Legislating in the Dark

Much of the current work on party power and influence in Congress focuses on the ability of leaders to control the legislative agenda or to dole out pork or other incentives. Yet, another school of thought argues that legislative leaders have relatively little sway over their rank-and-file. James M. Curry argues that we have been overlooking a key source of the power held by congressional leaders: their ability to withhold or provide information from and to their rank and file. By focusing the attention of lawmakers on certain information—or making that information difficult to obtain—leaders attempt to move them to support the positions of their party and their committee chairs. Typically, members of Congress lack the time and resources necessary to study or become deeply involved in most bills and have to rely on information and cues from others in deciding whether to support or oppose legislation. Having those resources, legislative leaders can open or close the informational tap, as it were, to suit their purposes. Take, for example, the Democratic leadership’s handling of the final version of the financial stimulus bill in 2009. Although the bill was over 1,100 pages, Congress was given only 13 hours to study it before debate was to begin. Curry explains how this strategy was designed as much to keep Democrats in the dark, as it was Republicans. Democratic leaders knew that if they could avoid losing individual members over whatever details of the act might attract attention, the bill would pass on a straight party-line vote. By becoming the font of information for a bill that nobody had (been given) time to read, they could selectively highlight or bury pertinent items. The bill was passed four days later. Ultimately, Curry shows that, far from an aberration, the process by which the stimulus bill was considered and passed is no more than a common example of leadership-driven lawmaking in the U.S. House of Representatives today.