Congress: The Electoral Connection

Congress: The Electoral Connection was written by David R. Mayhew in 1974. A second edition was published in 2004 (ISBN: 9780300105872).

The author first interrogates the underlying assumption: congresspeople want to be reelected.

• Some discussion of volunteerism, voluntary turnover rates, and term limit reforms.
• Mostly in the context of state and city legislatures.

The author sidesteps the question by focusing on the U.S. House and Senate, which is widely accepted as being in a swing of career politicians, and the basis of such a career is reelection.

Next the author compares their model to contemporary researchers.

Fenno argues that congresspeople have three goals:

• reelection
• accumulating influence within Congress
• producing good policy

The author is not arguing that reelection is the only goal, or the most important goal universally, just the one that best predicts behavior. More importantly, reelection as a goal provides an accountability mechanism that is fundamental to the interpretation of the model. So for the author's model, congresspeople are "single minded reelection seekers" (p.17).

Downs constructs a similar model with parties as the analytic unit. (Parties put forward a platform and voters respond rationally. Congresspeople are just an intermediary.) The author argues that this model misses the reality of Congress. Policy is produced not by cohesive teams but by rivalry and bargaining. Voters cannot form expectations to inform decisions. The author argues that this model is best applied to executive elections (presidents, governors, mayors). These offices produce policy firmly aligned by a single platform. Especially given an incumbent, voters can clearly form expectations.

Specific example the author cites is UK coalition governments. Author argues parties are only coherent there because electoral resources are controlled by party elite...

• Local committees pick candidates based on who will be a loyal party member
• Advertisement and communicative resources (e.g. screen time) are allocated to parties not individuals
• Political posts are given by party leaders to loyal party members

In contrast, congresspeople are selected by direct primary. In order to win the primary, individuals have to mobilize their own resources.

Another specific example is Connecticut. TODO: read...

• Duane Lockard New England State Politics
• Lieberman The Power Broker
• James Barber Leadership Strategies for Legislative Party Cohesion

Next the author examines congressional districts given those priors. Voters don't have solid knowledge or expectations about legislation. They need to use their own resources to win support. Especially focused on marginal congressional districts. However, looking at party swings across elections in individual congressional seats, about a third of the variance is explained by national effects.The remainder is local effects. 'Marginal' seats are really a misnomer. "When we say 'Congressman Smith is unbeatable,' we do not mean that there is nothing he could do that would lose him his seat. Rather we mean, 'Congressman Smith is unbeatable as long as he continues to do the things he is doing.' (p.37).

Many congressional swings are attributed to the incumbent president instead of legislation.There is some evidence that marginal congresspeople vote with the party more frequently.That also implies that marginal congresspeople in the minority are incentivized to push disastrous policy. The sort of policies that voters could realistically observe (esp. the economy) have too many dynamic factors for congresspeople to design and execute strategies. The sort of legislative initiatives that voters could realistically form expectations around (New Deal, Great Society, etc.) don't necessarily lead to favorable congressional swings. In summary, the author argues that congresspeople cannot affect a congressional swing, but they can affect their own odds of winning their reelection.

Important to note that congresspeople optimize, not maximize.Diminishing returns on reelection initiatives when you are already 'sure' to win.Very little value when you are 'sure' to lose. Congresspeople also have a confirmation bias about their efforts.To face reelection, each has already won a primary and congressional election.Dramatic deviations from what worked before are viewed with skepticism.

Three relevant activities

• advertising, which is meant to cover anything from visits, radio time, screen time, to mail (esp. use of franking privilege)
• credit claiming, mainly casework and pork barrel
  • Goes back to prior of voters not having knowledge of legislation.
  • Author does argue that members of committees can credibly claim credit for pushing or killing specific bills.
• position taking
  • Congresspeople can take any number of positions. It isn't limited to actual substantive actions. Just as people are uncertain of legislation, they are uncertain of positions. So positions matter more-so in telling people what they want to hear, rather than what you have done.
    • Also an element of issue invention.

