| Volume 27, Number 1, January 2004 |
| Volume 27, Number 1, January 2004 |
Black
Congressmen During Reconstruction: A Documentary Sourcebook, Stephen Middleton, editor, Greenwood Press, 2002,
ISBN 0313322813, $94.95, cloth, 464 pages.
Following on the heels of the
first Civil Rights movement, the first Reconstruction is a source
of interest to political scientists and historians alike. The Three-Fifths
Compromise gave way to the Missouri Compromise. The abolitionist movement
capitalized upon the window of opportunity opened by the politics
of Westward expansion. The Civil War catapulted the issue to the center
of national politics. How would the country respond?
The Civil War Amendments signified
a decisive turning point in the nation's history. Coupled with Congressional
Reconstruction statutes, the path was paved for black participation
in the political process. Middleton notes that between 1870 and 1901,
twenty-two African Americans served in Congress and they defy a common
misconception: each of these statesmen emanated from the South and
each was elected largely by black voters.
Middleton explores the personal
and public lives of each of these remarkable Reconstruction era men
via brief biographical sketches and compilations of the speeches and
documents. While subjugated to involuntary servitude, Middleton notes,
the first African American Congressmen were
Reminiscent of Martin Luther King Jr.'s prose, Senator Blanche Kelso
Bruce of Mississippi eloquently states:
Interestingly, this historical sketch reveals some interesting political
science lessons. For example, these statesmen were clearly "quality
political candidates", with the professions of attorney, businessman,
and teacher represented among them. Several of the black Congressmen,
including Richard Harvey Cain, were ministers. Verba, Schlozman, and
Brady (1995) have noted how religious experience translates to civic
skills, helpful for political participation.
All of the black Congressmen who served between 1870 and 1901 were Republicans. Not a few remained active in the Republican Party, even after terrorist tactics and Jim Crow laws forced them out of office. Some held national positions. Representative John Roy Lynch of Mississippi served as President Benjamin Harrison's auditor of the treasury (Middleton 2002, 146). Representative John Mercer Langston of Virginia served as ambassador to Haiti and Santo Domingo following his term in office (Middleton 2002, 126).
Middleton's work serves as an interesting foray into black history and politics. Modern era realignments have produced a situation where the party of Lincoln has few African-American adherents. While blacks are now "captured" by the Democratic Party, Middleton upholds these black Reconstruction era statesmen as exemplars for politicians, academicians, and citizens alike.
Larycia Hawkins
Ph.D. Student in Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Born to Run: Origins of the Political Career, Ronald Keith Gaddie, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004, ISBN 0742519279, $70.00, cloth, 240 pages.
As the framers well knew, representative government is driven by the force of personal ambition. Biographers, historians, and political scientists have offered theories and narratives to explain the role of ambition in shaping political careers. But such studies are almost always undertaken through the rear view mirror. We only become interested in the early career because the later career proved important. When he was a young state legislator, Abraham Lincoln wrote of the ambition that burned within him, an ambition that led him to participate in the creation of two political parties. But let's face it, had Lincoln not gone on to greater things, who now would remember or care about what he had to say about his ambition then?
To really understand the manner in which ambition shapes our political system, it is not sufficient to focus only on those whose ambition has been rewarded with high office. Ambition permeates and drives politics at all levels, nurturing and developing some political careers, drying out and ending many more. Our political system is as we find it not only by virtue of the actions of those who climb to the top of the mountain, but also by the withdrawal or inaction of those who give up the journey along the way.
Keith Gaddie's study of young state legislators is invaluable because it provides insight into the lure of the political life for young and ambitious men and women who have self-selected themselves into the political game. These "young guns" come from different states and different backgrounds, but they share in common a zeal and drive to run, to win, and to serve. As a comparative case study, Born to Run encounters the usual limitations: it is risky to generalize from only nine cases; Gaddie's selection criteria may have been somewhat arbitrary; three of his cases are from Oklahoma, two from Georgia, and two from Nebraska, along with one from Wisconsin and one from Maine. Clearly, Gaddie took on subjects to whom he had access.
But there is a range of experience among these politicians. Five are Democrats, four are Republicans. Some served in the lower house, some in the upper house, one served in both, and two served in the Nebraska Unicam. Some clearly aimed for a political career from a very early age; others wandered into the political arena more by happenstance. Some chose to pursue a longer-term career; others chose to step aside from politics. Nine men, one woman. This is not the most optimally diverse set of subjects, but it is sufficiently diverse to offer a basis for analysis and interpretation.
