Elections

Ads

For Thursday, Davidson ch. 5

Competition

Incumbents Usually Win -- House and Senate

House and Senate margins  

Control

Midterms Are Bad for the President's Party

Since 1994:  control is in play, majorities are usually narrow.

In 2022, GOP won the aggregate popular vote for the House.

The historical pattern:

The House

Overview  -- the game

Gerrymandering: cracking, packing, merging, isolating

GOP Advantage in Non-Minority Districts

Crossover districts

The Senate

Senate classes (last year was a "class 3" election)

The vanishing of split delegations.  The 118th has just five:

1. Maine:  Collins (R) and King (I)
2. Montana: Tester (D) and Daines (R)
3. Ohio:  Brown (D) and Vance (R)
4. WV:  Manchin (D) and Capito (R)
5. Wisconsin: Johnson (R) and Baldwin (D)

Campaign Finance

"Hard money" contribution limits

Outside spending

Blood on the Marble

 For Tuesday, read Davidson, ch. 3 and 4. 

The book on violence in the antebellum Congress:

The title comes from this line, which provides the book's epigraph: In a letter to Senator Charles Sumner (MA) Rev. John Turner Sargent wrote that "blood would flow—somebody’s blood, either yours or Wilson’s, or Hale’s, or Giddings’— before the expiration of your present session on that field of blood, the floor of Congress.” 

Sargent was alluding to the burial place of Judas: "And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day" (Matthew 27:6-8 KJV).

It was literally an atmosphere conducive to violence:

All this in a room that was hot, stuffy, and smelly. At the end of a typical day, with the galleries full and hours of body heat trapped in the chamber, [Benjamin Brown] French thought that reading aloud to members was like reading “with his head stuck into an oven.” ...  Ongoing whimpering from the floor produced another study, this one demonstrating that it was thirty degrees warmer inside than outside and that the chamber smelled of sewage from the basement. Visiting the new chamber not long after it opened, French wasn’t impressed. The idea of “shutting up a thousand or two people in a kind of cellar, where none of God’s direct light or air can come in to them . . . does not jump with my notions of living,” he groused. Thirty years later, members still declared the House “the worst ventilated building on the continent."

Professor Freeman explains how hard it was to research the violence (Start at around 9:30):

In 1856, Senator Sumner delivered his famous "Crime Against Kansas" speech.  He attacked the absent Andrew Butler (SC), saying he had " a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean," the harlot, Slavery."

Two days later, Butler's cousin, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, responded:




The Drunk History version:

You can see the cane in a Boston museum:

Fast Forward to 2020-21

From the J6 report:

Then he pressures the Georgia secretary of state to change the count.

Team Trump organizes fake electors

Trump pressures the Justice Department:

The President pushed the claim that Pennsylvania had reported 205,000 more votes than there were voters in the state.“We’ll look at whether we have more ballots in Pennsylvania than registered voters,” Acting Attorney General Rosen replied, according to [acting deputy attorney general Richard] Donoghue. They “[s]hould be able to check that out quickly.” But Rosen wanted President Trump to “understand that the DOJ can’t and won’t snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election. It doesn’t work that way.” 

“I don’t expect you to do that,” President Trump responded. “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen."

Donoghue explained this “is an exact quote from the President.” 

From the Eastman Memo:

1. VP Pence ... begins to open and count the ballots 
2. When he gets to Arizona, he announces that he has multiple slates of electors, and so is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other States.  
3. At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States. That means the total number of “electors appointed” – the language of the 12th Amendment -- is 454. ... A “majority of the electors appointed” would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected. 
4. Howls, of course, from the Democrats, who now claim, contrary to Tribe’s prior position, that 270 is required. So Pence says, fine. Pursuant to the 12th Amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. That sends the matter to the House, where the “the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote . . . .” Republicans currently control 26 of the state delegations, the bare majority needed to win that vote. President Trump is re-elected there as well. 

Pence declined to go along.

The rally:

The violence:

They came damn close to Pence

A mysterious White House document outlined a plan for the Defense Department to seize voting machines.

Congress reformed the Electoral Count Act late last year:

• Choice of electors must follow the laws of the state enacted prior to election day.
• Each state's governor (unless otherwise previously identified in the laws or constitution of a state ) is responsible for submitting the certificate identifying the state's electors. 
• The role of the Vice President is merely ministerial.  
• The objection threshold in Congress is at least one-fifth of the House of Representatives and Senate.

