In the five years since Congress A to Z was last published in 2008, control of one chamber of Congress—the central institution of the Founders' plan for the new nation's federal government—changed hands once again, illustrating both the ferment and the intractability of divided power in Washington, D.C. In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans swept their Democratic counterparts out of the House to take control of the chamber for the first time in four years. Though the GOP managed to hold onto to the House two years later, Democrats maintained their majority in the Senate in both 2010 and 2012, confounding earlier political expectations. And former Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama overcame the 2010 landslide in the House to notch a solid reelection victory in 2012.

The rapidly shifting situation affirmed the deep divisions that are the hallmark of 21st century politics. The split between “Red America” and “Blue America” has grown as the nation has developed its own separate information networks, through the news media and Internet, which have encouraged the demonization of the other side and discouraged bipartisanship. In the thirty-two states that supported Democrat Bill Clinton for president in 1992, forty-four Democrats and twenty Republicans held those states' seats in the Senate, a sign that Republicans could win even in Democratic presidential states. But the twenty-six states that voted for Obama in 2012 sent forty-three Democrats and just nine Republicans to the Senate. Only five Senate candidates that year won elections in states in which the other party's presidential nominee prevailed.

In the House, Democrats in 2012 captured the majority of the overall popular vote and scored victories over Republicans in the Northeast, West and upper Midwest. But Republicans benefitted from the redrawing of congressional districts following the 2010 census that enabled GOP legislatures to put numerous Democratic incumbents at risk, especially those in the South.

Obama's presidency was marked from the start by near-unanimous Republican opposition to his major initiatives. He got a $787 billion economic stimulus into law in 2009, and passed a bill in the House to reduce industrial emissions blamed for global warming, with just a handful of GOP votes. But his chief accomplishment, a sweeping revamp of the federal health care system, came without any Republican support. The highly controversial “Obamacare” measure, together with concerns that Obama's spending policies were causing the budget [Page xvi]deficit to spiral out of control, helped many GOP candidates oust veteran Democratic incumbents in 2010.

Many of those Republicans were affiliated with the “Tea Party” movement of limited government that took a dim view of compromise. As a result, Obama faced dramatic legislative showdowns in 2011 and 2012 over raising the federal debt ceiling and striking a long-term deal over taxes and spending. The inability to achieve the latter led to a “sequester” of steep automatic spending cuts. By mid-2013, one of the only major issues in which lawmakers in both parties appeared willing to find common ground was on comprehensive immigration reform. Republicans were willing to set aside their past disdain for providing illegal immigrants with a potential path to citizenship in the hope of boosting their electoral prospects among Hispanics, who have tended to overwhelmingly support Democrats.

Although 2013 brought the drama of a Democratic White House pitted against a Republican House, the accompanying divisiveness and partisanship had become all too familiar over the previous two decades. In the fall 1994 elections, Republicans captured control of Congress for the first time since the 1952 elections gave them a two-year majority. Partisanship is never far away from daily activity in Congress, but the period starting with GOP control in 1995 was defined by a deep divide between the two parties over not only legislative priorities but also basic philosophies of government and fundamental political agendas. The differences existed before, but Republicans had been unable to assert their beliefs against the long-standing Democratic majority, other than through the actions of the GOP presidents who controlled the White House for much of the period from 1952 to 1992.

Differences were exacerbated in the late 1990s by Republican hostility, principally in the House, toward Democratic president Bill Clinton. An unsuccessful House effort to remove Clinton from office through impeachment presaged the bitterness of the 2000 election, when Bush won the White House after recounts of disputed vote tallies in Florida were halted by the Supreme Court's 5–4 decision. Partisanship deepened over the next six years as Republicans, in control of both chambers much of that time, moved aggressively, and largely successfully, to enact their legislative agenda, often via heavy-handed use of rules and political muscle. Republicans showed little interest in aggressive oversight of the executive branch, preferring to give mostly solid support to White House actions. Democrats protested vigorously but, being in the minority, had no leverage. Only after gaining the majority in the 2006 elections were the Democrats—particularly in the House—able to exercise aggressive oversight in 2007 through a number of congressional committees. The return of Republican control to the House in 2010 saw the GOP also use its oversight powers aggressively against the Obama White House.

This new edition of Congress A to Z marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first edition published by Congressional Quarterly (CQ) in 1988. In updating the text for the sixth edition, editors noted—as they had during previous revisions—how much did not change in the operation, procedures, structure, and even fundamental attitudes of members, despite the partisanship and the raucous differences over the issues of the day. Political parties vied for supremacy, legislation [Page xvii]was passed, vast sums of money were appropriated, scandals occurred, and the public's view of Congress—if the polls were to be believed—remained low.

Congress A to Z is designed to help students, activists, interested citizens, and anyone concerned about the vitality of self-government in the United States understand better the ways in which the most representative institution of the federal government operates. Although only the president is elected by all the voters, Congress is selected by a vast array of voter subsets that arguably are as close a reflection of the views and concerns of citizens as can be obtained in a representative government. How this institution understands, reflects, and responds to these citizen concerns is of vital importance.

The original edition of Congress A to Z was planned and in large part written by Mary Cohn, for many years a senior editor at Congressional Quarterly. Significant portions of her work are continued in this edition. Subsequent editions were updated by many CQ reporters and editors, most recently by Chuck McCutcheon, a former CQ editor who is coauthor of National Journal's Almanac of American Politics. This edition was updated under the supervision of CQ Press acquiring editor Doug Goldenberg-Hart. The entries in Congress A to Z and its companion volumes on the presidency, the Supreme Court, elections, and the Constitution are arranged alphabetically and are extensively cross-referenced to guide readers to related information elsewhere in each book. Each volume is also available as an online edition.

The core of the Congress volume is a series of essays that provide overviews of major topics such as the House and the Senate, legislation, leadership, power of the purse, and war powers. Supporting the essays are shorter entries covering items mentioned in them and specific items related to Congress and legislation. Brief biographies of important congressional figures are included. An extensive appendix includes a variety of tables and other reference material for quick reference about facts and figures. A bibliography is arranged by subject.

Readers who need more extensive, in-depth explanations of Congress as an institution may wish to consult CQ Press's Guide to Congress, Seventh Edition, after reading the appropriate entries in Congress A to Z.

We hope that this volume, and the others that make up the American Government A to Z series, will achieve the simple goal underpinning all the books: to provide readers with easily understood, accurate information about Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, the elections that so dramatically influence these institutions, and the Constitution of the United States.