The Politics Of Divided Government

Gary Cox, Samuel Kernell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367295097
• eBook ISBN: 9781000304701
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Partisan conflict between the White House and Congress is now a dominant feature of national politics in the United States. What the Constitution sought to institute—a system of checks and balances—divided government has taken to extremes: institutional divisions so deep that national challenges like balancing the federal budget or effectively regulating the nation's savings and loans have become insurmountable. In original essays written especially for this volume, eight of the leading scholars in American government address the causes and consequences of divided party control. Their essays, written with a student audience in mind, take up such timely questions as: Why do voters consistently elect Republican presidents and Democratic congresses? How does divided control shape national policy on crucial issues such as the declaration of war? How have presidents adapted their leadership strategies to the circumstance of divided government? And, how has Congress responded in the way it writes laws and oversees departmental performance? These issues and a host of others are addressed in this compact yet comprehensive volume. The distinguished lineup of contributors promises to make this book "must" reading for both novice and serious students of elections, Congress, and the presidency.

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INTRODUCTION: GOVERNING A DIVIDED ERA

Gary W. Cox and Samuel Kernell

With rampant inflation and widespread labor unrest following on the heels of the decontrol of the wartime economy, in the fall of 1946 political observers agreed that President Harry Truman's Democrats would do poorly in the upcoming congressional elections. Few, however, appreciated just how severe the backlash against this long-standing incumbent party would be or predicted that the Republicans would take control of Congress. Politicians and pundits alike were unprepared to deal with divided party control of Congress and the presidency. The election returns, however, brought both face to face with just that situation.

Collective consternation over the prospect of divided government was vented in a torrent of extraordinary corrective proposals, all seeking either to restore unity or to prevent this unfortunate constitutional anomaly from arising again in the future. Even more extraordinary, in retrospect, than the volume of proposals is the seriousness with which those proposals were received.

Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright was fast off the mark, so much so that his proposal shared headlines with the election results. He called for President Truman to appoint a Republican secretary of state and then resign: With the vice presidency vacant, the new Republican appointee would go directly into the White House. Without some such drastic remedy, Fulbright argued, the nation faced an unstable international order like a "big helpless giant that is unable to make up its mind, unable to function" (Morris 1946, 19).

Congressional Republicans were understandably quite open to Fulbright's proposal. Surprisingly, so were many Democrats. Marshall Field, the prominent liberal Democratic publisher of the Chicago Sun, gave the idea a ringing editorial endorsement. It was picked up by the wire services and widely circulated by the nation's press ("Fulbright Invites" 1946, 3). President Truman initially dismissed Fulbright's proposal as unworthy of comment, but pursued by White House correspondents for a response, he eventually declared he was not about to alter the Constitution's prescription that he serve out his term.

Others with equally serious misgivings about divided government looked to the future. Senator Carl Hatch introduced a constitutional amendment to extend the terms of House members to four years and thereby eliminate midterm elections, which had produced the century's only other instances of divided government. With party voting prevalent in those days, proponents assumed that by aligning presidential and congressional elections, the House of Representatives and probably the Senate, too, would remain in the hands of the president's party.

Less drastic proposals simply called for extraconstitutional arrangements, such as having the president confer regularly with Republican congressional leaders. In these "summits," as they were then called, the politicians would hash out mutually acceptable policies to tide the country over until the next election, when the widely assumed Republican victory would return the political order to more familiar terrain. The president spurned these reforms as well.

The extent to which divided government was an aberration in 1946 is well documented in Table 1.1. There had been only three previous instances during the twentieth century, all at the midterm and each accompanied by turnover of party control of the White House in the next election. Contemporaries had no reason to doubt that the 1946 election would continue this pattern.

Table 1.1 also delineates the present era of divided party control, with Republicans holding the White House and Democrats encamped on Capitol Hill. Since their midterm victory in 1954, the Democrats have controlled the presidency in only three out of ten terms, and the Republicans have never captured both houses of Congress.

