Chapter 20: Internal Pressures

The 535 members of Congress—100 senators and 435 representatives—often come under intense pressure to side with their colleagues from the same party, region, or special caucus. These internal pressures, which may be formal or unspoken, and often occur out of public view, are essential for Congress to get its work done. Indeed, internal congressional dynamics sometimes overshadow outside pressure from constituents, lobbyists, the media, and the president.

As Congress has changed, however, so have the ways in which internal pressures are brought to bear on its members. Until the 1960s, legislators usually found it in their best interest to follow the advice often given by the legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn, D-Texas: “To get along, you have to go along.” A member who cooperated with the leadership was often rewarded with a choice committee assignment, a coveted public works project, or a display of personal approval from the leadership, any of which could enhance the member’s prestige and effectiveness. By the same token, a member who defied the leadership on important issues might be relegated to a minor committee, denied the benefits of “pork barrel” appropriations, and shunned by the leadership.

Beginning in the 1960s, however, and continuing until approximately 1990, several factors combined to make individual members of Congress less dependent on their political parties and party leaders, and therefore less responsive to traditional pressure tactics. Two important developments were the growing role of television in congressional campaigns and the rise of special interest groups who were armed with political action funds for favored candidates. As members found that they could campaign more effectively as independent-minded powers in their own right, party allegiances weakened. Legislators no longer owed their seats to the party apparatus but to their constituents, their political consultants, and their campaign contributors.

During the 1970s, Congress itself reduced the price of acting independently. Structural and procedural reforms eroded the arbitrary power of senior party members, broadened the influence of subcommittees, and made the processes that determined committee assignments and the selection of committee chairs more democratic.

But during the decade of the 1990s, the nation became more politically polarized than it had been in decades, with liberals moving to the left and conservatives moving to the right. As the country moved that way, so did Congress. And while senior party members did not regain all the power that they had enjoyed earlier in the twentieth century, the decade of the 1990s saw a resurgence of party discipline as a major source of internal pressure, particularly in the House. After narrowly taking control of the House in 1995, Republicans spent months voting in lockstep on contentious issues. With the chamber split closely between the two parties and the number of conservative southern Democrats greatly diminished, members came under as much pressure as ever to support their party—pressure that reached its apex in 1998 when the House took the extraordinary step of impeaching President Bill Clinton on a nearly party-line vote. (See “President Bill Clinton,” p. 404.)

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