Congress Reconsidered

by Dodd, Lawrence C.

• ISBN13: 9780872896161
• ISBN10: 0872896161
• Edition: 9th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-19
• Publisher: Cq Pr

Summary

Always a classic, Dodd and Oppenheimer&BAD:rs"s Congress Reconsidered is the recognized source for in-depth, cutting-edge scholarship on Congress geared to undergraduates. Thoroughly updated&BAD:-with ten brand new pieces and the others completely revised&BAD:-this ninth edition includes cogent, timely analysis of the 2008 congressional elections, as well as coverage of: the 110th Democratic Congress,specifically its energy policy, its handling of the Iraq War, and its taxing and spending; the role of committees in Congress; leadership by women and minorities in Congress; the effects of campaign finance reform; differences in legislative activity between the Republican and Democratic Congresses; party coalition-building across the postwar era; and perspective on campaigns, elections,and political careers from member of Congress Daniel Lipinski.

Author Biography

Lawrence C. Dodd holds the Manning J. Dauer Jr. Eminent Scholar Chair in Political Science at the University of Florida. His eight books on American politics include Congress and the Administrative State (1979), cowritten with Richard L. Schott, and Thinking About Congress (forthcoming 2010). Also a student of comparative politics, Dodd is the author of Coalitions in Parliamentary Government (1976) and Coauthor, with Leslie Anderson, of Learning Democracy (2005). He has served as a Congressional Fellow, Hoover National Fellow, and Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow and currently chairs APSA's Legislative Studies Section. The University of Florida honored him as its Teacher/Scholar of the Year in 2007, its highest faculty honor, and selected him as one of five recipients of the university's 2006-2007 Award for Outstanding Doctoral Mentoring. Bruce I. Oppenheimer is professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. He has been a Brookings Fellow in Governmental Studies and an APSA Congressional Fellow. His book Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (1999), cowritten with Frances E. Lee, was awarded the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation's D. B. Hardeman Prize for the best book on Congress. Oppenheimer is also the editor of U.S. Senate Exceptionalism (2002). His research interests include Congress and energy policy and the effects of the Iraq War on congressional elections.

Table of Contents

Tables and Figures	p. vii
Contributors	p. xi
Preface	p. xix
Patterns and Dynamics of Congressional Change
The New World of U.S. Senators	p. 1
The Politics of the Contemporary House: From Gingrich to Pelosi	p. 23
Is Congress Still the Broken Branch?	p. 53
Elections and Constituencies
Voters, Candidates, and Issues in Congressional Elections	p. 71
Issue Voting in the 2006 Elections for the U.S. House of Representatives	p. 97
Promises Made and Promises Kept	p. 119
Parties and Committees
The Dynamics of Party Government in Congress	p. 141
The Transition to Democratic Leadership in a Polarized House	p. 165
The Whip Systems of Congress	p. 189
Congressional Committees in a Continuing Partisan Era	p. 217
Congress, the President, and Public Policy
The Politics of Advice and Consent: Putting Judges on the Federal Bench	p. 241
Transforming American Politics through Tax Policy	p. 263
The Process Hurdles: Energy Legislation from the OPEC Embargo to 2008	p. 285
Congress, the President, and the Iraq War's Domestic Political Front	p. 311
Navigating Congressional Policy Processes: The Inside Perspective on How Laws Are Made Representative	p. 337
Congress and Political Change
From Congressional to Presidential Preeminence: Power and Politics in Late Nineteenth-Century America and Today	p. 361
Reconsidering Party Polarization and Policy Productivity: A Curvilinear Perspective	p. 393
Congressional Politics in a Time of Crisis: The 2008 Elections and Their Implications	p. 419
Suggested Readings	p. 443
Index	p. 461
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