, the Congress is not much help to a president in matters of foreign policy because of the lack of “political profit” in it. Yet the president alone simply cannot hold the overwhelming public support he needs for any length of time without the strong support of Congress.
Presidents generally take the lead in matters of war and peace and regard congressional involvement in foreign policy as intrusive, despite Congress’ constitutional power to regulate foreign commerce, confirm diplomatic appointments, approve treaties, and declare war.
Members of Congress complain that presidents rarely ask their advice in advance of a treaty that reshapes public policy and too often prefer to inform them just before announcing it publicly. They talk of wanting to be there fore the take-off instead of the crash landing.
Investigations epitomized the American system of separation of powers, in which the independent legislature could scrutinize issues that the executive would prefer to remain hidden and uncover wrongdoing at all levels of government.
But impeachment is a drastic and arduous process that can inflict as much damage on its sponsors as its intended target.
Officials can be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” a phrase that is sufficiently vague to cover a multitude of sins. The Senate will hold a trial to hear evidence, but it takes two-thirds vote of the senators to convict and remove that person from office. The requirement of a supermajority in the Senate has served as a break on the use of impeachment for political purposes.
Just as Congress investigates presidents, the DoJ pursues wrongdoing among members of Congress.
Dating back to the struggles between the British parliament and the king, this provision specifies that to prevent the executive from interfering with legitimate legislative activity, members of Congress cannot be prosecuted for what they say in debate or be arrested while on the way to attend a session of Congress. But federal prosecutors complain that this provision has shielded members from criminal investigations.
Members of Congress express outrage when the courts undo their handiwork, complaining of “judicial activism,” a process by which unelected judges make law through their rulings. When the courts throw out a law, Congress can respond by rewriting it to address judicial concerns, strip the court of jurisdiction over the matter, or propose a constitutional amendment to reverse the decision — as it did with the 16th Amendment, after the Supreme Court rejected the income tax as unconstitutional.
Yet more than 10K formally proposed over the past 2 centuries, only 33 amendments have been passed by Congress and only 27 were ratified by the states. The Constitution has been amended only when a broad national consensus on an issue existed.
A veteran House member urged newcomers to look up at the dome whenever they headed to the chamber to vote. “If you reach a point when it doesn’t give you goose bumps, draft your resignation letter the next day.”
Some members have regretted ever permitting the TV cameras in, blaming television for heightening partisanship and confrontation, since members now felt they had to speak on every issue and answer every charge.
After retiring, Senator Paul Laxalt commented that what he enjoyed most was to have a leisurely lunch, to have dinner at home at a reasonable hour, not to have to run to the Senate floor for a vote, not to have your schedule card full of appointments from early morning until late at night.
These staff members have been called “unelected lawmakers” and “virtual senators.” 95 percent of the nitty-gritty work of drafting and negotiating bills was done by staff. But a certificate of election still separates them from those who hold the ultimate power and authority.
Voter turnout peaked in 1896 and began a long slide in the 20th century, when citizens began seeking more direct ways to influence legislators by organizing into private interest groups. These groups provided information that legislators used both for drafting laws and for running for reelection.
43% of all retired members of Congress engaged in lobbying, as did their senior staff. Ethics reforms have banned them from lobbying Congress for 2 years after they leave office, but they spend the requisite cooling off period consulting rather than doing any direct lobbying.
Among the lobbyists are squads of liaisons for government agencies and the military services. They guide the top brass through the Congress, helping to prepare their testimony and collecting information to respond to questions they could not answer. Military liaisons are responsible for answering thousands of constituent inquiries routed to them by members of Congress, often involving transfers, awards, and pay issues. Liaison officers will accompany members on fact-finding missions, even escorting them into war zones. Above all, their job is to maintain good relations with Congress so that their branch of the service can maintain adequate appropriations.
Yet it is a fundamental paradox of Congress that its members are elected to promote their constituent’s concerns, and when they do, they can be criticized for parochialism. When they stand against public opinion, they risk their seats. Individually concerned with reelection and the interests of their districts and states, collectively they must fuse those local concerns into national legislation, finding common ground for the common good, and fulfilling the motto E Pluribus Unum.