GOVERNMENT 2358: CONGRESS AND LEGISLATIVE POLITICS

GOVERNMENT 2358: CONGRESS AND LEGISLATIVE POLITICS Harvard University Barry C. Burden Spring Semester 2000 burden@fas.harvard.edu Tuesdays 2-4pm Littauer Center 228 North Yard Littauer Center M-17 North Yard 617.495.4249 Office hours: Mondays 10-11am http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~gov2358 This course surveys the literature on congressional politics. Though we will make some references to state legislatures and parliaments in other nations, the focus is almost exclusively on the U.S. Congress. We can not cover every topic in even this huge literature, but the readings will be quite comprehensive, addressing such topics as committees, legislative development and change, party leadership, elections, and policymaking. Because the congressional literature is one of the most integrated in American politics, I have tried to include works from different research traditions including empirical, theoretical, and historical treatments. The seven required books listed below are on order at the COOP bookstore. They are also on reserve at the Hilles and Lamont libraries. I have also prepared a packet of required course readings. (Recommended readings are neither required nor provided.) I expect all students to do all of the reading each week. I recommend reading each week s selection in chronological order to get a rough sense how the subfield developed though the material presents more recent than classic work. In addition to reading, course requirements include a research paper, one report on an outside book, and a series of critical response/question papers. The research paper accounts for 50% of the grade and should be a 20-30 page document that could be presented at a professional conference. Nearly any methodology, approach, or congressional topic is possible. A two-page proposal is due in class on April 18 and papers will be presented to the rest of the class at our final meeting. Each student will also present one book outside of common course reading. The four to five page report should be distributed to everyone in the course by Monday at 4pm of the week it will be considered. Book reports account for 15% of the final grade. In addition, during five weeks of each student s choosing, three-page papers are required that review, critique, synthesize, and suggest improvements for that weeks readings. These should be put in my mailbox on Mondays by 4pm as well. These papers and class participation together account for the remaining 35% of the course grade. 1

Required Readings Binder, Sarah A. 1997. Minority Rights, Majority Rule: Partisanship and the Development of Congress. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Cox, Gary W., and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Fenno, Richard F. 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 1995. Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes Toward American Political Institutions. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mayhew, David R. 1991. Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations, 1946-1990. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. A packet of articles and book chapters. WEEK 1: FEBRUARY 8 INTRODUCTION Schedule WEEK 2: FEBRUARY 15 LEGISLATIVE EVOLUTION & CONGRESSIONAL CAREERS Dodd, Lawrence C. 1977. Congress and the Quest for Power. In Congress Reconsidered, ed. Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer. New York, NY: Praeger. Hibbing, John R. 1991. Contours of the Modern Congressional Career. APSR 85:405-28. Huntington, Samuel P. Congressional Response to the Twentieth Century. In The Congress and America s Future 2nd ed., ed. David Truman. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Katz, Jonathan N., and Brian R. Sala. 1996. Careerism, Committee Assignments, and the Electoral Connection. APSR 90:21-33. Polsby, Nelson. 1968. The Institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives. APSR 62:144-68. Joseph Cooper, and David W. Brady. 1981. Toward a Diachronic Analysis of Congress. APSR 75:988-1006. 2

Crook, Sara Brandes, and John R. Hibbing. 1997. A Not-so-distant Mirror: The 17th Amendment and Institutional Change. APSR 91:845-54. Hibbing, John R. 1988. Legislative Institutionalization with Illustrations from the British House of Commons. AJPS 32:681-712. Price, H. Douglas. 1977. Careers and Committees in the American Congress. In The History of Parliamentary Behavior, ed. William O. Aydelotte. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Parker, Glenn R. 1992. Institutional Change, Discretion, and the Making of the Modern Congress. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Swift, Elaine K. 1996. The Making of an American Senate : Reconstitutive Change in Congress, 1787-1841. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. WEEK 3: FEBRUARY 22 LEGITIMACY AND PUBLIC SUPPORT Durr, Robert H., John B. Gilmour, and Christina Wolbrecht. 1997. Explaining Congressional Approval. AJPS 41:175-207. Fenno, Richard F., Jr. 1975. If, as Ralph Nadar Says, Congress is the Broken Branch, How Come We Love Our Congressmen So Much. In Congress in Change: Evolution and Reform, ed. Norman J. Ornstein. New York, NY: Praeger. Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 1995. Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes Toward American Political Institutions. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Born, Richard. 1990. The Shared Fortunes of Congress and Congressmen. JOP 52:1223-41. Kimball, David C., and Samuel C. Patterson. 1997. Living up to Expectations: Public Attitudes Towards Congress. JOP 59:701-28. WEEK 4: FEBRUARY 29 REPRESENTATION Cannon, David T., Matthew M. Schousen, and Patrick J. Sellers. 1996. The Supply Side of Congressional Redistricting: Race and Strategic Politicians, 1972-1992. JOP 58:846-62. Cameron, Charles, David Epstein, and Sharyn O Halloran. 1996. Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Black Substantive Representation in Congress? APSR 90:794-823. Fenno, Richard F. 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. (chapters 1-5 & 7) Jackson E. Jackson, and David C. King. 1989. Public Goods, Private Interests, and Representation. APSR 83:1143-64. 3

