On Capitol Hill : The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948-2000

Rating:
Summary: This is a wonderful book
Review: I saw this guy on C-SPAN a few days ago with Brian Lamb so decided to buy the book. it is one of the best books I have read in decades about politics (and I am political junkie guy constantly reading this stuff). It is sweeping history of how Congress changed in the 1970s and what is going on today. The book has lots of intellectual heft, but it is written in fun and easy to understand style. This guy has very interesting points to make about how conservatives have done so well. There is a chapter on scandal and the Watergate Babies and reforms that was just brilliant. I hope more people read this book and have this guy on their show. Can't think of another book like it.



Rating:
Summary: A Book only a Political Scientist could love!
Review: The first problem with this book is evident at first glance: what on earth is Bill Clinton doing on the cover of a book on internal congressional reforms over a 50 year period? The two Members of Congress on the cover [some relevance there at least!] have their backs to the camera. It is an inexplicable, even bizarre choice, to illustrate the contents of the book. I can only imagine someone with a bad, and irrational, case of Clintonitis chose it.

The impenetrable style of this book goes out of its way to turn off all but the most committed reader - reading it is like an uphill slog. Why do political scientists write only for one another? No student without an already extensive background in the U.S. Congress and its history would be able to glean much from it: the dense writing presumes far too much knowledge in reducing complicated episodes to catch phrases without explanation, like "the subcommittee era". I had thought I might use this book in the classroom -- but far too much advance knowledge and prep work would be required to get students [even graduate students] ready to read this rambling work.

The author uses terms often that differ from their usual meaning - perhaps he builds on his earlier books in so doing - but that presumes a lot on the part of the reader and is guaranteed to sow confusion. For example, the phrase "the committee process" is used repeatedly when the inferred meaning is really the "seniority system." The committee process - a differentiation of legislative workload though panels and subpanels with distinct jurisdictions - is what most readers would understand that phrase to mean. Yet the author makes repeated statements such as that on p. 94 which says ". . . large numbers of Democrats [were elected] into Congress who did not feel loyal to the committee process." Tell that to the Freshmen scrambling for favorable committee assignments and the incumbents lobbying for switches to even more powerful panels!

Another significant problem is the lack of clear lines between the House and the Senate. The subject of reform should take into account the different nature of the rules of procedures and internal norms of behavior of two distinct institutions. Yet the author continually merges them within the same paragraph, as if the Congress were acting as a unit, trusting that the reader will know that the two institutions comprising that unit are not working in concert, but at different paces, with different players, different agendas, and different outcomes.

The author takes pride in explaining his approach to reform is different because it is chronological rather than topical. Sadly, it is chronological at the expense of the reader. For example, as one wag put it, the best reform Congress could undertake, is to "stop having scandals." Yet, scandals are covered unevenly because they occurred unevenly over time in the 50 year period studied. The author never does the work of drawing together for the reader the enormous impact the public's reaction to scandal had to the moment when the enactment of an actual reform became possible.

The result is an enormous unevenness in his narrative about what drove reform. He repeatedly emphasizes the contributions of an undefined "reform coalition," without noting how that coalition changed in composition over time. And, most importantly, he leaves out the role of the public - the constituents' response to headlines, which paved the way for reform faster than years of off and on collegial persuasion. While he spends plenty of text on all the juicy details of the sexual harassment charges against Senator Robert Packwood, he barely mentions the House Post Office, House Bank, and House patronage scandals which led directly to an enormous outcry that enabled the new Republican House majority to totally revamp the administrative structure of the House of Representatives.

Inexplicably, the author also omits signficant reforms of the Speaker Gingrich era - the creation of THOMAS to make legislative information accessible to the general public, and not just available to paid lobbyists and special interest groups in the know - and he barely mentions the new term limits on committee chairmanships and omits totally Gingrich's policy of appointment of freshmen to key committees like Ways and Means and Appropriations - committees that had only been earned by seniority before. These are significant omissions when discussing congressional reforms in the 1990's.

The author mischaracterizes some of the congressional media: the newspaper, Roll Call's coverage, he writes on p. 249, was expanded to cover the "social scene in Washington." And The Hill, its competitor, also expanded to cover the same. In truth, both publications expanded away from social news and gossip years ago to concentrate on the politics of legislative considerations and the leadership strategies behind them. In fact, "Roll Call" has broken some important stories about Congressional activities, and become the trough from which the New York Times and the Washington Post have fed. In addition, the reach of C-SPAN is attributed to millions of viewers when the number given is that of households at the time that subscribed to cable TV, and not households actually watching that network.

This, and other passages in the book, reveal the author's academic focus is just that - too isolated from the realities of life on Capitol Hill and its dynamics. The book has very little by way of real voices in it - a significant flaw which contributed to making it the lifeless and droning narrative that it is.

Rating:
Summary: READ THIS BOOK!
Review: This is an outstanding book about American politics. I found it to be one of those rare books that is clearly written by a real scholar but fun to read.

The book explains how Congress got to where it is today. It shows that Congress was a very, very different place in the 1950s, and how liberals tried to change the way Congress worked. But in the end, conservatives proved to be much better at thriving in the new system.

Zelizer shows why scandal has become so important in modern politics, and why Congress seems to be unable to accomplish much these days. It also does a great job showing how changes in the media changed the way the House and Senate were.

This is terrific, read it, enjoy it and learn. Much better than most books out there.

Rating:
Summary: exciting, easy to read and jam-packed with info
Review: This is the best history of modern American politics that I have ever read in 40 years--a great look into how we ended up where we are today in American politics. One excellent chapter looks at how the civil rights struggle created demands for reform, and another looks at how the conservative movement used the reforms for their own purposes in the 1980s and 1990s. This book has it all--scandal, elections, inside political battles, civil rights and more. Everyone interested in history and politics should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: This is the first serious and interesting history I have read about the modern American political system. The author (historian) looked at a zillion archives and put together a breathtaking overview of how congress changed so much since the New Deal period.

The book is filled with good stories, like Hubert Humphrey pissing off southern colleagues when he comes to the Senate and this guy Richard Bolling whose reforms go down in flames. I also learned lots about why liberals lost out to conservatives on Capitol Hill.

I highly recommend this.