In searching for common denominators of their experience, one immediately settles on a high degree of interest in and commitment to public policy, supportive and activist family networks, a willingness to take risk, an ability to learn from experience, and a capacity for very hard work. The political system is filtering in very positive qualities with these candidates. At the same time, the demands of political life direct some of these legislators to abandon their political careers and other careers were cut short by mandated term limits. Thus, our political system would appear to erect several barriers to service: the risks and demands of seeking office, which only a few are willing to undertake; the demands of holding office, which drives some from it; and the belief, now sometimes codified in law, that these are jobs that anyone can do so that it makes sense to set limits on how long people can serve.
Keith Gaddie has done us a great service in undertaking the extensive effort that was required to research and write this book. He points us toward the vital importance of a qualitative understanding of politics. His narratives lay a foundation for generating hypotheses and testing theories of political ambition. He shows us that the American political system has the great virtue of attracting young citizens to public life and giving them a chance to succeed. But it also places great demands on them such that not all are likely to have sustained political careers. We are reminded of what a great survivor Abraham Lincoln really was.
Ron Peters
Regents' Professor of Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Bringing Representation Home: State Legislators Among Their Constituencies, Michael A. Smith, University of Missouri Press, 2003, ISBN 0826214525, $34.95, cloth, 227 pages.
Malcolm Jewell once suggested, "state legislative research should be more theoretical and comparative, and that we should bridge the gap that still exists between congressional and state legislative research." Michael Smith brilliantly answers this call in his book Bringing Representation Home: State Legislators Among Their Constituencies. This study updates our knowledge of representational roles by interviewing and observing twelve state legislators over two legislative sessions in Missouri and Kansas. Though remarkably identical to Richard Fenno's Home Style, this study departs from Fenno by developing a more complex schematic of representational roles through state representative, not congressional, observations.
Rather than wear out readers with another convoluted theoretical treatise attempting to define representation, Smith asks instead, "How can we discover what representation is?" Bringing Representation Home is not about what representation is in theory but what representation is in practice. Consequently, Smith does not develop generalizations based upon previous literature, but from the descriptions and analysis of the representative's behavior. Thus, he avoids using a preconceived grand "covering law" theory to explain representational roles and adopts a grounded theory of political roles based upon the representative's perspectives, quotes, and behavior.
Smith's observations of a representative's home style -- the symbolic presentation they create to develop political support -- lead to four categories of representation: Burkeans, in-district advocates, advocates beyond the districts, and ombudsman. For the Burkean, decision-making and representation follow three steps: deliberate, decide, and justify. Thus, the Burkeans rely heavily on their character and judgment to deliberate and decide, primarily involving the constituents only when it comes time to justify their actions to the district. Advocates do not wait for issues to come to them; they "socialize the conflict" by aggressively raising concerns and bringing them to their constituents attention. Advocates are divided into two sub-categories: in-district advocates and advocates beyond the district. In-district advocates focus upon district and neighborhood concerns, while advocates beyond the district are pulled beyond their districts and gravitate towards larger state issues. Lastly, the most responsive role is that of the ombudsman. The ombudsman is passive, waiting for other representatives to place issues upon the agenda and then reacting only after heavy consultation with their constituents. These types largely, but not perfectly, predict the approach representatives take towards accomplishing four major tasks: communication with constituents, policy responsiveness, allocation of resources, and service to constituents.
In the end, Smith concludes that the successful representative must "fit" the district. This entails developing a style that is responsive to the circles of his/her constituencies, reflects the politics of that community, and emulates the district's overall characteristics.
The statehouse is not what it used to be -- it is more professional and possesses more policy responsibilities than ever before. As such, scholars and students alike need to spend more time studying our state representatives. Smith's study reminds us that it would be a travesty to ignore them in our legislative studies, to avoid using them in our comparative analysis, and to neglect their contributions for theory building. Bringing Representation Home is a valuable resource for anyone at any level of study interested in state politics, state legislatures, and political theory.
Josh Stockley
Ph.D. Student in Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Committees
in Post Communist Democratic Parliaments: Comparative Institutionalism,
David M. Olson and William E. Crowther, Ohio State
University Press, 2002, ISBN 0814209122, $60.00, cloth, 264 pages.
Olson and Crowther edit and present an interesting look at the institutionalization of parliamentary systems. The cases presented by the contributing authors constitute seven of the Central European post-communist parliaments. These parliaments have distinct histories and have varying levels of institutionalization. The authors examine the parliaments at the committee level, using committee institutionalization as a proxy for parliamentary institutionalization. The case study chapters are bracketed by a chapter which explains the theory, hypotheses, and analytical framework utilized by the contributors, and a concluding chapter which, using the findings of the country specialists, compares the Post-Communist European parliaments to one another. This book "provides a unique perspective on how parliaments begin to develop the internal structures and procedures that enable them to accomplish their purposes in the wider society" (201).
