Volume 26, Number 1, January 2003

 

Campaign Finance Reform and the Future of the Democratic Party, Jerrold E. Schneider, Routledge, 2002.  ISBN 041593320X, $19.00, paper, 219 pages.

 

Stubbornly occupying the political agenda of the most recent presidential election and the most recent congressional sessions, campaign finance reform has been a key issue in contemporary politics.  Thus, Jerrold E. Schneider’s book, Campaign Finance Reform and the Future of the Democratic Party, is a timely exposition interpreting the probable repercussions of an effective campaign finance reform law upon America and, most importantly, the Democratic Party.

 

Schneider’s book is a valuable resource for students and scholars interested in either American political parties, campaign finance reform, or both.  He makes three significant contributions with Campaign Finance Reform and the Future of the Democratic Party.  First, his scholarship stands within the long-standing debate in political party literature between those whom he identifies as Pluralists (who believe that representation provided by the parties is weak, interest group influences are strong, and campaign finance reform results would be minimal), and Strong Party theorists (those who believe that a strong party is the only instrument for meaningful representation so changes in contributions would alter legislative behavior).  Schneider places himself among the Strong Party theorists due to anomalies that he claims Pluralist theories are unable to explain.  This theoretical juxtaposition is important for two reasons: one, it gives the reader a brief and coherent synopsis of the popular theories and their assumptions that dominate political party literature; twp, it provides the justification for why campaign finance reform is a meaningful issue, is worth discussing, and can affect the political landscape. 

 

Second, Schneider contributes to campaign finance reform scholarship by defining “effective” campaign finance reform.  He argues that members of Congress would more faithfully represent voter’s preferences and create better policies if a reform package adopts, among other things, the following measures: voluntary full public financing of campaigns; public matching financing in response to privately funded campaign communications; and expanding public broadcasting.  Any reform leaving out these measures, he argues, will fall short of producing meaningful change.  More importantly, these reforms are far more politically feasible then any current plan proposing to limit expenditures or spending.  The McCain-Feingold bill  (now since passed and entitled the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002) is absent from Schneider’s discussion regarding reform, with the exception of scant attention in the appendix.  In his very brief mention of McCain-Feingold, and other reforms, Schneider is quick to point out that these proposals fall short of being “effective” because they lack the aforementioned suggestions.  Thus, he predicts that McCain-Feingold will not alter legislative behavior. 

 

Finally, Schneider discusses the consequences of campaign finance reform on America and the Democratic Party which, he suggests, is being hurt more by special interests and the money chase.  He argues that campaign finance reforms would allow Democratic lawmakers the opportunity to focus on legislative priorities for their voting base and not on contributors.  If special interests did not have to be serviced by line after line of pork-barrel appropriations, then Democrat lawmakers could take the wasted money, he estimates at $1 trillion, and put it into progressive economic policies aimed at increasing worker productivity and reducing economic inequality.  These public sector investments in education, job training, and health care can reverse the decline of the Democratic Party’s voting base.  Most importantly, Schneider claims that a $1 trillion re-allotment in these service programs could create $10 trillion for the American economy.

 

Regardless of whether one agrees with his conclusions, his book would make an excellent supplementary text to any political science course discussing American political parties, campaign finance reform, or both as readers will find many topics and points to discuss and debate.  In conclusion, Jerrold E. Schneider’s book is meticulous yet succinct, making it a valuable resource for those fascinated with the dynamics of American politics.       

Josh Stockley

Ph. D. student of political science

University of Oklahoma

 

Capitol Offenders: How Private Interests Govern Our States, Diane Renzulli and the Center for Public Integrity.  Public Integrity Books, 2002.  ISBN 1882583140, $14.00, paper, 297 pages.

 

Whether at the grassroots, the treetops, or the Astroturf level, lobbying is alive and well in the United States. Consequently, any discussion of representation and politics in the United States is largely incomplete without some reference to interest groups and some discussion of the impact that this shadow government has upon the political process and perhaps more importantly, policy outcomes.  Certainly more than a cursory glance at the interest group variable is necessary when lobbyists employ strategic tactics to gain influence, access, and ultimately, the votes of Congressmen.  While the focus of much scholarly literature on the topic has been directed at the level of the U.S. Congress, Diane Renzulli and the Center for Public Integrity explore the impact of special interests at the state level.

