Congress of the United States

G

Recent Events

Riding the coattails of the enormously popular president Ronald Reagan, Republicans gained control of the Senate in 1981 for the first time since 1954. Reagan pushed for sweeping tax cuts and sharply increased military spending, and the plan won congressional approval after some House Democrats joined their Republican colleagues to support the measure. As the 1980s wore on, the increased spending and decreased government revenues created huge budget deficits. The increased deficits left little discretionary spending in the budget, dramatically altering the law-making process in Congress. Congresses since World War II confronted national problems by creating new federal programs, but the budget crunch in the 1980s prevented Congress from creating many new programs and forced Congress to devote most of its attention to spending cuts.

In the late 1980s and the 1990s Congress faced a series of scandals relating to questionable fund-raising practices and abuses of congressional privileges. House Speaker Jim Wright resigned from Congress in 1989 after an ethics investigation into a controversial book deal that he used to get around fund-raising limits. In 1991 investigations revealed that several hundred House members had written bad checks that had been paid by the House “bank,” in effect taking personal interest-free loans from the government. Voters replaced many members implicated in the affair. The bank was actually a House business office that offered check-cashing services. Dating back to the 1830s, the office had for about 40 years honored overdrafts from members of Congress as an advance against their next month’s salary deposits.

The next major scandal arose when Representative Newt Gingrich, who had pushed for Wright’s resignation, organized a political action committee that allegedly violated tax laws. In 1997 Gingrich, who had become Speaker of the House, was censured by his colleagues for providing false information to a House panel investigating the matter. A personal scandal led Gingrich to resign in late 1998.

A combination of Capitol Hill scandals and the failures of President Bill Clinton’s first two years in office unexpectedly brought the Republicans control of both houses of Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years. In 1998, after Clinton admitted to having an affair with a White House intern, partisan rifts deepened as Republicans in the House pressed for Clinton’s impeachment on charges that he lied under oath about the affair and obstructed justice. The House, voting along party lines, passed two articles of impeachment against Clinton, moving the case to the Senate for trial. In 1999 the Senate voted to reject both articles of impeachment. See Impeachment: The Clinton Trial.

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In the years following the impeachment proceedings, Congress was marked by fierce combat between political parties that were substantially equal in strength. The 2000 election results were called “a perfect tie” by some observers. Republican George W. Bush won the presidency with a one-vote margin in the electoral college, although he trailed Democrat Al Gore by half a million popular votes. In the Senate, both parties wound up with 50 seats, marking the first time since 1881 that the Senate was evenly divided between the two major parties. The Republicans’ majority in the House also narrowed. At the start of 2001, Republicans controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate (given that Vice President Dick Cheney served as the tie-breaking vote) for the first time in nearly 50 years. However, Democrats gained control of the Senate in mid-2001 when Senator James Jeffords of Vermont, a Republican, announced his decision to become an independent. In the 2002 elections, Republicans recaptured control of the Senate and maintained their majority in the House, allowing their party to control the legislative agenda. Republicans strengthened their control of Congress in the 2004 elections, expanding their majorities in both the House and Senate.

The Iraq war and corruption scandals cost the Republicans control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections. The Democrats easily regained control of the House and narrowly won the Senate by virtue of two seats held by independents who agreed to caucus with the Democrats, indicating that they were likely to vote with the Democrats. In the Senate the midterm elections resulted in a tie with 49 Republicans and 49 Democrats, but the two independents—Bernard Sanders, a self-described socialist from Vermont, and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who lost the Democratic primary but ran as an independent—tilted the Senate to the Democrats. The unpopularity of the war and corruption scandals that led to criminal indictments of Republican congressmen appeared to have undermined the Republican Party. See also U.S.-Iraq War.

XII

Challenges Facing Congress

American citizens harbor mixed feelings about Congress. Public opinion surveys show that people not only believe that Congress wields great power but that they also prefer that Congress take the lead in policy-making. But Americans also tend to distrust politicians and hold them in low regard. From Mark Twain and Will Rogers to Jay Leno and David Letterman, humorists have used Congress as the butt of many jokes.

Restless voters sometimes take their anger out on Congress. Incumbent members of Congress in the early 1990s, for example, became prime targets for voter unrest, and many were turned out of office. At other times voters seem content with the nation’s affairs, although Congress as a whole rarely receives rave reviews in public opinion surveys. Typically, fewer than half the citizens rate the performance of Congress positively. But as many as two-thirds of those questioned in polls approve of the job their own lawmakers are doing in Washington.

Financing congressional campaigns presents another problem. Winning a seat in Congress has become very costly. In 2000 the average winning Senate campaign spent more than $7 million, and the average successful House campaign more than $800,000. This means that lawmakers spend large amounts of time raising money for their next campaign or paying off debts from the last one. It also raises the possibility that members of Congress will cater to the lobbyists and interest groups who donate money to their campaigns. See Political Campaign.

On a daily basis, senators and representatives must juggle the task of making laws with the need to keep in touch with the voters who elected them. Members spend much time and energy traveling to and from their home states, talking with citizens, and explaining their votes and other actions. Voters expect lawmakers to pay close attention to what local folks think, and are ready to turn out of office anyone who seems to “lose touch” with popular views. But some critics wonder if lawmakers are too tightly bound to their constituents’ wishes, so that broader public interests are neglected. Some critics also wonder whether an elected assembly of citizens can form policies to cope with today’s complex, rapidly changing world. Are senators and representatives—who are mostly generalists elected from geographic areas—capable of resolving complex issues dealing with areas such as science, technology, economic regulation, or international affairs? Those who believe in representative government answer yes. But the final test, as always, lies in the wisdom and effectiveness of the laws themselves.

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