414 Chapter 11 | Congress
Unpacking the Conflict
Considering all that we’ve learned in this chapter about how Congress works, let’s return to
our discussion of DACA. Why is it so hard for Congress to compromise on issues that appear
to be consensual, like protecting the Dreamers? How can members of Congress best serve
the collective interests of the nation while also representing their local constituents?
Although the details of the legislative process and the institutions of Congress
can be complicated, the basic explanations for members’ behavior are quite
straightforward when viewed in terms of the trade-off between responsiveness and
responsibility. Members of Congress want to be reelected, so they are generally quite
responsive to constituents’ interests. They spend considerable time on casework—
meeting with people in their district and delivering benefits for their district. At the
same time, members are motivated to be responsible—to rise above local interests
and attend to the nation’s best interests. The conflict between these two impulses
can create contradictory policies that contribute to Congress’s image problem.
For example, the chapter opener discussed the difficulty/inability of reaching a
compromise on DACA. Both parties and the president appeared to want to help
the Dreamers, but conservatives in the Republican Party were strongly opposed to
providing any path to citizenship. Clearly, the country as a whole benefits from the
economic and social contributions of the Dreamers, but some members of Congress
responded to their political base by opposing a compromise. The tension between
responsible lawmaking and responsiveness to constituents is evident on many issues.
Considering members’ motivations is crucial to understanding how Congress
functions, but their behavior is also constrained by the institutions in which they
operate. When moderate House Republicans were on the verge of forcing a vote on the
Dreamers, the Senate Republican Leader stood firm in his opposition, saying he would
not bring a bill to a vote in the Senate that did not have President Trump’s approval.
So ultimately, it did not matter that the House was able to find a compromise solution.
In this instance, party leadership served as a constraint, but the committee system
can provide a positive vehicle for lawmaking as an important source of expertise and
information, and it provides a platform from which members can take positions and
claim credit. When they aren’t obstructing legislation, parties in Congress can provide
coherence to the legislative agenda and help structure voting patterns on bills. Rules
and norms constrain the nature of debate and the legislative process. Although these
institutions shape members’ behavior, it is important to remember that members can
also change those rules and institutions. Therefore, Congress has the ability to evolve
with changing national conditions and demands from voters, groups, and the president.
In this context, much of what Congress does can be understood in terms of the
conflicts inherent in politics. As we have seen, even on consensual issues like DACA,
conflict and political strategy may doom the common ground that is within reach. The
extremes on the right and left did not want to compromise on DACA: the former viewed
any path to citizenship as amnesty and the latter wanted a “clean bill” with no money
for the wall or other changes to immigration policy. There was a huge majority in the
middle that could have passed a DACA bill with some money for border security and
the wall, but President Trump and Republicans wanted to leverage the consensual
issue of DACA to enact the broader immigration policies they favored. Their approach
did not work, and we got deadlock instead. Congress does not always live up to the
expectations of being the “first branch” of government, but it tries to do the best it can
to balance the conflicting pressures it faces.
What’s
Your
Take?
Does Congress do
a reasonable job of
representing both national
and local interests? If not,
how should Congress
change?
I have seen in the Halls of
Congress more idealism, more
humanness, more compassion,
more profiles of courage than in
any other institution that I have
ever known.
—Hubert Humphrey, former
senator and vice president
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