Mayhew on “The Living Congress: Adaptation or Decline”

Professor David Mayhew, Emertus Sterling Professor of Political Science, was a panelist on “The Living Congress: Adaptation or Decline,” hosted by the Federalist Society on November 13.

The panel delved into many many topics from the seven guest speakers. Mayhew’s part focused on who should make the policies, the President or Congress? “Congress wins this question hands-down in relevant surveys across the last sixty years (see slide 2 below). That’s true even though the public ordinarily trashes Congress in job ratings, and the country’s intelligentsia has a chronic down on the institution (see slide 1 below),” Mayhew says.

“But one threat to this accord of authority to Congress is a creeping anti-majoritarianism in both House and Senate during the last thirty years or so,” he points out. “Both the Hastert rule in the House and, surprisingly, the hard-and-fastness of the sixty-vote cloture pivot in the Senate are new kids on the block. It’s hard to see where they came from. Both of them are sandbags on flexiible, often cross-party, coalition formation or on doing anything at all. This is not good. It induces an ‘I’ll do it myself’ reaction by the White House, pressure on the courts, and frustration in the public.”

See the edited version of Mayhew’s talk here.

Slide 1;  A Collection of Negative Critiques on Congress

Slide 2: Public’s Response to “Who Should Make Policies?”