Using the template devised by Olson and Crowther, each of the contributing authors explores the history and institutionalization of the parliament and committee system within the subject nations. Olson and Crowther use the seven indicators of institutionalization presented by Doring (1995) in order to indicate the current status of these parliamentary systems. Additionally, they posit six hypotheses regarding the sources of institutionalization. These sources are used to determine how successfully and quickly a parliamentary committee system becomes institutionalized. While each author uses a distinct approach, and the time periods of the studies vary greatly, the country specialists are able to integrate these hypotheses into their individual case studies. The first three countries, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, fall into the category of institutionalized parliaments. The fourth, Bulgaria, is classified as a parliament which is in the intermediate range of full institutionalization. The final three nations, Estonia, Lithuania, and Moldova, fall into the category of least institionalized. These case studies vary in their scope, but provide a depth of insight from which Olson and Crowther are able to present an interesting comparative analysis.
Through a systematic classification system, created by the hypotheses, Olson and Crowther are able to place the study of Post-Communist European parliaments into a broad comparative perspective. The template they devise, which uses the institutional indicators from the literature in addition to the six indicators of sources of institutionalization, is a useful tool for comparative legislative scholars. Further, the testable hypotheses provide a useful basis for further studies of developing legislative committee systems. This is a timely book which underscores the importance of further institutional studies at the committee level.
Melody Huckaby
Carl Albert Graduate Fellow
University of Oklahoma
The European Parliament, David Judge and David Earnshaw, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, ISBN 0333598741, $24.95, paper, 355 pages.
David Judge and David Earnshaw have written a thorough text on the parliament of the European Union, placing this parliament in the broader study of parliaments, and providing a thorough explanation of the representational and functional characteristics of the modern European Parliament. The authors provide a useful reference for legislative scholars, which establishes the position of the European Parliament in the context of other legislatures. The authors also make some useful comparisons between the European Parliament and national parliaments within the European Union, draw important conclusions about the role of the Parliament in the European Union, and ask questions about potential changes to the role and structure of that parliament.
The authors utilize the Forward as a map of their study's design, and it is a useful orientation to the subject matter. The first chapter addresses the different classifications of parliaments world-wide, and demonstrates that the location of the European Parliament within these classifications has changed dramatically over time. The second chapter provides a history of the parliament, and sheds light on the critical points at which the parliament changed, and moved within parliamentary classifications. The third chapter addresses the important questions of what and who is governed by the parliament; and how and to whom the parliament links itself. These are important questions, as the form of linkage varies from nation to nation, and the focus of representation is not clear within the structure of the parliament. The fourth chapter addresses the question of linkage more completely, and the authors discuss each of the four foci of representation, as well as how the MEPÕs see representation. They conclude that the party representation model is the most useful typology for understanding these linkages. This establishes the importance of party groups, and, in the fifth chapter, the authors further examine how these groups function in the EP.
Building upon the previous chapters, the sixth chapter explains the internal organization of the parliament, and how the party groups and history have impacted that organization. In the seventh chapter, the authors describe the formal powers of the EP. In the eighth chapter, they examine the influences and decision-making processes within the parliament. They find that the MEP's receive information from many different sources in order to make decisions, but confirm that it is the party groups which have the most influence on voting decisions. In the final chapter, the authors position the policy influence, power, and functions of the modern European Parliament in relation to other parliaments in Europe, and conclude that it clearly performs the functions and wields the power of a parliament, and in fact, on all scales it ranks very highly among European parliaments. They also ask questions about the future of the EP, its potential for growth in power, and its potential changes in structure.
The authors examine the European Parliament with a detailed explication of each aspect of the modern parliament. This text is an essential reference for scholars of the European Union and its institutions, as well as scholars of legislatures more generally. This is the most inclusive work on the European Parliament to date, and provides an important contribution to the comparative legislature literature.
Melody Huckaby
Carl Albert Graduate Fellow
University of Oklahoma
Fred Harris: His
Journey from Liberalism to Populism, Richard Lowitt, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, ISBN
0742521621, $41.95, cloth, 320 pages.
Fred Harris has been one of the most colorful personalities on the American political scene for a half-century. He is fully deserving of a biographical interpretation of his career, and Richard Lowitt is just the right biographer to do the job. As the biographer of Nebraska Senator George Norris and an expert on America's progressive and populist traditions, Lowitt is able to set the historical context of Harris's career as few could. From his early roots in Oklahoma politics in the 1960s to his perhaps quixotic quests for the presidency in the 1970s, Harris transformed himself from an establishment liberal chosen to chair the Democratic National Committee to a populist outsider who aimed to transform American government. Was this simply a case of a politician seeking opportunity where he could find it, or did something in Harris's experience in national politics trigger his populist impulse? To answer this question, Lowitt undertook a detailed examination of Harris's national political career, focusing on his senatorial years, his service as DNC chair, and his two campaigns for the presidency (in 1972 and 1976). The picture that emerges is that of an ambitious and principled liberal who concluded that establishment politics would not, in the end, produce the reformist policies that he thought the country needed. Lowitt chronicles Harris's early successes in working with the Johnson administration to move the Great Society forward, and his later frustration in dealing with the Nixon administration, intent on undermining the Great Society where it could. The lesson seemed simple enough: the presidency matters. To reach that office, however, Harris chose to caste himself as an outsider, a peopleÕs candidate. This populist approach, always latent and sometimes manifest in his politics, could not carry him to the White House. Richard Lowitt has written a very readable political biography. Drawing on Harris's papers housed in the Carl Albert Center at the University of Oklahoma, other archival sources, and the public record, Lowitt provides a very objective account of Harris's career. He eschewed interviewing Harris, wanting to "come to my own conclusions." That he has, and here they are.