First Assignment, Spring 2023

Pick one:

• Pick any current member of the House or Senate who was serving last year.  Tell how this member has explained her or his position on one of the following: deficit reduction, gun control, the Inflation Reduction Act, marriage equality, or voting rights.  With reference to Davidson, ch. 5, explain how this explanation reflects both the member's constituency and her or his place on Capitol Hill.
• See Gary Jacobson's preview of the 2022 midterm election (Thurber, pp. 45-49).  In what ways did the results confirm or disconfirm his analysis?

Essays should reflect an understanding of class readings and discussions. Many resources, including CQ Magazine and Politics in America, are at Library/Databases/CQ Library.  Consult other sources as well. See, among others: 

• http://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/JPitney/congress.html
• https://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/JPitney/elect.htm

The specifications:

• Essays should be typed (12-point), double-spaced, and no more than three pages long. I will not read past the third page. 
• Please submit all papers in this course as Word documents, not pdfs.
• Cite your sources. Please use endnotes in the format of Chicago Manual of Style.  Endnotes do not count against the page limit. Please do not use footnotes, which take up too much page space.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. Return essays to the Sakai dropbox for this class by 11:59 PM, Friday, February 10. I reserve the right to dock papers one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

A Quick Run Through Congressional History

  FOR THURSDAY, READ THURBER CH. 3 AND THE FREEMAN EXCERPTS ON SAKAI.

First assignment by Thu.

"All of American history comes from the Civil War. It is the most important event in our history. Everything before it led up to it, everything since, everything, is a consequence of it." -- Ken Burns

From Article I, section 2

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Akhil Amar on the Three-Fifths Clause:

The radical vice of Article I as drafted and ratified was that it gave slaveholding regions extra clout in every election as far as the eye could see - a political gift that kept giving. And growing. Unconstrained by any explicit intrastate equality norm in Article I, and emboldened by the federal [3/5] ratio, many slave states in the antebellum era skewed their congressional-district maps in favor of slaveholding regions within the state. Thus the House not only leaned south, but also within coastal slave states bent east, toward tidewater plantations that grabbed more than their fair share of seats. ... The very foundation of the Constitution’s first branch was tilted and rotten.

And not just the first branch. The Article II electoral college sat atop the Article I base: The electors who picked the president would be apportioned according to the number of seats a state had in the House and Senate. In turn, presidents would nominate cabinet heads, Supreme Court justices, and other Article III judges.

Consequences of the Three-Fifths Clause.  From William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery:

Five of the first seven presidents were slaveholders [Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson], for thirty-two of the nation’s first thirty-six years forty of its first forty-eight, fifty of its first sixty four, the nation’s president was a slaveholder. The powerful office of Speaker of the House was held by a slaveholder for twenty-eight of the nation’s first thirty-five years. The president pro tem of the Senate was virtually always a slaveholder. The majority of the cabinet members and — very important — of justices of the Supreme Court were slaveholders. The slaveholding Chief Justice Roger Taney, appointed by slaveholding President Andrew Jackson to succeed the slaveholding John Marshall, would serve all the way through the decades before the war into the years of the Civil War itself; it would be a radical change of the kind slaveholders feared when in 1863, President Lincoln would appoint the anti-slavery politician Salmon P. Chase of Ohio to succeed Taney.

The size of Congress (Davidson 28-29) 

, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Statehood -- Matt Glassman reflects:

The relevant constitutional provision is Article 4, section 3:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress

That’s right. All it takes to create a new state is the passage of a federal law. Right now, assuming they were willing to use the nuclear option to abolish the filibuster for state admissions, any unified government could make Puerto Rico or DC a state, or (with the consent of the state leg) divide Texas (or Wyoming) into any number of states. WIth just a law. Irreversibly. And the constitution puts no population or land size constraints on the process either.

These three features of the statehood process—irreversibility, a low threshold for creation, and no population/size constraints on the creation of a state—made the statehood process incredibly destabilzing in the 19th century. Any majority, at any time, could rearrange the balance of power in the legislature and the electoral college. And it unambiguously exacerbated the slave crisis: so many of the major flashpoints over slavery between 1820 and 1860 involved the flawed statehood process: the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Lecompton Constitution fight, even the Dred Scott decision.

