Dimensions: 6'' x 9'' 300 pages AEI Press  (Washington) Publication Date: July 2002 Paperback ISBN: 0-8447-4168-X Price: $ 20.00 Add to Cart   Hardcover ISBN: 0-8447-4167-1 Price: $ 40.00 Add to Cart   Examination Copies

How does today's Congress compare to its predecessors in such areas as its demographic makeup, partisanship, campaign financing, and productivity? Vital Statistics on Congress, 2001-2002, the eleventh edition of this biennial reference work, contains answers to these questions and many more.

This book is an annotated collection of the most important data on Congress. The first chapters focus on the members of the institution and their demographic profiles, campaign and election statistics, and campaign finance data. Next, chapters on committees, congressional staff, and workload shed light on the inner workings of Congress. Finally, the volume describes the budget process in detail and examines congressional voting patterns and partisan leanings. This edition features a new introductory essay thatdescribes Congress during three key eras and identifies major sources of change and continuity in Congress over the past half century.

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI. Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow in governmental studies at the Brookings Institution. Michael J. Malbin is a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Albany. A summary of the book follows.

Chapter 1 of Vital Statistics on Congress, 2001-2002, focuses on the aggregate characteristics of senators and representatives, such as regional distribution, party strength, and seniority. It begins by documenting the shift in seat apportionment among the different regions and states. Southern and western states continue to gain seats with each census, a trend that has profound implications for the country's partisan alignment. As an increasingly conservative and Republican South and West grow at the expense of a liberal and Democratic Northeast, the balance of power slowly changes.

Seniority is one of the keys to evaluating a member's influence and opportunities within Congress, and the level of seniority has fluctuated in the modern era. Throughout the 1960s, the institution experienced a steady increase in the proportion of very senior House members--"careerists"--and an intermittent but real decline in the proportion of very junior legislators. Those trends reversed dramatically in the 1970s. By 1981, junior members (those who have served six years or fewer) made up 47 percent of the House, and the careerists (those serving twenty years or more), only 11 percent. Through the 1980s, the number of junior members decreased, but the elections of the 1990s dramatically reversed that trend. Nearly 70 percent of current House members have entered since the early 1990s.

Trends in the Senate have been similar but less pronounced. Long, steady increases in the seniority of senators peaked in 1994, when the number of senior senators reached its highest level since the early 1970s. In 1996, fifteen new senators were elected, which led to the largest Senate class in more than a decade. Roughly two-thirds of current senators are serving in a first or second term.

Elections

For the members of the House and Senate, the most vital statistics are those on congressional elections. Whatever their personal goals within Congress, members must first win reelection. Even so, as the dramatic changes in party control of both chambers in the 1994 elections illustrated, achieving individual electoral success is not sufficient--the success of one's party colleagues is essential for individual members to reach their legislative and political goals.

The House and Senate are very closely split between the parties. Although the Republicans seemed ascendant after winning control of both chambers in the 1994 elections, they slipped in 1996 and 1998, though not badly enough to lose their majorities. In 1998, the sitting president's party won seats in the House for only the second time since the Civil War. (The other instance occurred 1934, during the height of the Great Depression.) In 2000, Republicans maintained control of the House, albeit by a razor-thin margin. In the Senate, the election produced a 50-50 tie that was broken only by the defection of Sen. James Jeffords, who left the Republican Party to become an Independent in the spring of 2001, shifting control to the Democrats.

Even though the competition for partisan control of both chambers is exceptionally close, the stability of Congress may be its most important feature. In no election in the twentieth century did more than 14 percent of the 435 seats in the House actually change party hands.

House and Senate incumbents who seek reelection usually succeed. Even landslides in the general election ordinarily lead to the defeat of only 10 percent of the incumbents seeking reelection. Although relatively high numbers of incumbents lost elections in the early 1990s, the older trend has since reasserted itself: In the 2000 elections, only six incumbents were defeated in the general election, and 97.8 percent of those seeking reelection won.

Campaign Finance

Chapter 3 analyzes the campaign finance system. Reliable statistics about campaign finance are hard to find, as outside interest groups spend increasingly large sums of money that are not reflected in campaign records. The available information, however, is more than enough to illustrate increased competition for control of Congress.

