Congress, the President, and Public Policy by Michael L. Mezey

Author:Michael L. Mezey [Mezey, Michael L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: American Government, National, Political Science
ISBN: 9780813304939
Google: hKGGAAAAMAAJ
Goodreads: 5085049
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: 1989-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Given their collegial characteristics, all legislatures are to some extent decentralized compared with more hierarchically organized executives. However, these decentralizing forces are in most legislatures balanced by the centralizing activities of legislative parties. But the evolved U.S. Congress is notable for the weakness of its party organizations; this weakness represents the result of a long-term decline in the strength of U.S. political parties, a decline that started around the beginning of the twentieth century. For most of the nineteenth century, party leadership in Congress was quite strong and party unity on roll-call votes was quite common. Larry Sabato summarized the era this way: “At the turn of the century, almost three quarters of all the recorded votes saw a majority of one party voting against a majority of the other party, and astoundingly a third or more of a session’s roll calls would pit at least 90% of one party against 90% or more of the other party.”24 During this period, party leaders in the Congress wielded nearly absolute power, particularly the speaker of the House, who, among other things, could appoint all standing committees, name their chairs, select the members of the Rules Committee, and serve as that committee’s chair.25

However, early in the twentieth century, the power of party leaders and the impact of party on the roll-call voting behavior of legislators declined. In 1910, progressives in the House led a revolt against the speaker, removing his power to determine committee assignments and institutionalizing the seniority system as a way to select committee leadership. These reforms increased the power of the committees because they enabled committee members and chairs to achieve a great deal of autonomy from the party leadership. On the floor, the frequency of party votes began to decline, with such votes often constituting less than half of the annual total of congressional roll-call votes.26

In recent years, there have been faint signs of the revival of party strength in the Congress. The percentage of party votes and the frequency of the average member’s voting with his party on such votes increased, the power of the House speaker and the party caucus was enhanced somewhat, and the seniority system was modified so that the most senior member of the committee would not necessarily become its chair.27 But although all of this suggests that the prominence of parties in the Congress may be increasing, the result, to this point at least, has not been significantly more centralized congressional decisionmaking. On the contrary, there has been a movement toward even greater dispersion of power, toward what Steven Smith called collegial patterns of decisionmaking.

The distinction between decentralization and collegialism is an important one. Smith put it this way: “Decentralization constitutes a fragmentation of legislative power with each subunit autonomous within its jurisdiction. Collegial processes do not fragment legislative power; all power is shared equally by all members.” During the reform era of the 1970s, Smith concluded, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but particularly the latter, “moved toward more collegial modes of decision-making.

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