Congressional Party Leaders and the Permanent Campaign

Barbara Sinclair, University of California - Los Angeles

"We live in the era of the permanent campaign," Ornstein and Mann claim. "[T]he process of campaigning and the process of governing have each lost their distinctiveness. Just as significant, the process of campaigning has become in many ways the dominant partner of the two."¹ This essay focuses on the congressional party leadership. Are they engaged in a permanent campaign? If so, how does this manifest itself in how the leaders perform their jobs? I examine electioneering and governing and then consider whether, in fact, campaigning has become dominant. The essay ends with a brief evaluation of the impact of the changes that have occurred on Congress's capacity to govern.

Congress's top leaders are party leaders and, as such, they have always had a strong interest in the electoral fortunes of their fellow party members. Nevertheless the congressional party leaders do play a much bigger role in congressional elections now than they used to. The four congressional party groups have long had campaign committees: the House committees date from the nineteenth century; the Senate committees were established in 1916. During much of the twentieth century, however, these committees raised limited amounts of money and did not distribute that money strategically. House Democrats, for example, tended to give every incumbent an equal -- and modest -- sum, whether or not the member faced a tough race.²

Since the 1980s, fund-raising by the congressional committees has grown exponentially (Corrado 2000). Furthermore, leaders began to distribute funds -- to incumbents and non-incumbent candidates -- strategically. Maximizing the party's electoral success -- not currying favor with safe and senior incumbents -- became the aim. Growth in size and professionalization of staff accompanied these changes and were necessary to them. The congressional campaign committees have become large, resource-rich, sophisticated organizations that operate continuously.

The top party leaders are very much engaged in the campaign committees' operations. They choose or strongly influence the choice of the chairs of the campaign committees. They are almost always the committees' top draws at fund-raising events; extensive travel to raise money has become expected of party leaders. Thus, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert reportedly raised $6 million dollars in the first half of 1999.³ In addition to the money leaders raise for the campaign committees and for individual members, many have established leadership PACs.

In recent years, the campaign committees or closely affiliated entities have occasionally funded mass media advertising in the districts of vulnerable opposition party members. In May 2001, for example, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee teamed up with the Democratic National Committee to run one-minute radio spots criticizing Republicans for, in Minority Leader Dick Gephardt's words, "Their lack of leadership on the energy crisis."⁴ In December 2001, the DCCC ran ads in several districts hard hit by the recession accusing Republicans of "giving billions of dollars to large corporations while shortchanging Americans who have lost their jobs and their health insurance."⁵

Beyond these directly campaign-centered activities, member have increasingly come to expect their leaders to further the party's electoral prospects by protecting and burnishing the party image. Party image, largely though not exclusively through its relationship to party identification, has long been understood to affect voters' choices (Cox and McCubbins 1992). However, for reasons to be explored below, members of Congress now believe the party image is more vulnerable, more malleable, and more important to party electoral success.

Congressional leaders have always had contact with the press and undoubtedly have always attempted to use those interactions to burnish their party's image. Thus, Sam Rayburn as Speaker in the 1950s briefly answered questions from Capitol Hill reporters daily before House sessions. These Speaker's press conferences continued until Newt Gingrich's Speakership. Gingrich opened the press conferences to television and soon found the media were using them to put him on the spot about his ethics problems. Although he discontinued the sessions, Gingrich and other Republican House leaders continued to have extensive contact with the press. On the Senate side, both the majority leader and the minority leader have regularly briefed the press.

The relationship between congressional leaders and the press underwent a sea change in 1981. Previously the Speaker's press conference and other contacts had been low keyed affairs, focusing quite narrowly on the work of Congress. When, in the 1980 elections, Reagan defeated Carter and the Republicans won control of the Senate, Speaker Tip O'Neill became the nation's highest ranking Democrat and the press came to him to speak for his party. The dramatic character of the battles of Reagan's first year as well as Republicans' attempts to make O'Neill the symbol of the Democratic party -- "big, fat, and out of control -- just like the federal government" -- increased O'Neill's visibility and his media access.

Given the political pressure they were under, House Democrats demanded that O'Neill use his high visibility spokesman role to defend them and their party. O'Neill significantly enhanced his media operation; when his highest-ranked leadership staffer retired, O'Neill replaced him with the media-savvy Chris Matthews; O'Neill began to appear on television (Farrell 2001, chapter 24). Since that time, all the top party leaders have perceived media relations as a key part of their job and have equipped themselves with multiple press aides.

