Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980

by Rick Perlstein

Following Watergate a new cadre of idealistic reformers were swept into Congress and stripped the old bulls of their leadership positions. They increased the number of committees and subcommittees and passed a rule that members could not chair more than one, increasing the number of “leaders.” They opened most congressional committee meetings to the public and made it easier to successfully file Freedom of Information Act requests. They passed campaign finance reforms requiring public disclosure of all campaign donations, limiting individuals to $2,000 per candidate per election. All these changes were brought about with the intent of advancing liberalism as they understood it. But unintended consequences ensued. The inexperienced new leaders proved easy prey for corporate lobbyists. And the new openness midwifed priceless opportunities for corporations who could afford to send lobbyists to hearing after hearing, keeping tabs on members to whom they had donated—or might donate. In 1971, only 175 businesses had federally registered lobbyists. Within a decade that had increased more than tenfold. Now a corporation getting what it wanted required so much more than wining and dining a single committee chairman: it required all those computer-driven postal assaults, op-ed-writing mercenaries, and platoons of outraged small businessmen invading congressional offices to win the votes of individual members, who now had so much more leeway to make decisions independently of their p...