The Speaker and the Budget

The Speakers of the House, from Carl Albert to Tom Foley, have faced various challenges in the budgetary process since the passage of the Budget Act in 1974. That act required the Congress to fix budget targets in authorizations and outlays in each of thirteen functional categories for each fiscal year and to reconcile annual authorizations and appropriations to those targets. It created separate budget committees in each chamber and altered the legislative process in an attempt to enforce budget discipline. Some challenges have been defined by the individual Speakers themselves; others have emerged from institutional changes in the budget process, large deficits, and the political context within which budget decisions have been made. Speaker Albert\u27s primary challenge was to meet the formal guidelines of the new budget process. Under Speaker Tip O\u27Neill, the task of facilitating the formal procedures of the Budget Act gave way to managing various forms of conflict over budget priorities, representing the House majority party in negotiations with Senate leaders and the president, and acting as a spokesperson for the Democratic party. Speaker Jim Wright used the budget resolution to define the priorities of the Democratic party. Speaker Foley\u27s major challenge has been to facilitate passage of two major deficit reduction bills, first under a divided government in which opposing parties controlled the Congress and the White House and then under the leadership of President Bill Clinton

Congressional Leadership

Congressional leadership takes place within an institution that serves two primary functions: making laws and representing citizens. Leaders play essential roles organizing the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senatethey set the schedule for debating bills and resolutions; formulate proposals to address public problems; represent their party\u27s priorities through the media and in relations with leaders of the opposing party; support or oppose the president\u27s initiatives in the legislative process; and build coalitions to pass legislation. The main challenge of congressional leadership is to advance the collective interests of the nation or of the leader\u27s political party, while enabling individual members of Congress to represent their constituents. This entry describes the roles and responsibilities of congressional leaders, reviews the relevant theories for explaining congressional leadership, identifies notable congressional leaders in various historical situations, and raises key issues for further study

From Decentralization to Centralization: Members\u27 Changing Expectations for House Leaders

Before the reforms of the 1970s, at least since the revolt against Speaker Joseph G. Cannon in 1910, party leaders of the House of Representatives performed tasks designed to mediate party interests both within and outside of the House. Within the House, their most important functions included organizing the party, scheduling bills, building coalitions, distributing and collecting information, and maintaining party harmony (Ripley 1967). Meanwhile, committee chairs exercised the most discretion over specific policy issues. Outside of the House, the Speaker acted as a mediator between the majority party and the, president, especially if the president was of the same party (Ripley 1969a). Again, however, presidents dealt directly with committee chairs on most policy matters

Done Deal?: The Politics of the 1997 Budget Agreement

How did a Democratic president and a Republican Congress reach agreement at a time of intense partisanship, mutual distrust, and suspicion? How were leaders of opposing parties able to negotiate a good-faith agreement to balance the budget, reduce spending for Medicare, and cut taxes? Does the agreement truly deserve the praise given by its supporters or the criticism dealt by its opponents? Daniel J. Palazzolo answers these questions with a vivid, first-person account of federal budget politics. In Done Deal? Palazzolo debunks conventional views of Washington politics that portray an antiquated separation-of-powers system hopelessly mired in partisan politics. Applying a realist expectations perspective, he recognizes the possibilities and limitations of the American political system and identifies inherent constraints on policy reform. His careful analysis highlights the system\u27s capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and produce important changes in policy.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1154/thumbnail.jp

Research Methods

An undergraduate course on research methods and analysis is fertile ground for service-learning in political science. Research methods courses teach students a variety of data-collection and analysis methods, and many community service agencies and nonprofit organizations typically benefit from research on how their services are provided and how such services can be improved. This essay illustrates how undergraduate students can use survey design techniques to help community service organizations collect data on program effectiveness and program development

Election Reform After the 2000 Election

The 2000 presidential election, marked by a crisis in the electoral process in the state of Florida and a challenge to the legitimacy of the election of George W. Bush, sparked a national debate on the quality of American democracy. The discussion quickly came to focus on technical problems associated with voting practices, including issues related to voter registration, ballot counting, ballot machinery, and election administration. Numerous commissions weighed in on these issues and made recommendations for reforming various aspects of the election system.1 Congress debated election reform and ultimately passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) at the end of the 107th Session of Congress in 2002. Legislatures in all fifty states also took up the issue, and many states passed measures to improve election administration

Beyond the End of the Beginning

The chapters in this volume contain detailed analyses of election reform politics in eleven states from 2001 to 2003. Over this three-year period, the states and Congress passed legislation that was designed to address the many serious problems with election administration that came to light during the 2000 presidential election. Each of the case studies revealed important insights about how the individual states responded to the 2000 presidential election and the requirements and incentives of the HAVA. The common framework of nine key factors for analyzing reform politics enables us to compare the results of the individual studies and determine the extent to which each of the factors helps to account for the three major types of outcomes: leading major reform states, incremental change states, and late-developing reform states. Taken together, the findings provide the raw materials for developing general conclusions about policy adoption in the area of election law, and insights into the future of election reform

Election Reform: Politics and Policy

Election Reform: Politics and Policy is the definitive work on the manner in which policymakers responded to the crisis that emerged from the 2000 presidential election. Editors Daniel Palazzolo and James Ceaser address two fundamental questions: How did the states and Congress respond to the problems in election law and administration that became apparent in the 2000 election? What factors explain the variety of ways in which different states responded? The book includes a theoretical framework for explaining election reform, an account of the Help America Vote Act, and in-depth studies of election law reform in eleven selected states. Anyone interested in the election crisis of 2000 and in the lessons learned from a major transformation of our electoral institutions will find this book essential reading. The book also contributes to the academic literature on policy innovation in the United States.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1143/thumbnail.jp

Election Reform in Virginia: Deliberation and Incremental Change

Several key factors explain the incremental approach to election law after the 2000 presidential election. The close election in Florida spurred lawmakers in Virginia to create the Joint Subcommittee Studying Virginia\u27s Election Process and Voting Technologies. This special subcommittee was formed to learn more about the capacity of election administration. Through that process, Virginia officials concluded that the election system was fundamentally sound, though they identified a need for additional resources to increase staff, improve polling place access for disabled voters, and clean up registration rolls. A declining fiscal outlook limited budget resources and constrained the legislature from adopting the joint subcommittee\u27s modest recommendations for additional spending. Interestingly, partisan differences over the most controversial issue-recounting ballots-were overcome as a result of deliberation. The joint subcommittee\u27s study created a forum within which a leading Republican senator changed his initial preference for how to recount ballots, and his view prevailed against the wishes of the Republican majority in the House of Delegates. Thus, in the case of Virginia, the deliberative process altered the policy views of a key committee leader, who in turn affected the outcome of the legislative process during the 2002 session. The legislature continued to pass incremental changes to upgrade the electoral system during 2003