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Congress is a frequent source of anguish to both its friends and its foes. The critics point to its legislative failure. The function of a legislature, they argue, is to legislate, and Congress either does not legislate or legislates too little and too late. The intensity of their criticism varies inversely with the degree and despatch with which Congress approves the President's legislative proposals. When in 1963 the 88th Congress seemed to stymie the Kennedy legislative program, criticism rapidly mounted. "What kind of legislative body is it," asked Walter Lippmann, neatly summing up the prevailing exasperation, "that will not or cannot legislate?" When in 1964 the same 88th Congress passed the civil rights, tax, and other bills, criticism of Congress correspondingly subsided. Reacting differently to this familiar pattern, the friends of Congress lamented its acquiescence to presidential dictate. Since 1933, they said, the authority of the executive branch-President, administration, and bureaucracy-has waxed, while that of Congress has waned. They warned of the constitutional perils stemming from the permanent subordination of one branch of government to another. Thus, at the same time that it is an obstructive ogre to its enemies Congress is also the declining despair of its friends. Can both images be true? In large

6                                                                                                                        Samuel P. Huntington

part, they are. The loss of power by Congress, indeed, can be measured by the extent to which congressional assertion coincides with congressional obstruction. This paradox has been at the root of the "problem" of Congress since the early days of the New Deal. Vis-a-vis the Executive, Congress is an autonomous, legislative body But apparently Congress can defend its autonomy only by refusing to legislate, and it Call legislate only by surrendering its autonomy.' When Congress balks, criticism rises, and the clamoring voices of reformers fill the air with demands for the "modernization" of the "antiquated procedures" of an "eighteenth century" Congress so it can deal With "twentieth century realities." The demands for reform serve as counters in the legislative game to get the President's measures through Congress. Independence thus provokes criticism; acquiescence brings approbation. If Congress legislates, it subordinates itself to the President; if it refuses to legislate, it alienates itself from public opinion. Congress can assert its power or it can pass laws; but it cannot do both.

        The roots of this legislative dilemma lie in the changes in American society during the twentieth century. 'The twentieth century has seen: rapid urbanization and the beginnings of a post-industrial, technological society; the nationalization of social and economic problems and the concomitant growth of national organizations to deal with these problems; the increasing bureaucratization of social, economic, and governmental organizations; and the sustained high-level international involvement of the United States in world politics. These developments have generated new forces in American politics and initiated major changes in the distribution of power in American society. An particular, the twentieth century has witnessed the tremendous expansion of the responsibilities of the national government and the size of the national bureaucracy. In 1901, the national government had 351,798 employees Or less than 1 ½ per cent of the national labor force. In 1962, it had 5,232,819 employees, constituting 7 per cent of the labor force. The expansion of the national government has been paralleled by the emergence of other large, national, bureaucratic organizations: manufacturing corporations, banks, insurance companies, labor unions, trade associations, farm organizations, newspaper chains, radio-TV networks. Each organization may have relatively specialized and concrete interests, but typically it functions on a national basis. Its headquarters are in New York or Washington; its operations are scattered across a dozen or more states. The emergence of these organizations truly constitutes, in Kenneth Boulding's expressive phrase, an "organizational revolution." The existence of this private "Establishment," more than anything else, distinguishes twentieth-century America from nineteenth-century America. The leaders of these organizations are

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                   7

the notables of American society: they are the prime wielders of social and economic power.
        These momentous social changes have confronted Congress with an institutional "adaptation crisis." Such a crisis occurs when changes in the environment of a governmental institution force the institution either to alter its functions, affiliation, and modes of behavior, or to face decline, decay, and isolation. Crises usually occur when an institution loses its previous sources of support or fails to adapt itself to the rise of new social forces. Such a crisis, for instance, affected the Presidency in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century. Under the leadership of Henry Clay the focal center of power in the national government was in the House of Representatives; the congressional caucus dictated presidential nominations; popular interest in and support for the Presidency were minimal. The "Executive," Justice Story remarked in 1818, "has no longer a commanding influence. The House of Representatives has absorbed all the popular feelings and all the effective power of the country." The Presidency was on the verge of becoming a Weak, secondary instrumental organ of government. It was rescued from this fate by the Jacksonian movement, which democratized the Presidency, broadened its basis of popular support, and restored it as the center of vitality and leadership in the national government. The House of Commons was faced with a somewhat similar crisis during the agitation preceding the first Reform Bill of 1832. New social groups were developing in England which were demanding admission to the political arena and the opportunity to share in political leadership. Broadening the constituency of the House of Commons and reforming the system of election enabled the House to revitalize itself and to continue as the principal locus of power in the British government.
       In both these cases a governmental institution got a new lease on life, new vigor, new power, by embodying within itself dynamic, new social forces. when an institution fails to make such an alignment, it must either restrict its own authority or submit to a limitation upon it's the House of Lords approve Lloyd George's budget, it was first compelled by governmental pressure, popular opinion, and the threat of the creation of new peers to acquiesce in the budget and then through a similar process to acquiesce in the curtailment of its own power to obstruct legislation approved by the Commons. In this case the effort to block legislation approved by the dominant forces in the political community resulted in a permanent diminution of the authority of the offending institution. A somewhat similar crisis developed with respect to the Supreme Court in the 1930s. Here again a less popular body attempted to veto the actions of more popular bodies. In three years the Court invalidated twelve acts of Congress. Inevitably this precipitated vigorous criticism and demands for reform, culminating in Roosevelt's court reorganization

8                                                                                                                           Samuel P. Huntington

proposal in February of 1917. The alternatives confronting the Court were relatively clear-cut: it could "reform" or be "reformed." In "the switch in time that saved nine," it chose the former course, signaling its change by approving the National Labor Relations Act in April 1917 and the Social Security Act in May. With this switch, support for the reorganization of the Court drained away. The result was, in the words of Justice Jackson, "a failure of the reform forces and a victory of the reform."
        Each of these four institutional crises arose from the failure of a governmental institution to adjust to social changes and the rise of new viewpoints, new needs, and new political forces. Congress's legislative dilemma and loss of power stem from the nature of its over-all institutional response to the changes in American society. This response involves three major aspects of Congress as an institution: its affiliations, its structure, and its functions. During the twentieth century Congress has insulated itself from the new political forces which social change has generated and which are, in turn, generating more change. Hence the leadership of Congress has lacked the incentive to take the legislative initiative in handling emerging national problems. Within Congress power has become dispersed among many officials, committees, and subcommittees. Hence the central leadership of Congress has lacked the ability to establish national legislative priorities. As a result, the legislative function of Congress has declined in importance. while the growth of the federal bureaucracy has made the, administrative overseeing function of Congress more important. These three tendencies-toward insulation, dispersion, and oversight-have dominated the evolution of Congress during the twentieth century.

