Volume 21, Issue 2

This article analyzes the record of Nancy Pelosi’s four terms as Speaker of the House of Representatives. It evaluates her performance through three main lenses: as a party leader, institutional leader, and major policy-maker. Ultimately, it concludes Pelosi should be considered one of the most skilled and accomplished legislators in the history of the United States.

For the first time in one hundred years, the 118th Congress began with a prolonged Speaker’s race that required fifteen ballots to elect a Speaker. The contentious Republican debate displayed a level of personal animosity between a faction – the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) – and the majority party’s chosen leader – Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) – but it also revealed a series of significant divisions within the majority party over policy, and legislative norms and practices. How do different strategies shape the capacity of factions to spur formal changes to legislative institutions? How do party leaders respond to the demands of factions that raise issues threatening to party unity and their own leadership position? In this article, I analyze the composition of defectors in the Speaker’s race, the status of their rule and procedural reform agenda, and the response by McCarthy, including to committee assignments and early use of restrictive rules in the 118th Congress. I conclude with a discussion of the consequences of the HFC strategy for the contemporary U.S. House, and an emerging need to expand theories of institutional change to better integrate the behavior of both party leaders and factions.

The election of a new Speaker of the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress in January 2023 stretched on for several days and 15 roll call votes—the longest contested Speaker election in modern congressional history. This article proves a two-part analysis of this unusual event. First, it reviews the procedural practice of the House for its organization at the beginning of each Congress. Second, it analyzes the operational and strategic conduct of the election, with an eye not only on the individual Members-elect and party factions operating within it, but also on the role of the non-partisan House officers managing the proceedings.

Scholars commonly observe that lawmaking in Congress has transitioned from the textbook system of “regular order” in which power was decentralized in committees and lawmaking followed a formal process to one of “unorthodox lawmaking” characterized by the centralization of power in party leaders and a lack of formal process. It is debated whether this change marks a decline in Congress’s lawmaking capacity, or is a procedural adaptation that has allowed Congress to remain productive despite high levels of partisanship. In this article, we maintain that lawmaking in Congress varies along two dimensions: formality of process and centralization of power. We analyze non-spending bills added to omnibus appropriations packages to demonstrate that lawmaking on these bills is informal and decentralized. Rank-and-file members retain a capacity to place matters on the legislative agenda and authorizing committees retain gatekeeping and policymaking authority. The process through which add-ons are approved is also bipartisan. Our findings demonstrate that this style of lawmaking is a procedural adaptation used by members to pass legislation important to their districts and in which committees continue to play an important deliberative role.

Passing out federal dollars to specific projects in particular districts had been a popular way for congressional leaders to build large bipartisan majorities for major bills since the very first meeting of Congress. By matching projects to districts, scholars have been able to systematically analyze which members were successful in getting their project funded. But for one year, though, the requests members submitted were never known. Using earmark requests data during the 111th Congress, we can know both the requests and the awards. Knowing the former changes our understanding of the latter. We find that the request process is largely driven by ideology, rather than electoral vulnerability. More moderate Republicans tended to seek more earmarks than their more conservative copartisans; some of whom completely opted out of the process. The effect was the opposite for Democrats, whose moderates requested fewer earmarks. When these requests are taken into consideration, the awarding process appears to be even less partisan than the raw data would suggest, confirming the bipartisan nature of the earmarking process.

I examine the partisan and gender dynamics that shape Congressional policymaking on abortion since the early 1990s. I demonstrate how the movement of abortion from an issue that split the parties to a litmus test that defines what it means to be a Democrat or Republican has impacted policymaking. I highlight the increasingly central role female lawmakers play in crafting policy and shaping party messaging. Throughout this period, Democratic women are the most aggressive proponents for abortion rights and have expanded their influence over the party’s agenda. Meanwhile, Republican women were divided on the issue through the early 2000s and had limited influence on the party’s decision making. Since the Tea Party wave of 2010 brought more pro-life women to office, Republican women are pivotal players and will influence the direction of party strategy and legislating in the Post- Roe environment.

The politics of disability policy in the contemporary Congress confirms the observation by James Curry and Frances Lee that lawmaking largely remains a process of bipartisan accommodation. Most major disability legislation since the 1970s has passed with bipartisan sponsorship and support. One reason is that the issue affects so many Americans, including members of Congress. There have been some exceptions to this bipartisan pattern, particularly when disability policy intersects with more contentious issues. And bipartisanship does not guarantee outcomes that are satisfactory to people with disabilities.

During the last several elections, numerous high-profile candidates for the U.S. Senate have raised a majority of their campaign funds from donors who reside in a different state. These efforts have garnered substantial media coverage and have been fodder for attacks by the candidate’s opponents. Despite the increased attention to the role of out-of-state donors, it is not clear if these cases are outliers or if this is now common practice in our more nationalized electoral environment. In this paper, we examine trends in Senate candidate’s fundraising from out-of-state donors between 2000 and 2020. We find that there has been a general increase over time in Senate candidates’ reliance on out-of-state donations. There is, however, variation in terms of who relies heavily upon the support of a more national donor base. A Senate candidate’s share of out-of-state donations varies with factors like incumbency, electoral competition, and geography.