The power of leadership in Congress and its consequences

 "Congress at a Crossroads"  discusses how the amount of power that leadership has in Congress to get members of the same party to act or vote a certain way leads to more polarization: 

"Members are under no illusion about one of leadership's primary roles: to maximize the power and strength of its caucus." (Page 13)

"The priority leaders place on keeping their Members safe and either maintaining or obtaining majority status often works against the bipartisanship and compromise essential to legislation that addresses the common good." (Page 26)

There's a clip from the show House of Cards that I think really illustrates this point. 

Spoiler alert, these members end up submitting to Frank Underwood, who is the whip in this season. Goes to show how now matter how much a member of Congress might want to stick to their core beliefs, the party ends up coming first.

Throughout the show, things like this happen a lot where leadership will make funding or bills that a certain representative wants on the floor contingent on that representative's vote on something else that leadership wants passed. 

Congressional Whoopsie

This week, we discussed amicus briefs.  We also talked about ways in which lawmakers sometimes goof up.  They seldom goof up on amicus briefs, but ... stuff happens.  In Raleigh, NC, The News and Observer reports:

Two of the three North Carolina lawmakers who had joined with prominent national politicians to oppose gerrymandering have now backtracked, saying they didn’t mean to add their names on an anti-gerrymandering letter sent to the Supreme Court.

Rep. Mark Meadows and Rep. Walter Jones, both Republicans, signed on to the legal brief along with Democratic Rep. David Price.

Meadows blamed an “error” and Jones blamed “miscommunication” for their participation. Meadows also made a point to say he supports the N.C. General Assembly, which is in charge of drawing the state’s lines for its members of Congress.

Price, at least, understood the brief. Before his election to Congress, he was a political scientist at Duke and a leading scholar of the legislative branch.

The House Health Bill

(Photo by Jesse Blumenthal)

From The Politico:

It runs more pages than War and Peace, has nearly five times as many words as the Torah, and its tables of contents alone run far longer than this story. The House health care bill unveiled Thursday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word.

The Case for Congressional Skimming

From Nick, a Slate article:

Just because lawmakers read legislation doesn't mean they understand it. The reverse is also true: Just because they understand it doesn't mean they've read it. Drafting and reading legislative language is an art form. Staffers who know how to read it and write it are hired to translate the language. They get down in the weeds so the legislators can stay focused on the big principles.

Plus, members of Congress have a hard enough time knowing where they stand on the big things. That's why they're always accusing one another of flip-flopping. Let's not confuse them by making them puzzle over something like this: "For purposes of extension of an agreement with a qualifying ACO under subsection (g)(2), the Secretary shall treat receipt of an incentive payment for a year by an organization under the physician group practice demonstration pursuant to section 1866A as a year for which an incentive payment is made under such subsection, as long as such practice group practice organization meets the criteria under subsection (b)(2)."

What Is the Pork Barrel?

From the Center on Congress at Indiana University:

Pork Barrel: The term began as a political reference in the post-Civil War era. It comes from the plantation practice of distributing rations of salt pork from wooden barrels. When used to describe a bill, it implies the legislation is loaded with special projects for Members of Congress to distribute to their constituents back home, courtesy of the federal taxpayer.