Congressional politics 125the presidential success rate gives a useful insight into the extent to which
presidents are able to get their way.
The clearest evidence of the extent of party support for presidential poli-
cies can be seen during the administrations of presidents who have faced a
majority of their own party in both Senate and House. This is the situation
most closely comparable to parliamentary government. Such a situation ex-
isted under John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton
during the first two years after his election in 1992, and George W. Bush
after 2002. Of these, President Johnson had the greatest success rate. In
1965, 93 per cent of the votes on which he had taken a clear position went his
way. In other years he was less successful, falling to a success rate of 75 per
cent in 1968, the final year of his presidency. President Kennedy, for all his
charisma, could not rise above 87 per cent of the votes going in his favour,
and some of those that went against him were of much greater significance
than those that he won. President Carter’s success rate never even climbed
into the 80 per cent range. President Clinton, working with a Democratic
Congress in 1993 and 1994, achieved a success rate of 86 per cent, but when
the Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1994 election his success
rate fell to little more than 36 per cent in the following year.
The other side of the coin is that presidents faced with a majority of the
opposing party in Congress can still achieve some of their aims, a situation
inconceivable in a parliamentary system. The experience of President Rea-
gan in the 1981 session of Congress is particularly interesting. Here was a
Republican president with a Republican majority in the Senate, but a Demo-
cratic majority in the House of Representatives. Nevertheless, in 1981 Presi-
dent Reagan had a success rate of over 81 per cent, indicating that, on those
issues on which he had expressed a clear view, the Congress had agreed with
him four times out of five. Thus the Republican President Reagan, on this
measurement, was more successful over all, facing a Democratic House and
a Republican Senate, than Mr Carter, who had only had to cope with both
Houses of Congress dominated by his own party. True, the Republican Senate
had agreed with Mr Reagan on more occasions (87.5 per cent of the votes)
than the Democratic House of Representatives (72 per cent of the votes), but
this situation indicates very clearly the fact that party, though important in
the American political system, is by no means the only important element in
its operation.
Influences on congressional voting behaviour
It is very clear from the evidence that issues that come up for decision by
Congress are not simply decided on party lines. Each vote is the result of
the complex of pressures acting on Congress, and the patterns of voting
differ from issue to issue. Coalitions within Congress form and re-form to
decide particular questions of policy. Party allegiance is an important, but