         Perhaps the single most important trend in congressional evolution during the twentieth century has been the growing insulation of Congress from other social groups and political institutions: In I900 no gap existed between congressmen and the other leaders of American society and politics. Half a century later the changes in American society, on the one hand, and the institutional evolution' of Congress, on the other, had produced a marked gap between congressional leaders and the bureaucratically oriented leadership of the executive branch and of the Establishment. The growth of this gap can be seen in seven trends in congressional evolution.
        (1) Increasing, tenure office. In the nineteenth century few congressmen stayed in Congress very long. During the twentieth century the average tenure of congressmen has inexorably lengthened. In 1900 only 9 per cent of the members of the House of Representatives had served five terms or wore and less than 1 per cent had served ten terms or more. In 1957, 45 per cent of the House had served five terms or more

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                        9

and 14 per cent ten terms or more. In 1897, for each representative w had served ten terms or more in the House, there were 3.4 representation who had served two terms or less. In 1961 for each ten-termer the were only 1.6 representatives who had served two terms or less.1 In the middle of the nineteenth century, only about half the representatives in any one Congress had served in a previous Congress, and only about o third of the senators had been elected to the Senate more than once. By 1961 close to 90 per cent of the House were veterans, and almost two thirds of the senators were beyond their first term. The biennial infusion of new blood had reached an all-time low.

Congress            date                 Representatives elected to                 Senators elected to Senate
                                                        House more than once                                More than once

42^nd                    1871                             53%                                                          32%

50^th                     1887                             63                                                             45

64^th                     1915                             74                                                              47

74^th                     1935                             77                                                               54

87^th                     1961                             87                                                               66
 

Source: Figures for representatives for 1871-1915 are from Robert Luce, Legislative Assemblies (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924), P. 365. Other figures calculated independently.
 

          (2) The increasingly important role of seniority. Increasing tenure of congressmen is closely linked to increasingly-rigid adherence to practices of seniority. The longer men stay in Congress, the more likely they are to see virtue in seniority. Conversely, the more important seniority is, the greater is the constituent appeal of men who have been long in office. The current rigid system of seniority in both houses of Congress is a product of the twentieth century.
          In the nineteenth century seniority was far more significant in the Senate than in the House. Since the middle of that century Apparent only in five instances-the last in 1925-has the chairmanship of Senate committee been denied to the most senior member of the committee. In the House, on the other hand, the Speaker early received 1 power to appoint committees and to designate their chairmen. During the nineteenth century Speakers made much of this power. Commit appointment and the selection of chairmen were involved political processes, in which the Speaker carefully balanced factors of seniority, geography, expertise, and policy viewpoint in making his choices. Not infre-

1. George B. Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives (House Document 216, Eighty Seventh Congress, 1st Session, 1962), P. 31; T. Richard Witmer New York Times, Dec. 27, 1963, P. 24.
 

10                                                                                                                     Samuel P. Huntington

quently prolonged bargaining would result as the Speaker traded committee positions for legislative commitments. Commenting on James G. Blaine's efforts at committee construction in the early 1870s, one member of his family wrote that Blaine "left for New York on Wednesday. He had cotton and wool manufacturers to meet in Boston, and, over and above all, pressure to resist or permit. As fast is he gets his committees arranged, just so fast some after consideration conies up which over topples the whole list like a row of bricks." 2 Only with the drastic curtailment of the powers of the Speaker in 1910 and 1911 did the seniority system in the House assume the inflexible pattern which it has today. Only twice since the 1910 revolt-once in 1915 and once in 1921-has seniority been neglected in the choice of committee chairmen.
        (3) Extended tenure.- a prerequisite for leadership. Before 1896 Speakers, at the time of their first election, averaged only seven years tenure in the House. Since 1896 Speakers have averaged twenty-two years of House service at their first election. In 1811 and in 1859 Henry Clay and William Pennington were elected Speaker when they first entered the House. In 1807 Thomas Jefferson arranged for the election of his friend, William C. Nicholas, to the House and then for his immediate selection by the party caucus as floor leader. Such an intrusion of leadership from outside would now be unthinkable. Today the Speaker and other leaders of the House and, to a lesser degree, the leaders of the Senate are legislative veterans of long standing. In 1961 fifty-seven House leaders averaged twenty years of service in the House and thirty-four Senate leaders sixteen years of service in the Senate. The top House leaders (Speaker, floor leaders, chairmen and ranking minority members of Ways arid Means, Appropriations, and Rules Committees) averaged thirty-one years in the House and nineteen years in leadership positions. The top Senate leaders (President pro tern., floor leaders, chairmen and ranking minority members of Finance, Foreign Relations, and Appropriations Committees) averaged twenty years in the Senate and nine years in leadership positions. Between 1948 and 1961 the average tenure of top leaders increased by two years in the House and by three years in the Senate. Increasing tenure means increasing age. In the nineteenth century the leaders of Congress were often in their thirties. Clay was thirty-four when he became Speaker in 1811; Hunter, thirty when he became Speaker in 1839; White, thirty-six at his accession to the Speakership in 1841; and Orr, thirty-five when lie became Speaker in 1957. In contrast, Rayburn was fifty-eight when he became Speaker, Martin sixty-three, and McCormack seventy-one.
          (4) Leadership within Congress: a one-way street. Normally in American life becoming a leader in one institution opens up leadership possibilities in other institutions: corporation presidents head civic agencies or become

2. Gail Hamilton, Life of James G. Blaine, P. 263, quoted in DeAlva S. Alexander, History and Procedure of the House of Representatives (Boston: Houghton Main Company, 1916), p. 69.

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                   11

cabinet officers; foundation and university executives move into government; leading lawyers and bankers take over industrial corporations. The greater one's prestige, authority, and accomplishments within one organization, the easier it is to move to other and better posts in other organizations. Such, however, is not the case with Congress. Leadership in the House of Representatives leads nowhere except to leadership in the House of Representatives. To a lesser degree, the same is true of the Senate. The successful House or Senate leader has to identify himself completely with his institution, its mores, traditions, and ways of behavior. "The very ingredients which make you a powerful House leader," one representative has commented, "are the ones which keep you from being a public leader."3 Representatives typically confront a "'fourth term crisis": if they wish to run for higher office-for governor or senator-they must usually do so by the beginning of their fourth term in the House. If they stay in the House for four or more terms, they in effect choose to make a career in the House and to forswear the other electoral possibilities of American politics. Leadership in the Senate is not as exclusive a commitment as it is in the House. But despite such notable exceptions as Taft and Johnson, the most influential men in the Senate have typically been those who have looked with disdain upon the prospect of being anything but a United States Senator. Even someone with the high talent and broad ambition of Lyndon Johnson could not escape this exclusive embrace during his years as majority leader. In the words of Theodore H. White, the Senate, for Johnson, was "faith, calling, club, habit, relaxation, devotion, hobby, and love." Over the years it became "almost a monomania with him, his private life itself ." 4 Such "monomania" is normally the prerequisite for Senate leadership. It is also normally an insurmountable barrier, psychologically and politically, to leadership anywhere outside the Senate.
         (5) The decline of personnel interchange between Congress and the administration. Movement of leaders in recent years between the great national institutions of "The Establishment" and the top positions in the administration has been frequent, easy, and natural. This pattern of lateral entry distinguishes the American executive branch from the governments of most other modern societies. The circulation of individuals between leadership positions in governmental and private institutions cases the strains between political and private leadership and performs a unifying function comparable to that which common class origins perform in Great Britain or common membership in the Communist Party does in the Soviet Union.
        The frequent movement of individuals between administration and

3. Quoted in Charles L. Clapp, The Congressman: His Work as He Sees It (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1961), p. 21. 4 Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1960 (New York: Atheneum Press, 1961), P. 132.