Ron Peters
Regents' Professor of Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Initiative and Referendum
Almanac, M. Dane
Walters, Carolina Academic Press, 2003, ISBN 089089969X, $65.00, paper,
659 pages.
For researchers interested in the mechanisms of direct democracy, Dane Walters's Initiative and Referendum Almanac provides a comprehensive and meticulously assembled resource on citizen lawmaking. This compendium promises to be a significant aid to scholars now and well into the future, with its projected schedule of updates every four years.
The almanac draws heavily upon prior research available through the Council of State Governments' Book of the States, the Initiative and Referendum Institute, a Texas legislative interim study, and David SchmidtÕs Citizen Lawmakers (Temple University Press). More than being a compilation of prior work, however, the almanac presents a coherent history of the initiative and referendum process, detailed comparisons of state and municipal procedures, and individual state chapters. The state chapters are particularly helpful, containing the constitutional and statutory provisions governing initiative and referendum as well as reporting the historical patterns and frequency of citizen lawmaking.
Chapters 5 through 9 offer readers more focused discussions of different aspects of the process. For example, Walters's fifth chapter attempts to dispel criticisms of initiative and referendum in a succinct question-answer format that is decidedly positive about the virtues of direct democracy. Other chapters deal with recent legislative attempts to regulate the signature collection process, court oversight of initiative efforts, and polling in referendum elections.
While clearly advocating the virtues of direct democracy, the Almanac is not without its biases, but most scholars will find the book a welcome and authoritative reference guide to this important aspect of politics and public policymaking.
Cindy Simon Rosenthal, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Inside the Campaign Finance Battle: Court Testimony on the New Reforms, Anthony Corrado, Thomas E. Mann, and Trevor Potter, editors, Brookings Institution Press, 2003, ISBN 0815715838, $28.95, paper, 333 pages.
When Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, sponsors, supporters, and opponents predicted legal challenges to the Act. They were correct. Within hours of enactment, multiple cases were filed attacking numerous provisions of this major revision of federal campaign finance law. Ultimately, the eleven cases filed, involving more than 80 plaintiffs, were consolidated as McConnell v. FEC. Following a mixed decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the case was reviewed through an expedited appeals process by the U.S. Supreme Court. In December 2003 the Supreme Court upheld most aspects of the law.
The self-proclaimed goal of this book is to make testimony in this "historic case" accessible to an audience beyond the lawyers, political scientists, and other practitioners actually involved in the litigation. The aim is to shed light on the complexities of campaign finance and the role of money in our political system. The editors attempt to walk the tightrope between a presentation which will appeal to a general audience while also appealing to those interested in a scholarly treatment of the subject. They succeed.
Selecting forty-one sets of "testimony" from the tens of thousands of pages contained in the court record and editing them into a coherent framework of analysis and explanation must have been a daunting task. In selecting which statements to include, the editors stated their goal was to present a rough balance of the arguments and evidence from both sides. They faced several "imbalances" based on the litigation strategies from the parties. For example, the defendants produced numerous and lengthy reports providing expert testimony on television ads by groups, parties, and candidates and the likely impact of the reform act. The plaintiffs chose to submit a single witness on this issue. This imbalance is shown in the selected materials and can fairly be stated to favor the defendants and their point of view.
As in any attempt to compile a representative sample of a significant volume of material, one might question some selections and the inevitable editing required. Why are the testimonies presented by office holders only from former elected officials (i.e. David Boren and Alan Simpson's perspectives as representative of "Senate Democrats" and "Senate Republicans")? Why were the numerous amicus briefs filed, including one filed by 21 attorneys general (17 Democrats and 4 Republicans) in support of the defendants and one filed by 8 Republican attorneys general in support of the plaintiffs, not analyzed or included? Overall, however, comparing the material selected to the material available, the editors provide a representative and fair sample of the court record.
