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The Institution of the Congress

Researchers interested in science and technology policy need to understand how Congress thinks about policy and sets it. Congressional style and culture differ in many ways from that of the Executive Branch agencies, and bear little resemblance to that of science and engineering. To most researchers, indeed to most people, policy-making in the United States Congress is a complex and bizarre process. It can seem particularly alien and aggravating to members of the science and technology community, who are trained in analytical problem-solving, or executive branch officials, who are accustomed to think in terms of management strategies and rational policy development. The resulting hostility and misunderstanding can become a major barrier to the community when working with the Congress on issues that affect them deeply.

To be sure, some hostility seems almost merited. Much that happens in Congress deserves to be criticized, and continual pressures for reform rise both from inside and outside the institution. Nevertheless, much of the seeming peculiarity of congressional policy making is rooted in the basic nature of the institution as defined in the Constitution and evolved over history. As odd and frustrating as it may seem to the outside world, congressional behavior reflects both the nature of the institution and the extraordinary pressures and expectations that drive its members. In this section, we'll take a look at the institution, itself.

The "People's Branch"

First, and foremost, Congress is sometimes called the "People's Branch," because it is so close to the electoral process and, hence, the voters. Whereas the entire Executive Branch has two elected officials, president and vice president (and they run together as a team), the population of Congress results from 535 separate elections. Members can rarely rest from fund raising or campaigning. Every two years, about 470 of those seats are up for reelection--all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate.

This constant electioneering means that most members are in nearly continual direct contact with their constituencies. It also forces a short term perspective on them-a great sensitivity to whatever swings of mood or opinion are driving the people in their district.

Diversity

Congress, especially the House of Representatives, reflects to some extent, the diversity of U.S. population, for the simple reason that the districts they serve are diverse-geographically, demographically, and socially. The President and Vice President, on the other hand, must satisfy a national constituency. This democratic nature of the Congress is why the framers of the Constitution vested in it the power to declare war and to authorize taxes to be collected or money to be spent.

We may dislike the Congress as an institution (and polls show that many of us do), but like it or not, Congress reflects us. Perhaps that's in fact why so many people disapprove of it. Voters see that most members of Congress don't think like they do and don't give voice to their own interests and values. The polls show that, although we tend to dislike the institution, we tend to approve of our own Representative. (The 1994 election results may seem to cast doubt on the assertion that people like their own representative, but even in what was a notably anti-political year, the majority of incumbents who ran won their seats back.)

Because of its diversity, the extremes of political debate in the Congress can be much further apart than we hear in other forums, certainly a broader spectrum than the president hears among his own advisors. One would expect Ron Dellums, a black Democratic congressman from an urban California district that includes Berkeley, to have few political views in common with Bill Archer, a white conservative Republican from Houston, Texas. And neither would probably be very comfortable as a member of the current White House staff.

In fact, the toughest job faced by the leadership of both parties is to cram all of this diversity into two boxes known as "Political Parties" when important votes come along. The task has historically been easier for the Republicans. Democrats have always been known to be more fractious and the Republicans more disciplined. But, for many years, the congressional Republicans were by and large a minority party, and a minority party has more incentive to vote in a bloc. Many wondered if the Republicans, after they won the majority in both houses in 1994, could still act as a unified party. By and large, they did; although, as the term drew to a close, some cracks were appearing. Both parties create critical mass by building coalitions and by reaching out to diverse groups. If the Republicans retain control. some of that diversity will undoubtedly begin to raise problems for their leadership.

More instructive was the behavior of the House Democrats, which, after a brief turmoil, was to draw together behind their leaders. Although retaining some suspicion of the White House, suspicion and even hostility that was generated in the chaotic early years of the administration, House Democrats have seemed in recent years to have much less inclination for public fights with the President. Of course, the growing popularity of the President in the polls since 1994 has also helped smooth differences.

