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As the U.S. Congress has steadily evolved since the Founding of our nation, so too has our understanding of the institution. The second edition of New Directions in Congressional Politics offers an accessible overview of the current developments in our understanding of America's legislative branch. Jamie L. Carson and Michael S. Lynch help students bridge the gap between roles, rules, and outcomes by focusing on a variety of thematic issues: the importance of electoral considerations, legislators' strategic behavior to accomplish objectives, the unique challenges of Congress as a bicameral institution in a polarized environment, and the often-overlooked policy outputs of the institution. This book brings together leading scholars of Congress to provide a general overview of the entire field. Each chapter covers the cutting-edge developments on its respective topic. As the political institution responsible for enacting laws, the American public regularly looks to the U.S. Congress to address the important issues of the day. The contributors in this volume help explain why staying atop the research trends helps us better understand these issues in the ever-changing field of American politics. New to the Second Edition New and updated chapters highlighting party recruitment, redistricting, women in Congress, the nationalization of Congressional elections, and the reassertion of Congressional oversight. A first look at Congressional-executive relations in the Trump era. Updated data through the 2018 Midterm elections.

Using polarization-selective two-dimensional infrared (2D IR) and infrared pump-probe spectroscopies, we study vibrational relaxation of the four cyanide stretching (νCN) vibrations found in [(NH3)5RuIIINCFeII(CN)5]− (FeRu) dissolved in D2O or formamide and [(NC)5FeIICNPtIV(NH3)4NCFeII(CN)5]4− (FePtFe) dissolved in D2O. These cyanide-bridged transition metal complexes serve as models for understanding the role high frequency vibrational modes play in metal-to-metal charge transfers over a bridging ligand. However, there is currently little information about vibrational relaxation and dephasing dynamics of the anharmonically coupled νCN modes in the electronic ground state of these complexes. IR pump-probe experiments reveal that the vibrational lifetimes of the νCN modes are ∼2 times faster when FeRu is dissolved in D2O versus formamide. They also reveal that the vibrational lifetimes of the νCN modes of FePtFe in D2O are almost four times as long as for FeRu in D2O. Combined with mode-specific relaxation dynamics measured from the 2D IR experiments, the IR pump-probe experiments also reveal that intramolecular vibrational relaxation is occurring in all three systems on ∼1 ps timescale. Center line slope dynamics, which have been shown to be a measure of the frequency-frequency correlation function, reveal that the radial, axial, and trans νCN modes exhibit a ∼3 ps timescale for frequency fluctuations. This timescale is attributed to the forming and breaking of hydrogen bonds between each mode and the solvent. The results presented here along with our previous work on FeRu and FePtFe reveal a picture of coupled anharmonic νCN modes where the spectral diffusion and vibrational relaxation dynamics depend on the spatial localization of the mode on the molecular complex and its specific interaction with the solvent.

In the struggle to control the federal bureaucracy, presidents have an overlooked but powerful tool: the recess appointment. By making recess appointments, presidents can fill vacancies without the advice and consent of the Senate. The authors delineate three conditions that define presidential unilateral powers and demonstrate how recess appointments fit within that paradigm. Presidents, the authors argue, should be more likely to make recess appointments to important policy-making positions, namely, major independent agencies. The authors compile a data set of every civilian nomination and recess appointment between 1987 and 2004. After controlling for other factors, the authors find strong support for their theory.

Objectives. Scholarship on the U.S. Senate has demonstrated the pivotal role the presiding officer can play when asked to interpret the chamber’s rules and precedents. Therefore, our objective is to broadly evaluate how questions of order are arbitrated in the U.S. Senate. Methods. Using a multinomial logistic regression, we estimate the effect of partisanship on adjudicating questions of order in the Senate before and after the institutionalization of the parliamentarian. Results. Our results indicate that while short-term partisan interests play an important role in determining how presiding officers interpret rules and precedents, the emergence of the Senate parliamentarian in the 1920s served to reduce uncertainty regarding procedural matters in the chamber. Conclusions. This change has led to fewer instances of partisan rulings on questions of order and raised the costs of executing a drastic change in Senate procedure via unorthodox procedures. However, the introduction of the parliamentarian has not reduced the likelihood a ruling is overturned. As such, more narrow procedural changes have been used to support majorities over time.