 

In an era of devolution, the states have recaptured their past glory and solidified their status as the laboratories of American democracy.  This vision of the states as policy innovators necessitates enhanced scholarly efforts at examining state legislatures and the pivotal role that they play in casting the direction of state policy.  Renzulli invokes causal stories as well as some aggregate data to demonstrate the (supposed) insidious nature of politicking between state legislators and special interests.  Indeed, she generally portrays the relationship between these two groups as symbiotic, if not parasitic.

 

While Renzulli uncovers ample anecdotal evidence at the state level to back her claims of corruption, what remains unclear is the extent of corruption.  Renzulli concedes at almost every turn that the majority of politicians are trustworthy, yet still feels compelled to argue that the entire system is in peril due to the few bad apples that she identifies.  The fact that there exist six lobbyists for every individual state legislator is quite troublesome to Renzulli (as evidenced by the fact that she repeats this fact in virtually every chapter), yet she fails to offer statistics as to the percentage that might represent public interests (i.e. children, orphans, the mentally ill).

 

Although there is always room for another normative argument about the necessity of purging the system, Renzulli’s effort seems somewhat misdirected.  After criticizing interest groups of almost every ilk, she finally admits that a dearth of oversight and/or lax enforcement at the state level with regard to ethics violations is a contributing factor.  Yet, the overarching tone of her work implicates special interests as bad, state legislators as captive, and the public as hoodwinked.  Instead of highlighting how states might better hold themselves accountable, Renzulli falls prey to the straw man trap, skewering interest groups while giving lip service to the need for states to reform (or pass) their own ethics laws, campaign laws, and term limits provisions. 

Larycia A. Hawkins

Ph. D. student of political science

University of Oklahoma

 

Financing the 2000 Election, edited by David B. Magleby, Brookings Institution Press, 2002, ISBN 0815706227,  $54.95, cloth, 260 pages.

 

The Citizens Research Foundation has been publishing accounts of campaign and election funding every four years since 1960.  This book is the latest edition of such efforts.  This is an eminently readable and complete analysis of campaign financing in the 2000 election cycle.  It is a work which can be easily referenced as it breaks each topic down into separate chapters.  There are also helpful charts and graphs throughout the text.  The primary concern is with the role of money within politics, and this work does an excellent job of framing each specific element of campaign finance within the bigger picture of the legitimacy of our electoral system given the role that money plays.   

 

There are separate treatments for several aspects of campaign finance.  There is an introductory chapter from Magleby that addresses the nature and importance of the 2000 election.  Candice J. Nelson provides a treatment of the aggregate spending in 2000 and compares 2000 trends to previous election cycles.  John C. Green and Nathan S. Bigelow and Anthony Corrado handle the financing of the presidential election in two parts, one a chapter devoted to the nomination campaign and the other for the general election.  Paul Herndon and Kelly D. Patterson summarize the financing of the congressional elections.  A critical look at the role of political parties in the financing of campaigns is performed by Diana Dwyre and Robin Kolodny.  Allan J. Cigler investigates the role of interest groups in this election cycle, while Anthony Gierzynski provides analysis of the financing of state level elections.  This particular edition is the first to include a chapter devoted to the financing of judicial elections, authored by Roy A. Schotland.  

 

Thomas E. Mann, in his conclusion, summarizes the trends of financing the elections of 2000, “The explosive growth of funding in targeted contests, the diminishing role of public financing in presidential elections, the increasing importance of unregulated spending by parties and groups, and the loss of transparency as disclosure requirements are circumvented by candidates-specific issue advocacy and by a dizzying pattern of financial transfers among party organizations together confirm how far campaign finance practice has departed from the intentions of the law’s framers” (238). 

Aleisha Karjala

Ph. D. student of political science

University of Oklahoma

 

Governance for a New Century: Japanese Challenges, American Experience, edited by Thomas E. Mann and Sasaki Takeshi, The Brookings Institution Press, 2002.  ISBN 4889070613, $23.00, paper, 140 pages.