Miller, Warren E., and Donald E. Stokes. 1963. Constituency Influence in Congress. APSR 57:45-56. Swain, Carol M. 1993. Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (chapter 10) Achen, Chistopher H. 1978. Measuring Representation. AJPS 22:475-510. Erikson, Robert S. 1978. Constituency Opinion and Congressional Behavior: A Reexamination of the Miller-Stokes Representation Data. AJPS 22:511-35. Eulau, Heinz, and Paul Karps. 1977. The Puzzle of Representation: Specifying Components of Responsiveness. LSQ 2:233-54. Hill, Kim Quaile, and Patricia A. Hurley. 1999. Dyadic Representation Reappraised. AJPS 43:109-37. Weissberg, Robert. 1978. Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress. APSR 72:535-47. Bianco, William T. 1994. Trust: Representatives and Constituents. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Fiorina, Morris P. 1974. Representatives, Roll Calls, and Constituencies. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company. Lublin, David. 1997. The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pitkin, Hanna F. 1978. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. WEEK 5: MARCH 7 PREFERENCES AND ROLL CALL VOTING Asher, Herbert B., and Herbert F. Weisberg. 1978. Voting Change in Congress: Some Dynamic Perspectives on an Evolutionary Process. AJPS 22:391-425. Jackson, John E., and John W. Kingdon. 1992. Ideology, Interest Group Scores, and Legislative Votes. AJPS 36:805-23. Kingdon, John W. 1989. Congressmen s Voting Decisions. 3rd ed. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. (chapters 1 & 9-12) Poole, Keith T., and Howard Rosenthal. 1984. The Polarization of American Politics. JOP 46:1061-79. Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1986. Institutional Equilibrium and Equilibrium Institutions. In Political Science: The Science of Politics, ed. Herbert F. Weisberg. New York, NY: Agathon Press. Snyder, James M. 1992. Artificial Extremism in Interest Group Ratings. LSQ 17:319-46. 4

Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M., Laura W. Arnold, and Christopher J. W. Zorn. 1997. The Strategic Timing of Position Taking in Congress: A Study of the North American Free Trade Agreement. APSR 91:324-38. Burden, Barry C., Gregory A. Caldeira, and Tim Groseclose. 2000. Measuring the Ideologies of U.S. Senators: The Song Remains the Same. LSQ. Van Doren, Peter M. 1990. Can We Learn the Causes of Committee Decisions from Roll-Call Data? LSQ 15:311-40. Poole, Keith T., and Howard Rosenthal. 1997. Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. WEEK 6: MARCH 14 PRESIDENTIAL INFLUENCE & DIVIDED GOVERNMENT Bond, Jon R., and Richard Fleisher. 1990. The President in the Legislative Arena. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. (chapters 3 & 4) Fiorina, Morris P. 1996. Divided Government. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. (chapters 2, 5, & 6) Mayhew, David R. 1991. Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations, 1946-1990. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cameron, Charles M., Albert D. Cover, and Jeffrey A. Segal. 1990. Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees: A Neoinstitutional Model. APSR 84:525-34. Coleman, John J. 1999. Unified Government, Divided Government, and Party Responsiveness. APSR 93:821-36. Rivers, Douglas, and Nancy L. Rose. 1985. Passing the President s Program: Public Opinion and Presidential Influence in Congress. AJPS 29:183-96. McCubbins, Mathew D., and Thomas Schwartz. 1984. Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms. AJPS 28:165-79. Sullivan, Terry O. 1990. Bargaining with the President: A Simple Game and New Evidence. APSR 84:1167-95. Krehbiel, Keith. 1998. Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Peterson, Mark A. 1990. Legislating Together: The White House and Capitol Hill from Eisenhower to Reagan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 5