Campaign spending has risen sharply during the past decade. The largest growth has come in spending by challengers, a group that traditionally spent much less than incumbents or candidates competing for open seats. The political instability of the 1990s increased the incentives for serious challengers to mount campaigns. The more politically aware challengers of late typically have fared much better than their recent predecessors at raising money for campaigns, especially in the more competitive districts. Since 1996, the average successful challenger in the House spent more than $1 million, with that figure climbing to almost $2 million in 2000. That amount was similar to the amount spent by incumbents in close races, but it was much more than the $855,000 spent by the strong challengers (40 percent or more) who lost. In fact, the most important financial factor predicting whether a race will be competitive is the amount raised by a challenger.

Despite the attention paid to political action committees (PACs), the data in chapter 3 show that candidates usually raise most of their money from individual citizens. Nevertheless, PAC contributions remain important.

Political party money has been the big story since 1996. Although direct party support for candidates--either contributions or coordinated campaign expenditures--declined in each of the past three elections, indirect support through what is known as "soft money" has grown from being less than 20 percent of all party spending in 1992 to more than 50 percent in 2000.

Committees, Staff, and Workload

Chapters 4 through 6 analyze data on the committee system in Congress, the professional staff and support system, and congressional workload and work habits. When the Republicans gained the majority in 1994, they vowed to create change and immediately began restructuring Congress. Their reforms have been significant, although the data indicate that the changes have not all been as dramatic as Republican rhetoric led voters to expect.

Congress works mostly through the committee system; virtually every bill that becomes law has passed through at least one committee. The 107th Congress (2001-2002) has more than 200 committees to prepare legislation, examine presidential nominees, and oversee the federal bureaucracy.

The number of committees and subcommittees grew erratically but persistently from around 130 panels in each body in the mid-1950s to a peak of more than 200 in each chamber by the mid-1970s. Then, in the 1980s and early 1990s, the number of committees declined--significantly in the Senate and more modestly in the House.

The 103rd Congress (1993-1994) created the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress to study the chambers and their governance. That committee recommended several revisions, but partisan arguments stalled any changes until the 104th Congress, when the new Republican majority quickly slashed the number of House committees and subcommittees by 25 percent to 110, the lowest level in decades. Because the Senate had cut its number of panels from 205 to 130 between 1975 and 1979, there was less need for restructuring after Republicans gained control of the chamber. Nevertheless, the number of Senate committees and subcommittees dropped from 111 to 92 after the GOP takeover in 1994 and has remained steady since then.

The Republicans also reduced the number of committee and subcommittee assignments in both the House and the Senate. In the 1950s, the average representative served on three panels. By 1991, the average had risen to 6.8. In the 107th Congress, that number has fallen to just about five assignments. Senators average more than twice as many assignments as their House counterparts, regardless of which party controls the chamber. The reforms of the late 1970s lowered the average number of Senate assignments from 17.6 in the Ninety-fourth Congress (1975-1976) to 12.4 per senator today.

When Americans complain about the size of the federal government, they usually mean the executive branch and its agencies. The Congress that appears on C-SPAN or the nightly news seems to consist of the members and a small group of personal and support staff. In fact, more than 22,000 employees work in the legislative branch of government. Congress is larger than the departments of Energy, Labor, or Housing and Urban Development and is the most heavily staffed legislature in the world. The emergence of a large congressional establishment is a twentieth-century phenomenon. At the turn of the century, representatives had no personal staff, and senators had a total of thirty-nine personal assistants. Today, total personal staff exceeds 11,000 employees.

Republicans took control in 1994, promising to cut waste in the legislative branch. Thus far, their efforts have largely focused on committee staff. Previously, the committees employed well over 6,000 people, three times the current number.

Increased employment has led to increased cost. The annual operating budget of Congress is now more than $2 billion. From 1946 to 2000, legislative branch appropriations grew by 4,498 percent. During the same time, the consumer price index rose by 783 percent. In recent years, however, Congress has exercised more legislative self-control: between fiscal year 1976, when Congress first approached the billion-dollar threshold, and fiscal year 1994, legislative branch appropriations increased by only 140 percent, while the consumer price index rose by 160 percent.