 

Written in comparative perspective Governance for a New Century: Japanese Challenges, American Experience is a brilliant collection of essays by some of the finest experts from Japan and America.  The book is structured around the core premise that “Japan and the United States face many similar challenges of governance” in the early 21st century.

 

Concurring with neo-institutionalism that “ institutions clearly matter”, the authors endorse a positive but caution approach to political reforms in Japan, notwithstanding Prime Minister Koizumi’s stunning success in reigning the faction ridden LDP and parliamentary victory. Five leading Japanese scholars and practitioners discuss Japanese public onion, elections, political fiancé, Japanese style political corruption, and an intransigent bureaucracy. For instance, Taniguchi Masaki’s description of political funding reform reveals more success in  “ changing the law than in producing the desired effects”.

 

In contrast, five leading American policy experts including Thomas Mann enrich the comparative perceptive of the volume by offering insights from the American experience. The most interesting comparative insight comes from James Lindsay ‘s exploration of reforms in decision-making process in American Congress. Lindsay succinctly argues that disillusioned by the Vietnam War, many American supported the efforts of reform in Congress in the 1970s that eventually led to a decentralization of power, relative independence of junior members, dispersal of power to subcommittees, or “the smaller gurus”, collapse of the iron-triangle system, expansion of congressional staff, creation of new agencies to strengthen Congress’s capacity for policy making. But herein lies the paradox, according to Lindsay. More democracy does not necessarily lead to better governance. The reforms of the 1970s made Congress more democratic, more accountable to the public. Yet Congress has increasingly come to be characterized by gridlock, more ad hoc policymaking arrangements, the smaller gurus becoming hostage of narrower interests in the 1980s and 1990s. This explains why reformers have sought some recentralization of power in recent years. Therefore, the decentralization of power is a double-edged sword, and this lesson is worth remembering in assessing similar reforms in Japanese Diet, Lindsay argues. This book is undeniably a must read to anyone interested in not just Japanese politics but also American Politics.

Ashwani Kumar

Ph. D. student of political science

University of Oklahoma

 

Government’s Greatest Achievements: From Civil Rights to Homeland Security, Paul Charles Light.  Brookings Institution Press, 2002.  ISBN 0815706049, $19.95, cloth, 241 pages.

 

David Mayhew has kept Paul Light busy.  He (Light) has followed Mayhew down the path of assessing Congress’s performance by tabulating and weighing the value of congressional enactments.  In Tides of Reform Light tracks over 140 congressional enactments seeking to reform the federal bureaucracy and draws conclusions about their inspiration, derivation, path to enactment, and impact.  His goal is empirical and theoretical: under what circumstances does Congress seek to reform the government and with what consequences?

 

Here, Light’s goal is more explicitly normative.  In Divided We Govern Mayhew had sought to show that the government works even when its powers are shared across party lines.  To do that, he had to pick out important laws, and he found quite a few.  In the present volume, Light wants to assess the most important of Congress’s enactments since World War II, differentiating between the good and the great.  His purpose is not simply normative, however; he also wants to consider the conditions under which great bills are likely to become law.  In this sense, the book is a study in policy development, restricting its field of vision to the most significant bills the Congress has passed.

 

Necessarily, Light’s selection criteria are subjective.  He builds upon Mayhew’s list, which lends a degree of intersubjective validity one supposes to the list.  Of course, some bills are non-controversially important - the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - but others seem less likely to win quick endorsement.  Gramm-Rudman-Hollings?  Well, maybe.  If it were merely a matter of rostering great bills as historians do great presidents, differences of opinion at the margins would not matter much - part of the fun of the game.  But Light wants to draw conclusions about how great laws are made by offering narratives about the statutes on this list.  He plunges fifty deep into the roster of great achievements, and then faces the challenge of generalizing from a rather disparate set of cases.  Necessarily, this restricts generalization to the most obvious factors;  government stumbles along, rarely getting things right on the first attempt (as Lindlbom told us long ago); great achievements require strong civic support; etc.