Organization

Another important characteristic of Congress is that both houses are mainly what computer scientists might call a "self organized" system. The Constitution is pretty terse about how the Senate and the House are to go about their business. It spends some words on qualifications, and gives them a few specific tasks, such as the Senate's "advise and consent" role on presidential appointments. On organization, it directs the House to choose a "Speaker" (who becomes third in line to the presidency, after the Vice President). It makes the Vice President the "President" of the Senate (Who presides and votes only in case of tie) and requires the Senate to chose a "President Pro Tem," to preside when the Vice President is not available. It also specifies which votes are to be simply majority and which require larger pluralities.

But, that leaves a lot to be decided by the Congress, itself. As an example, neither of the two most important aspects of congressional structure, the two party-system and committee structure, are specified in the Constitution.

Over time, each house has filled in the gaps by developing its own procedures and structure. Because they seem to work (or at least have worked in the past), these rules have become frozen into traditional practice.

Two Different Houses

For convenience, we tend to talk about the Congress as a single government unit. It is the Legislative Branch. But, when examined more closely, the Senate and the House of Representatives look quite different—with contrasting operating styles, procedures, histories, and cultures. Sometimes those differences can have a major affect on how issues are treated. The legislative history of the second High Performance Computing and Communications bill played out quite differently in the House and the Senate in the 103rd Congress, for example. It is a good illustration of at least two differences in operating style.

1. In the House, the bill, the High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Act (HR 1757) was assigned to the Science Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. That subcommittee held expensive hearings, informal discussions and negotiations involving a wide variety of interested parties. Based on that work, the original bill was extensively modified before it finally passed the House in the spring of 1994.

Since the House has over four times as many members as does the Senate, House members are willing and able to spend more time mastering the details of specific, narrower areas of legislation. Senators think of themselves more as generalists, who prefer to focus on larger issues and deal with details only when necessary. Science and Technology policy making has much more focus in the House, where expertise and interest tend to lie.

2. In the Senate, HPCC was made part of S-4, a much larger omnibus bill on technology policy. No hearings were held on the HPCC part of it, and at the end of the deliberations, that part was essentially unchanged from the original bill, save for some changes requested by the administration. The overall bill ran into Republican opposition on the floor in the form of a mini-filibuster, which delayed the process and required negotiation with opponents. As passed by the Senate, the bill was loaded with special, narrow, often unrelated provisions. That made the Senate and House versions very difficult to resolve in conference, and the bill finally died at the end of the 1994 session.

The Senate, whose members like to call it "The World's Greatest Deliberative Body," has a system of debate, procedures, and unwritten rules of "senatorial courtesy" that allow a minority, even a minority of one, to hamper or bring the process to a complete halt. The House, in contrast, limits debate and has rules that require that amendments be germane to the purposes of the bill. (Some bills come to the floor under rules that allow no amendments at all.) This difference can make the politics and timing of bill passage quite different in the two houses.

Because of these differences each chamber has its own strengths and weaknesses; each reflects a different aspect of democracy (and the genius of the system). In the House, because of its processes, the majority rules and does so absolutely. Its ability to come to closure more quickly is obtained at the price of squelching the interests of even a large minority. On the other hand, the Senate can be tied up in knots by even a small determined minority. Thus, its well deserved reputation for long winded debates and intricate compromises is a price paid for accomodating the interests of the minority.

That is one reason why the party change in the House seems so much more "revolutionary" than in the Senate. In the House, victory is decisive and the victor takes home the spoils. In the Senate, power is much more diffuse, and although the majority certainly has more power and influence than the minority, the minority has a voice.

To slightly overstate it, the House is more important to the party in power and the Senate more important to the party out of power. Senator Bob Dole was the key Republican legislator in fall of 1994 when the Republicans were the minority party, because he had the power to block Democratic legislation. Now that Republicans are majority, Representative Newt Gingrich gets far more attention, because he has more pure power over the House than any majority leader could ever have over the Senate.