Why Congressional Reforms Fail

Download or read book Why Congressional Reforms Fail written by E. Scott Adler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002-06-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, advocates of congressional reforms have repeatedly attempted to clean up the House committee system, which has been called inefficient, outmoded, unaccountable, and even corrupt. Yet these efforts result in little if any change, as members of Congress who are generally satisfied with existing institutions repeatedly obstruct what could fairly be called innocuous reforms. What lies behind the House's resistance to change? Challenging recent explanations of this phenomenon, Scott Adler contends that legislators resist rearranging committee powers and jurisdictions for the same reason they cling to the current House structure—the ambition for reelection. The system's structure works to the members' advantage, helping them obtain funding (and favor) in their districts. Using extensive evidence from three major reform periods—the 1940s, 1970s, and 1990s—Adler shows that the reelection motive is still the most important underlying factor in determining the outcome of committee reforms, and he explains why committee reform in the House has never succeeded and probably never will.

Download or read book Why Congressional Reforms Fail written by E. Scott Adler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002-06-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, advocates of congressional reforms have repeatedly attempted to clean up the House committee system, which has been called inefficient, outmoded, unaccountable, and even corrupt. Yet these efforts result in little if any change, as members of Congress who are generally satisfied with existing institutions repeatedly obstruct what could fairly be called innocuous reforms. What lies behind the House's resistance to change? Challenging recent explanations of this phenomenon, Scott Adler contends that legislators resist rearranging committee powers and jurisdictions for the same reason they cling to the current House structure—the ambition for reelection. The system's structure works to the members' advantage, helping them obtain funding (and favor) in their districts. Using extensive evidence from three major reform periods—the 1940s, 1970s, and 1990s—Adler shows that the reelection motive is still the most important underlying factor in determining the outcome of committee reforms, and he explains why committee reform in the House has never succeeded and probably never will.

Download or read book The Politics Industry written by Katherine M. Gehl and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading political innovation activist Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter bring fresh perspective, deep scholarship, and a real and actionable solution, Final Five Voting, to the grand challenge of our broken political and democratic system. Final Five Voting has already been adopted in Alaska and is being advanced in states across the country. The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn't designed or optimized today to work for us—for ordinary citizens. Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America's key economic and social challenges. In fact, there's virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected. In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis—and Porter's distinctive Five Forces framework—to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today. Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change—a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation. The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all. THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL INNOVATION The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Institute for Political Innovation.

Download or read book The Broken Branch written by Thomas E. Mann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two nationally renowned congressional scholars review the evolution of Congress from the early days of the republic to 2006, arguing that extreme partisanship and a disregard for institutional procedures are responsible for the institution's current state of dysfunction.

Download or read book Reforms at Risk written by Eric M. Patashnik and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reforms at Risk is the first book to closely examine what happens to sweeping and seemingly successful policy reforms after they are passed. Most books focus on the politics of reform adoption, yet as Eric Patashnik shows here, the political struggle does not end when major reforms become enacted. Why do certain highly praised policy reforms endure while others are quietly reversed or eroded away? Patashnik peers into some of the most critical arenas of domestic-policy reform--including taxes, agricultural subsidies, airline deregulation, emissions trading, welfare state reform, and reform of government procurement--to identify the factors that enable reform measures to survive. He argues that the reforms that stick destroy an existing policy subsystem and reconfigure the political dynamic. Patashnik demonstrates that sustainable reforms create positive policy feedbacks, transform institutions, and often unleash the ''creative destructiveness'' of market forces. Reforms at Risk debunks the argument that reforms inevitably fail because Congress is prey to special interests, and the book provides a more realistic portrait of the possibilities and limits of positive change in American government. It is essential reading for scholars and practitioners of U.S. politics and public policy, offering practical lessons for anyone who wants to ensure that hard-fought reform victories survive.

Download or read book Wasting a Crisis written by Paul G. Mahoney and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Securities Regulation Reassessed, Paul Mahoney shows that policy responses to financial crises are broadly similar across place and time: political actors, hoping to avoid blame for a financial crisis, create a narrative of market failure, arguing that misbehavior by securities market participants, rather than prior policy errors, is the primary cause of the crisis. Politically obliged regulators craft reforms that purport to solve problems which are either non-existent or only tangentially related to the crisis; yet they increase the complexity and expense of compliance, resulting in consolidation and concentration of market share in the hands of already leading financial firms. Securities Regulation Reassessed illustrates these points primarily but not exclusively with evidence from the New Deal-era securities reforms in the United States. Against the conventional wisdom that regards the New Deal reforms as successful, Mahoney provides substantial countervailing evidence, showing instead that Congress’s diagnoses were systematically inaccurate and its remedies reduced competition in the securities industry. Looking farther into history, the work treats several key episodes prior to the New Deal, including the English financial crises of 1697 and 1720 and the "blue sky” era of the 1910s and 1920s in the United States. Finally, Mahoney considers the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 from the same analytical perspective. Mahoney finds a predictable pattern for efforts at securities reform: they require huge effort to enact, and yield little objectively measurable payoff and some objectively measurable harm.

Download or read book Congressional Record written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 1452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)