 

A concluding chapter looks to the future and draws on a survey of academics to establish the most important issues facing the country, the great achievements of the next century laying in wait.  A 27% response rate from an arbitrarily designated group does not appear too firm a footing for making normative claims, which these are.  Still, Light succeeds here just where he is strong elsewhere: he never loses sight of things that are really important.  Or at least, he never stops pursuing them.  So, agree with him or not, he forces the reader to think about the questions he raises.

Ron Peters

Regents’ Professor of Political Science

University of Oklahoma

 

Inside the House: Former Members Reveal How Congress Really Works, edited by Michal T. Hayes and Lou Frey, Jr., University Press of America, 2001.  ISBN 0761819371, $32.50, paper, 344 pages.

 

In their edited volume Inside the House: Former Members Reveal How Congress Really Works, Lou Frey, Jr. and Michael T. Hayes bring together an impressive assortment of former members to explain the workings, not only of the House of Representatives, but also what goes on behind the scenes in the lives of its members.  They succeed in both these endeavors, providing an introduction to the formal rules and institutions of the House while also providing a glimpse into not only the personal side of elective service, but also the sense of accomplishment that these members feel from their service.

 

The book itself is divided into eight parts, each of which is comprised of chapters written by different former House members who represent a full range of political ideologies and backgrounds.  The book is at its best in parts one, two, three, and seven, which deal with the personal side of Congress.  In these chapters, former members, a former member’s spouse, and a former staff member all discuss their experiences in terms of what went into their decisions to run, their personal experiences moving to Washington, and the choices that they made in order to make a difference as only one of 435.  These short anecdotes provide insight into what motivates Members that can only be provided by former members themselves. 

 

Parts four, five, and six, all deal with the actual mechanics of the House, with members explaining the committee system, the actual rules of the House, as well as the role of parties and the media in the lives of Members.  These sections are especially enlightening as a way to compare the traditional understanding of the legislative process with the behind-the-scenes view of former members. 

 

Finally, part eight provides an opportunity for the former members to look at the House today and evaluate the changes that have occurred over time.  The one change that most contributors agree has happened, and which they dislike, is an increase in partisanship that has broken the collegiality that they enjoyed during their service in the House.  These insights are useful in evaluating the current situation relative to the experience of past members.

 

In his preface, Frey, Jr. describes the mission of the book as providing “an inside look at the Congress from a personal viewpoint” (xi).  He and Hayes have succeeded, drawing former members, spouses, lobbyists, and staffers together to give students and scholars a look at the House from the inside, providing unique observations that explain the institutions and rules of the House as well as the importance of the individual personalities that comprise its membership.  While there is no comprehensive argument presented, Frey, Jr. and Hayes provide a useful volume that encourages the student or scholar to develop an appreciation for both the institutions and personalities of the House.

Travis Chapman

Carl Albert Undergraduate Fellow

University of Oklahoma

 

The Clinton Wars: The Constitution, Congress, and War Powers, Ryan C. Hendrickson, Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, ISBN 0826514146, price?, paper, 224 pages.

 

As the United Sates embarks upon an era in history during which military actions may become frequently necessary, an examination of the constitutional powers granted to Congress and the president will become increasingly important.  The two branches of the government have historically asserted their own power in struggles to control the use of the military and the international backdrop of the “war on terrorism” will likely imply more such battles.  Ryan C. Hendrickson’s The Clinton Wars: The Constitution, Congress, and War Powers is an insightful analysis of how these struggles played out during the Clinton administration’s foreign military actions and the lessons they provide for future interactions. 

 

Hendrickson uses case-studies  of Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and terrorism to demonstrate how domestic and foreign political environments shaped the actions of the Clinton administration and Congress with regard to war powers.  A president’s propensity to consult Congress, make a case to the public, gain United Nations approval, or simply obey the War Powers Resolution of 1973 are all considered and an overriding deference to the president is observed.  Hendrickson concludes that the observed congressional deference in these cases was due to unique political and personal factors of the time and cannot be considered a norm of the institution. 

 

The Clinton Wars makes a convincing case that war powers should not be in the hands of a single actor in an increasingly complex international environment.  Ryan C. Hendrickson has provided a useful and important contribution to the study of American politics in the realm of international relations and this book will open students to the realities of presidential authority and the potential for their moderation.