The "testimony" presented, of course, is not the examination and cross-examination style one might expect from litigation but is the dry, sterilized presentation of arguments prepared and submitted by witnesses without the benefit of the probing of the witness by the other side. The closest we come to this type of exchange involves the analysis of research by other scholars and appropriate rebuttals. (For example, Jonathan Krasno's response to James Gibson's criticisms and methodological concerns over Krasno's work in Buying Time.) For those interested in more in-depth explorations of a witness's position, there are over fifty depositions included in the court record and available at www.campaignlegalcenter.org. Also, over 200 pages of oral arguments from the September 8 hearing before the Supreme Court, providing arguments by the parties and insights into the Justices' thinking, can also be found at that location.
For those interested in a more comprehensive examination of campaign finance reform, this book provides a substantial starting point. For those seeking an overview and greater understanding of the fundamental issues and concerns of campaign finance reform, Inside the Campaign Finance Battle provides a concise, readable source that will serve to foster that greater understanding.
Ted Ritter
Ph.D. Student in Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Legislative
Deferrals: Statutory Ambiguity, Judicial Power, and American Democracy,
George I. Lovell, Cambridge University Press, 2003,
ISBN 052182415X, $65.00, cloth, 312 pages.
In Legislative Deferrals, one of the most fundamental questions facing the field of public law -- whether judicial power is somehow "undemocratic" -- is addressed. Many scholars have made a career out of arguing that unelected judges have too much power to make public policy in the United States, and this problem is often blamed on ideologically driven judges. However, George I. Lovell argues that this perspective should be reexamined.
In his book, Lovell contends that the narrow focus on the behavior of the judicial branch is incomplete, and he argues for a fundamental shift in the way scholars think about judicial policymaking to a stronger focus on the role that legislators play in creating judicial power. In order to prove his theory that the legislative branch is equally responsible for the role that the judiciary plays in policymaking, the author examines the history of four labor statutes, the Erdman Act, the Clayton Act, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, and the Wagner Act. In each of these cases, the legislature passed statutes that were later struck down or fundamentally reinterpreted by the courts. Through his historical analysis, the author finds that the legislative branch is equally responsible for the role that the court played in these instances, because the legislature either passed intentionally vague and/or ambiguous laws. For this reason, Lovell argues that the courts cannot be seen as completely undemocratic or opposed to the legislative branch, as they often have no choice but to intervene.
Legislative Deferrals is a thought-provoking book that challenges the proposition that judicial ideologues are responsible for the often important role that the courts have played in public policymaking. In arguing that the legislative branch is equally responsible due to the passage of vague and ambiguous statutes that require a great deal of interpretation, Lovell restructures the understanding of judicial power.
Carrie Palmer Sparling
Ph.D. Student in Political Science
University of Oklahoma
No Holds Barred: Negativity
in U.S. Senate Campaigns, Kim Fridkin Kahn and Patrick J. Kenney, Pearson/Prentice
Hall, 2003, ISBN 0130977608, $20.00, paper, 130 pages.
In this work, Kahn and Kenney provide an illustrative and thorough investigation of negativity in Senate campaigns. They combine qualitative data (interviews with campaign managers and content analysis of campaign ads and press coverage) and quantitative data (National Election Studies data) which enables them to simultaneously analyze and speak to the major players of the electoral system itself -- the candidates, the press, and the citizens.
The first question Kahn and Kenney address is why and when do candidates go negative. Negativity in campaigns is not random, they conclude, but highly predictable. They identify three significant factors which help predict when campaigns turn negative. The first is the level of competition in elections. As elections become more competitive and election outcomes become more uncertain, both incumbents and challengers are more likely to go negative. The second factor is the status of the candidate. Challengers, because they need to provide reasons for voters to turn away from incumbents, must attack and this means infusing a campaign with negativity. Incumbents generally try to stay away from negative campaigning but will vociferously attack if their job is on the line. The third factor is the proximity to the election. Candidates are more likely to go negative at the end of campaigns, right before the election. Kahn and Kenney find that 25% of all negative ads appear during the week prior to Election Day.
Kahn and Kenney then turn to the role of the press in negative campaigns. Conventional wisdom is that the press is a contributor to a political environment which encourages negativity. They conclude otherwise. "The truth is negative press coverage is almost nonexistent unless races become competitive" (112). The press, they argue, is responsive to the campaign environment, meaning that when candidates start attacking one another they will indeed report on it, but they do not necessarily foster negative campaigning.
How, then, does negativity in Senate campaigns affect the citizenry? It has mixed effects, some positive and some negative. When campaign rhetoric is negative, citizens tend to be much more knowledgeable about the campaign and the candidates. Negativity has an additional effect on the behaviors and beliefs of citizens that vary according to the content and tenor of the message. Legitimate negative criticism increases citizen engagement with campaigns and increases the likelihood that people will vote, while intense mudslinging negativity decreases interest and the probability of voting. The citizenry is able to discern differences in negativity.
