11.4: Legislator Behavior

Representatives and senators are often referred to as legislators or lawmakers, in recognition of their primary role of making laws. It is true that much of what Congress does falls under the umbrella of legislative activity. However, members of Congress also regularly engage in activities less directly connected to the legislative process.

In keeping with their role of representing the people who elected them, members of Congress and their staffs often use their positions of authority to provide services to constituents on an individual basis. This casework generally involves members contacting bureaucratic agencies in the executive branch to resolve particular issues brought to their attention by their constituents. Many of the letters, phone calls, and emails representatives and senators receive from the people they represent are not demands for them to vote for or against bills but rather requests for help with personal matters — lost or delayed Social Security checks, stalled immigration paperwork or payments for government contracts, letters of recommendation to military academies, and the like. Each case may only really matter to a single person or family, but members nevertheless try to fulfill as many casework requests as possible to develop a good reputation as legislators who care about the folks back home in their state or district.

Congress also uses its power of oversight to check the executive branch. When a Cabinet department or agency fails to do its job due to incompetence or corruption, congressional committees issue subpoenas and hold hearings to determine the extent of the problem and how it can be remedied. Cabinet secretaries and agency heads embroiled in scandal often find themselves “hauled before a committee” to account for their actions or those of their subordinates. Congressional hearings are not formal trials where the accused is subject to legal punishment if found guilty, but they can embarrass the subpoenaed officials (and the presidents who oversee them) and may lead to firings or demotions.

How and how much individual members of Congress choose to make use of the activities available to them depends upon a complex interaction of competing motivations. Contrary to the stereotype of the out-of-touch politician, many members have strong desires to act as true public servants and to enact policies that are in the interests of their constituents and the country as a whole. However, they also have an interest in promoting the success of their party (both within the chamber and in American politics more generally), as doing so will help it win or maintain a congressional majority, earn coveted committee chair positions, and pursue policy goals. Furthermore, they have strong individual motivations — reelection, status within the chamber, fame outside of it, and sometimes ambitions for higher office or comfortable careers as highly paid lobbyists after their retirement from Congress.

The times when these public, partisan, and personal motivations conflict often provide the most galling examples of Congress’s “brokenness.” The House and Senate are often mired in gridlock, unable to pass even widely popular and clearly necessary legislation, because one or both parties are unwilling to put aside their other goals to legislate in a bipartisan manner. When Congress does come together to pass bills, they are often loaded with pork, discretionary spending on pet projects in specific states or congressional districts (a potato research grant in Idaho, a new tennis court in Connecticut, a teapot museum in North Carolina, and so on). These spending items often sound more like undeserved giveaways than wise uses of taxpayer dollars, but they allow members of Congress to brag about having brought federal funding back to their constituents the next time they run for reelection. Individual members will also sometimes buck their party’s position on controversial votes (to the chagrin of their party’s whips) to avoid taking a position that could cost them electoral support in their state or district.

The degree to which members of Congress seem to orient their behavior around the goal of reelection — skipping votes to campaign or raise funds, inserting “earmarks” into bills to bring pork to their constituencies, going against their party to avoid damaging their popularity back home — strikes many Americans as distasteful, selfish, or even unethical. But being reelection-focused does not necessarily prevent a member from being an honest or good legislator. Senators and representatives can only use their power for as long as they retain their seats, which makes reelection a prerequisite for most of their other goals. Moreover, the fact that members care so much about reelection can be a good thing if it motivates them to act in the best interests of the constituents they represent (and on whose votes their legislative careers depend). Reelection is not merely a mechanism for voters to retain good and effective politicians; it is also an incentive for those politicians to do a good and effective job legislating. In some ways, we should be pleased that members of Congress care enough about being reelected to behave in ways that enable them to keep their seats term after term.

Term limits for members of Congress are a perennially popular reform according to public opinion, and several states impose term limits on their state legislators. Supporters of term limits argue that forcing legislators to retire after a specified number of terms prevents them from becoming “career politicians” and allows for more electoral competition and fresh ideas. Opponents counter that term limits rob legislatures of experienced members and remove the incentive of reelection that promotes good behavior on the part of legislators.