12                                                                                                                  Samuel P. Huntington

establishment contrasts sharply with the virtual absence of such movement between Congress and the administration or between Congress and the establishment. The gap between congressional leadership and administration leadership has increased sharply during this century. Seniority makes it virtually impossible for administration leaders to become leaders of Congress and makes it unlikely that leaders of Congress will want to become leaders of the administration. The separation of powers has become the insulation of leaders. Between 1861 and 1896, 37 per cent of the people appointed to posts in the Presidential cabinet had served in the House or Senate. Between 1897 and 1940, 19 percent of the Cabinet positions were filled by former congressmen or senators. Between 1941 and 1963 only 15 per cent of the cabinet posts were so filled. Former congressmen received only 4 per cent of over 1,000 appointments of political executives made during the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy Administrations.5 In 1963, apart from the President and Vice-President, only one of the top seventy-five leaders of the Kennedy Administration (Secretary of the Interior Udall) had served in Congress.
        Movement from the administration to leadership positions in Congress is almost equally rare. In 1963 only one of eighty-one congressional leaders (Senator Anderson) had previously served in the President's Cabinet. Those members of the administration who do move on to Congress are typically those who have come to the administration from state and local politics rather than from the great national institutions. Few congressmen and even fewer congressional leaders move from Congress to positions of leadership in national private organizations, and relatively few leaders of these organizations move on to Congress. Successful men who have come to top in business, law, or education naturally hesitate shift to another world in which they would have to start all over again at the bottom. In some cases, undoubtedly, Establishment leaders also consider legislative office simply beneath them.
            (6) The social origins and careers of congressmen. Congressmen are much more likely to come from rural and small-town backgrounds than are administration and establishment leaders. A majority of the senators holding office between 1947 and 1957 were born in rural areas. 64 per cent of the 1959 senators were raised in rural areas or in small towns, and only 19 per cent in metropolitan centers. In contrast, 52 per cent of the presidents largest industrial corporations grew up in metropolitan centers, as did a large proportion of the political executives appointed during the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy Administrations. The contrast in origins is reflected in fathers' occupations. In the 1950s, the proportion of farmer fathers among senators (32 per

5. See Pendleton Herring, Presidential Leadership (New York: Farrar and Rinehart 1940), pp. 164-65, for 1861-1940; figures for 1940-1963 have been calculated on same basis as Herring's figures; see also Dean E. Mann, "The Selection of Federal Political Executives," American Political Science Review, 58 (March, 1964), 97.

Congressional I Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                  13

cent) was more than twice as high as it was among administration leaders (13 per cent) and business leaders (9 to 15 per cent).6
           Of perhaps greater significance is the difference in geographical mobility between congressmen and private and public executives. Forty-one per cent of the 1959 senators, but only 12 per cent of the 1959 corporation presidents, were currently residing in their original hometowns. Seventy per cent of the presidents had moved 100 miles or more from their hometowns but only 29 per cent of the senators had done so. In 1963, over one-third (37 per cent) of the top leaders of Congress but only 11 per cent of administration leaders were still living in their places of birth. Seventy-seven per cent of the congressional leaders were living in their states of birth, while 70 per cent of the administration leaders

                                      Congressional            Administration         Political          Business
                                            Leaders                     Leaders                  Executives        Leaders
                                            (1963)                        (1963)                        (1959)              (1952)
                                             N-81                           N-74                          N-1, 865          N-8300
None                                   37%                            11% }                           14% }              40%
Intrastate                            40                               19
Interstate,
          intra region                5                                  9                                  10                    15
Interregion                          19                                61                                 73                    45
International                       0                                  0                                    3                       0

Sources: "Political Executives," Warner et al., op. cit., P. 332; business leaders, Warner and Abegglen, op. cit., p. 82; congressional and administration leaders, independent calculation. Geographical mobility is measured by comparing birthplace with current residence. For administration leaders, current residence was considered to be last residence before assuming administration position. The nine regions employed in this analysis are defined in Warner et al., op. cit, pp. 42-43.
 

had moved out of their states of birth. Sixty-one per cent of administration leaders and 73 per cent of political executives had moved from one region of the country to another, but only 19 per cent of congressional leaders had similar mobility.

6. See Andrew Hacker, "The Elected and the Anointed," American Political Science Review, 55 (September 1961), 540-41; Mann, ibid., 58 (MARCH 1964) 92-93; Donald R. Matthews, U.S. Senators and Their World (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1960), pp. 14-17; W. Lloyd Warner, et al., The American Federal Executive (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1963), pp. 11, 56-58, 333; W. Lloyd Warner and James C. Abegglen, Occupational Mobility in American Business and Industry (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955) p. 38; Susan Keller, "The Social Origins and Career Patterns of Three Generations of American Business Leaders" (Ph.D. dissertation. Columbia University, 1953), cited in Wendell Bell, Richard J. Hill, and Charles R. Wright, Public Leadership (San Francisco: Chandler Press, 1961).
7. Hacker, op. cit., 544.

14                                                                                                                        Samuel P. Huntington

During the course of this century the career patterns of congressmen and of executive leaders have diverged. At an earlier period both readerships had extensive experience in local and state politics. In 1963 about one-half of executive leaders and three-quarters of congressional leaders had held office in state or local government. In 1963 the congressional pattern had not changed significantly, with 61 per cent of the congressional leaders having held state or local office. The proportion of executive leaders with this experience, however, had dropped drastically.

Offices held                           Congressional Leaders                              Administration Leaders
                                               1903              1963                                     1903               1963
Any state or local                    75%              64%                                      49%               17%
office

Elective local office                   55                  46                                         22                   5

State legislature                      47                   30                                         17                  3

Appointive state office             12                   10                                         20                   7

Governor                                  16                    9                                           5                     4

The congressional leaders of 1963, moreover, were more often professional politicians than the congressional leaders of 1903: in 1903 only 5 per cent of the congressional leaders had no major occupation outside politics, while in 1963, 22 per cent of the congressional leaders had spent almost all their lives in electoral politics.
         The typical congressman may have gone away to college, but he then returned to his home state to pursue an electoral career, working his way up through local office, the state legislature, and eventually to Congress. The typical political executive, on the other hand, like the typical corporation executive, went away to college and then did not return home but instead pursued a career in a metropolitan center or worked in one or more national organizations. with frequent changes of residence. As a result, political executives have become divorced from state and local politics, just as the congressional leaders have become isolated from national organizations. Congressional leaders, in short, come up through a "local politics" line while executives move up through a national organization" line.
         The differences in geographical mobility and career patterns reflect two different styles of life which cut across the usual occupational groupings. Businessmen, lawyers, and bankers 'are found in both Congress and the administration. But those in Congress are likely to be small businessmen, small-town lawyers, and small-town bankers. Among the sixty-six lawyers in the Senate in 1963, for instance, only two-Joseph Clark and Clifford Case-had been "prominent corporation counsel[s]" before going