Measuring "work" in Congress is complex. Although many quantitative indicators exist--from bills introduced to hours in session--those may not give a clear picture of what Congress as an institution does or what individual members do. Workload numbers can, however, provide a sense of patterns of activity over time and the relative emphasis each Congress places on its legislative workload.

Several tables in chapter six suggest that the congressional workload increased in the 1960s and early 1970s, peaked in the late 1970s, and then began to decline. The total number of votes, hours in session, meetings, and hearings rose dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s. Ironically, however, throughout much of the 1970s, the number of bills passed by the House and Senate and the number of bills enacted into law decreased.

In recent years, many workload trends have been ambiguous. Consider output as measured by bills enacted. The total number of bills signed into law dropped from 713 in the 100th Congress (1987-1988) to a low of 333 in the 104th (1995-1996) before rising again to 580 in the 106th Congress (1999-2000). Over the same time period, the average number of pages per statute ballooned from 6.8 to a high of 19.1 and then shrank back down to 8.7. In a manner of speaking, the 104th Congress passed fewer laws but more legislation and, in the time since, has passed more laws but less legislation.

Budgeting

The budget is one of the most important and public functions of Congress. The Constitution gives Congress the power to levy taxes and to appropriate money. Accordingly, the executive branch can raise and spend money only to the extent and in the manner authorized by Congress. In addition to taxation and appropriation powers, Congress makes financial decisions through its authorizations and budget processes. Consequently, the business of Congress, particularly the House, revolves around the budget.

The budget process has been reexamined over the last few years, with proposed legislation for a biennial budget and a proposed constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. However, the Supreme Court declared as unconstitutional the single budget reform that was enacted--a statutory, line-item veto passed by the 104th Congress.

Chapter seven examines the sharply partisan breakdown of budget resolution votes in recent years. During the 1980s, the Republicans displayed remarkable cohesion on budget votes, and defections by conservative Democrats allowed Republicans to achieve many of President Ronald Reagan's budget priorities, even though the party was in the minority in the House. By 1989, Republicans began to defect from Reagan's successor, George Bush, a trend that gave Democrats greater influence over the budget. Recently, that partisan split has deepened. Both parties now show considerable unity on budget votes. Republicans opposed the budgets from 1993 through 1995 but, after losing the political battle over government shutdowns, began to support the president. In 1998 Congress failed to adopt a budget resolution--yet another consequence of the partisan politics that characterized the 105th Congress.

Although Congress holds the power of the purse, the growth in programs not regulated by annual appropriations has hampered congressional members' ability to exercise that power effectively. During fiscal years 1967-2000, those "relatively uncontrollable outlays," which include spending on entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, as well as interest payments and outlays from prior obligations, rose from 59 percent to 80 percent of the budget.

Voting Alignments

Three important patterns for tracking congressional voting are support for the president, party cohesion, and the strength of the ideological coalitions that cut across party lines. Chapter eight details the dynamics of those forces since the 1950s.

Presidential support and success is mainly a function of the number of seats in Congress held by the president's party. When one party controls both Congress and the White House, the percentage of victories in votes on which the president takes clear positions never drops below 75 percent; with a divided government, presidents average well below that level of success.

Party-line voting is measured by calculating the percentage of all recorded votes on which a majority of voting Democrats opposed a majority of voting Republicans and by the cohesion of the parties on those votes that elicit a party split. The tables in this chapter clearly show that the percentage of party votes increases in nonelection years and declines in subsequent election years.

The Democratic Party experienced a decline in cohesion in the late 1930s that continues to this day. In particular, southern Democrats and Republicans often voted together on a set of social and cultural issues, which pitted them against northern Democrats. The so-called conservative coalition was a formidable opponent to Democratic presidents well before the Republican takeover in the 104th Congress, but it may be disappearing as Republicans continue to gain offices at all levels in the South.

For the first time, this edition of Vital Statistics on Congress uses the Poole-Rosenthal ideological scores to examine the partisan leanings of congressional coalitions over the past half century. The data illustrate trends that reflect the rise of the conservative coalition and its subsequent decline. Time will tell whether the parties realign along more purely ideological lines.