Kahn and Kenney's research is insightful and concise. They intersperse their analysis with examples of real life negative campaigning, clear graphs and charts, and they provide succinct summaries at the ends of all of their chapters which reiterate their findings.
Aleisha Karjala
Ph.D. Student in Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Party, Process, and Political Change in Congress: New Perspectives on the History of Congress, David W. Brady and Mathew D. McCubbins, editors, Stanford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0804745714, $31.95, paper, 556 pages.
Party, Process, and Political Change pulls together some of the leading scholars in partisanship and the historical development of congressional politics to offer an invaluable addition to the library of any student of Congress. Noting that the current literature on Congress focuses mainly on post-New Deal politics, this work takes a historical approach to understanding political change. The book is divided into three parts. In sum, these parts are designed to examine the role of party organizations in policymaking, the ways in which congressional processes and procedures have changed, and the relationship between institutional processes and procedures and congressional politics and policy (3). The book's historical perspective allows us to critically examine the variables we use and the assumptions we make when studying the modern Congress.
Part I explores the role of party organizations in policymaking by looking for evidence of the conditional party government model, agenda control through the strategic choice of rules, the partisan model and negative agenda control, and party control over committees and committee chairs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examining the development of the standing committee system in the House, the role of individual actors such as Clay and Reed, the origins of the "Tuesday-Thursday Club", and the rise of majority party leadership positions in the Senate, Part II explores how congressional processes and procedures have changed. Finally Part III suggests how institutional change and policy change are related. Through a comparison of the Continental and Federalist Congresses, an analysis of the evolution of the Compromise of 1850, and the decisions to add new states to the Union, this section of the book demonstrates how institutional structures can advance or limit policy change. The decisions to add new states to the Union present a fascinating example of how members sometimes are faced with choices that not only change policy but the institutional composition of the Congress itself. The final chapter compares actual outcomes with an outcome that could have occurred under a different set of institutional rules, specifically how history would have been different had population in the South not been based on the 3/5th clause.
Jocelyn Jones Evens, Ph.D.
Former Carl Albert Fellow
Assistant Professor of Government
University of West Florida
Speaking Freely:
Washington Insiders Talk About Money in Politics, Larry Makinson, Center for Responsive Politics, 2003,
ISBN 0939715295, $15.00, paper, 154 pages.
For over two decades now, The Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization, has been recording financial contributions to candidates, parties, and committees and has been discussing its concomitant effect on elections and policy. Recently, the Center has focused upon compiling databases on campaign contributions and making this publicly available either on their website which operates under the name of Opensecrets.org or in their newsletter which is now located at Capitaleye.org. As a result, they have long been a convenient resource for those interested in campaign finance and the role of money in politics. Their latest publication, Speaking Freely, is a follow-up to the 1995 publication bearing the same name. Although this latest version hails as the second edition, it departs sharply from the first edition because one will find that the updated version bears a new author, contains an entirely different structure, utilizes brand new interviews, and lacks an explicit focus upon and calls for campaign reforms.
Speaking Freely is not an analytical and scientific account of campaign finance as much as it is a compilation of quotes from twenty-four individuals who have at one time or another given or received campaign contributions. The reader will find a series of disconnected vignettes describing the financial realm of politics interspersed with some editorial comments. Nonetheless, these stories capture both angles of campaign finance -- the receiving side and the giving side. Thus, the first half of the book reveals the perspectives of former members of Congress (for example, Peter DeFazio, Rick Lazio, Chuck Robb) who received money, while the second half of the book unveils the standpoints of PAC directors and individuals (for example, Ellen Malcolm of EMILY's List, Mike Mathis of Teamster's Union, Peter Buttenwieser, Arnold Hiatt) who gave money. Consequently, readers gain a firsthand account of the large amounts of time members reserve for fundraising, the fears of losing that motivate members to spend so much time raising money, and the expectations of access which members must contend with from contributors. Speaking Freely then shifts from former members of Congress to PAC directors and individuals who apparently share with members the drudgery of fundraising. More importantly, the stories reveal their strategies, reasons, and expectations for financial contributions.
In conclusion, Speaking Freely is a colorful insiders' account of the world of campaign finance. It highlights the human dimension of campaign finance not readily captured by charts, databases, and statistical regressions. Although Speaking Freely reflects the Center's perception of money as the cold and dark side of politics, it is an interesting collection of honest thoughts regarding the impact of money on elections, legislative processes, and politicians from the actors themselves -- a remarkable feat given the sensitivity of the subject.
Josh Stockley
Ph.D. Student in Political Science
University of Oklahoma
The States of Campaign
Finance Reform, Donald A. Gross and Robert K. Goidel, Ohio State
University Press, 2003, ISBN 081425103X, $24.95, paper, 131 pages.