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                15

into politics." Administration leaders, in contrast, arc far more likely, affiliated with large national industrial corporations, with Wall Street or State Street law firms, and with New York banks.
           (7) The provincialism of congressmen. The absence of mobility between Congress and the executive branch and the differing background of the leaders of the two branches of government stimulate different policy, attitudes. Congressmen tend to be oriented toward local needs and small-town ways of thought. The leaders of the administration an of the great private national institutions are more likely to think in national terms. Analyzing, consensus-building on foreign aid, James N. Rosenau concluded that congressmen typically had "segmental" orientations while other national leaders had "continental" orientations. The segmentally oriented leaders "give highest priority to the subnational, units which they head or represent" and are "not prepared to admit discrepancy between" the national welfare and "their subnational concerns." The congressman is part of a local consensus of local politician local businessmen, local bankers, local trade union leaders, and local newspaper editors who constitute the opinion-making elite of the districts. As Senator Richard Neuberger noted: "If there is one maxim which seems to prevail among many members of our national legislature it is that local matters must come first and global problems a poor second -that is, if the member of Congress is to survive politically." As result, the members of Congress are "isolated" from other national leaders. At gatherings of national leaders, "members of Congress seem more conspicuous by their absence than by their presence." One piece of evidence is fairly conclusive: of 623 national opinion-makers who attended ten American Assembly sessions between 1956 and 1960, only nine (1.4 per cent) were members of Congress! 9
            The differences in attitude between segmentally oriented congressmen and the other, continentally oriented national leaders are particular marked in those areas of foreign policy (such as foreign aid) which involve the commitment of tangible resources for intangible ends. But they may also exist in domestic policy. The approaches of senators and corporation presidents to economic issues, Andrew Hacker found, are rooted in "disparate images of society." Senators are provincially oriented; corporation presidents "metropolitan" in their thinking. Senators may be sympathetic to business, but they think of business in small-town, small business terms. They may attempt to accommodate themselves to the needs of the national corporations, but basically "they are faced with a power they do not really understand and with demands about whose legitimacy they are uneasy." As a result, Hacker suggests, "serious ten-

8. Andrew Hacker, "Are There Too Many Lawyers in Congress?" New York Times Magazine
January 5, 1964, 74.
9. James N. Rosenau, National Leadership and Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), PP. 30-31, 347-350.

16                                                                                                                       Samuel P. Huntington

sions exist between our major political and economic institutions.... There is, at base, a real lack of understanding and a failure-of communication between the two elites."10
          "Segmental" or "provincial" attitudes are undoubtedly stronger in the House than they are in the Senate. But they also exist in the Senate. Despite the increased unity of the country caused by mass communications and the growth of "national as distinguished from local or sectional industry," the Senate, according to an admiring portraitist, "is if anything progressively less national in its approach to most affairs" and "is increasingly engaged upon the protection of what is primarily local or sectional in economic life.""
            Old ideas, old values, old beliefs die hard in Congress. The structure of Congress encourages their perpetuation. The newcomer to Congress is repeatedly warned that "to get along he must go along." To go along means to adjust to the prevailing mores and attitudes of the Inner Club. The more the young congressman desires a career in the House or Senate, the more readily he makes the necessary adjustments. The country at large has become urban, suburban, and metropolitan. Its economic, social, educational, and technological activities are increasingly performed by huge national bureaucratic organizations. But on Capitol Hill the nineteenth century ethos of the small town, the independent farmer, and the small business man is still entrenched behind the institutional defenses which have developed in this century to insulate Congress from the new America.

         The executive branch has thus grown in power vis-a-vis Congress for precisely the same reason that the House of Representatives power vis-a-vis the Executive in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century. It has become more powerful because it has become more representative. Congress has lost power because it has had two defects as a representative body. One, relatively minor and in part easily remedied, deals with the representation of people as individuals; the other, more serious and perhaps beyond remedy, concerns the representation of organized groups and interests.
         Congress was originally designed to represent individuals in the House and governmental units-the states-in the Senate. In the course of time the significance of the states as organized interests declined, and popular election of senators was introduced. In effect, both senators and representatives now represent relatively arbitrarily-defined territorial collections of individuals. This system of individual representation suffers from two inequities. First, of course, is the constitutional equal representation

10. Hacker. op. cit., 547-49
11. William S. White, Citadel (New York: Harper & Bros., 1956), p. 136.
 

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                      17
 

of states in the Senate irrespective of population. Second, in the House, congressional districts vary widely in size and may also be gerrymandered to benefit one party or group of voters. The net effect of these practices in recent years has been to place the urban and, even more importantly, the suburban voter at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the rural and small-town voter. In due course, however, the Supreme Court decision in Wesberry v. Sanders in February 1964 will correct much of this discrepancy.
          The second and more significant deficiency of Congress as a representative body concerns its insulation from the interests which have emerged in the twentieth century's "organizational revolution." How can national institutions be represented in a locally-elected legislature? In the absence of any easy answer to this question, the administration has tended to emerge as the natural point of access to the government for these national organizations and the place where their interests and viewpoints are brought into the policy-making process. In effect, the American system of government is moving toward a three-way system or representation. Particular territorial interests are represented in Congress; particular functional interests are represented in the administration; and the national interest is represented territorially and functionally in the Presidency.
          Every four years the American people choose a President, but they elect an administration. In this century the administration has acquired many of the traditional characteristics of the representative body that Congress has tended to lose. The Jacksonian principle of "rotation in office" and the classic concept of the Cincinnatus-like statesman are far more relevant now to the administration than they are to Congress. Administration officials, unlike congressmen, are more frequently mobile amateurs in government than career professionals in politics. The patterns of power in Congress are rigid. The patterns of power in the administration are flexible. The administration is thus a far more sensitive register of changing currents of opinion than is Congress. A continuous adjustment of power and authority takes place within each administration ; major changes in the distribution of power take place at every change of administration. The Truman Administration represented one combination of men, interests, and experience, the Eisenhower Administration another, and the Kennedy Administration yet a third. Each time a new President takes office, the executive branch is invigorated in the same way that the House of Representatives was invigorated by Henry Clay and his western congressmen in 1811. A thousand new officials descend on Washington, coming fresh from the people, representing the diverse force, behind the new President, and bringing with them new demands, new ideas, and new power. Here truly is representative government along classic lines and of a sort which Congress has not known for decades. One key to the "decline" of Congress lies in the defects of Congress as a representative body.

