Having read the chapter, the students should be able to do each of the following:
Explain why incumbents have such great electoral success and why they sometimes lose.
Discuss the relationship between incumbency success and democratic responsiveness.
Identify the major leadership positions in Congress and explain the sources of leadership powers.
Describe the differences and similarities in strategy and responsibilities between the House and Senate leaderships.
Discuss the role of the congressional committee system.
Identify the major parts of the legislative bureaucracy and assess the impact of those agencies on the performance of Congress.
Define and explain the three major policymaking functions of Congress. Analyze to what degree these roles are complementary, competitive, or mutually exclusive.
Describe how the increasing preoccupation of representatives with local concerns has affected their ability to carry out Congress's functions.
Explain the effect of partisanship on congressional effectiveness, and summarize recent trends in the rise and fall of partisan and other influences on voting patterns in Congress.
Members of Congress must take positions on controversial issues, may blunder into political scandal or indiscretion, must deal with changes in the electorate, or may face strong challengers; any of these conditions can reduce members' reelection chances. By and large, however, the ¬advantages of incumbency far outweigh the disadvantages. Incumbents' advantages extend into their reelection campaigns: their influential positions in Congress make it easier for them to raise campaign funds from PACs and individual contributors.
Congress is a fragmented institution. It has no single leader; rather, the House and Senate have separate leaders, neither of whom can presume to speak for the other chamber. The principal party leaders of Congress are the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader. They share leadership power with committee and subcommittee chairpersons, who have influence on the policy decisions of their committee or subcommittee.
It is in the committees that most of the day-to-day work of Congress is conducted. Each standing committee of the House or the Senate has jurisdiction over congressional policy in a particular area (such as agriculture or foreign relations), as does each of its subcommittees. In most cases, the full House and Senate accept committee recommendations about the passage of bills, although amendments to bills are quite common and committees are careful to take other members of Congress into account when making legislative decisions. Congress is a legislative system in which influence is widely dispersed, an arrangement that suits the power and reelection needs of its individual members. However, partisanship is a strong and binding force in Congress. It is the basis on which party leaders are able to build support for major legislative initiatives. On this type of legislation, party leaders and caucuses, rather than committees, are the central actors.
The major function of Congress is to enact legislation. Yet the role it plays in developing legislation depends on the type of policy involved. Because of its divided chambers and committee structure, as well as the concern of its members with state and district interests, Congress, through its party leaders and caucuses, only occasionally takes the lead on broad national issues; Congress instead typically looks to the president for this leadership. Nevertheless, presidential initiatives are passed by Congress only if they meet its members' expectations and usually only after a lengthy process of compromise and negotiation. Congress is more adept at handling legislation that deals with problems of narrow interest. Legislation of this sort is decided mainly in congressional committees, where interested legislators, bureaucrats, and groups concentrate their efforts on issues of mutual concern.
A second function of Congress is the representation of various interests. Members of Congress are highly sensitive to the state or district they depend on for reelection. They do respond to overriding national interests, but for most of them local concerns generally come first. National or local representation often operates through party representation, particularly on issues that divide the Democratic and Republican parties and their constituent groups.
Congress's third function is oversight, the supervision and investigation of the way the bureaucracy is implementing legislatively mandated programs. Although oversight is a difficult process, it is an important means of legislative control over the actions of the executive branch.
Congress is a slow and deliberative institution. It is also a powerful one; the process by which a bill becomes a law is such that legislative proposals can be defeated or stymied rather easily. Congress is admired by those who believe that broad national legislation should reflect a wide range of interests, including local ones; that policies developed through a lengthy process of compromise and negotiation are likely to be sound; and that minorities should be able to obtain selective benefits and should have ways of blunting the impulses of the majority. Critics of the legislative process believe that it serves special interests, particularly entrenched economic groups; makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for majorities to get their way; and prevents timely responses to pressing national needs.
