Congressional History to the Present

Holy sh*t. Senator Bennet absolutely annihilated RFK Jr. and exposed him for what he really is—an anti-vaxxer crackpot and grifter. In the pre-Trump era, this would have been the end of his nomination, and he would have withdrawn immediately.pic.twitter.com/Mmu6Ic23Vn

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 29, 2025

.@SenatorHassan's comments about her own child get at something that's rarely discussed when we talk about Kennedy's anti-vaccine industry and the "autism warrior moms" that power his movement. It's predatory and diverts resources from actual research and treatments. pic.twitter.com/ULxiM4ligS

— Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) January 30, 2025

 

Questions on the assignment?

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

Email me your reflections by tonight.

The size of Congress (Davidson 28-29) 

, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

To repeat: 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

Staff (Davidson 36-38)

Overall numbers

House staff by category.

Note what happened to committee staff circa 1995.  What changed?

HIstory and Violence

For Wednesday, Davidson, ch. 2

For next Monday, Davidson, ch. 3 and 4.

"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

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." -- William Faulkner

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. 

John Quincy Adams

• The myth of the whisper spot
• The Gag Rule

Territorial Expansion and Slavery

Calhoun denounces the "all men are created equal" line in the Declaration

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.

 

he 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

Senate 1925

First Assignment, Spring 2025

  Pick one:

• Pick any current member of the House or Senate.  Tell how this member has explained her or his position on one of the following: DOGE, the Israel-Hamas War, the Ukraine War, abortion, or immigration. With reference to Davidson, ch. 5, analyze how this explanation reflects both the member's constituency and her or his place on Capitol Hill.
• Pick chapter 3, 4, or 5 of the Davidson book.  Write a brief postscript to update the analysis. That is, what events of the past year should materially change the authors' analysis when they write the next edition?

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

• Congress.gov
• Vital Statistics on Congress
• Congressional Research Service
• Pew Research Center data on Congress
• House
• Senate
• Biog Directory of US Congress 1774- present
• C-SPAN
• Census Reporter [to find a profile of a House district, enter "Congressional District" and then the number.  For instance: Congressional District 28 CA.

Read Strunk & White and my stylesheet (with links to model papers).

Watch my writing lecture.

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 Google docs or 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.
• Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism and will result in severe consequences
• 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 7. (If you do not use Sakai, simply email me the paper as an attached file.)  I reserve the right to dock papers one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

Two Congresses

 For Wednesday:

• Freeman reading on Sakai AND Canvas

Ineffectiveness -- a CMC alum weighs in

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, pp. 6-7)
• Delegate v. Trustee

Demographics:

• Descriptive representation
• Overview
• Graphics
• Age and Generation

Home style

"What you have to understand about my people is that they are a noble people. Humility is their form of pride. It is their strength; it is their weakness. And if you can humble yourself before them they will do anything you ask."  -- Frank Underwood

In Home Style, members try to convey

• Qualification
• Identification
• Empathy

USA Style:  

AOC on Musk

Nancy Mace explains her vote against Kevin McCarthy

House-Senate differences

One major difference between the chambers is that few House members run for president, and seldom get far when they do. But a fairly large fraction of 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
• Bernard Sanders (I-VT) 2016, 2020
• Tim Scott (R-SC) 2024
• Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), 2020

In the House, see

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

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

                    Majority                              Minority 

In Party        Dems 08, 20                     GOP 06, 18

                    GOP 00, 02, 04, 16, 24      Dem 10,12,14,22

           

Out Party     GOP 10,12,14,22              GOP 08, 20

                    Dem 06, 18                   Dem 00, 02, 04, 16, 24

Beginning Spring 2024

 For Thursday, read Davidson ch. 1.

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 (The Public Congress), lower-profile and practical (The Shadow Congress)
• Recent developments
• Trump administration and executive actions
• Narrow House majority, change of Senate control

The Room Where It Happens

• Deliberation and compromise
• Will the situation change

Gov 101 Syllabus, Spring 2025

US Congress

CMC Government 101 Spring 2025

Tuesday and Thursday 11 AM-12:15 PM

Kravis LC62

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/

Student Hours: Tue, Wed 1:30-2:30 pm 

and by appointment

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, on Capitol Hill, and on the national stage. 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. 
• Participation includes your activity in class and online.   I will call on students at random, and if you often miss sessions or fail to prepare, your grade will suffer. In addition, you may volunteer comments and questions.  This experience will hone your ability to think on your feet. By Thursday of every week, moreover, you will also email me brief (250 words max) reflections on the readings and class discussions.   
• 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.
• As a courtesy to your fellow students, please arrive on time, and refrain from eating in class.   
• Except as a documented disability accommodation, please do not use electronic devices (tablets, laptops, smartphones) in class. Take notes the old-fashioned way, by hand, on paper.  Why? Research suggests that it works better. 
• 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 matters 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. You can start by forwarding me your accommodation letter. If you have not yet set up accommodations but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability, please get in touch with Ari Martinez, Associate Director of Accessibility Services, at accessibilityservices@cmc.edu to ask questions and start the process. For general information and the Request for Accommodations form, go to the CMC Accessibility Service’s website

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

• Roger Davidson, et al., Congress and Its Members, 19th ed. (Washington: CQ Press, 2024).
• Jill Lawrence, The Art of the Political Deal (independently published, 2017).