The prospect of divided party control no longer causes alarm. As it has become the norm, politicians and citizens alike appear to have

TABLE 1.1 Party Control of Congress and the Presidency, 1875-1992

Years	Presidency	House of Representatives	Senate
1875-1879	Republican	Democratic	Republican
1879-1881	Republican	Democratic	Democratic
1881-1883	Republican	Republican	Republican
1883-1885	Republican	Democratic	Republican
1885-1889	Democratic	Democratic	Republican
1889-1891	Republican	Republican	Republican
1891-1893	Republican	Democratic	Republican
1893-1895	Democratic	Democratic	Democratic
1895-1897	Democratic	Republican	Republican
1897-1911	Republican	Republican	Republican
1911-1913	Republican	Democratic	Republican
1913-1919	Democratic	Democratic	Democratic
1919-1921	Democratic	Republican	Republican
1921-1931	Republican	Republican	Republican
1931-1933	Republican	Democratic	Republican
1933-1946	Democratic	Democratic	Democratic
1947-1948	Democratic	Republican	Republican
1949-1952	Democratic	Democratic	Democratic
1953-1955	Republican	Republican	Republican
1955-1960	Republican	Democratic	Democratic
1961-1968	Democratic	Democratic	Democratic
1969-1976	Republican	Democratic	Democratic
1977-1980	Democratic	Democratic	Democratic
1981-1986	Republican	Democratic	Republican
1987-1992	Republican	Democratic	Democratic

made their accommodations. Republican presidents still campaign for their congressional compatriots, but their statements of how much better off the country would be if it were securely in their party's hands sound more wistful than serious. Growing Republican rumblings since 1990 in favor of a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress appear downright quixotic. Meanwhile, Democrats have greater reason to hope every four years that they might manage to win the presidency, but they are busy fortifying Congress's prerogatives and limiting those of the president as though they are pessimistic about their chances.

Many voters split their ballots as if intent on preserving divided party control. Some students of elections have speculated that the U.S. public has, in fact, found virtue in this type of control. Desiring low taxes and a government willing to resist the claims of special interests, many voters, according to this argument, find conservative Republican presidential candidates appealing. At the same time, however, these voters want to maximize the federal dollars to which their communities are entitled. So, they elect Democratic representatives, who believe more earnestly in these government programs and therefore can more credibly campaign for the services they will provide for the district. The result is a string of conservative Republican presidents and liberal Democratic congresses.

The Script of Divided Government

One of the central questions of this book concerns how the script of conservative presidents pitted against liberal congresses differs from the earlier one featuring unified Democratic party control, from which much of our current understanding of presidential-congressional relations is derived. When legislative and executive authority is unified, policymaking assumes the semblance of a cooperative enterprise. Presidents and their party colleagues in Congress differ among themselves in their constituencies and electoral calendar, but their electoral fortunes are linked by the favorable (and unfavorable) associations their performances in office imprint on their party's label. Whatever the ideological disputes among governing party members, they have a strategic interest in cooperating to produce an electorally attractive record of public policy. The incentive to cooperate renders the formal "checks" of the constitutional system, such as the veto, less relevant to these actors' performances than had been envisioned by the framers of the Constitution.

Under divided government, however, the formal authority assigned the branches becomes a vital asset as each party's politicians stave off encroachment by the other side. The opposition party in the legislature may find its electoral success, for example, lies in frustrating the president's performance. This, combined with the ideological distance represented by divided party control, is a recipe for conflict and impasse. It is reflected in the volume of Republican presidents' vetoes, in their efforts to centralize administration, and in the similarly unilateral methods Democratic congresses have employed to reduce Republican administrators' discretion in formulating and implementing policy.

Divided government will not always produce conflict and stalemate. On rare occasions, Democratic leaders have managed to muster two-thirds majorities in both chambers to override a veto. Far more commonly, overcoming partisan differences follows the traditional route of negotiation across the branches. But even here, divided government entails sp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• About the Contributors
• 1 INTRODUCTION: GOVERNING A DIVIDED ERA
• PART ONE FEDERAL CAUSES
• PART TWO FEDERAL CONSEQUENCES
• PART THREE COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES
• References
• About the Book and Editors
• Index