How Congress Evolves: Social Bases of Institutional Change

by Nelson W. Polsby

In this greatly entertaining tale of one of our most august institutions, Nelson Polsby argues that among other things, from the 50's to the 90's, Congress evolved. In short, Polsby argues that air conditioning altered the demography of the southern states, which in turn changed the political parties of the South, which transformed the composition and in due course the performance of the US House of Representatives. This evolutionary process led to the House's liberalization and later to its transformation into an arena of sharp partisanship, visible among both Democrats and Republicans. How Congress Evolves breathes new life into the dusty corners of institutional history, and offers a unique explanation for important transformations in the congressional environment.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Nelson Woolf Polsby was an American political scientist. He specialized in the study of the United States presidency, the United States Congress and how governmental policies and practices evolve.

Polsby was the Heller Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the editor of the American Political Science Review from 1971–77 and the founding editor of the Annual Review of Political Science from 1998 until his death in 2007.

Reviews

[Ed McKinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A better title for this book would be “How air conditioning ruined Congress (and maybe America)”

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Polsby is a good storyteller and he has an interesting story to tell: the migration of Northern Republicans into the South was one of the most important factors in breaking up the solid Democratic party in the Southern states, and, paradoxically, it was the rise of Southern Republicans which took conservative Democrats out of the Democratic caucus system and turned it into a liberal powerhouse in Congress in the 1970s.

Polsby begins with the House during Sam Rayburn's speakership (1940-1961), and he shows the how quiescent the Democratic party was as at this time. Rayburn explicitly told one of his predecessors (John Nance Gardner) that any open policy debate in the caucus would tear the party apart along sectional lines, so the party caucus was held only once every two years, to make committee assignments (and these were done almost entirely on seniority and state and regional delegation nominations, where each state was tasked with replacing old members with new ones on committees like agriculture and appropriations). Joe Martin, the Republican minority leader, regularly consulted with conservative Southern Democrats to create an informal "Conservative Coalition" that blocked most Democratic bills and was the real center of power even during the Democratic majorities.

This was a time when the House was considered the "broken branch" that prevented all new liberal legislation (much as the Senate is seen today). It was called simply the "deadlock of democracy." Rayburn made the first moves against this deadlock just before his death by adding three extra members to arch-conservative Howard Smith's Rules Committee, allowing some of Kennedy's early legislation to get through this bottleneck. This story is often told, but I didn't know that it was subsequent battles over the Ways and Means Committee and Appropriations that allowed the explosion in liberal legislation in the Johnson administration. Apparently secret ballots in 1963 replaced staunch Southerns on these committees with liberal Northerns, and this tipped the balance against the Conservative Coalition and the spending floodgates were opened. Later, in 1971 and 1972, untutored liberal freshman revolted against Carl Albert's speakership and gave the caucus the vote on all committee assignments, basically overthrowing the seniority system and the independent power of the committee chairs. Thus the imperial Congress of that decade was born, right when Southern Democrats were defecting the party in droves. Polsby also shows this had more to do with the liberalization of the party due to the influx of black voters than outright racism (almost all of the switch in Southern party identification took place among the rich, not the racist "bubbas").

There's much more to tell (about the rise of the electronic tally board in 1971, the creation of "committee caucuses," Tip O'Neil's surprisingly diplomatic terms, and the Gingrich revolution and its aftermath) and Polsby tells it from the perspective of somebody who's intimately acquainted with both the personal and scholarly sides of this story. It's a great and well-researched read.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

That Polsby is able to make the (I believe correct) case that something as simple as Air Conditioning helped change the face of American Politics is fascinating, the statistics in this book are compelling, the charts are fascinating, a great and perhaps vital read to understanding the history of American Politics in the last century.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very very interesting book. It is really eye opening...everyone should read this...thought provoking

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to read for school. Should probably reread and see if it holds up.