WEEK 7: MARCH 21 COMMITTEES Fenno, Richard F. 1962. The House Appropriations Committee as a Political System: The Problem of Integration. APSR 56:310-24. Hall, Richard L., and Frank W. Wayman. 1990. Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees. APSR 84:797-820. Jones, Bryan D., Frank R. Baumgartner, and Jeffrey C. Talbert. 1993. The Destruction of Issue Monopolies in Congress. APSR 87:657-671. Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. (chapters 1-4 & 7) Shepsle, Kenneth A., and Barry R. Weingast. 1987. The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power. APSR 81:85-104. Adler, E. Scott, and John S. Lapinski. 1997. Demand-Side Theory and Congressional Committee Composition: A Constituency Characteristics Approach. AJPS 41:895-918. Groseclose, Tim, and Charles Stewart III. 1998. The Value of Committee Seats in the House, 1947-91. AJPS 42:453-74. Hall, Richard L., and Bernard Grofman. 1990. The Committee Assignment Process and the Conditional Nature of Committee Bias. APSR 84:1149-66. Fenno, Richard F. 1973. Congressmen in Committees. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Hall, Richard L. 1996. Participation in Congress. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. King, David C. 1997. Turf Wars: How Congressional Committees Claim Jurisdiction. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. WEEK 8: MARCH 28 NO CLASS (SPRING RECESS) WEEK 9: APRIL 4 POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR LEADERS Cox, Gary W., and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rohde, David W. 1991. Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. (chapters 1 & 6) Schickler, Eric, and Andrew Rich. 1997. Controlling the Floor: Parties as Procedural Coalitions in the House. AJPS 41:1340-75. (and responses by and to Cox and McCubbins) 6

Aldrich, John H. 1994. A Model of a Legislature with Two Parties and a Committee System. LSQ 9:313-40. Coleman, John J. 1997. The Decline and Resurgence of Congressional Party Conflict. JOP 59:165-84. Joseph Cooper, and David W. Brady. 1981. Institutional Context and Leadership Style: The House from Cannon to Rayburn. APSR 75:411-25. Krehbiel, Keith. 1993. Where s the Party? BJPS 23:235-66. WEEK 10: APRIL 11 EXPLAINING INCUMBENT SUCCESS Cox, Gary C., and Jonathan N. Katz. 1996. Why Did the Incumbency Advantage in U.S. House Elections Grow? AJPS 40:478-97. Fiorina, Morris P. 1977. The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It. APSR 71:177-81. Jacobson, Gary C. 1987. The Marginals Never Vanished: Incumbency and Competition in the Elections to the U.S. House of Representatives. AJPS 31:126-41. King, Gary, and Andrew Gelman. 1991. Systemic Consequences of Incumbency Advantage in the U.S. House. AJPS 35:110-38. Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (at least part 1) Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals. Polity 6:295-317. Can, Bruce E., John A. Ferejohn, and Morris P. Fiorina. 1987. The Personal Vote. Krasno, Jonathan S. 1994. Challengers, Competition, and Reelection: Comparing Senate and House Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. WEEK 11: APRIL 18 MIDTERM LOSS, CANDIDATE QUALITY, AND MONEY Campbell, Angus. 1960. Surge and Decline: A Study of Electoral Change. POQ 24:397-418. Campbell, James E. 1987. The Revised Theory of Surge and Decline. AJPS 31:965-79. Cox, Gary C., and Jonathan N. Katz. 1999. The Reapportionment Revolution and Bias in U.S. Congressional Elections. AJPS 43:812-41. Gerber, Alan. 1998. Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables. APSR 92:401-11. Jacobson, Gary C. 1989. Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of U.S House Elections, 1946-86. APSR 83:773-93. 7

McCurley, Carl, and Jeffrey J. Mondak. 1995. Inspected by #118406313: The Influence of Incumbents Competence and Integrity in U.S. House Elections. AJPS 39:864-85. Erikson, Robert S. 1988. The Puzzle of Midterm Loss. JOP 50:1011-29. Green, Donald Philip, and Jonathan S. Krasno. 1990. Rebuttal to Jacobson s New Evidence for Old Arguments. AJPS 34:363-72. Jacobson, Gary C. 1990. The Effects of Campaign Spending in House Elections: New Evidence for Old Arguments. AJPS 34:334-62. Tufte, Edward R. 1973. The Relationship between Seats and Votes in Two-Party Systems. APSR 57:45-56. WEEK 12: APRIL 25 LAWMAKING PROCEDURES AND PROCESSES Binder, Sarah A. 1997. Minority Rights, Majority Rule: Partisanship and the Development of Congress. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Dion and Huber. 1996. Procedural Choice and the House Committee on Rules. JOP 25-53. Kessler, Daniel, and Keith Krehbiel. 1996. Dynamics of Cosponsorship. APSR 90:555-66. Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. (chapters 5 & 6) Binder, Sarah A. 1999. The Dynamics of Legislative Gridlock. APSR 93:519-34. Davis, Otto A., M. A. H. Dempster, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1966. A Theory of the Budgetary Process. APSR 60:529-547 Arnold, R. Douglas. 1990. The Logic of Congressional Action. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dion, Douglas. 1997. Turning the Legislative Thumbscrew: Minority Rights and Procedural Change in Legislative Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Sinclair, Barbara. 1997. Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U.S. Congress. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. WEEK 13: MAY 2 PAPER PRESENTATIONS 8