"Institutionalization" (Davidson, pp. 26-27)

• "Well-bounded": Membership and leadership in the House has been increasingly walled-off. Incumbents tend to serve longer and leadership positions go to the most senior incumbents 
• "Internally complex": House functions have been regularized and specialized: committees, leadership, staff.
• Universalistic: The House now follows impersonal, universal decision criteria rather than particularistic criteria. "Precedents and rules are followed; merit systems replace favoritism and nepotism" (p 145) When the House makes a judgment about a contested election, the decision rests on the case's merits, not on partisan lines.

Rules

Congressional tenure has increased, 

EXPERIENCE 

Staff

 

Dualities

For Tuesday:

• Davidson, ch. 2, and Freeman (on Sakai, resources)

Some basics:

• Congressional pay and benefits
• Congressional staff titles
• Congressional staff salaries (find individuals here)

Two Congresses

• Article I of the Constitution and lawmaking
• Burke's speech to the electors of Bristol (Davidson, p. 6-7): Delegate v. Trustee
• Demographics and Descriptive representation
• Women in Congress

Two Chambers

House-Senate differences

House members often run for Senate, but sitting senators in the modern era do not run for the House.

Few House members run for president, and seldom get far when they do. But a fairly large fraction of current senators have gone for the White House:

• Michael Bennet (D-CO), 2020
• Cory Booker (D-NJ) 2020
• Ted Cruz (R-TX) 2016
• Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) 2020
• Lindsey Graham (R-SC) 2016
• Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) 2020
• Rand Paul (R-KY) 2016
• Mitt Romney (R-UT), 2008, 2012
• Marco Rubio (R-FL) 2016
• Bernard Sanders (I-VT) 2016, 2020
• Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), 2020

In the House, see

• Seth Moulton (D-MA), 2020
• Eric Swalwell (D-CA) 2020

Two Parties

Four Strategic Postures Since 2000 (House, by election year) 

                    Majority                          Minority 

In Party       Dems 08, 20                 GOP 06, 18

                    GOP 00, 02, 04, 16       Dem 10,12,14

                                                          Dems 22

                  

Out Party     GOP 10,12,14              GOP 08, 20

                    Dem 06, 18                   Dem 00, 02, 04, 16

                    GOP 22

Beginnings

 For Thursday, read the first chapter of Davidson and the first chapter of the Thurber reader.

Objectives of the course:

• Why the institution operates the way it does  
• What motivates members
• Reelection
• Power:  individual and party
• Public policy
• Attention and disruption
• How the institution has changed in recent years
• Polarization
• Nationalization of elections and internal congressional politics.
• How lawmakers, activists, and ordinary citizens accomplish their aims.
• Dualities
• Two Congresses: Representative assembly and lawmaking body.
• Two chambers:  House and Senate are different.
• Two parties:  Republicans and Democrats differ ideologically, geographically, and demographically, though the lines have shifted over the years.
• Two kinds of status:  being in the majority is really different from being in the minority.
• Two layers of lawmaking:  high-profile and partisan, lower-profile and practical
• Recent developments
• Trump administration, impeachment, and insurrection
• Change of House party control and the speakership

The Room Where It Happens

• Deliberation and compromise
• Will the situation change?

CMC Government 101 -- US Congress -- Spring 2023 Syllabus

US Congress

CMC Government 101  Spring 2023

Tue, Thu 11 AM- 12:15 PM Pacific

Kravis 103

ZOOM: https://cmc-its.zoom.us/j/92228697468

J.J. Pitney

Office: Kravis 232    

E-mail:  jpitney@cmc.edu

Web: http://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/JPitney/

Office Hours: Mon. Tue. Wed. Thu 1-2 pm and by appointment

See also my Congress Links page.

General

Woodrow Wilson wrote: "Like a vast picture thronged with figures of equal prominence and crowded with elaborate and obtrusive details, Congress is hard to see satisfactorily and appreciatively at a single view and from a single stand-point. Its complicated forms and diversified structure confuse the vision, and conceal the system which underlies its composition. It is too complex to be understood without effort, without a careful and systematic process of analysis." 

In this course, we shall undertake such analysis. We shall ask how lawmakers behave at home and on Capitol Hill. We shall study Congress's procedures and structures, with an eye to explaining why some bills pass while others languish.

Classes

Class sessions will include lecture and discussion. Finish each week's readings before class because our discussions will involve those readings. We shall also talk about breaking news stories about Congress, so you must read a good daily news source such as Politico or Axios.