In a policy debate dominated by studies of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 and subsequent revisions like the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, Donald A. Gross and Robert K. Goidel seek to broaden the scope of inquiry and understanding of campaign finance legislation by exploring state laws aimed at gubernatorial campaigns.
Gross and Goidel assert that while studies of national campaign finance legislation offer a methodologically advanced volume of literature, they generally suffer from a lack of variance because campaign finance laws remained essentially consistent throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By using data on state gubernatorial elections across all fifty states during a twenty-year period from 1978 to 1997, The States of Campaign Finance Reform addresses a number of the limitations encountered by pervious studies. Data from state campaign finance laws provide ample variability to their study. The diverse approaches states use to regulate gubernatorial campaign finance also offer opportunities to distinguish among the effects that contribution limits, spending limits and public financing have on candidate spending, voter turnout, electoral competition and electoral outcomes (xvii).
The findings of Gross and Goidel suggest that well framed reform measures adopted by states like Maine and Arizona, which seek to regulate spending by financing campaigns with public money, produce the most favorable results. They conclude that the numerous and diverse approaches to campaign finance ensure both a continuing public debate over proposed reforms as well as a continuing need for analysis of the topic.
Walt Wilson
Carl Albert Graduate Fellow
University of Oklahoma
The Test of
Time: Coping with Legislative Term Limits, Rick Farmer, John David Rausch, Jr., and John C.
Green, editors, Lexington Books, 2003, ISBN 0739104454, $26.95,
paper, 298 pages.
The time has come to quit telling the non-political scientist world that we cannot say for sure whether terms limits will make a difference because "we don't have any data yet." By now we do have data. Some state legislators were first prohibited from further service in 1996. In 1998, term limits had completely taken effect in Maine and California. By 2002 a dozen states had been affected. The accumulation of data is not great, but it is certainly enough to merit serious attention to this important topic.
The fine collection of articles in the Test of Time begins the serious process of systematically sorting through the hypotheses that have accumulated around term limits to determine which have merit, which are wrong, and which need more careful scrutiny. The editors of this book provide a valuable service by trying to organize expectations and, therefore, the essays into a manageable approach.
The first set of papers in this volume is a series of case studies of the states which have experienced the earliest impact of term limits. Generally, these parallel case studies look at how the legislatures operate under term limits, the electoral consequences of term limits, and whether the demographics of the legislatures have changed. The second section focuses on select topics: leadership, career paths, representation, and legislative performance or success. In the final section, the editors pull together essays that address the linkages between term limited legislatures and other political actors such as the media, interest groups, and citizens.
It is impossible to summarize the findings of this important book in a brief review, but reading it should dispel any notion that because nothing tragic has happened in these states (excepting, perhaps, California), that term limits have not done much. These essays routinely talk about increased volatility and commotion, challenges to make the legislature work, shifting loci of power, and surprising little change in demographics.
Reading these essays reminds one how adaptable legislative institutions are. That they survived term limits should not be a surprise; they are, after all, nearly ubiquitous because they are so adaptable. But the powers they have and the functions they serve are quite different in different settings. The mere survival of legislatures that are term limited tells us little. The editors conclude that term limits "are neither the panacea that proponents hoped for nor the Pandora's box that opponents feared." The essays demonstrate great changes are taking place in these state legislatures; changes that do seriously affect who wins and who loses. And that is exactly what proponents wanted and opponents feared.
Gary Copeland
Professor of Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Women Transforming Congress,
Cindy Simon Rosenthal,
editor, University of Oklahoma Press, 2002, ISBN 0806134968, $34.95,
paper, 506 pages.
Cindy Simon Rosenthal and the contributing authors have put together a comprehensive volume on the impact of women on the American Congress. Each chapter addresses the role of women in Congress through a different lens, providing a multi-faceted view of gender and the role it plays in Congress. This text provides an excellent resource for both gender scholars and congressional scholars seeking to understand the role of women in both the decision-making process and the institutional structure of the Congress.
Simon Rosenthal provides an introduction to the tome and explains the overarching question "Have women transformed Congress?" as well as the book structure and the lenses used by the authors. The second chapter is theoretical in nature, and Georgia Duerst-Lahti argues that the lens of gender explains much about the institution of Congress that is not understood without this lens. She argues that it is essential to study the role of gender in Congress if one is to understand the institution. In the remaining chapters, the authors utilize gender to study the different aspects of Congress.
