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