Michael Avery

Carl Albert Undergraduate Fellow

University of Oklahoma

 

The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress, Michele L. Swers, The University of Chicago Press, 2002.  ISBN 0226786498, $16.00, paper, 200 pages.

 

By looking at bill sponsorship, cosponsorship, amendment, and roll call activity in The Difference Women Make:  The Policy Impact of Women in Congress, Swers examines “whether congresswomen demonstrate a more intense commitment to the pursuit of women’s issue legislation and whether women bring a different point of view to the policy debate than do their male partisan colleagues” (7).  But Swers does not stop there.  She also examines how the political and positional context affects women’s ability to pursue legislative goals.

 

Swers first clarifies the concept of women’s issue legislation.  She differentiates between feminist and antifeminist bills.  She then follows all bills dealing with women’s issues in the 103rd and 104th Congresses through the entire legislative process from sponsorship to final vote.  After tracking sponsorship, cosponsorship, amendment activity, and voting behavior, she employs regression analysis to measure differences in the involvement of male and female Members in women’s issue legislation.  She then combines the findings of this analysis with the qualitative findings of 28 interviews of representatives and congressional staff to develop a rich understanding of the influence of identity, specifically gender identity, on legislators’ commitment to women’s issue legislation.

 

In observing the 103rd and 104th Congresses, she finds that women do have a policy impact in Congress.  Regardless of partisanship, they do “exhibit a profound commitment to the pursuit of policies for women, children, and families” (132).  Swers qualifies this conclusion, however, with the following precaution.  Simply increasing women’s numbers in Congress will not lead to a greater representation of women’s interests.  It is also critical to look at the position of women within the institution, including: seniority, access to committee positions, and majority/minority party status.

 

Swers’ work on the contemporary Congress is significant for a number of reasons.  Rather than focusing on either anecdotal evidence or roll call data, Swers grounds her analysis on a rich data set combining both quantitative and qualitative analysis.  Secondly, Swers provides a first look at the behavior of women within the formal institution of the House of Representatives.  Finally, she offers one of the only examinations of women in the Congress since the partisan turnover in the House in 1994.  Her comparison of the 103rd and 104th Congress is one of the few pieces of research available on the implications of party control for women’s legislative behavior and institutional impact.

Jocelyn Jones

Professor of Political Science

University of Wisconsin at Green Bay

 

The Making of an American Senate, Reconstitutive Change in Congress, 1787-1841, Elaine K. Swift,  University of Michigan Press, 2002.  ISBN 0472088718, $24.95, paper, 264 pages.

 

In a work that is intensely relevant to American politics, U.S. history, and political theory, Elaine Swift has provided us a with new and provocative perspective from which to view the early history of the United States Senate, while simultaneously developing a model of political change that holds important lessons for anyone seeking to alter the organs of government.  The Making of an American Senate chronicles the development of the early Senate from the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to the beginning of the 1840s with an eye towards the chamber’s metamorphosis as an institution:

 

Originally the Framers had created a United States Senate grounded surprisingly not in Classical Republicanism or Liberal thought, but rather in the Tudor tradition of England’s House of Lords.  According to Swift, the Framers conceived a body playing a variety of roles not unlike those of Britain’s upper chamber in the 18th Century.  The Senate’s lengthy terms, indirect election, and general form point to a body designed to represent a particular facet of society, an elite the Framer’s saw as a necessary foil to the dangers of unfettered democracy. 

 

For ten congresses the Senate retained this character, remaining relatively distant from the citizenry and collaborating little with the House of Representatives.  By about 1809, however, the Senate was on the path to significant and lasting change.  A small cadre of Senators became committed to a new vision of the Senate as an institution.  During the next three decades the chamber underwent an evolution that saw it firmly engage the citizenry, the states, and the House of Representatives for the first time while also removing some of its superfluous ties with the Executive.  These changes allowed the Senate to strengthen rather than weaken as the 1830s and 1840s approached, avoiding the fate of the body on which it was modeled, Britain’s House of Lords, which has since become an obsolete and ceremonial entity rather than a functioning organ of government.