Blog

Our class blog is at http://gov101.blogspot.com. I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:

• To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
• To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.
• To post relevant news items or videos. 

Grades

The following will make up your course grade:

• Two three-page papers: 15% each
• One five-page paper: 25%
• Simulation and writeup: 30%
• Participation, blog: 15% 

Details

• The papers will develop your research and writing skills. In grading, I will take account of the quality of your writing, applying the principles of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. If you object, do not take this course, or anything else that I teach.
• The simulation will require you to study your part and spend several sessions in character. 
• Class participation will hone your ability to think on your feet, as I shall call on students at random. If you often miss class or fail to prepare, your grade will suffer. I shall use the cold calls to judge how well you are keeping up with the material. If you object to this approach, do not take this course. 
• In addition to the required readings (below), I may also give you handouts, emails, and web links covering current events and basic factual information.
• Check due dates for coursework. Do not plan on extensions.
• Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are not victimless offenses, because they hurt fellow students. Please study our Statement of Academic Integrity, which reads in part: "The faculty of Claremont McKenna College is firmly committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity. Each faculty member has the responsibility to report cases of academic dishonesty to the Academic Standards Committee."
• This class welcomes viewpoint diversity. See: https://heterodoxacademy.org/library/advice-on-syllabus-language/
• Your experience in this class is important to me, and I have a particular interest in disability. If you have set up accommodations with Accessibility Services at CMC, please tell me about your approved accommodations so we can discuss your needs in this course. You can start by forwarding me your accommodation letter. If you have not yet established accommodations but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability (e.g., mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health), please get in touch with Assistant Dean for Academic Success and Accessibility Services, Maude Nazaire, at Accessibilityservices@cmc.edu to ask questions or begin the process. General information and accommodations request information are at the CMC Accessibility Services website. 

Required Books [Make sure that you get the correct edition of the Davidson book.]

• Roger Davidson, Walter J. Oleszek, Frances E. Lee, and Eric Schickler, Congress and Its Members, 18th ed. (Washington: CQ Press, 2022).
• Jill Lawrence, The Art of the Political Deal (independently published, 2017).
• James A. Thurber, ed., Rivals for Power: Presidential-Congressional Relations, 7th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2022).
  

The schedule is subject to change, with advance notice.

Jan 17, 19: Two Political Branches, Two Chambers, Two Congresses, Two Parties

"The art of the compromise,
Hold your nose and close your eyes.
We want our leaders to save the day,
But we don't get a say in what they trade away."
-- Lin-Manuel Miranda, "The Room Where It Happens," -- our class anthem. 

What are the major functions of Congress?

• Davidson, ch. 1. 
• Thurber, ch. 1

Jan 24, 26: Congressional History and the Insurrection

"All you've got to know is this: right now the government of the United States is sitting on top of the Washington Monument, right on the very point, tipping right and left and ready to fall off and break up on the pavement." -- Edmond O'Brien, in Seven Days in May

How does today's Congress compare with that of the past? Have lawmakers gotten better or worse? What happened on January 6, 2021?

• Davidson, ch. 2
• Excerpts from Joanne B. Freeman (PO `84), The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War  (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018). On Sakai.
• Thurber, ch 3.

THREE-PAGE PAPER ASSIGNED BY JAN 26: 

DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY FEB 10.

READ STRUNK AND WHITE FIRST.

AND WATCH MY WRITING LECTURE.

Jan 31, Feb 2: Congressional Elections and Home Style

"A congressional campaign is a lot like unmedicated childbirth: it's painful, it's messy, you don't think you can do what's required even as you're doing it, you likely consented to it months ago and now you're questioning your decisions, your likelihood to request drugs increases proportionally as you get closer to the big event, you gained weight, you don't realize you're screaming but everyone around you looks distressed, and your mother doesn't remember what it's like. Also, once you get what you want, you'll never sleep again. I'm sure there are things I'm missing, but I hear hormones make you forget so you'll do it every two years." -- Candace Valenzuela (CMC `06), 2020 candidate for US House, Texas 24.

How do congressional candidates emerge onto the scene? What accounts for the party balance in the House and Senate? How do incumbents hold their seats?

• Davidson, ch. 3, 4, 5.

