122 Congressional politics
They will be concerned also with the positions adopted by other members
of Congress with whom they have some affinity, the other members of the
committees upon which they sit, the other members of the state delegation
of which they form a part, or the views of other members whom they respect
as authorities upon particular subjects.
This is the context within which senators and representatives operate,
and their exact reaction to a particular legislative proposal will depend upon
the relative importance of these differing factors in the light of their own
personal circumstances. Often the cues that they receive from party lead-
ers, constituency, or pressure groups will conflict, and they must make up
their minds which to respond to. This decision may depend upon how near
they are to re-election, the relative strengths of the reactions from these
differing sources, or their perception of the importance of a particular issue.
Potentially the study of congressional behaviour is the description of how 535
men and women, each in a different political context, will react to particular
situations. Fortunately for us, however, the patterns of congressional behav-
iour are not random or haphazard, and we can discover the political and
institutional structures that give a relative stability to the way in which the
legislature goes about its business. We shall look at the influence of parties,
and at the other determinants of congressional voting behaviour, then at the
organisational structure of power in Congress, and finally at some concrete
examples of the way in which the complex decisions on modern legislation
are taken.
Party discipline and party unity
The extent to which the American system of government allows the indi-
vidual members of the national legislature to make up their own minds and
to vote accordingly on the issues that come before them can be measured in
two ways. First, by the extent to which individual Senators or Congressmen
follow the dictates of the leaders of their parties; second, by the extent to
which the members of the president’s party in Congress follow the lead of
their nominal head, or the extent to which members of the other party op-
pose him. By looking at the way in which members of Congress voted in the
1997 session of the legislature, we can gauge the extent of party unity, and
the reality of party discipline (or the lack of it) in the Congress. In fact in that
particular year, the first year of President Clinton’s second administration,
party unity in Congress was not as high as it had been in the immediately
preceding years, but ideological and policy differences between the two par-
ties were still sharp. The Republicans had kept the control over both Houses
of Congress that they had gained in the mid-term elections of two years ear-
lier, in spite of the fact that President Clinton had won re-election by a large
majority over his Republican opponent, Bob Dole. The congressional Repub-
licans had fought the election on the basis of the ‘Contract with America’ of
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, setting out their legislative programme, and