The third chapter looks at how women view their role in Congress. Carroll argues that it is the norm that women members view their role as surrogate representatives of women outside of their districts, whereas members who are men are unlikely to see themselves as representing the interests of women specifically. Costain and Frazier examine the women's movement as an understanding of how Congress reacts to social movements. Hertzog examines the unique pathways to Congress utilized by women members. In chapters six and seven, campaigns are examined. Matland and King examine how women differ from men as candidates; Bystrom and Lee Kaid examine how campaign communication is used by women candidates. Chapters eight through ten examine the impact women members have on the congressional agenda. In single policy areas, Wolbrecht examines the impact of women members on the advancement of women's rights, while Kedrowski and Stine Sarow examine the impact that gender has had on cancer policy. Michele Swers demonstrates that women are more likely to sponsor bills that are women's issues than are men in either party. These three chapters show that women have a significant impact on how the congressional agenda looks.
Chapters eleven and twelve investigate how women operate in congressional committees. Arnold and King examine this in the context of the Senate, and Noelle Norton looks more specifically at the House. The committee systems in both houses have been barriers to women. It has been difficult for women to attain seats in committees critical to women's issue legislation, and thus, women have been unable to attain institutional power commensurate with their numerical strength. In one area of congressional committees, women do enjoy greater representation. Simon Rosenthal and Cohen Bell address the role of committee staff, and find that the passive representation of women by women staffers can translate into active representation.
The impact of women members is also seen in how they use floor debate. Cramer Walsh argues that women present arguments from a greater number of perspectives, often drawing upon experiences unique to women. Further, floor debate places women Members in the public spotlight, giving women the opportunity to remove prejudice regarding the ability of women as legislators. In the final focus on the U.S. Congress, Thomas, Herrick, and Braunstein look at the effect gender has on congressional career choices. They argue that women in Congress have allowed men to focus also on the importance of the private sphere in their career choices, and have elevated this societal issue in public awareness as members plot their career path using both considerations. The final case chapter is comparative in nature. Joyce Gelb examines the opportunity structures for women in both Britain and the United States. In the concluding chapter, Simon Rosenthal presents a discussion of the collective findings of the book. She argues that the Congressional policy agenda has been transformed by women in the twentieth century, but at this point, the institution itself remains largely unchanged by the influence of women.
This book addresses the study of gender and Congress at many levels, utilizing a large variety of perspectives and methods. This volume offers a number of testable hypotheses and frameworks for further study as well as the most current research on gender in Congress. This text is a useful resource for scholars and is well designed for classroom use. The collected essays of this work provide a comprehensive view of the literature on women and Congress today. It is a critical addition to both the Congressional and gender literature.
Melody Huckaby
Carl Albert Graduate Fellow
University of Oklahoma
Workways of Governance:
Monitoring Our Government's Health, Roger H. Davidson, editor, Brookings Institution
Press, 2003, ISBN 0815717539, $18.95, paper, 177 pages.
In this volume, Roger Davidson presents a systematic, feasible means to address the assessment of governmental institutions. In conjunction with the Brookings Institution, Davidson and six additional contributors suggest approaches to the examination of the working environments of the House, the Senate, the president's advisory system, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy. In applying the concept of periodic evaluation to the branches of the federal government, guidelines are established to achieve a meaningful measure, which is comparable to parallel entities in the states and other nations. The use of longitudinal data, rather than cross-sectional, is employed, and the inclusion of qualitative as well as quantitative indicators are recommended to establish performance trends.
Davidson addresses the House of Representatives, focusing on the core functions of that institution -- representation, deliberation, and public education. He points out much of the data needed for quantitative measurement of these functions (members' backgrounds, scheduling, staff compensation) is currently available as public record; however, qualitative measures such as the quality of committee deliberation should also be considered in determining overall effectiveness and performance. Sarah Binder provides a similar discussion of the Senate, emphasizing the challenge of collective action within this chamber, and suggests several approaches to the evaluation of the decision-making capability of this body. The evaluations of presidential advisors and the judiciary are equally informative and present new ideas for conducting research in these areas.
A definite highlight of this volume is Paul Light's contribution in regard to federal public service. Light directs the reader to imagine public service as top heavy in leadership, lacking in adequate training and development for middle management, and virtually despised in such a way that no bright, ambitious college graduate would even consider a career in this field. He then challenges this perception of public service, relying on the Volker Commission finding that what really matters most in public service is the commitment public servants bring to their work. He proceeds to outline a workable means of assembling data to evaluate the state of public service today through both objective indicators such as turnover, recruitment, and career advancement, and subjective indicators such as morale, job satisfaction, and sense of purpose. Light utilizes data from two surveys conducted pre- and post-September 11 of federal government employees, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates on behalf of the Brookings InstitutionÕs Center for Public Service.
This book's premise is that periodic systematic appraisal of federal agencies is both necessary and beneficial. The authors propose a wide variety of measures of institutional health, and demonstrate how such assessments can be conducted. The book challenges scholars and researchers to utilize these approaches and to develop new means of monitoring the effectiveness of government. For those interested in institutional accountability, this book provides a wealth of research innovations and proposals.
Margaret Ellis
Assistant Professor of Political Science
University of Oklahoma