View
219
Download
1
Category
Tags:
Preview:
Citation preview
Congress in the Twentieth Century
WOODROW WILSON, CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT (1884)
“We are ruled by a score and a half of ‘little legislatures….’ Some of the Committees are made up of strong men, the majority of them of weak men; and the weak are as influential as the strong. The country can get the counsel and guidance of its ablest representatives only upon one or two subjects; upon the rest it must be content with the impotent service of the feeble. Only a very small part of its most important business can be done well; the system provides for having the rest of it done miserably, and the whole of it taken together done at haphazard.” (pp. 113-14)
More bounded Growth of Internal
Complexity Decision Making:
Discretionary
Universalistic &Automatic
Locus of PowerParties/Party Leaders (Speaker of the House)
Committees/Committee Chairmen (Seniority)
Obstruction Political Power
Broker Power of Pork Power of the Purse Power of Knowledge Investigation/Media
HOWARD SMITH (D-VA), CHAIR, HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE; RICHARD RUSSELL (D-GA), CHAIR, SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE; SAM ERVIN (D-NC); STROM THURMOND (D-SC)
JAMES EASTLAND (D-MI), CHAIR, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
Rules CommitteeCommittee ChairmenFilibuster/Cloture
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1940)
EVERETT DIRKSEN (R-IL) HUBERT HUMPHREY (D-MN)
“THE JOHNSON TREATMENT” THE MAJORITY LEADER, 1955-1960
Mastery of Senate Rules Unanimous consent, quorum
calls, night sessions Democratic Policy
Committee Agenda and scheduling
Democratic Steering Comm. “The Johnson Rules”
Favors and Perquisites Persuasion
“The Johnson Treatment”
Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) works on Foreign Relations Chairman Thomas Green, 1957
REVENUE AND TAXATION APPROPRIATIONS
Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee (dates)
Taxation, Social Security, Medicare
Wilbur Mills (D-AK) House Appropriations
Committee Subcommittee on Defense (dates)
Anti-communist aid in third world (Afghanistan)
Charlie Wilson (D-TX)
Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)
Q: What is the most famous rider amendment in American history?
A: The Wilmot Proviso (1846)
Easy Riders?
ON THE LEFT… …AND THE RIGHT
Cooper-Church Amendment (1969): Ground troops prohibited in Thailand/Laos
Cooper-Church Amendment (1970) cut off funds for Cambodian Incursion (failed); modified version passed in 1971
Hatfield-McGovern Amendment (1970): cut off funds for Vietnam War (failed)
Case-Church Amendment (1973): cut off funds for Vietnam War, Laos, Cambodia (latter after August 15)
Clark Amendment (1975): cut off funds for anti-communist covert aid to Angola
Jackson-Vanik Amendment (1974): denied most favored nation to certain countries with non-market economies that restricted emigration rights.
Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA), critic of Détente.
THE JOHNSON SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, HOUSTON, TX SENATOR ROBERT KERR (D-OK) AND WERNER VON BRAUN
MILITARY INSTALLATIONS LOCATED IN RIVERS’S DISTRICT:
Air Force Base Naval Base Polaris Missile Maintenance
Center Naval Shipyard and Ballistic
Submarine Training Station Naval Hospital Coast Guard Station Mine Warfare Center Sixth Naval District Headquarters
MENDEL RIVERS (D-SC), HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
Troubled Waters, Senate Public Works Committee (1963)
Senator Edmund Muskie (D-ME)Chair, Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, Senate Public Works Committee
Sponsor:Water Quality Act (1965)Air Quality Act (1967)Clean Air Act (1970)Clean Water Act (1972)
Population: 100,000Representatives: 1
Population: 100,000Representatives: 1
Population: 100,000Representatives: 1
Population: 600,000Representatives: 1
Advantage: sparsely populated rural districts and congressmen representing them, who wield disproportionate political power in Congress.
Baker v. Carr (1962): Tennessee Lower House; Federal Courts’ power to determine constitutionality of a State's voting districts
Reynolds v. Sims (1964): Alabama State legislature (including Senate)
Wesberry v. Sanders (1964): Georgia Congressional districts
Population: 100,000Representatives: 1
Population: 100,000Representatives: 1
Population: 100,000Representatives: 1
Population 100,000Representatives: 1
Population 500,000Representatives: 5
Advantage shifts from rural to urban districts. Revitalizes two-party South.
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON ORGANIZED CRIME IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE (KEFAUVER COMMITTEE), 1950
JOHN LAWSON TESTIFIES BEFORE THE HOUSE UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE (1947)
Mobster Frank Costello’s Hands
Pat McCarran (D-NV) Senate Judiciary Committee, Internal Security Subcommittee
Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senate Government Operations Committee
“subversive influence of radio, television, and entertainment industry”
Communist infiltration of Hollywood Film Industry, Espionage (Alger Hiss Case)
Government agencies and departments: State Department, U.S. Information Agency, Voice of America, Army
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
The Army-McCarthy Hearings, 1954
FULBRIGHT FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE HEARINGS ON VIETNAM, 1967
J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT (D-AK) AND STUART SYMINGTON (D-MO)
SAM ERVIN (D-NC), SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE CAMPAIGN PRACTICES (1973)
FRANK CHURCH (D-ID), SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES (1975)
THE IMPACT OF TELEVISION
Lengthening and Speeding the News Cycle
Emphasis on Scandal / Conflict
Empowers both parties (centralizing) and mavericks (decentralizing)
Brian Lamb, Mastermind of C-SPAN (March 19, 1979)
Ted Turner’s CNN, First 24-Hour Cable News Station, debuted June 1, 1980
Robert Caro, Master of the Senate
Thomas Doherty, Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture
Robert Davis Johnson, Congress and the Cold War
Walter McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Race
Paul Charles Milazzo, Unlikely Environmentalists: Congress and Clean Water, 1945-1972
Bruce Schulman, From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980
Julian Zelizer, Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945-1975
Julian Zelizer, On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and Its Consequences, 1948-2000
Julian Zelizer, ed, The American Congress
Recommended