 

This story of the Senate’s naissance and rebirth is not without an important theoretical framework.  According to Swift, the Senate’s realignment is representative of “Reconstitutive Change,” defined as “a rapid, marked, and enduring shift in the fundamental dimensions of the institution.” (Pg 5)  This model of change is contrasted with short-term realignment that fails to become institutionalized and reverses itself quickly, as well as long-term evolution that, though lasting, has no defining moments of striking change.  In this model of reform there are obvious lessons to be learned if one seeks to cause change in republican government.  Critical to this lesson is the necessary confluence of both external factors such as changes in the political landscape and internal factors such as those within an institution who have vision and means to move forward with action.  Whether the reader ultimately has designs to reform contemporary government or merely seeks a better academic understanding of our institutions, Swift’s chronicle of the making of the American Senate nearly two centuries ago holds significant relevance in our time.

Brady Henderson

Carl Albert Center Undergraduate Fellow

University of Oklahoma

 

The Movers and the Shirkers: Representatives and Ideologues in the Senate, by Eric M. Uslaner, University of Michigan Press, 2002.  ISBN 047208870X, $22.95, paper, 248 pages.

 

U. S. Senate: Exceptionalism, edited by Bruce I. Oppenheimer.  The Ohio State Press, 2002.  ISBN 0814209157, $65.00, cloth, 432 pages.

 

Many scholars have debated the extent to which the U.S. legislative system is sui generis, unlike any other law-making body in the world.  U.S. Senate Exceptionalism examines whether or not, within that presumed uniqueness of Congress, the Senate specifically is remarkable among other legislating bodies.  To really understand how our system of government stands alone, we must examine how “exceptional” the Senate as an institution is.  Oppenheimer begins by observing, quite rightly, why the question of Senate exceptionalism has been overlooked in scholarly literature.  First, most scholars are much more preoccupied with the House, owing both to the increased focus in legislative studies on the role of committees (which play a larger institutional role in the House) and to the larger number of observable cases in the House.  Second, most of the research that focuses on the Senate finds its roots in research on the House, testing whether or not House findings hold true in the Senate but overlooking the possibility of fundamental institutional differences that might warrant a full investigation on Senate uniqueness.   

 

The contributors to this volume constitute an impressive symposium of congressional scholars.  Alan Abramowitz offers an explanation for increased party polarization in the Senate, owing primarily to an ideological realignment of the two parties alongside an increased electoral role of national issues and ideology.  The extent to which conditional party government applies (or fails to apply) to the Senate, then, is at least as much a function of the greater electoral environment as it is of internal ideological cohesion and strong party leadership.    Robert Erikson’s piece places Senate volatility to national forces in theoretical perspective.  While the Senate was designed to resist the ebbs and flows of popular opinion, he finds, it is actually much more receptive to public passion than is the House.  This means that parties can control a large amount of their electoral fate by catering to public pressures and resisting the tendency to engage in “ideological indulgence”.   As Wendy Schiller finds, this need to respond to pressures from the electorate drive senators to seek different election constituencies, particularly when the two are of the same party.  The two senators will focus on different regions and different concerns of the state, treating their constituency as a multi-member district.  Building on her prior work about the effects of disproportionate representation in the Senate, Frances Lee studies the extent to which distributive policy making is affected by apportionment.  More so than party or electoral incentives, there is an inverse relationship between state size and the proportion of federal funds that are allocated to them.  Small states are uniquely advantaged over larger states when it comes to the distribution of goods.   The variable of apportionment, more than any other, explains why the U.S. Senate is truly exceptional among legislative institutions. 

 

Other chapters in the volume provide strong insight into the unique characteristics of the Senate.  David Rohde provides concluding remarks that direct scholars toward questions that logically follow this work, particularly the study of sequence in electoral and legislative contexts, conference committees as tools of the majority party leadership, and patterns of partisanship across issue areas.  Lawrence Dodd offers a final commentary that sums up the scholarship in the other chapters:  the one thing we know about the elusive Senate is that if it is truly exceptional then future research will require a “new form of theoretical analysis.” 