Feb 7,  9: Parties and Leadership

“Joe (Biden) told me of one run-in he’d had on the Senate floor after the Republican leader blocked a bill Joe was sponsoring. When Joe tried to explain the bill’s merits, McConnell raised his hand like a traffic cop and said, `You must be under the mistaken impression that I care.’” -- Barack Obama

How do leaders and followers influence each other on Capitol Hill?

• Davidson, ch. 6.
• Thurber, ch. 2, 7.

.

FIVE-PAGE PAPER ASSIGNED BY FEB 14, 

DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY MAR 3.

Feb 14, 16: Process 

"The Affordable Care Act contains more than a few examples of inartful drafting." -- Chief Justice John Roberts

Who writes the bills, and how? What is the role of congressional committees?

• Davidson ch. 7-8.

Feb 21, 23: Process, Interest Groups, and Decision Making   

"If procuring votes with offers of employment is what you intend, I’ll fetch a friend from Albany who can supply the skulking men gifted at this kind of shady work. Spare me the indignity of actually speaking to Democrats. Spare you the exposure and liability." -- William Seward (David Strathairn) in Lincoln

How do members decide how to vote? What is the relative influence of leadership, constituency, and ideology? How the "outside game" of media politics complement the "inside game" of legislative maneuvering?

• Davidson, ch. 9, 13.

Feb 28, Mar 2: The Art of the Political Deal

“We’re just having a nice day behind closed doors, doing our jobs.”  -- Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX)

How do lawmakers engage in deliberation and bargaining?

• Lawrence, all.

Mar 7, 9: Congress and the Executive I

"One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration." -- Mitch McConnell, May 2021

“If you look at the political alignment of everyone involved, it’s the government is working together to solve a major problem at a time when the country needs to see examples like this, of coming together and getting an outcome,” Mitch McConnell, January 2022

How do the executive and legislative branches check each other? Do they intrude on each other's legitimate authority?

• Davidson, ch. 10-11
• Thurber, ch. 4.

Mar 14, 16: Spring Break

Mar 21, 23, 28, 30: Legislative Simulation 

"I saw you with your sword earlier, You're petty handy with that thing. Have you ever heard of LARPing?" –LARPer in Hawkeye

The simulation will take place both during class time (live) and in the evening (via Zoom).  Participants will decide on evening times.

SIMULATION WRITEUP DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX 

BY FRIDAY, APRIL 7.

Apr 4, 6:  Congress and the Executive II

 "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone." -- Barack Obama

How do presidents view Congress? When lawmakers become president, do they change their minds about the balance of power?

• Thurber, ch. 5, 6, 15

Apr 11, 13: Oversight and the Courts

"Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request..." 26 U.S. Code § 6103

How do the branches battle over control of information? How does Congress try to influence the composition of the judiciary?

• Davidson, ch. 12 
• Thurber, 8. 14.

Apr 18. 20: Budgets and Domestic Policy

Today, Congressman Bill Huizenga (MI-04) announced the introduction of H.R. 263, the Stop Trying to Obsessively Vilify Energy (STOVE) Act. Recently, federal regulators have openly expressed their desire to ban gas stoves with a commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) stating, “any option is on the table.” The STOVE Act preempts this bureaucratic overreach by prohibiting federal agencies from moving to ban gas stoves and similar gas-powered appliances. 

What is domestic policy? How does Congress handle issues such as employment and health care?

• Davidson, ch. 14.
• Thurber, ch. 11, 12.

THREE-PAGE PAPER ASSIGNED BY APR 20, 

DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY MAY 3

Apr 25, 27: National Security and the Two Congresses

"U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok from operating in the United States [:] The Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act)."

Can Congress effectively check the executive branch in wartime? Do lawmakers have the expertise and information to make decisions about national and homeland security?

• Davidson, ch. 15
• Thurber, ch. 9, 10.

May 2: Reconsiderations

"[B]etween 1830 and 1860, there were more than seventy violent incidents between congressmen in the House and Senate chambers or nearby streets and dueling grounds, most of them long forgotten...I found canings, duel negotiations, and duels; shoving and fistfights; brandished pistols and bowie knives; wild melees in the House; and street fights with fists and the occasional brick." -- Joanne Freeman, The Field of Blood.

"I suppose this is the moment to say....

Hey. You might want to read my book.

About congressmen lunging at each other.

And punching each other.

And pulling guns and knives on each other.

Something that SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING NOW." 

-- Joanne Freeman, January 6, 2023.

How are the two Congresses faring in 2023?

• Davidson, ch. 16