Since the early 1980s, congressional leaders' media access has varied with political circumstances. They have, however, continued to be seen as public spokesmen for their party in a way that was not the case before O'Neill. In 2001, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Republican Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott appeared more frequently on the Sunday talk shows than any senator other than John McCain; the only House member of the 16 most frequent congressional guests was Democratic Minority Leader Dick Gephardt.⁶

Members expect and leaders use their spokesman role to attempt to position their party favorably for the next election. In a recent example, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle delivered a major speech on the economy that attempted to frame the debate on the budget and recession to the Democrats' advantage. Because Daschle is now the highest ranked Democrat in Washington -- and probably also because the press interpreted the speech as the beginning of the election year "Democratic offensive on the economy" -- the speech received considerable attention on television news as well as in the print press.⁷

Neither leaders nor members believe the top leadership can or should carry the PR burden alone. Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s a number of party entities -- especially the caucus/conferences and the policy committees -- greatly enhanced their ability to take part in the enterprise of communicating the party message. These party organs engage in extensive press contacts -- sending out press releases, talking to reporters, holding press conferences. They also produce a great deal of information -- everything from "the message of the day" to fat issue briefs -- for dissemination to their membership. This constitutes a service to members but is also an attempt to nudge them into "singing from the same hymn book." The "message of the day" is often prominently displayed and the arguments most favorable to the party's position are emphasized, often in the form of "talking points"; the hope is that members will use these messages in their contacts with their local media.

Various party organs also facilitate member media-contact activities. The Democratic Technology and Communications Committee has television studios, extensive video editing capabilities, and facilities for satellite hookups with local television stations that senators can use; the staff helps senators organize media events by doing everything from contacting reporters and selling them the story to reserving the room (Sellers 1999). The Senate Republican leadership provides similar services for its members through the Republican Conference. By helping their members communicate efficiently with the media, leaders hope to enhance those members' reelection prospects directly and to enlist their participation in promoting the party message, with the expectation that this will aid all the members of the party.

In the House, both parties have institutionalized an important facet of their member-based message activities. House Democrats have a Message Group consisting of party leaders and particularly media savvy members who meet daily to agree upon a message of the day; a larger group of members is charged with disseminating the message, especially through the one-minute speeches that begin the House's legislative day. The House Republican Theme Team performs a function similar to the larger Democratic group; made up of 50 members, it is responsible for "communicating the majority party's legislative issues, plans and ideas . . . during speeches given on the House floor".⁸ The one-minute speeches sometimes take on the character of set-piece battles with waves of well trained troops from the two parties waging a sometimes bitter rhetorical fight.

Why this change? Certainly the escalating costs of campaigns is part of the answer. Leaders are capable of raising more money than rank and file members are. However, the leadership's greater role in protecting and enhancing the party image and conveying the party's message has more complex roots. When in 1980, to everyone's surprise, Republicans won control of the Senate and made big gains in the House, both parties realized that control of both chambers might well be up for grabs. To serve his party's political and policy goals, President Ronald Reagan effectively used his media skills and his position to paint a negative portrait of the Democratic party. From Reagan, Democrats learned that defining issues and party images to one's benefit was both possible and important and that competing as individuals with a media-savvy president was a losing strategy (see Sinclair 1995).

The very narrow margins and the switches in party control in the 1990s reinforced these lessons for members of both parties. Holding or gaining control of the chamber became an immediate and primary consideration for most members. The congressional parties came to expect their senior members to participate actively in party fund-raising. When Republicans made decisions on chairmanships at the beginning of the 107^th House, how much a contender had raised for the party reelection coffers figured prominently as a criterion of selection (Brewer and Deering forthcoming 2002). Senior members are also expected to assist in conveying the party message -- especially through highlighting "good" issues via hearings and legislation, when possible. It is the top party leaders who oversee these efforts and, because of their greater media access, serve as the party's premier spokesmen.

The increasing party cohesion and party polarization that began in the early 1980s was probably a prerequisite for this greater leadership role as party image shapers. After all, members will benefit from and so allow their leaders to assume that role only if there is some reasonable level of agreement among the members of a party on the content of an electorally-helpful party image. The intensified party polarization also raised the stakes. Members increasingly came to see the policy consequences of opposition party control of the chamber as disastrous.

Party Leaders and Governing

Those who decry the permanent campaign argue that campaigning with its emphasis on the next election has displaced governing. Party leaders spend their time posturing and name calling in public rather than working together and compromising in private. Everyone wants an issue rather than a law. I argue here that while governing has taken on and even requires some campaign-like aspects, governing has not been relegated to a poor second place. A different political context requires different strategies and techniques.

Traditionally congressional party leaders were inside players. In the post-World War II era, they acted as brokers among party factions and played little policy role. The congressional parties did not set priorities or policy directions. That was left to the president or to the individual committees.

Agenda setting clearly is a centrally important governing function and it is one in which the congressional parties now regularly engage. The Contract with America, the best know instance of congressional party agenda setting, was an innovation in that no congressional leader had previously made a policy agenda the centerpiece of a nationalized congressional campaign. Previous congressional leaders had, however, developed agendas to guide legislative action and to enhance the credit their party could claim from legislative productivity. Most notably, Speaker Jim Wright in 1987 at the beginning of the 100^th Congress had proposed an agenda consisting of issues such as clean water legislation, a highway bill, and aid to the homeless that were broadly supported within the Democratic party. He relentlessly kept the spotlight on those items and used leadership resources aggressively to facilitate their passage. By the end of the Congress, all the items had become law and the Democratic Congress had gained considerable favorable publicity. Thereafter Democrats expected their Speaker to engage in agenda setting activities.

