Congress in the Twentieth Century

WOODROW WILSON, CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT (1884) We are ruled by a score and a half of little legislatures…. Some of the Committees are made up of strong men, the majority of them of weak men; and the weak are as influential as the strong. The country can get the counsel and guidance of its ablest representatives only upon one or two subjects; upon the rest it must be content with the impotent service of the feeble. Only a very small part of its most important business can be done well; the system provides for having the rest of it done miserably, and the whole of it taken together done at haphazard. (pp )

More bounded Growth of Internal Complexity Decision Making: Discretionary Universalistic & Automatic Locus of Power Parties/Party Leaders (Speaker of the House) Committees/Committee Chairmen (Seniority)

Obstruction Political Power Broker Power of Pork Power of the Purse Power of Knowledge Investigation/Media

HOWARD SMITH (D-VA), CHAIR, HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE; RICHARD RUSSELL (D-GA), CHAIR, SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE; SAM ERVIN (D-NC); STROM THURMOND (D-SC) JAMES EASTLAND (D-MI), CHAIR, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE Rules Committee Committee Chairmen Filibuster/Cloture

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1940)

EVERETT DIRKSEN (R-IL)HUBERT HUMPHREY (D-MN)

THE JOHNSON TREATMENTTHE MAJORITY LEADER, Mastery of Senate Rules Unanimous consent, quorum calls, night sessions Democratic Policy Committee Agenda and scheduling Democratic Steering Comm. The Johnson Rules Favors and Perquisites Persuasion The Johnson Treatment Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D- TX) works on Foreign Relations Chairman Thomas Green, 1957

REVENUE AND TAXATION APPROPRIATIONS Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee (dates) Taxation, Social Security, Medicare Wilbur Mills (D-AK) House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense (dates) Anti-communist aid in third world (Afghanistan) Charlie Wilson (D-TX) Charlie Wilsons War (2007)

Q: What is the most famous rider amendment in American history? A: The Wilmot Proviso (1846)

Easy Riders?

ON THE LEFT……AND THE RIGHT Cooper-Church Amendment (1969): Ground troops prohibited in Thailand/Laos Cooper-Church Amendment (1970) cut off funds for Cambodian Incursion (failed); modified version passed in 1971 Hatfield-McGovern Amendment (1970): cut off funds for Vietnam War (failed) Case-Church Amendment (1973): cut off funds for Vietnam War, Laos, Cambodia (latter after August 15) Clark Amendment (1975): cut off funds for anti-communist covert aid to Angola Jackson-Vanik Amendment (1974): denied most favored nation to certain countries with non-market economies that restricted emigration rights. Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA), critic of Détente.

THE JOHNSON SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, HOUSTON, TX SENATOR ROBERT KERR (D-OK) AND WERNER VON BRAUN

MILITARY INSTALLATIONS LOCATED IN RIVERSS DISTRICT: Air Force Base Naval Base Polaris Missile Maintenance Center Naval Shipyard and Ballistic Submarine Training Station Naval Hospital Coast Guard Station Mine Warfare Center Sixth Naval District Headquarters MENDEL RIVERS (D-SC), HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

Troubled Waters, Senate Public Works Committee (1963) Senator Edmund Muskie (D-ME) Chair, Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, Senate Public Works Committee Sponsor: Water Quality Act (1965) Air Quality Act (1967) Clean Air Act (1970) Clean Water Act (1972)

Population: 100,000 Representatives: 1 Population: 100,000 Representatives: 1 Population: 100,000 Representatives: 1 Population: 600,000 Representatives: 1 Advantage: sparsely populated rural districts and congressmen representing them, who wield disproportionate political power in Congress.

Baker v. Carr (1962): Tennessee Lower House; Federal Courts power to determine constitutionality of a State's voting districts Reynolds v. Sims (1964): Alabama State legislature (including Senate) Wesberry v. Sanders (1964): Georgia Congressional districts Population: 100,000 Representatives: 1 Population: 100,000 Representatives: 1 Population: 100,000 Representatives: 1 Population 100,000 Representatives: 1 Population 500,000 Representatives: 5 Advantage shifts from rural to urban districts. Revitalizes two- party South.

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON ORGANIZED CRIME IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE (KEFAUVER COMMITTEE), 1950 JOHN LAWSON TESTIFIES BEFORE THE HOUSE UN- AMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE (1947) Mobster Frank Costellos Hands

Pat McCarran (D-NV) Senate Judiciary Committee, Internal Security Subcommittee Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senate Government Operations Committee subversive influence of radio, television, and entertainment industry Communist infiltration of Hollywood Film Industry, Espionage (Alger Hiss Case) Government agencies and departments: State Department, U.S. Information Agency, Voice of America, Army House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) The Army-McCarthy Hearings, 1954

FULBRIGHT FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE HEARINGS ON VIETNAM, 1967 J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT (D-AK) AND STUART SYMINGTON (D-MO)

SAM ERVIN (D-NC), SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE CAMPAIGN PRACTICES (1973) FRANK CHURCH (D-ID), SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES (1975)

THE IMPACT OF TELEVISION Lengthening and Speeding the News Cycle Emphasis on Scandal / Conflict Empowers both parties (centralizing) and mavericks (decentralizing) Brian Lamb, Mastermind of C-SPAN (March 19, 1979) Ted Turners CNN, First 24- Hour Cable News Station, debuted June 1, 1980

Robert Caro, Master of the Senate Thomas Doherty, Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture Robert Davis Johnson, Congress and the Cold War Walter McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Race Paul Charles Milazzo, Unlikely Environmentalists: Congress and Clean Water, Bruce Schulman, From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, Julian Zelizer, Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, Julian Zelizer, On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and Its Consequences, Julian Zelizer, ed, The American Congress