Objective. Congressional votes are only recorded if a member formally requests a roll call vote, and that request is supported by one-fifth of those present. Many votes pass viva voce and are never recorded. We seek to examine changing patterns of unrecorded voting, analyze the causes of these changes, and consider the implications of these changes for congressional scholars. Methods. Using landmark legislation from the 39th (1865-1867) to the 104th Congress (1995-1996), we analyze whether bills receive a recorded or unrecorded final passage vote. Results. We find that while the likelihood that a landmark law receives a recorded final passage vote fluctuates over time, electoral pressures consistently influence members' decisions to record their votes. Conclusions. We argue that studies of Congress must account for the roll call generating process when analyzing roll call data.

All major legislation in the House necessitates a special rule from the Rules Committee before it can be brought to the chamber floor. These rules often strictly limit floor amendments to bills considered by the House. Scholars of political parties have argued that the House majority party can bias policy output away from the floor median through its usage of restrictive rules. In this article, we argue that in order to secure the passage of restrictive rules, the majority often makes concessions to centrist legislators through the amending process. We examine this theory using a newly collected data set that includes all amendments considered by the Rules Committee during the construction of structured rules in the 109th, 110th, and 111th Congresses (2005-2010). Our results are mixed, but they do suggest that moderate members of the majority party often receive concessions via amendments for their support of the majority party's agenda-setting regime.

Scholars of political parties frequently note that a party's candidates are aided by the presence of a consistent and favourable party brand name. We argue that partisan success in maintaining a consistent position on important policy issues hinges on how their role in the government motivates their strategies about public policy formation. Specifically, when parties share control of government institutions, parties need to balance their electoral interest in promoting a consistent brand name with the need to generate public policy that leads to effective governance. When control is held by one party, the costs and benefits of effective governance are born entirely by the majority, absolving both parties of the need to compromise on the substance of policy. By employing item response theory methods to assess patterns of party voting on deficit issues, we find strong support for these hypotheses.

We investigate various theories of legislative coalition formation in a bicameral context. More specifically, we employ a quasi-experimental design to examine the size of coalitions in both the House and Senate across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This offers us considerable analytical leverage in investigating how changes in key institutional decision rules (the adoption of the Reed’s Rules in the House and the passage of cloture in the Senate) affect the likelihood of passing major policy reform. Our findings indicate that when the size of the majority party is adequately controlled for, changes in institutional structures do not have a significant effect on cross-chamber coalition formation.

The paper offers a reassessment of canonical attempts to address a fundamental question about majority rule: what is the relationship between the preferences held by the participants and the outcomes that emerge from their interactions? Previous work, based on the analysis of abstract spatial models or relying on data from real-world spatial experiments, has yielded a mass of contradictory findings. Our work applies a new technique for estimating the uncovered set, a concept that describes a fundamental constraint on majority rule: given the preferences of decision makers, which outcomes can emerge from majority-rule decision making? By applying the uncovered set to a series of previous experiments on majority rule, we show that their seemingly bizarre and incompatible findings are in fact consistent with a clearly specified theory of how sophisticated individuals make decisions in majority-rule settings.

The uncovered set has frequently been proposed as a solution concept for majority rule settings. This paper tests this proposition using a new technique for estimating uncovered sets and a series of experiments, including five-player computer-mediated experiments and 35-player paper-format experiments. The results support the theoretic appeal of the uncovered set. Outcomes overwhelmingly lie in or near the uncovered set. Furthermore, when preferences shift, outcomes track the uncovered set. Although outcomes tend to occur within the uncovered set, they are not necessarily stable; majority dominance relationships still produce instability, albeit constrained by the uncovered set.