The schedule is subject to change, with advance notice.

Jan 21, 23: Two Political Branches, Two Chambers, Two Congresses, Two Parties

"It's hard to overstate the extent to which Democrats and Republicans inhabit different worlds in Congress. Our parties meet separately and organize separately, from the broad division of House members into a Republican Conference and a Democratic Caucus to the structure of every committee, most staff positions, and even social clubs -- the Capitol Hill Club for Republicans, the National Democratic Club for Democrats."  -- Liz Cheney

What are the major functions of Congress?  What are the dualities of Congress?

• Davidson, ch. 1.

Jan 28, 30: Congressional History

"When the House moved to larger windowless quarters in 1857, the acoustics improved but the air didn’t. This wasn’t just a matter of cigar smoke, whiskey fumes, and body odor. A series of climate studies revealed the scope of the problem: no air was circulating in the chamber, and the wisp of a draft that rose through the floor grates had to pass through a layer of `lint, dirt, tobacco quids, expectoration, and filth of every sort.'"  -- Joanne Freeman 

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). 

THREE-PAGE PAPER ASSIGNED BY JAN 28,

DUE BY FEB 7.

READ STRUNK AND WHITE FIRST.

AND WATCH MY WRITING LECTURE.

Feb 4, 6: Congressional Elections, Hill Style, Home Style and US Style

"In a strategy memo she wrote in 2021, [Rep. Nancy] Mace described herself as “THE freshman thought leader on federal issues,” according to a copy obtained by The Daily Beast. She even gave herself a brand name: “NATIONAL NANCY.” -- Jake Lahut

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? How do members present themselves to colleagues, constituents, and the national public"

• Davidson, ch. 3, 4, 5.

Feb 11, 13: Parties and Leadership

“If there’s a secret ballot, Mr. President,” Mr. Schumer said, “my guess is you at most get five yeses.”

“Really?” Mr. Biden responded.

“I know my caucus,” Mr. Schumer told him. “You know I know my caucus.”

Mr. Biden nodded.

-- Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater

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

• Davidson, ch. 6.
  
• John Boehner, On the House (New York: St. Martin's, 2021).  EXCERPT 

.

Feb 18, 20: Process 

“If I let you write the substance and you let me write the procedure, I’ll screw you every time.” -- Rep. John Dingell

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

• Davidson ch. 7-8.

FIVE-PAGE PAPER ASSIGNED BY FEB 18, 

DUE MAR 7.

Feb 25, 27: 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.
• Russell Berman,  "The Shadow Congress," The Atlantic, February 20, 2022.

March 3, 5: The Art of the Political Deal

“`Bipartisan work is as basic as the American covenant, E pluribus unum, out of many, one,' Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, said recently on NBC’s Meet the Press. In 2022, he ran a memorable campaign ad about his unlikely work with conservative Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on an interstate highway extension connecting military communities in their states. His tagline: `I’ll work with anyone if it means helping Georgia.'" -- Jill Lawrence

How do lawmakers engage in deliberation and bargaining?

• Lawrence, all.

April 8, 10: Congress and the Executive I

“If Donald Trump says, ‘jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump three feet high and scratch our head."  -- Rep.  Troy Nehls (R-TX)

How do the executive and legislative branches check each other? Do they intrude on each other's legitimate authority? Does unified government erode checks and balances?

• Davidson, ch. 10.

March 18, 20: Spring Break

March 25, 27, April 1, 3: 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 11

Apr  8, 10: Congress and the Executive II

"[Katie Porter] started out by asking [Postmaster Genral Louis} DeJoy what the price of a first-class stamp is. DeJoy responded, correctly, that the cost is 55 cents. But Porter kept going. `What about to mail a postcard?' she asked. `I don’t know, ma’am,' DeJoy replied. He also missed a question on greeting cards. `I’ll submit that I know very little about postage stamps,' DeJoy said."

How does Congress try to control the bureaucracy?  How do the branches battle for control of information? 

• Davidson, ch. 11

Apr 15, 17: Courts, Impeachment, and Congressional Ethics

"U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff’s Senate campaign said Wednesday that the California Democrat had raised $8.1 million over the past three months, a period that includes his recent censure by the Republican-led House." -- Michael Blood, AP

How does Congress try to influence the composition of the judiciary?  Why have impeachment and censure lost their symbolic power?

• Davidson, ch. 12 
• Readings on congressional disciplary action.

Apr 22, 24: 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.
• Readings on current domestic issues, TBA.

THREE-PAGE PAPER ASSIGNED BY APR 22, 

DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY MAY 7

Apr 29, May 1: National Security and the Two Congresses

"Dear members of the Congress, representatives of both parties who also visited Kyiv, esteemed congressmen and senators from both parties who will visit Ukraine, I am sure, in the future; dear representatives of diaspora, present in this chamber, and spread across the country; dear journalists, it’s a great honor for me to be at the U.S. Congress and speak to you and all Americans."  -- President Volodymyr Zelensky

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
• Readings on current foreign policy issues, TBA.

May 6: Reconsiderations

"My community service will be to clean up Congress of it’s [sic] corrupt frauds in a Bipartisan way." -- Expelled Rep. George Santos

How are the two Congresses faring in 2025?

• Davidson, ch. 16.