The Contemporary Congress

¶ … Congress

Loomis, Burdett a. The Contemporary Congress. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Burdett A. Loomis is a professor of political science at the University of Kansas. He has written on a number of topics in political science.

In this book, Loomis looks at the dynamics of the contemporary Congress and how these have changed from the ideal embodied in the Constitution and from practice in earlier eras. The book is organized around certain topics beginning with the nature of law-making in Congress and continuing with an examination of ways in which the processes of the Congress are conducted and how they have been changed over time. Loomis begins his examination in one congressional district in Pennsylvania, the thirteenth district from 1992 to 1997. This study covers the time period in 1994 when the Republicans changed the make-up of Congress and gained control of the House of Representatives for the first time in years.

Loomis refers to the centrifugal Congress because there are a number of forces decentralizing Congress, though he also finds that a reasonably homogenous party can overcome these tendencies. Congress consists of two bodies making a series of collective, authoritative decisions called laws. This usually takes place with a series of majority votes. The legislature has always been independent and powerful and is often at odds with the executive and the judiciary. The houses have different underpinnings as well. The Senate protects the rights of individual legislators, and the House of representatives has a decentralized committee system that has marked the operation of the House. Both houses operate to a degree on the basis of ideas about political power, such as the idea that representation means responsiveness to the interests of the people. The process of representation is based on the act of deliberation, which at times breaks down. Through deliberation, it is intended to reach creative solutions for difficult problems. When Congress does act as a deliberative assembly, the normally skeptical public embraces congressional actions. When the Republicans came to power in 1994, however, they rushed through legislation without the deliberative process for the most part. They used the Contract with America as a way of showing that they were acting in response to a mandate from the electorate. At the time, the Senate and the President either blocked or modified these rules. Loomis says his book will address the tension between the constituency-=oriented, individualistic Congress based on the representation of particular interests and the Congress that can act coherently to pursue some broader representative goals.

The author considers the issue of congressional decentralization and how it was shaped and then how it evolved. He notes the provisions in the Constitution shaping the Congress as representing a multiplicity of interests, existing within a system of separation of powers, and in a bicameral legislative body. The separation of powers mitigates against any concentration of power, assures independence for each of the three branches of government, and responds to internal constraints. Loomis considers how these ideas operated in the early Congress and the way the problems were ironed out over time as the Congress evolved along with the country as a whole. The Senate become the more deliberative body, attracting leaders of the day and responding to oratory from these leaders. The modern Congress developed from 1860 to 1920, with organizational restructurings beginning with the Civil War. The developments in the two chambers differed somewhat even as Congress as a whole was developing into a new kind of body. Up to 1970, as the author says, Congress followed the textbook and was committee-dominated, becoming the model described by political scientists. Reforms came in the 1970s to produce a different kind of Congress, with eager legislators desirous of power and not always willing to wait for the normal committee assignments given in the normal way. After 1994, the Republican Congress made a number of changes, and the process of change itself is examined by Loomis.

Loomis discusses the changing nature of congressional politics, with the growth of lobbying as a way for special interests to reach legislators and to wield influence. Various social and economic pressures also operated to change the way policy is made and the budget is created and passed. The idea of balancing the budget is often raised, but this is rarely achieved. Even when it is, other forces may prevent a balanced budget from achieving what leaders think it will achieve.

The process of elections is examined, showing how local issues dominate races that have national import, with the outcome decided by the interplay of various forces and interests. A segment of the membership of Congress can be considered the citizen legislators envisioned at one time by the Founding Fathers, while another segment consists of careerists. Getting elected, or re-elected, is a primary goal for virtually all members of Congress, and a large body of organizations, processes, laws, and traditions exist to empower the process and shape the outcome, with new instruments like political action committees to aid in the distribution of funds for campaign costs. In part, the rules governing PACs have been altered from time to time, first to increase the amount of money that could be distributed to candidates, then to restrict such distribution for a more equitable and less corrupt system. Loomis again uses the 1994 election and its aftermath to show how the system changed and how elections were altered by these events.

Loomis then considers the operation of congressional committees in the contemporary Congress. The committee make-up of Congress changes with each new Congress, usually in terms of committee assignments, but also in terms of what committees are formed. The committee system is fragmented and yet serves the needs of individual members. Committees and subcommittees provide specialized information to Congress as a whole, and the decentralization of the system allows for particular interests to be represented. The way committees are constituted and operated is part of the rules of the House and Senate and change over time with changes in the leadership in Congress, changes in which party dominates, and because of external forces and pressures from the public. Some committees become the particular domain of a committee chair and may be so for years, and the parties use the committees in different ways to get things done and to block some things from being done at all. Loomis discusses several specific lawmakers and the committees they chaired to show how the system works.

Loomis also notes that the committees work differently in a partisan era than they do when cooperation is the order of the day. He then considers the legislator as an enterprise in himself or herself, seeing this as another example of fragmentation for 535 legislators. Each legislator is in effect a small business, with a sizeable staff, an office with a hierarchy, with links to committees and subcommittees, and so on. Each may also be part of special interest caucuses, legislators like-minded about certain issues who meet in order to strategize and get things done. Each legislator is likely to belong to more than a dozen such groups. It is easy to join a caucus, and this can be a way to get useful information. Legislators can also find opportunities for action in caucuses and can gain other benefits as well.

The office that forms around each legislator can become part of the continuing campaign for re-election, a process which also entails raising more and more money and then spending that money on the campaign. A web of rules has developed about how money can be gathered and how it can b e spend, along with specific rules about who can contribute and how much they can give. There are many ways to run afoul of these complex rules, and yet the perception of corruption can appear even when all the rules are followed. Loomis notes many of the other resources that members of Congress can utilize to get information, to make policy, to acquire campaign funds, to wield power, and to do the tasks of Congress and in order to serve the needs of constituents.

Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution, but a system of political parties has developed and shapes the nature of government in many ways. This is explained by Loomis, especially with reference to the ways in which the political parties conduct elections and so are key to the process of voting. Who runs for office is determined largely by the political parties, which also provide funding for candidates, help advertise to reach voters, provide a touchstone for the voter to have some idea of the beliefs and intentions of each candidate, and after the election, shape the government by making committee assignments, guiding legislation, making rules, and determining what policies will be pursued.