Representation and Governance: The Great Legislative Trade-off

Abstract

philosophical responses. I want to be more practical-minded. I begin with the observation, offered in detail by Nelson Polsby, that the U.S. Congress is a very unusual legislative animal.5 Most of the world's legislatures are mere arenas (Polsby's term) for debate, deliberation, and possibly oversight of the executive. Even those based on the Westminster model, including the British Parliament itself, are little more than deliberative forums offering only limited checks on the executive. Indeed, the vote of no confidence, once a key check of legislature on executive, is now ineffectual inasmuch as the executive determines which votes will constitute no-confidence judgments. The U.S. Congress is decidedly, even uniquely, different. It is transformative (Polsby, again) in its effects on policy and politics. In a separation-of-powers arrangement it is, in Richard Neustadt's memorable phrase, a separated institution sharing powers.6 Why? How has it remained separated? How has it maintained a share of power? In short, is it possible to isolate the foundations of its capacity to participate in governance and then to determine the effect of recent procedural changes on these foundations? In the remainder of this article, which focuses principally on the House, I advance a partial answer to these questions. In a nutshell my answer is that the U.S. Congress remains an active governing agent and has not been swallowed up by the executive as has so frequently happened elsewhere, because it has fashioned and refined an effective divisionand specialization-of-labor institution capable of attracting and retaining talented and ambitious politicians. This, I claim, is the stunning achievement of the U.S. Congress and is the foundation of its capacity to share powers with the executive. It is against this standard that recent reform