The Decline and Resurgence of Congress / Edition 1

by James L. Sundquist

Overview

""Solid ground for optimism as well as cause for foreboding." So James L. Sundquist views the outcome of the struggle by the Congress in the 1970s to recapture powers and responsibilities that in preceding decades it had surrendered to a burgeoning presidency. The resurgence of the Congress began in 1973, in its historic constitutional clash with President Nixon. For half a century before that time, the Congress had acquiesced in its own decline vis-à-vis the presidency, or had even initiated it, by building the presidential office as the center of leadership and coordination in the U.S. government and organizing itself not to initiate and lead but to react and follow. But the angry confrontation with President Nixon in the winter of 1972-73 galvanized the Congress to seek to regain what it considered its proper place in the constitutional scheme. Within a short period, it had created a new congressional budget process, prohibited impoundment of appropriated funds, enacted the War Powers Resolution, intensified oversight of the executive, extended the legislative veto over a wide range of executive actions, and vastly expanded its staff resources. The Decline and Resurgence of Congress, after reviewing relations between president and Congress over two centuries, traces the long series of congressional decisions that created the modern presidency and relates these to certain weaknesses that the Congress recognized in itself. It then recounts the events that marked the years of resurgence and evaluates the results. Finally, it analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the new Congress and appraises its potential for leadership and coordination.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815782230
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/01/1981
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	516
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.15(d)
Lexile:	1620L (what's this?)

About the Author

"James L. Sundquist is senior fellow emeritus in the Governmental Studies program at Brookings and the author of numerous books, including Constitutional Reform and Effective Government (Brookings, rev. ed., 1992)."

Table of Contents

I.	Congress at Nadir	1
	The Congress Looks Inward	4
	Some Persistent Questions	7
	A Semantic Digression	11
Part 1	Decline
II.	Two Centuries of Ups and Downs	15
	The Constitutional Ambiguities	16
	Strong and Weak Presidents	19
	Competition in the Early Decades	21
	The Golden Age of Congressional Ascendancy	25
	The Modern Era of the Strong President	30
	Congressional Acquiescence in Decline	35
III.	The President as General Manager	37
	A New Executive Responsibility: Fiscal Leadership	39
	The General Manager Role Develops	45
	The General Manager as Constitutional Intent	47
	Reorganization: "Congress Cannot Do It"	51
	The Unification of Military Management	55
	Command and Control	57
IV.	The President as Economic Stabilizer	61
	The Employment Act of 1946: The President Shall Propose	63
	But the Congress Shall Dispose	66
	President Truman and Congressional Dominance	69
	President Eisenhower and Executive Dominance	75
	President Kennedy and Congressional Deliberateness	79
	President Johnson and Congressional "Blackmail"	81
	President Nixon and Congressional "Abdication"	86
	The Mismatch of Authority and Accountability	88
V.	The President as Foreign Policy Leader	91
	The Failure of Congressional Foreign Policy: Neutrality	94
	The Delegation of Tariff-Making Power	99
	Collaboration in the Postwar World	103
	Presidential War-Making in Korea	107
	Delegation of the War-Making Power	110
	Congressional Acquiescence in Presidential War	123
VI.	The President as Chief Legislator	127
	Before the Hundred Days	129
	During the Hundred Days	133
	Institutionalizing the President as Legislative Leader	136
	The President as Legislative Policy Planner	143
	The President as "a Sort of Prime Minister"	148
VII.	Endemic Weaknesses of the Congress	155
	The Incapacity to Act Quickly	156
	The Incapacity to Plan	158
	The Void in Centralizing Institutions	160
	Power in the Leadership: The Era of the Czars	162
	Power in the Majority Caucus: The Sixty-third Congress	168
	Decentralized Power: The Era of the Barons	176
	The Demand for Responsible Party Government	179
	Power in Policy Committees: A Senate Experiment	187
Part 2	Resurgence
VIII.	To Regain the Power of the Purse	199
	Nixon and the Impoundment Issue	201
	The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974	209
	Resolution of the Impoundment Issue	214
	Establishment of the Budget Process	215
	A "Bad" Year--and a "Good" One	223
	The "Balanced" Budget of 1980-81	227
	The New Congressional Capacity	231
IX.	To Recapture the War Power	238
	The Deepening Distrust of Presidential Power	241
	The National Commitments Resolution of 1969	245
	The Beginnings of Congressional Control	247
	Deadlock on the Constitutional Issue	252
	The War Powers Resolution of 1973	254
	The First Tests	261
	Symbol or Substance?	265
X.	To Take Command of Foreign Policy	273
	The New Congressional Ascendancy	275
	"Impermissible Shackles" on the President	289
	The Pendulum Swings Back--Partway	294
	Groping toward Collaboration	300
	Searching for a Structural Solution	308
XI.	To Tighten Control over Administration: Oversight	315
	Difficulties of Before-the-Fact Control	318
	Limitations in After-the-Fact Control	321
	The Intensification of Congressional Oversight	324
	Lifting the Shrouds of Secrecy	330
	The Uses and Pathology of Oversight	332
	Sunrise Legislation and Other Remedies	340
XII.	To Tighten Control over Administration: The Legislative Veto	344
	A Half-Century Constitutional Tug-of-War	345
	Never, or Always, or Sometimes?	354
	The Executive Would Regret "Never"	356
	The Congress Would Regret "Always"	360
	If Sometimes, When and How?	364
XIII.	To Strengthen Congressional Capacity	367
	From Party Regularity to Political Individualism	369
	Remolding the Power Structure in the House	373
	Redistributing Power in the Senate	390
	Leadership in the Age of Individualism	395
	Expanding Staff Resources	402
Part 3	Prospect
XIV.	Missing Capabilities: Political Leadership and Policy Integration	417
	Turning Away from Presidential Leadership	419
	The Congress as Political Leader	423
	The Congress as Policy Integrator	427
XV.	Representation and the Will to Govern	440
	Distraction	442
	Parochialism	447
	Irresponsibility	454
	From Representation to Decline--and Resurgence	456
XVI.	The Unending Conflict	460
	The Issue of Constitutional Reform	464
	Reform without Constitutional Amendment	467
	The Responsible Party Model	471
	Comity within the System	478
	The New Equilibrium	482
	Index	485