 

Eric Uslaner’s work The Movers and the Shirkers: Representatives and Ideologues in the Senate  builds upon the ideological-equilibrium model and the Downsian-delegate model of congressional behavior.  Downs argued that candidates, being rational actors who seek reelection, will take positions on issues that are in line with the demands of their constituents.  Downsian representatives are delegates in the truest sense of the word.  The ideological-equilibrium model suggests that voters are concerned about issues but actually prefer candidates who take clear positions rather than catering to public whims.  Voters expect their officeholders to be trustees rather than opportunists. 

 

Uslaner’s very sophisticated research challenges whether or not these two models are mutually exclusive.  Our prior understanding of Senate behavior errs in that it assumes that politicians are constantly choosing between their own ideological beliefs and the desires of their constituents.  This perspective is short-sighted, he argues, because it fails to consider the number of “constituencies” and forces that guide member behavior, because it assumes a simple principle-agent model of representation, because it assumes that constituent desires and senator desires are necessarily at odds with one another, and because it assumes that reelection hinges upon a senator’s ability to present neutral and unexcitable policy alternatives to her constituency.  By expanding what we mean when we talk about a “constituency”, Uslaner offers a hybrid model that shows senators as being both ideologically driven and largely in line with the issue-demands of those whom they represent.  This model forces us to reevaluate how we think about shirking, a concept that really only makes sense in the Downsian delegate model.  He finds that, most of the time, what we would call shirking under a traditional principle-agent model might be representation of a different constituency.  Further, he points out that senators, in the beginning stage of their run for office, will most likely get a party’s nomination and achieve success in November if their ideology is at least somewhat in sync with the electorate anyway, causing us to question why scholars have pitted ideology versus constituent pressure in a dichotomy for so long. 

 

Both of these books are enormously rich and offer much to enhance our understanding of the contemporary Senate.

Lynsey Morris

Carl Albert Fellow

University of Oklahoma

 

To Assure Pride and Confidence in the Electoral Process, Jimmy Carter, Gerald R. Ford, Lloyd N. Cutler, Robert H. Michael, Co-Chairs, Brookings Institution Press, 2002.  ISBN 0815706316, $22.95, paper, 358 pages. 

 

Following the controversial 2000 presidential election, former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter collaborated with the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs and the Century Foundation to form the National Commission on Federal Election Reform. In To Assure Pride and Confidence in the Electoral Process, the Commission presents its policy recommendations for improving the election process in the United States. According to the Commission, democracy is a “precious birthright” to Americans, and in order to live up to the promises of democracy the election system must be reformed.

 

While the presidential election focused primarily on political and legal struggles in Florida, the Commission is quick to point out that the problems with the electoral system range far beyond the Sunshine State. Therefore, many of their recommendations are more expansive than the problems in Florida would necessarily warrant. Their principal policy recommendations focus on three fundamental principles –  uniformity, fairness, and participation – and encourage the federal government to provide the financial resources necessary to achieve the lofty goals of democracy.  Their recommendations include standard systems of statewide voter registration; additional efforts to assure the voting rights of all citizens and to enforce the principle of one person, one vote; uniform benchmarks for voting system performance; uniform statewide standards for defining what will constitute a vote; efforts to discourage news organizations from projecting presidential election results; and increased federal spending on election administration. In general, the principal policy recommendations of the Commission are extremely fair and address all of the problematic issues that were uncovered during the 2000 presidential election.

 

Obviously, the intended target of the Commission’s work are the federal, state and local government officials who have the ability to make the necessary changes to the current electoral system. For those officials, the book will be extremely helpful in undertaking election reform legislation. However, To Assure Pride and Confidence in the Electoral Process could have a broader audience. In the portion of the book justifying their recommendations, the Commission focuses primarily on the fundamental principles of American democracy like equality and political participation. For this reason, the book can be enjoyable to those of us who are not legislators.

Carrie Palmer Sparling

Ph.D. candidate in political science

  University of Oklahoma

 

Warring Factions: Interest Groups, Money, and the New Politics of Senate Confirmation, Lauren Cohen Bell,