Journal-Congress/Legislator

Since we are studying about our federal government, it makes sense that we should pay attention to what our government is doing while we work through the material. Understanding our government means understanding both history and current events, and learning to think critically about the world around you. In order to learn to think critically, you must be able to apply what you are learning in the abstract to reality. To bring the abstract and real together, I have designed a journal assignment. To complete these assignments successfully, you must find a main news hard story (more than 4 paragraphs long) that complements our topic from that week’s newspaper (NO BLOGS, OP-EDS, EDITORIALS, OR SPONSORED REPORTS). In other words, students should not use a newspaper story from September 29th for a topic covered in late June. Students must provide a copy of the article or the web link along with requisite bibliographic information (which paper, which date, and which pages if you use a hard copy…). Students should summarize the story in one paragraph, and then directly relate the story a concept or theory presented in your reading. In other words, you must show how the topic discussed in the article complements, exemplifies or challenges material presented in the text or supplementary readings. Be explicit about the connection. For example when we read about Congress, you will learn that members of Congress perform a great deal of constituency service. When you read the Oregonian, there may be some coverage of Senator Wyden’s latest efforts on behalf of the citizens and industries in Oregon. So, you would describe how the article exemplifies the concept of constituency service as defined in the textbook in section 10-3 or on page 215. Any topic covered between July 18th and July 31st is fair game. Students must limit themselves to the following news sources: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times or the Oregonian, as these papers are available online for no charge. The use of any other news source must receiveprior approval from me. These news sources are proven legitimate, generally speaking, provide a great deal of hard news and can be accessed for free. Journals should be no longer than 2 pages, but you should be able to complete each assignment within 1 page. Failure to follow any of these guidelines will result in a zero for that submission. Chapter 11 - Section 7 Congress and Other Major Political Power Centers The President and Congress. The most important and visible political relationship in the American governmental system is the one between Congress and the president. Although the founders sought to create a separation of powers/checks and balance system, by the start of the twenty-first century the nation had fully developed what Richard Neustadt had termed a “sharing of powers by separate institutions.” Yet, despite this development, congressional-presidential relations also could still safely be characterized in the famous phrase of Benjamin Franklin – “an invitation to struggle.” There are several major characteristics of the often intense and quite public relations between Congress and the president. Agenda Setting. Presidents in general and those from Franklin Roosevelt onward, have greatly attempted to dominate Congress’ legislative agenda. Presidents often want to change the status quo and, when they look to Capitol Hill for help, tend to become frustrated. Often in their quest to assure a successful administration, presidents find themselves appealing for the support of Congress. Indeed, they need to Congress to create or change programs, ratify important treaties or nominations, or to make changes to budgeting or taxation policies. For many presidents, the road to a successful presidency runs up Pennsylvania Avenue directly through Capitol Hill. Presidents will attempt to set the Capitol Hill agenda through such public devices as their annual State of the Union addresses, or budget messages, or special joint session of Congress appearances such as the one following the September 11 tragedy. JFK on the Economy However, as we’ve noted earlier, the founders designed Congress to be institutionally biased to make it difficult, but certainly not impossible, to change the status quo. In sum, presidents often have become exceptionally frustrated when dealing with Congress, an institution which can either significantly reshape or even bury a president’s pet projects. “Gridlock”. Throughout most of the second half of the twentieth century American voters have frequently split their tickets and elected a president from one party and a Congress where one or both houses have a majority of members from the rival party. Such outcomes have greatly intensified normal checks and balances relationships between the rival branches. Policy making and even conducting the normal business of government can bog down in partisan haggling as each side seeks to advance its preferred causes. Observers have termed the subsequent impasse as “gridlock” because to outsiders it often resembles a common rush hour traffic jam typical to any major city in America. Gridlock normally stimulates extensive exasperation among members of Congress, the current administration, and the citizenry. Member Isolation. As established by the founders, representatives and senators have different constituencies from the president. While presidents are on ballots nationwide, senators are elected on statewide ballots and representatives are selected by parts of states. This frequently can insulate members of Congress from presidential pressures. Members of Congress, particularly Representatives, normally are elected by much larger victory margins than presidents. Members of Congress always will know if they “ran ahead of” the current president with the voters back home. Members also tend to receive higher support scores than presidents in public opinion polls taken of constituents. These factors definitely can make members feel independent of presidential pressures, particularly if the member is from a different party of the president who failed to carry that district in the last election. This could mean that the member could earn increased constituent support by opposing the president or some of his policy proposals. This can become particularly important if the member is from a majority party different from the president’s and the member is the chair of an important committee or subcommittee. The Bureaucracy and