Think (again) in terms of the fundamental equation.

In Section II (Preferences and their aggregation), we considered eligibility to express preferences through voting, voter participation, different institutions for aggregating preferences into collective choices of the personnel of government, and the differential representation of interests through organized groups.

(What did you learn about the possibility that there is a single "right" or correct way to represent the public's preferences or the public interest?)

In this section, we look at the ways that (American) policymaking institutions process the preferences of the people (whatever they are) into policy decisions, and more generally how policy is made in the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS: Article I
Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.. which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.
Section 2. HOUSE elected every second year. Qualifications for voters the same as for the most numerous branch of the state legislature.

• Qualified by the 15^th, 19^th and 26^th amendments.

• Overridden by 14^th (for apportionment) and 16^th (for taxes) amendments.

• Modified by the 17^th amendment.

• (see argument above in topic 4 about how federalism undermines democracy)

• How many of these approximate public goods? (Remember: jointness of supply and nonexcludability)
• How many of them could be done by markets?
• How many are part of the underlying conditions associated with markets?

THE AGENCY PROBLEM (as in principal-agent relations) (Generic problem #3)

The electorate is the principal, and Congress is the agent. (Compare your plumber, your doctor, your stockbroker, your housecleaner)
How might principals control agents?
        Before the fact: in selecting the right person
        After the fact: in rewarding or punishing for good or bad performance.
                In markets, get another agent, in politics, vote them out.

Elections are always a mechanism of "before-the-fact" control.
If the incumbent can run again, they are also a mechanism of "after-the-fact control," every two years for the House and every six years for Senators.
(Framers had a rationale for two different lengths of time before having to submit to election.)

If term limits for legislators existed on the federal level, there would be before-the-fact control, but no after-the-fact control, at least after the final term.
Term limits exist in some states, but have been declared unconstitutional on the federal level by the Supreme Court, in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995).

Arguments in favor of term limits
            Assure turnover and fresh blood, and a citizens' legislature as opposed to a legislature of professional politicians
            Undermine entrenched networks by which "factions" and interest groups influence members of legislatures

Arguments against term limits
            Undermines advantages of experience
            Removes choice from the public, and denies them "after-the-fact control" at least in the final term

Suppose that there are two groups in the public, Republicans and Democrats, and that they each elect representatives. That identifies four groups:

On some kinds of issues (such as taxes and spending, abortion, gun control), the biggest difference is between the columns.

On some kinds of issues (such as campaign finance), the biggest difference may be between the rows. When that is the case, you have an agency problem.
Note Pat Buchanan: the Republican and Democratic Parties are "two wings on the same bird of prey."

How does one deal with agency problems? Elections are the main means of before-and after-the-fact control.

How well do elections work to solve an agency problem on campaign finance? Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the main opponent of campaign finance reform, and the issue has been used against him in elections several times without success.

If the public cared enough, it could vote out representatives who did not do its will on campaign finance. In fact, majorities that are large, intense and persistent enough can probably assure the passage of anything they want. Or can they?

Does the public care enough about campaign finance reform to get it?
 

DELEGATE vs. TRUSTEE conceptions of representation.

As S&B point out on p. 313, legislators have three kinds of people to whom they are accountable,

• those who provide votes,
• those who provide resources, and
• themselves with their own personal agendas.

                        (Does this mean those who provide resources or those who provide votes, or some combination of the two?)

Trustees think of themselves as selected to use their own judgment.

• See the FDR and World War II case on pp. 385-387 for an illustration.
• See John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
• But trustees have to be elected too, so perhaps pure trusteeship is impossible in a democracy, so long as members want to be re-elected.
• So how responsive do you want elected officials to be to their public?
• Pandering vs. Demagoguery

Which did the Framers and the writers of the Federalist advocate and prefer?
 

Politics between legislative houses I: BICAMERALISM

Just as the federal government was divided into three branches to keep it from being too powerful, the legislature was divided into two branches to keep it from being too powerful.

Bicameralism makes changes to the status quo more difficult than they would be with a single chamber.

Imagine the preferences of a legislative house being a single ideal point, which is some distance from the status quo, SQ. (We are assuming that a multiperson body has a coherent single preference, which you know to be a nontrivial or even heroic assumption.)

Recall the definition of a winset of X: the set of points that are preferred to X.

For a single house, the winset of SQ is all of the points that are within a circle with H at the center (the ideal point) and with radius H-SQ. In a situation like this, H is free to choose its own ideal point.

Now assume that there are two houses with clear, but divergent preferences.

To identify the winset of SQ, draw circles of radius H-SQ and S-SQ, in which the center is the ideal point of each house and the circumference goes through SQ.

The winset of the status quo is the eye-shaped area of overlap between the circles. Obviously, given bicameralism, the winset is much smaller than in the unicameral case. Therefore changes to the status quo are likely to be much more difficult under bicameralism, that is, between systems with two legislative houses rather than one.

Isn't this what the Framers had in mind?

"Having a two-house legislature was merely one more way to assure that government would be just strong enough to act, but not so strong as to threaten liberty" (Light, p. 386)
 

POLITICS WITHIN HOUSES OF CONGRESS

How do large bodies deal with the enormous number of issues before them, such as nearly 15,000 bills.

1. Regular procedure (See Shepsle)

• Leadership selection by majority party (see p. 399 in Light for list): Speaker, majority leader, etc., and committee leadership.

• Seniority system for committee leadership since 1911 "revolt" against a powerful Speaker (Joseph Cannon). This involves a kind of "property rights" in a committee assignment.

• The agenda procedure, a series of paired comparisons:
• bill vs. amendment
• winner of above contest vs. status quo (see diagram)
• If there is a Condorcet winner, it will win. If not, the status quo is advantaged, because it is never eliminated early.
• With the possibility of multiple amendments, the leadership (in the House) may have some control over the outcome through the agenda power, especially if there is not a MRE.

1. Specialization and jurisdictions

• Assignment of issues to standing committees that specialize. See list in Light, pp. 402-407. Note Appropriations (both houses), Budget (both), Ways and Means (H), Finance (S); House Rules Committee; Senate Foreign Relations Committee

• Committees are the agents of the parent body, which is the principal. Committees that are considered more reliable are given more slack by the parent body.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HOUSES (See Light, p. 396)

• Size, term length and degree of organization.

• Unlimited debate in the Senate: no limit until Rule 22 in 1917 (2/3 of those present and voting); since 1975 cloture takes 60 votes. See Light, pp. 400-2.

• House Rules Committee, and open and closed rules.

In order to be passed by Congress, a bill must be passed in identical form in both houses. If there are differences, a CONFERENCE COMMITTEE is chosen.
Conference committees have equal numbers of members from each house, and are usually members of the committees that reported the legislation.
Conference committees have a lot of authority to modify a bill, but the modified bill must be approved in both houses of Congress. That is, any changes made by a conference must still be within the winset of the status quo.