18                                                                                                                   Samuel P. Huntington

         The influence of Congress in our political system thus varies directly with its ties to the more dynamic and dominant in society. The power of Congress also varies directly, however, with the centralization of power in Congress. The corollary of these propositions is likewise true: centralization of authority within Congress usually goes with close connections between congressional leadership and major external forces and groups. The power of the House of Representatives was at a peak in the second decade of the nineteenth century, when power was centralized in the Speaker and when Henry Clay and his associates represented the dynamic new forces of trans-Appalachian nationalism. Another peak in the power of the House came during Reconstruction, when power was centralized in Speaker Colfax and the joint Committee on Reconstruction as spokesmen for triumphant northern Radicalism. A third peak in the power of the House came between 1800 and 1910, when the authority of the Speaker reached its height and Speakers Reed and Cannon reflected the newly established forces of nationalist conservatism. The peak in Senate power came during the post-Reconstruction period of the 1870's and 1880's. Within Congress, power was centralized in the senatorial leaders who represented the booming forces of the rising indus trial capitalism and the new party machines. These were the years, as Wilfred Binkley put it, of "the Hegemony of the Senate."
             Since its first years, the twentieth century has seen no comparable centralization of power in Congress. Instead, the dominant tendency has been toward the dispersion of power. This leaves Congress only partially equipped to deal with the problems of modern society. In general, the complex modern environment requires in social and political institutions both a high degree of specialization and a high degree of centralized authority to coordinate and to integrate the activities of the specialized units. "Specialization of function and centralization of authority have been the dominant trends of twentieth-century institutional development. Congress, however, has adjusted only half-way. Through its committees and subcommittees it has provided effectively for specialization, much more effectively, indeed, than the national legislature of any other country. But it has failed to combine increasing specialization of function with increasing centralization of authority. Instead the central leadership in Congress has been weakened, and as a result Congress lacks the central authority to integrate its specialized bodies. In a "rational" bureaucracy authority varies inversely with specialization. Within Congress authority usually varies directly with specialization.
            The authority of the specialist is a distinctive function of congressional behavior. "Specialization" is a key norm in both House and Senate. The man who makes a career in the House, one congressman has observed "is primarily a worker, a specialist, and a craftsman-someone who will

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                   19

concentrate his energies in a particular field and gain prestige and influence In that." " the members who are most successful," another congressman concurred, "are those who pick a specialty or an area and become experts in it." 12 The emphasis on specialization as a norm, of course, complements the importance of the committee as an institution. It also leads to a great stress on reciprocity. In a bureaucracy, specialized units compete with each other for the support of less specialized officials. In Congress, however, reciprocity among specialists replaces coordination in Congress by generalists. When a committee bill comes to the floor, the non-specialists in that subject acquiesce in its passage with the unspoken but complete understanding that they will receive similar treatment. "The traditional deference to the authority of one of its committees overwhelms the main body," one congressman has observed. "The whole fabric of Congress is based on committee expertise . . . . "13 Reciprocity thus substitutes for centralization and confirms the diffusion of power among the committees.
                  The Current phase of dispersed power in Congress dates from the second decade of this century. The turning point in the House came with the revolt against Speaker Cannon in 1910, the removal of the Speaker from the Rules Committee, and the loss by the Speaker of his power to appoint standing committees. For a brief period, from 1911 to 1915, much of the Speaker's former power was assumed by Oscar Underwood in his capacities as majority floor leader and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. In 1915, however, Underwood was elected to the Senate, and the dispersion of power which had begun with the overthrow of the Speaker rapidly accelerated.
                 During the first years of the Wilson Administration, authority in the Senate was concentrated in the floor leader, John Worth Kern, a junior senator first elected to the Senate in 1910. Under his leadership the seniority system was bypassed, and the Senate played an active and creative role in the remarkable legislative achievements of the Sixty-third Congress. Conceivably the long-entrenched position of seniority could have been broken at this point. "If the rule of 'seniority' was not destroyed in 1913," says Claude G. Bowers, "it was so badly shattered that it easily could have been given the finishing stroke."14 Kern, however, was defeated for re-election in 1916, seniority was restored to its earlier position of eminence, and the power which Kern had temporarily centralized was again dispersed.
               Thus since 1910 in the House and since 1915 in the Senate the overall tendency has been toward the weakening of central leadership and the strengthening of the committees The restoration of seniority in the

12. Clapp, op. Cit.. pp. 23-24.
13. Clem Miller, Members of the House (New York: Scribner's, 1962), P. 51.
14. Claude G. Bowers, The Life of John Worth Kern (Indianapolis: Hollenback Press, 1918), p 240.

20                                                                                                                   Samuel P. Huntington

Senate and its development and rigidification in the House have contributed directly to this end. So also most of the "reforms" which have been made in the procedures of Congress. "Since 1910" the historian of the House has observed, "the leadership of the House has been in commission. . . . The net effect of the various changes of the past thirty-five years in the power structure of the House of Representatives has been to diffuse the leadership, and to despite its risks, among a numerous body of leaders." 15 The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 strengthened the Appropriations Committees b giving them exclusive authority to report appropriations, but its primary effects were felt in the executive branch with the creation of the Bureau of the Budget. During the 1920s power was further dispersed among the Speaker, floor leaders, Rules, Appropriations, Ways and Means chairmen, and caucus chairman. In the following decade political development also contributed to the diffusion of influence when the conservative majority on the Rules Committee broke with the administration in 1937.
               The dispersion of power to the committees of Congress was intensified by the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. In essence, this act was a "Committee reorganization Act" making the committees stronger and more effective. The reduction in the number of standing committees from eighty-one to thirty-four increased the importance of the committee chairmanships. Committee consolidation led to the proliferation of subcommittees, now estimated to number over two hundred and fifty. Thus the functions of integration and coordination which, if performed at all, would previously have been performed by the central leadership of the two houses, have now devolved on the leadership of the standing committees. Before the reorganization, for instance, committee jurisdictions frequently overlapped, and the presiding officers of the House and Senate could often influence the fate of a bill by exercising their discretion in referring it to committee. While jurisdictional uncertainties have not been totally eliminated, the discretion of the presiding officers has been drastically curtailed. The committee chairman, on the other hand, call often influence the fate of legislation by manipulating the subcommittee structure of the committee and by, exercising his discretion in referring bills to subcommittees. Similarly, the intention of the framers of the Reorganization Act to reduce, if not to eliminate, the use of special committees has had the effect of restricting the freedom of action of the central leadership in the two houses at the same time that it confirms the authority of the standing committees in their respective jurisdictions. The Reorganization Act also bolstered the committees by significantly expanding their staffs and by specifically authorizing them to exercise legislative overseeing functions with respect to the administrative agencies in their field of responsibility.

15. Galloway, op. cit., pp. 95, 98, 128.

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                   21

          The Act included few provisions strengthening the central leadership of Congress. Those which it did include usually have not operated successfully. A proposal for party policy committees in each house was defeated in the House of Representatives. The Senate subsequently authorized policy committees in the Senate, but they have not been active or influential enough to affect the legislative Process significantly. The Act's provision for a joint Committee on the Budget which would set an appropriations ceiling by February l5th of each year was implemented twice and then abandoned. In 1950 the Appropriations Committees reported a consolidated supply bill which cut the presidential estimates by two billion dollars and was approved by Congress two months before the approval of the individual supply bills of 1949. Specialized interests within Congress, however, objected strenuously to the procedure, and it has not been attempted again. The net effect of the Reorganization Act was thus to further the dispersion of power, strengthen and to institutionalize committee authority, and to circumscribe still more the influence of the central leadership
          In the years after the Legislative Reorganization Act, the issues which earlier had divided the central leadership and committee chairmen reappeared in each committee in struggles between committee chairmen and subcommittees. The chairmen attempted to maintain their own control and flexibility over the number, nature, staff, membership, and leadership of their subcommittees. Several of the most assertive chairmen either prevented the creation of subcommittees or created number subcommittees without distinct legislative jurisdictions, thereby reserving to themselves the assignment of legislation to the subcommittees. Those who wished to limit the power of the chairman, on the other hand, often invoked seniority as the rule to be followed in designating subcommittee chairmen. In 1961 thirty-one of the thirty-six standing committees the House and Senate had subcommittees and in twenty-four the sub committees had fixed jurisdictions and significant autonomy, thus playing a major role in the legislative process. In many committees the sub committees go their independent way, jealously guarding their autonomy and prerogatives against other subcommittees and their own committee chairman. "Given an active subcommittee chairman working in a specialized field with a staff of his own," one congressional staff member observes, "the parent committee can do no more than change the grammar of a subcommittee report."16 Specialization of function and dispersion power, which once worked to the benefit of the committee chairmen, no work against them.
        The Speaker and the majority floor leaders are, of course, the most powerful men in Congress, but their power is not markedly greater than