The author suggests that senators place more emphasis on position taking than credit claiming, while representatives do the reverse. Suggests that senators (for one reason or another) are more successful with advertising and credit claiming. (More credible? More access to ad money? Constituents of entire states differ in some structural manner as compared to single districts such that credit claiming is more salient?)

The author suggests there is a similar trend in old machine cities. TODO: read...

• Snowiss Congressional Recruitment and Representation for application to Chicago.

Also meaningful that many senators aim to be president, which shapes their long term strategy. TODO: read...

• Perry The New Politics for application to NY assembly and senate.

The author argues that Congress (meaning the House and Senate, but also all Congress-mandated institutions and norms) is well designed for reelection seeking congresspeople.

• Congressional office salaries are designed to service advertisement and credit claiming.
• Committees are designed to service credit and position claiming. Some seem to just be cause committees with no intent of legislation.Others seem to be universal committees, seeking to structure all pork barrel requests into bills that can all pass a vote. Public Works especially. Because there is no limit to their creation, every congressperson can find a minute policy space to claim credit over.
• Congressional parties are designed to service position claiming. Congresspeople are coordinated to produce a meaningful position that all members claim. They can also deviate from the party to whatever degree they want; their membership is earned by primary election rather than selection.
• The Congressional Record, over which they have full editorial control, is designed to service position claiming.
• Franking privileges are designed to service advertisement.

These services are non-rivalrous: not a zero sum game among congresspeople. It actually looks like a "cross-party conspiracy among incumbents" (p.105).

Consequences of this design:

• Congress is "noisy, versatile, and effective" (p.108). It acts as a constant opposition; all congresspeople, esp. senators, have an incentive to claim a position in comparison to the current president's policy. Institutions reinforce those incentives regardless of party, and also amplify their ability to get voters to listen to their objections.
• Congresspeople do service their direct constituents as a form of credit claiming.
• Congress does not operate as a competitive and representative arena for policy options. Some models of legislatures imagine Congress as a proxy for ad hoc referenda among the population. Individual congresspeople distort that model: They bargain and trade votes. They select the policy options that can be considered, filtering out a large policy space. They can use soft power (hearings, committees, threats of further legislation) to influence the actual implementation of legislation, beyond the actual terms of it.

Several models of Congress (e.g. Riker Theory of Political Coalitions) expect minimal winning coalitions. There isn't much evidence of close votes in Congress. The author argues that congresspeople take a universal approach as the default. When an issue is salient to their constituents, they care only about being able to claim credit for the right cause.Congresspeople don't care if their amendments carry, only that they can claim credit for introducing them. They don't care how the party votes, only how they individually vote. Only when an intense interest group is monitoring do they seem to actually mobilize and bargain for a bill.

This all creates a congressional environment that is focused on pushing pork barrel and interest group politics, and purely symbolic votes, all while indefinitely delaying policy legislation. National programs, esp. welfare and entitlement programs, are fraught with danger for congresspeople but bring little advantage. "If it is believed that spending money will 'solve social problems,' then Congress will spend money." (p.139). There is a tragedy of the commons game wherein congresspeople want pork barrel to a ruinous end; the whole body self regulates to ensure that the commons (institutional prestige, ability to allocate new pork barrel, etc) is maintained. The leaders and control committees are the ones administering that maintenance, and are rewarded with particular prestige. The office of the Speaker, office of the majority leader, committees of Rules, Appropriations, Ways and Means. Of these, only Appropriations and Ways and Means offer a conventional electoral asset. But all of these are evidently desirable positions. The closest equivalent in the Senate, the Finance committee, doesn't regulate spending in the same way, reflecting the different interests of senators. See Manley The Politics of Finance.

Author makes some brief remarks about how to reform governments in order to reduce pork barrel. There are some naive comments about strengthening the executive branch. City governments are used as evidence, in a way that grossly oversimplifies the agency of city political systems. Also a comparative study of France and the US, to the same effect. Think De Gaulle and 1958.

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