Volume 10, Issue 2

In this issue, Forum authors return to some familiar Forum concerns about American politics, while introducing some new ones. Daniel Gitterman focuses on a hidden presidential power, the “power of the purchaser”. Andrew Taylor asks when Congress pushes back against presidential power and when it does not. Christopher Kimmel, Patrick Stewart, and William Schreckhise examine oral argument in the Supreme Court, to see what can rightfully be deduced from it. Terry Moe asks what we have learned the political role of the public bureaucracy and what we have not. Elizabeth Rigby looks at the federal struggle by way of state resistance to healthcare reform. Han Soo Lee inquires into the feedback effect of public opinion on presidential action. Jon Bond, Richard Fleisher, and Nathan Ilderton inquire into the real electoral contribution of the Tea Party. Robert Boatright compares the nature and fortunes of campaign finance reform in the United States and Canada. And Steven Schier and Todd Eberly seek to tease out an overarching pattern to American politics in our time. In book reviews, John Pitney takes issue with the partisan tilt of Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks , though he is not powerfully cheered by the more even-handed investigations of Robert Draper, Do Not Ask What Good We Do , while Nicol Rae applauds the proper partisan caution of Sean Trende, The Lost Majority .

As the CEO of a large federal bureaucracy, the president has the authority to dictate the contractual terms on which the government will do business with the private sector. By way of delegated statutory authority, executive order, and agency procurement rules, the president can call the shots. Anyone wishing to do business with the federal government must meet the president's terms and conditions. Presidents use this “power of the purchaser” to exercise political control over procurement and to influence public policy in areas unrelated to the federal government’s “efficient” purchase of goods and services. Procurement—and the power of the purchaser—must be viewed as a powerful weapon of coercion and redistribution in the president's policymaking arsenal.

This article presents a unique dataset of 72 cases from across American history in which Congress asserts itself in its relationship with the executive. Patterns suggest that assertiveness occurs in clusters pulled together by a unifying theme, such as Congress’ response to the Civil War and Cold War. Much of this is in direct response to executive antagonism and perceived abuse of power. The House tends to be the more assertive body in the early part of American history, the Senate more so today. Quantitative analyses show divided party control to best explain House assertiveness. By contrast, the Senate is generally assertive when member policy preferences are homogeneous and turnover is low. It also frequently pushes back against popular presidents. Both bodies assert themselves when their legislative workload is high.

In this article, we explore the possibility that Supreme Court oral argument matters, but not in the conventional sense. Instead of oral argument serving as a means for counsel to convince justices of their position, we posit that justices use oral argument to convince their brethren of their own views of the case under consideration. Accordingly, we hypothesize that justices will more readily interrupt and question counsel for the side with which they disagree, to counter counsels’ arguments and illuminate points that favor their own preferred outcome. We do so by examining the way the justices behave during oral argument in eleven salient cases before the U.S. Supreme Court during its 2009 and 2010 terms. We then link the interruptions to the individual justices’ votes and to the likelihood of authoring opinions, before drawing conclusions and making suggestions for further research.

The theory of public bureaucracy has made dramatic progress over the last few decades. From the pioneering work of Downs, Tullock, and Niskanen to the more recent theories of political control and delegation, the field has put together a sophisticated analytic base for understanding how politics—and the strategies and policy goals of the legislative, executive, and judicial players who exercise political authority—determine how public bureaucracy is organized and ultimately how it performs. My aim in this paper is to review this literature and offer perspective on its content and direction. Along the way I argue that, as this literature has developed and matured, technical issues have come to dominate scholarly attention, and that the normal science now governing the theory—a standardization that testifies to its very success—has been limiting and even misleading in important respects, to the point that fundamental aspects of bureaucracy and its politics are being pushed aside. All told, the progress from the early days has been astonishing. But some rethinking is in order.

Despite its historic nature, passage of federal healthcare reform in March of 2010 represented only one step forward in a multistep policy-making process. The locus of policy-making has now shifted to the states, a key venue for implementing health care exchanges and other central provisions of the law. Yet, rather than moving forward on implementation of the law, the majority of states have resisted federal reform in one form or another. This paper examines this state-level resistance to “ObamaCare” during its first two years and considers potential explanations, identifying a much larger role for political factors than for economic considerations.

Explaining presidential responsiveness to the public is important to understanding democratic representation in the United States. To explain presidential responsiveness, this study begins by assuming that presidents are rational and politically knowledgeable. Based on these simple assumptions, this study argues that presidents do consider the consequences of their past behavior when responding to the public. In particular, presidents tend to respond to public opinion changes, when the public rewards their responsive behavior and punishes their irresponsive behavior. To examine these arguments, this study analyzes presidential popularity and responsiveness to the public at the aggregate level from 1958 through 2004. Regression results show that presidential responsiveness tends to increase after presidential popularity decreased as a result of irresponsive presidential behavior. The results thus partially support the argument.

We test the hypothesis that the Tea Party won the House for Republicans in 2010. We find no support for this hypothesis. Instead, we find that variables long cited in the literature on congressional elections—in particular, the incumbent’s previous electoral performance, the normal party vote in the district, candidate spending, and challenger experience—best explain the results of the 2010 elections.

The United States and Canada enacted similar campaign finance reform laws during the early years of the century. Both nations’ recent elections were influenced by calls from the political right to repeal major pieces of these laws. This article discusses the role campaign finance regulation played in these elections, the consequences of the early-decade reforms for these elections’ results, and the trend towards deregulation of campaign finance in both nations.

America’s current national political system got much of its shape from transformations engendered between 1960 and 1980. Owing to the rise in education levels among all Americans and the need for professional legislators, bureaucrats, legislative and professional staff, judges, and lobbyists, America witnessed the rise of “professional government” to carry out ever-growing governmental responsibilities. These governing professionals are an elite built on merit through occupational accomplishment, and many of them seek to rule regardless of voter participation. This has furthered the sense of disconnect among the public and created a self-reinforcing chain. Popular discontent and professional government are central and related features of the contemporary American political system.