16. George Goodwin, Jr., "Subcommittees: The Miniature Legislatures of Congress", American Political Science Review, 56 (September 1962), 596-601.

22                                                                                                                     Samuel P. Huntington

that of many other congressional leaders. In 1959, for instance, thirteen of nineteen committee chairmen broke with the Speaker to support the Landrurn-Griffin bill. "This graphically illustrated the locus of power in the House," one congressman commented. "The Speaker, unable to deliver votes, was revealed in outline against the chairmen. This fact was not lost on Democratic Members." 17 The power base of the central leaders has tended to atrophy, caught between the expansion of presidential authority and influence, on the one hand, and the Institutionalization of committee authority, on the other.
             At times individual central leaders have built up impressive networks of personal influence. These, however, have been individual, not instructional, phenomena. The ascendancy of Rayburn and Johnson during the 1950s, for instance, tended to obscure the difference between personal influence and institutional authority. With the departure of the Texas coalition their personal networks collapsed. "Rayburn's personal power ,and prestige," observed Representative Richard Bolling, "made the institution appear to work. When Rayburn died, the thing just fell apart." 18 Similarly, Johnson's effectiveness as Senate leader, in the words of one of his assistants, was "overwhelmingly a matter of personal influence. By all accounts, Johnson was the most personal among recent leaders in his approach. For years it was said that he talked to every Democratic senator every day. Persuasion ranged from the awesome pyrotechnics known as 'Treatment A' to the apparently casual but always purposeful exchange as he roamed the floor and the cloakroom." 19 When Johnson's successor was accused of failing to provide the necessary leadership to the Senate, he defended himself on the grounds that he was Mansfield and not Johnson. His definition of the leader's role was largely negative: "I am neither a circus ringmaster, the master of ceremonies of a Senate nightclub, a tamer of Senate lions, or a wheeler and dealer . . ."20 The majority leadership role was uninstittitionalized and the kindly, gentlemanly, easygoing qualities which Mansfield had had as Senator from Montana were not changed when he became majority leader. The power of the President has been institutionalized; the powers of the congressional committees and their chairmen have-been institutionalized; but the power of the central leaders of Congress remains personal, ad hoc, and transitory.

          The insulation of Congress from external social forces and the dispersion of power within Congress have stimulated significant changes

17. Miller, op. Cit., p. 110.
18. Quoted in Stewart Alsop, "The Failure of Congress," Saturday Evening Post, 236 (December 7, 1953), 21.
19. Ralph K. Huitt, "Democratic Party Leadership in the Senate," American Political Science Review, 55 (June 1961), 338.
20. Congressional Record (November 27, 1963), P. 21, 758 (daily ed.).

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                 23

in the functions of Congress. The congressional role in legislation has largely been reduced to delay and amendment; congressional activity in overseeing administration has expanded and diversified. During the Nineteenth century Congress frequently took the legislative initiative in dealing with major national problems. Even when the original proposal came from the President, Congress usually played an active and positive role in reshaping the proposal into law. "The predominant and controlling force, the center and source of all motive and of all regulative power," Woodrow Wilson observed in 1895, "is Congress. . . . The legislature is the aggressive spirit." 21 Since 1933, however, the initiative is in formulating legislation, in assigning legislative priorities, in arousing support for legislation, and in determining, the final content of the legislation enacted has clearly shifted to the executive branch. All three elements of the executive branch-President, administration, and bureaucracy have gained legislative functions at the expense of Congress. Today's "aggressive spirit" is clearly the executive branch.
            1908, it is reported, the Senate, in high dudgeon at the effrontery of the Secretary of the Interior, returned to him the draft of a bill which he had proposed, resolving to refuse any further communications from executive officers unless they were transmitted by the President himself.22 Now, however, congressmen expect the executive departments to present them with bills. Eighty per cent of the bills enacted into law, one congressman has estimated, originate in the executive branch. Indeed, in most instances congressmen do not admit a responsibility to take legislative action except in response to executive requests. Congress, as one senator has complained, "has surrendered its rightful place in the leadership in the lawmaking process to the White House. No longer is Congress the source of major legislation. It now merely filters legislative proposals from the President, straining out some and reluctantly letting others pass through. These days no one expects Congress to devise the important bills." 23 The President now determines the legislative agenda of Congress almost as thoroughly as the British Cabinet sets the legislative agenda of Parliament. The Institutionalization of this role was one of the more significant developments in presidential-congressional relations after World War II.24
           Congress has conceded not only the initiative in originating legislation but-and perhaps inevitably as the result of losing the initiative--it has also lost the dominant influence it once had in shaping the final

21. Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, pp. 11, 36.
22. George B. Galloway, The Legislative Process in Congress (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1955), P. 9.
23. Abraham Ribicoff, "Doesn't Congress Have Ideas of its own- Saturday Evening Post, 237 (March 21, 1964), 6.
24. Richard E. Neustadt. "Presidency and Legislation: Planning the President's Program." American Political Science Review, 49 (December 1955), 980-1021.

24                                                                                                                        Samuel P. Huntington

content of legislation. Between 1882 and 1909 Congress had a preponderant influence in shaping the content of sixteen (55 per cent) out twenty-nine major laws enacted during those years. It had a preponderant influence over seventeen (46 per cent) passed between 1910 and 1932. During the constitutional revolution of the New Deal, however, its influence declined markedly: only two (8 percent) of twenty-four major laws passed between 1910 and 1932 and were primarily the work of Congress.25 Certainly its record after World War II was little better. The loss of congressional control over the substance of policy is most marked, of course, in the area of national defense and foreign policy. At one time Congress did not hesitate to legislate the size and weapons of the armed forces. Now this power-to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy-is firmly in the hands of the executive. Is Congress, one congressional committee asked plaintively in 1962, to play simply "the passive role of supine acquiescence" in executive programs or is it to be "an active participant in the determination of the direction of our defense policy?" The committee, however, already knew the answer:

To any student of government, it is eminently clear that the role of the Congress in determining national policy, defense or otherwise, has deteriorated over the years. More and more the role of Congress has come to be that of a sometimes querulous but essentially kindly uncle who complains while furiously puffing on his pipe but who finally, as everyone expects, gives in and raises his hand in blessing, hands over the allowance, grants the permission, or raises his hand in blessing and then returns to the rocking chair for another year of somnolence broken only by an occasional anxious glance down the avenue and a muttered doubt as to whether he had done the right thing.26

25. Lawrence H. Chamberlain, The President, Congress, and Legislation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946), pp. 450-52.
26. House Report 1406, Eighty-seventh Congress, Second Session (1962), P. 7.

