Description of Politics 30: The U.S. Congress

Politics 30: The United States Congress
Pomona College, Spring 2008
Prof. David Menefee-Libey

Course Description:

To a great extent, a course on Congress is a course on American politics. As one of the three major institutions of our constitutional system, the United States Congress serves as a lens through which we can see many of the central challenges of American politics: the difficulty of seeking democracy in a large and diverse society; the complexity of representation; problems of individual and collective responsibility; the practicalities of government in an advanced technological society; the influence of money everywhere; and conflict over the role of the public sector in private life, to name just a few.

At this time two years ago, we opened this course noting that Congress was in the throes of a crisis. In the months and years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the leaders and members of Congress had surrendered many of the institution's most important powers to the president and the executive branch of government. Congress no longer legislated independently: George W. Bush went longer than any president since Thomas Jefferson before thinking it necessary to veto a bill sent to him by Congress. Congress no longer exercised critical oversight of the executive branch: most of its committees had stopped holding investigative hearings in which executive branch officials testified under oath. Congress no longer set its own policy agenda: at a time when a large majority of Americans agreed with the assertion that the nation is "off on the wrong track," particularly with regard to the Iraq war, economic security and the provision of health care, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report noted that the institution entered 2006 without a substantive agenda for the year. Finally, Congress showed little commitment to govern itself: leaders from both chambers were already under criminal investigation and even indictment for corruption, but the investigations were being pursued by executive agencies and there was little follow-up within Congressional disciplinary bodies.

At this time last year, we faced what we thought might be a markedly different situation. In November 2006, voters had delivered a stinging defeat to Republicans at all levels of government, and handed to Democrats control of both chambers of Congress. Although Republicans still controlled the Presidency and the Judiciary, we expected that the direction of national policy might be contested in ways students in the class had not witnessed in their adult lives. President Bush had tried to regain the initiative in his Iraq policy, but some Congressional Democrats had aggressively challenged him. Conversely, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had said that they intended to seize the initiative with an early legislative blitz much like that of Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995.

As the semester and congressional session played out last spring and summer, however, it became clear that there would be little substantial change in the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. Politics and policy did not shift in new directions, and Congress failed to reassert itself in order to recover from its institutional crisis. In some ways, the situation grew worse as President Bush and Vice President Cheney grew increasingly contemptuous of Congress, refusing to provide information or documents, and refusing to allow executive branch officials to respond to congressional subpoenas or answer questions about policy. The White House openly broke the law on domestic surveillance, preservation of White House records, and keeping confidential the identities of CIA operatives, and Congress proved incapable of doing anything about it.

This semester, as the Iraq war enters its sixth year, the nation slides into a recession, climate change accelerates, and myriad Republicans and Democrats compete for their party nominations to succeed George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the White House, we will have an opportunity to study and observe Congress and its role in American government and politics. It should be interesting, though of course we should all remember the cliché: "May you live in interesting times" is thought of as a curse rather than a blessing.

I will assume students enrolled in this course already have a basic knowledge of American political history and national government, as well as a strong interest in contemporary politics in the United States. Building on that foundation, we will explore Congress from three perspectives:

as a political institution, with its own internal organizations, practices, leadership and divisions of labor, each shaped by their historical development;
as a collection of politicians, elected to represent the citizens of the United States, but also working strategically to achieve their own interests and values; and
as the focus of national government, where much of the agenda of national policy making is set, the nation's laws are written, and the actions of national government are monitored.

We will interrupt the lecture/discussion format for several weeks before and after Spring Break to prepare for and carry out a collaborative simulation exercise with Claremont McKenna College Prof. Jack Pitney's "US Congress" class and Pitzer College Prof. Dan Ward's "Congress and the Presidency" class. We will cancel regular class sessions and meet every evening during the week of March 26. (If you are unable to participate in every evening of the simulation, please do not enroll in the course.)

BOOKS
The following required books are available at Huntley Bookstore:

Roger H. Davidson and Walter J. Oleszek, Congress and Its Members, 10th ed. (CQ Press, 2006) ["D/O" in the assignment schedule] You may use any recent edition of D/O, but note that the pagination will change for some assignments.
Charles B. Cushman, Jr., An Introduction to the U.S. Congress (M.E. Sharpe, 2006) (I failed to order this at Huntley, so you'll have to acquire it on your own.)
Barbara Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U.S. Congress, 3rd ed. (CQ Press, 2007).
optional: Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track, (Oxford University Press, 2006) ["M/O" in the assignment schedule]

I will also place additional readings on the Sakai website (as noted by an *asterisk), hand them out in class, post them or link to them on the course web pages. I will let you know if and when I update the on-line version of this syllabus at any time during the semester. (Don't be surprised if I do that several times.)

Because we will talk about current political and legislative developments in Congress, it is essential that you read a good daily newspaper such as the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal. If you prefer to find your news on the web, I would suggest the following sites:

Roll Call (one Capitol Hill newspaper, now unfortunately by subscription only)
The Hill (the other Capitol Hill newspaper)
The New York Times
The Los Angeles Times
The Washington Post
The Washington Times
All Politics (one of a variety of political junkie pages)
The Note (another of a variety of political junkie pages)

I have also provided links from this course page, and will continue to develop that list as the semester goes on. If you find something good that isn't listed there, please bring it to class and I'll add it to the links.