Congress. As noted earlier, the Constitution assigns members of Congress the task of making public policy and overseeing how the federal bureaucracy implements those policies. Congress has numerous powers over the federal bureaucracy so the prevailing incentives are for agency and department leaders to do their best to work with members of Congress. Congress can organize and reorganize agencies, establish or change the agency’s mission, and recast or reduce an agency’s budget, for example. Bureaucracies have protected themselves by working with Congress, tightly controlling critical information in their policy areas, and by cultivating friendly, and hopefully powerful, interest groups. Interest Groups and Congress. Interest groups traditionally have tended to profit more from their relationships with Congress than any power center outside Capitol Hill. Congress is ideally suited for interest group activity for many reasons. First, interest groups most often want either to preserve the status quo or to make incremental changes to existing policies. Both of these goals fit tightly with the institutional tendencies the founders wove into the fabric of Congress. For example, this is one of the prime reasons the federal tax code is so complex. Interest groups have been extremely efficient at making small and profitable (for them) changes to the tax code, which remain unnoticed by the rest of society. Interest groups carry quite a lot of weight in Congress. They influence policy through lobbying, communications, campaigning, and favors. Second, the House and Senate are organized around standing committees whose policy areas conveniently correspond with interest group needs. Hence, bankers have “their” committees in each chamber while farmers deal primarily with the House and Senate agriculture committees, for example. The system has become sort of a “one-stop shopping” for lobbyists. In addition, the committee and subcommittee member selection process most often helps interest groups. Members tend to seek assignment to panels to become arenas where they can best serve their constituents back home. Hence, members from Wisconsin, Minnesota or Iowa likely will want to be on the subcommittee dealing with the dairy industry. Members from North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky will want to serve on the subcommittee dealing with the tobacco industry. Therefore, committee and subcommittee members often tend to have a pro-bias favoring interest groups dealing with the panel’s jurisdiction and will tend to be eager to do whatever they can to serve those interests to help assure their reelection. The outcome of such relationships can be seen in the behavior of cozy triangles. Also known as iron triangles or subgovernments, cozy triangles are composed of one or more interest groups, a committee/subcommittee in each chamber, and an agency in the federal bureaucracy. Cozy triangles tend to operate within a narrow policy area (such as price supports for citrus growers), conduct their business in semi-secrecy (how many people want to attend hearings on the price of grapefruit?), and establish and maintain at all times a delicate relationship whereby each component of the triangle gets something from participating in the subgovernment. The benefits to each component often are apparent. Interest group members tend to get government policies they want. Members of the committees/subcommittees get grateful constituents eager to reward them with endorsements, votes, and campaign contributions. Agencies tend to retain their missions and budgets by making satisfied congressional committees/subcommittees and supporting interest groups. Bureaucracies attracting the support of interest groups, termed “clientelism,” can assure an agency of a politically safe existence. “Home Style:” Constituents and Congress. All members of Congress could be said to be obsessed with the nurturing of constituents – the most important political power center outside Capitol Hill. The reelection incentive, universal and pervasive among members of Congress, is at the heart of member concerns for constituents. Richard Fenno has documented that members of Congress will develop distinctive “home styles” for dealing with their constituents. Their home style will be one in which the member feels comfortable and to which constituents can relate. A member’s home style will best enable him to build trust among his constituents as he explains his Washington activities and the stands he takes on prominent issues. Representatives will tend to mentally visualize their districts as a series of concentric circles with the entire geographic district as the largest circle encompassing the member’s general election supporters, another smaller circle, which encompasses the member’s primary election supporters which encompasses the smallest group, the member’s intimate political supporters. In sum, successful incumbents establish and maintain a comfortable home style in which both they and their constituents can readily relate. News Media and Congress. A final external power center with which members of Congress must deal is the news media. Members tend to think of the news media as operating within either of two arenas. Local Media. All members of Congress want to establish and maintain the best possible relationships with their home news media because they are a fast and mass link with constituents. Local media are great mechanisms for members to advertise their names and accomplishments for the folks back home. Photographs and personal interviews are among the many tools which members employ to attain these goals. For most members attracting favorable publicity among home news media can be infinitely more important than coverage by national news media. Indeed, the national media seldom pay much attention to the average member of Congress. National Media. The nation’s major news outlets – the television and cable networks plus major news magazines and leading national newspapers such as The New York Times and the Washington Post–tend to cover Congress within a set pattern. Senators receive more coverage than Representatives. Leaders receive more attention than rank-and-file members combined. Emotional issues, controversy, and confrontation will attract the most attention in the shortest period of time. Hence, with the national media being the most distant from constituents, most members of Congress focus their attention instead on receiving favorable publicity in the media back home.