Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform
Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform
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Abstract
Congress is overwhelmed. It has become so overwhelmed its constitutional status as a co-equal branch of government is at serious risk. In this volume, leading congressional scholars explore the causes and consequences of Congress’s decades-long neglect in itself. The first branch of government no longer has the capacity to govern as it once did. The volume explores the state of congressional capacity, or the human capital and other resources that Congress has available to perform its role in resolving public problems by legislating, budgeting, holding hearings, conducting oversight, and serving constituents. In so doing, it offers a new perspective to existing scholarship, which focuses only on partisan polarization as the source for legislative dysfunction. The chapters assess Congress’s declining capacity using a variety of analytic approaches and data sources. Several contributions report the first findings from the 2017 Congressional Capacity Survey, the largest and most comprehensive mixed-method study of congressional staff ever conducted. Some chapters investigate Congress’s political development to illuminate how capacity has changed throughout history in response to broader political forces. Others evaluate how Congress manages its legislative workload despite heightened polarization and the perpetual campaign. And, several scholars explore how Congress could reform itself. Taken together, the volume offers new ways for thinking about congressional capacity, and ample evidence to show that Congress is approaching, if it has not already reached, the nadir of its ability to solve problems on behalf of the American people.
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1
Overwhelmed: An Introduction to Congress’s Capacity Problem
Timothy M. Lapira and others
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Part 1 The Foundations of Congressional Capacity
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Part 2 Knowledge and Expertise in Congress
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5
The Congressional Capacity Survey: Who Staff Are, How They Got There, What They Do, and Where They May Go
Alexander C. Furnas and others
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6
What Do Congressional Staff Actually Know?
Kristina C. Miler
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7
How Committee Staffers Clear the Runway for Legislative Action in Congress
Casey Burgat andCharles Hunt
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8
Legislative Branch Support Agencies: What They Are, What They Do, and Their Uneasy Position in Our System of Government
Kevin R. Kosar
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5
The Congressional Capacity Survey: Who Staff Are, How They Got There, What They Do, and Where They May Go
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Part 3 The Politics of Capacity in the Legislative Process
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9
Still Muddling Along? Assessing the Hybrid Congressional Appropriations Process
Peter Hanson
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10
Congress and the Capacity to Act: Overcoming Gridlock in the Senate’s Amendment Process
James Wallner
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11
The Issue Dynamics of Congressional Capacity
Jonathan Lewallen and others
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12
Congressional Capacity and Reauthorizations
E. Scott Adler and others
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13
How Experienced Legislative Staff Contribute to Effective Lawmaking
Jesse M. Crosson and others
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14
Capacity in a Centralized Congress
James M. Curry andFrances E. Lee
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15
Congressional Capacity and Bipartisanship in Congress
Laurel Harbridge-Yong
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9
Still Muddling Along? Assessing the Hybrid Congressional Appropriations Process
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Part 4 Capacity and the Politics of Reform
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End Matter
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