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century 25

trative processes of the executive branch. Congressional committees responded with alacrity to the mandate of the 1946 Reorganization Act that they "exercise continuous watchfulness" over the administration of Laws. Congressional investigations of the bureaucracy have multiplied: each Congress during the period between 1950 and 1962 conducted more investigations than were conducted by all the Congresses during the nineteenth century. 27 Other mechanisms of committee control, such as the legislative veto and committee clearance of administrative decisions, have been increasingly employed. "Not legislation but control of administration," as Galloway remarks, "is becoming the primary function of the modern Congress." 28 In discharging this function, congressmen uncover waste and abuse, push particular projects and innovations, highlight inconsistencies, correct injustices, and compel exposition and defense of bureaucratic decisions.
        In performing these activities, Congress is acting where it is most competent to act: it is dealing with particulars, not general policies. Unlike legislating, these concerns are perfectly compatible with the current patterns of insulation and dispersion. Committee specialization and committee power enhance rather than detract from the effectiveness of the committees as administrative overseers. In addition, as the great organized interests of society come to be represented more directly in the bureaucracy and administration, the role of Congress as representative of 'individual citizens becomes all the more important. The congressman more often serves their interests by representing them in the administrative process than in the legislative process. As has been recognized many times the actual work of congressmen, in practice if not in theory, is directed toward mediation between constituents and government agencies. "The most pressing day-to-day demands for the time of Senator or Congressmen," Hubert Humphrey has written, "are not directly linked to legislative tasks. They come from constituents."29 One representative has estimated that half of his own time and two-thirds of that of his staff are devoted to constituent service.30 This appears to be average. In performing these services congressmen are both representing their constituents where they need to be represented and checking upon ameliorating the impact of the federal bureaucracy. Constituent service and legislative oversight are two sides of the same coin. Increasingly divorced from the principal organized social forces of society, Congress has come to play a more and more significant role as spokesman for the interests of unorganized individuals.

27. Galloway, op. cit., p. 166.
28. Ibid., PP. 56-57
29. Hubert H. Humphrey, "To Move Congress Out of Its Ruts," New York Times Magazine (April 7, 196.1), 39
30. Clarence D. Long, "Observations of a Freshman in Congress," New York Times Magazine (December 1, 1963), 73.

        Insulation has made Congress unwilling to initiate laws. Dispersion has made Congress unable to aggregate individual bills into a coherent legislative program. Constituent service and administrative oversight have eaten into the time and energy which congressmen give legislative, matters. Congress is thus left in its legislative dilemma where the assertion of power is almost equivalent to the obstruction of action. What are the possibilities for institutional adaptation or institutional reform.
          Living with the dilemma. Conceivably neither adaptation nor reform is necessary. The present distribution of power and functions could continue indefinitely. Instead of escaping from its dilemma, Congress could learn to live with it. In each of the four institutional crises mentioned earlier, the issue of institutional adaptation came to a head over one issue: the presidential election of 1824, the House of Commons Reform Bill of 1932, the Lloyd George budget of 1910, and the Supreme Court reorganization plan of 1937. The adaptation crisis of Congress differs in that to date a constitutional crisis between the executive branch and Congress has been avoided. Congress has procrastinated, obstructed and watered down executive legislative proposals, but it has also come close to the point where it no longer dares openly to veto them. Thus the challenge which Congress poses to the executive branch is less blatant and dramatic, but in many ways more complex, ambiguous, and irritating, than the challenge which the Lords posed to Asquith or the Supreme Court to Roosevelt. If Congress uses its powers to delay and to amend with prudence and circumspection, there is no necessary reason why it should not retain them for the indefinite future. In this case, the legislative process in the national government would continually appear to be on the verge of stalemate and breakdown which never quite materialize. The supporters of Congress would continue to bemoan its decline at the same time that its critics would continue to denounce its obstructionism. The system would work so long as Congress stretched but did not exhaust, the patience of the executive branch and public. If Congress, however did reject a major administration measure, like tax reduction or civil rights, the issue would be joined, the country would be thrown into constitutional crisis, and the executive branch would mobilize its forces for a showdown over the authority of Congress to veto legislation.
            Reform versus adaptation: restructuring power. The resumption by Congress of an active, positive role in the legislative process would require a drastic restructuring of power relationships, including reversal of the tendencies toward insulation, dispersion, and oversight. Fundamental "reforms" would thus be required. To date two general types of proposals have been advanced for the structural reform of Congress. Ironically, however, neither set of proposals is likely, if enacted, to achieve the results which its principal proponents desire. One set of reformers,

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                  27

"democratizers" like Senator Clark, attack the power of the Senate "Establishment" or "Inner Club" and urge an equalizing of power among congressmen so that a majority of each house can work its will. These reforms stand four-square in the Norris tradition. Dissolution of the Senate "Establishment" and other measures of democratization, however would disperse power among still more people, multiply the opportunistic for minority veto (by extending them to more minorities), and thus make timely legislative action still more difficult. The "party reformers" such as Professor James M. Burns, on the other hand, place their reliance on presidential leadership and urge the strengthening of the party organization in Congress to insure support by his own party for the President measures. In actuality, however, the centralization of power within Congress in party committees and leadership bodies would also increase the power of Congress. It would tend to reconstitute Congress as an effective legislative body, deprive the President of his monopoly of the "national interest," and force him to come to terms with the centralized congressional leadership, much as Theodore Roosevelt had to come to terms with Speaker Cannon. Instead of strengthening presidential leadership, the proposals of the party reformers would weaken it.
          The dispersion of power in Congress has created a situation in which the internal problem of Congress is not dictatorship but oligarchy. The only effective alternative to oligarchy is centralized authority. Oligarches however, are unlikely to reform themselves. In most political system centralized power is a necessary although not sufficient condition for reform and adaptation to environmental change. At present the central leaders of Congress are, with rare exceptions, products of and closely identified with the committee oligarchy. Reform of Congress would depend upon the central leaders breaking with the oligarchy, mobilizing majorities from younger and less influential congressmen, and employing these majorities to expand and to institutionalize their own power.
         Centralization of power within Congress would also, in some measure, help solve the problem of insulation. Some of Congress's insulation has been defensive in nature, a compensation for its declining role in the legislative process as well as a cause of that decline. Seniority, which is largely responsible for the insulation, is a symptom of more basic institutional needs and fears. Greater authority for the central leaders of Congress would necessarily involve a modification of the seniority system. Conversely, in the absence of strong central leadership, recourse to seniority is virtually inevitable. Election of committee chairmen by the committees themselves, by party caucuses, or by each house would stimulate antagonisms among members and multiply the opportunities for outside forces from the executive branch or from interest groups to influence the proceedings. Election by seniority is, in effect, selection by heredity: power goes not to the oldest son of the king but to the oldest child of the institution. It protects Congress against divisive and external influ-