Both parties in both chambers now generate and publicize party agendas each congress and often update them every year (see Sinclair 2001). These agendas are intended to serve electoral but also policy ends. The parties try their best to enact their agendas into law.

Congressional party leaders do use campaign techniques in their attempts to make policy. Partisan and ideological polarization and the suffusion of the political arena by news media with a negative bias and a voracious appetite for conflict lead to a more conflictual politics that is played out much more on the public stage, often with audience reactions determining who wins and who loses. Within such an environment, political actors adept at using the media to push their issues to the center of the agenda and to frame the debate to favor their position are greatly advantaged; yielding the public forum to one's opponents is a recipe for policy, as well as electoral, defeat. Bargaining behind closed doors still plays an important role in policy making. The congressional party leaders -- and, of course, the president as well -- use campaign techniques to attempt to enhance their bargaining positions going into negotiations.

The PR wars that accompanied the budget battles of the 1990s illustrate the dynamic. Both the president and his congressional opposition -- Bush and congressional Democrats in 1990, Clinton and House Republicans in 1995, for example -- used multifaceted and quite sophisticated means to attempt to frame the debate to their advantage in anticipation of the closed-door bargaining that would inevitably be necessary.

The congressional parties have become adept at orchestrating special events to garner press coverage. In the late 1980s, for example, Democrats staged a series of events around the issue of plant closing notification; because they would make good copy, sympathetic victims of sudden plant closures were prominently featured. The purpose of the campaign was to pressure President Reagan not to veto the bill, and the campaign succeeded.

Senate rules, unlike those in the House, give the minority a great deal of leverage and, in the 1990s, exploiting Senate prerogatives to attempt to seize agenda control from the majority party became a key minority party strategy. The lack of a germaneness requirement for amendments to most bills severely weakens the majority party's ability to control the floor agenda. The minority may be able to offer its agenda as amendments to other bills and, if the effort is accompanied by an adept PR campaign, may be able to force it through the chamber. In 1996 Senate Democrats used this strategy to enact a minimum wage increase and, since then, they forced highly visible floor debate on tobacco regulation, campaign finance reform, gun control, and managed care reform, all issues the then majority party Republicans would have preferred to avoid. Certainly positioning the party favorably for the next election is one objective of the strategy; but so is passing legislation. In the second half of 2001, Republicans now in the minority attempted to use a variant of the strategy to force votes on President Bush's judicial nominees. By holding up appropriations bills, Minority Leader Trent Lott hoped to gain enough public attention to the issue to generate pressure on the majority Democrats to speed the confirmation process.

Has Campaigning Displaced Governing?

Has the process of campaigning displaced the process of governing? Certainly campaign techniques are increasingly used in governing, and the two processes have each lost their distinctiveness. It is also indisputable that congressional party leaders and members care deeply about the next election and retaining or winning partisan control. And members do expect their leaders to further the party's electoral fortunes by promoting the party message. But none of that means that members and leaders no longer care about making policy. Partisan and ideological polarization can make the compromises governing requires excruciatingly difficult, but this is because members do care about policy. And, despite the difficulties, Congress does continue to play its part in governing. It may not be fast and it may not be pretty, but the essential legislative work does get done.

1. Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, eds., The Permanent Campaign and Its Future (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 2000), 219.

2. Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House (New York: Random House, 1987), 207.

3. Anthony Corrado, "Running Backwards: The Congressional Money Chase," in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, ed. Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 2000), 100.

4. Washington Times, 26 May 2001.

5. CQ Campaign Insider, 13 January 2001.

6. Roll Call, 10 January 2002.

7. See the New York Times, 4 January 2002, and other media web sites.

8. House Republican Conference web site, http://www.gop.gov/.

Brewer, Paul R., and Christopher J. Deering. Forthcoming 2002. "Interest Groups, Campaign Fundraising, and Committee Chair Selection: House Republicans Play 'Musical Chairs.'" In The Interest Group Connection: Electioneering, Lobbying, and Policymaking in Washington, edited by Paul S. Herrnson, Ronald G. Shaiko, and Clyde Wilcox. New York: Chatham House Publishers.

Cox, Gary, and Mathew McCubbins. 1992. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Farrell, John. 2001. Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century. Boston: Little Brown.

Sellers, Patrick J. 1999. "Leaders and Followers in the U.S. Senate." Paper delivered at the Conference on Senate Exceptionalism, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., October 21-23.

Sinclair, Barbara. 1995. Legislators, Leaders and Lawmaking. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Sinclair, Barbara. 2001. "The Dream Fulfilled? Congressional Parties 50 Years After the APSA Report." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association.