28                                                                                                                          Samuel P. Huntington

ences. It does this, however, through a purely arbitrary method which offers no assurance that the distribution of authority in the Congress will bear any relation to the distribution of opinion in the Country, III the rest of the government, or within Congress itself. It purchases institutional integrity at a high price in terms of institutional isolation. The nineteenth-century assignment of committee positions and chairmanships by the Speaker, on the other hand, permitted flexibility and a balancing of viewpoints from within and without the House. External influences, however nefarious (as the earlier remark about Blaine suggests they might be at times.), all came to bear on the Speaker, and yet the authority which lie possessed enabled him to play a creative political role in balancing these external influences against the claims and viewpoints arising from within the House and against his own personal and policy preferences. The process by which the Speaker selected committee chairmen was not too different from the process by which a President selects a cabinet, and it resembled rather closely the process by which a British Prime Minister appoints a ministry from among his colleagues in Parliament. The resumption of this power by the Speaker in the House and its acquisition by the majority leader in the Senate would restore to Congress a more positive role in the legislative process and strengthen it vis-a-vis the executive branch. Paradoxically, however, the most ardent congressional critics of executive power are also the most strenuous opponents of centralized power in Congress.
          Congressional insulation may also be weakened in other ways. The decline in mobility between congressional leadership positions and administration leadership positions has been counterbalanced, in some measure, by the rise of the Senate as a source of Presidents. This is due to several causes. The almost insoluble problems confronting state governments tarnish the glamor and limit the, tenure of their governors. The nationalization of communications has helped senators play a role in the news media which is exceeded only by the President. In addition, senators, unlike governors, can usually claim some, familiarity with the overriding problems of domestic and foreign policy.
           Senatorial insulation may also be weakened to the extent that individuals who have made their reputations on the national scene find it feasible and desirable to run for the Senate. It is normally assumed that too much attention to national problems and too much neglect of state and constituency issues complicate election or reelection to the Senate. Lucas, McFarland, George, and Connally are cited as cases in point. Given the nationalization of communications, however, a political leader may be able to develop greater appeal in a local area by action on the national level than by action on the local level. Salinger's California and Robert Kennedy's New York Senate candidacies could mark the beginning of a new trend in American politics. It is effective testimonial to the extent to which the President dominates the national scene and the na

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                       29

tional scene dominates the news that in 1964 Robert Kennedy would probably have been the strongest candidate in any one of a dozen northeastern industrial states.
          Recruitment of senators from the national scene rather than from local politics would significantly narrow the gap between Congress and the other elements of national leadership. The "local politics" ladder to the Senate would be replaced or supplemented by a "national politics" line in which mobile individuals might move from the Establishment to the administration to the Senate. This would be one important step toward breaking congressional insulation. The end of insulation, however, would only occur if at a later date these same individuals could freely move back from the Senate to the administration. Mobility between Congress and the administration similar to that which now exists between the establishment and the administration would bring about drastic changes in American politics, not the least of which would be a great increase in the attractiveness of running for Congress opening up this possibility, however, depends upon the modification of seniority, and that, in turn, depends upon the centralization of power in Congress.
          Adaptation and reform: redefining function. A politically easier, although psychologically more difficult, way out of Congress's dilemma involves not the reversal but the intensification of the recent trends of congressional evolution. Congress is in a legislative dilemma because opinion conceives of it as a legislature. If it gave up the effort to play even a delaying role in the legislative process, it could, quite conceivably, play a much more positive and influential role in the political system as a whole. Representative assemblies have not always been legislatures. They had their origins in medieval times as courts and as councils. An assembly need not legislate to exist and to be important. Indeed, some would argue that assemblies should not legislate. "[A] numerous assembly," John Stuart Mill contended, "is as little fitted for the direct business of legislation as for that of administration." 31 Representative assemblies acquired their legislative functions in the l7th and 18th centuries; there is no necessary reason why liberty, democracy, or constitutional government depends upon their exercising those functions in the twentieth century. Legislation has become much too complex politically to be effectively handled by a representative assembly. The primary work of legislation must be done, and increasingly is being done, by the three houses" of the executive branch: the bureaucracy, the administration, and the President.
       Far more important than the preservation of Congress as a legislative institution is the preservation of Congress as an autonomous institution. When the performance of one function becomes "dysfunctional" to the working of an institution, the sensible course is to abandon it for other

31. John Stuart Mill, "On Representative Government," Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government (London: J. M. Dent), p. 235.
 

30                                                                                                                            Samuel P. Huntington

functions. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court was forced to surrender its function of disallowing its national and state social legislation. Since then it has wielded its veto on federal legislation and with only the greatest of discretion. This loss of power, however, has been more the compensated for by its new role in protecting civil rights and civil liberties against state action. This is a role which neither its supporters nor its opponents in the 1930s would have thought possible. In effect, the Court is using the great conservative weapon of the 1930s to promote the great liberal ends of the 1960s. Such is the way skillful leaders great institutions adapt to changing circumstances.
         The redefinition of Congress's functions away from legislation would, involve, in the first instance, a restriction of the power of Congress to delay indefinitely presidential legislative requests. Constitutionally, Congress would still retain its authority to approve legislation. Practically Congress could, as Walter Lippmann and others have suggested, bind itself to approve or disapprove urgent Presidential proposals within a time limit of, say, three or six months. If thus compelled to choose openly, Congress, it may be supposed, would almost invariably approve presidential requests. Its veto power would become a reserve power like that of the Supreme Court if not like that of the British Crown. On these "urgent" measures it would perform a legitimizing function rather than a legislative function. At the same time, the requirement that Congress pass or reject presidential requests would also presumably induce executive leaders to consult with congressional leaders in drafting such legislation. Congress would also, of course, continue to amend and to vote freely on "non-urgent" executive requests.
           Explicit acceptance of the idea that legislation was not its primary function would, in large part, simply be recognition of the direction which change has already been taking. It would legitimize and expand the functions of constituent service and administrative oversight which, in practice, already constitute the principal work of most congressmen. Increasingly isolated as it is from the dominant social forces in society, Congress would capitalize on its position as the representative of the unorganized interests of individuals. It would become a proponent of popular demands against the bureaucracy rather than the opponent of popular demands for legislation. It would thus continue to play a major although different role in the constitutional system of checks and balances.
            A recent survey of the functioning of legislative bodies in forty-one countries concludes that parliaments are in general losing their initiative and power in legislation. At the same time, however, they are gaining power in the "control of government activity."32 Most legislatures,

32. Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Parliaments: A Comparative Study in the Structure and Function of Representative Institutions in Forty-One Countries" (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963), p. 398.

Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century                                                                         31

however, are much less autonomous and powerful than Congress. Congress has lost less power over legislation and gained more power over administration than other parliaments. It is precisely this fact which gives rise to its legislative dilemma. If Congress can generate the leadership and the will to make the drastic changes required to reverse the toward insulation, dispersion, and overseeing, it could still resume its legislative role in the legislative process. If this is impossible, an alternative path is to abandon the legislative effort and to focus upon those functions of constituent service and bureaucratic control which insulation and dispersion do enable it to play in the national government.