Caucuses and Cohesion in the United States Congress

A great deal of the social organization of the United States Congress is formally structured, with committee, subcommittee, district and leadership assignments recognized by federal law and party bylaw. Congressional caucuses are important exceptions to this rule. Susan Webb Hammond's (1998) Congressional Caucuses in National Policymaking, upon which this description depends heavily, gathers an impressive volume of information regarding the history, organization and activities of caucuses. Hammond's work in this book and in a series of articles qualifies her as the foremost expert in the small industry of caucus studies.

Caucuses have a relatively brief history in the U.S. Congress; although caucusing began with the Democratic Study Group in 1959, the number of caucuses remained small until the legislative reform era of the 1970s. It was not until 1979 that caucuses gained semi-official recognition as legislative service organizations, a designation with which office space and a budget were included. After that point, the number of caucuses continued to rise through the 1980s and 1990s.

Caucuses are said to serve a number of legislative functions including the generation and distribution of information (Hammond 1998; Hammond 1989; Stevens, Mulhollan and Rundquist 1981), the framing of problems and the formation of voting coalitions (Hammond 1989). Although these activities may be designed to further particular legislative ends, an important and perhaps unintended result is an increase in congressional cohesion through a new set of informal, voluntary associations that supplement the formal, compulsory associations of the committee system. Each of these activities requires a commitment of time and energy on the behalf of congressional staff and congresspersons themselves. As structural sociologists working in various theoretical traditions have pointed out, time and energy-intensive interaction in organizations leads to the formation of strong social ties (Carley 1991; Feld 1981; McPherson and Smith-Lovin 1987) The ties that form in congressional caucuses bind representatives to an alternate set of political obligations, coalitions and cultures that may have a powerful impact on congressional politics.

Caucuses also emerge and disappear at a high rate. Table 1 shows all congressional caucuses for the 103rd and 104th Congresses listed in the Congressional Staff Directory. Out of 123 officially-recognized caucuses in the four years, 26 died in the 103rd Congress and 20 were born in the 104th Congress.

What are the conditions under which these births and deaths occur? Current explanations of caucus birth, growth, change and death focus on the representation of interests in issue-centered politics. In her explanation of the life cycle of caucuses, Hammond suggests that caucuses are born when issues become relevant to constituent citizens or industries call for attention to issues that are not being addressed (Hammond 1998: 54). Similarly, caucuses fade away when the issues they were meant to address fade in importance or other groups begin to address the same issues (Hammond 1998: 63-64). This straightforward story has complications. Some caucuses, such as the New England Congressional Caucus, the Travel and Tourism Caucus, the Budget Study Group and the Wednesday Group, have been able to change their missions and membership requirements when initial goals are met or become irrelevant (Hammond 1998: 56-59). Changes in issue salience cannot account for this alternative path of development. Indeed, in cases like these, it seems that caucus goals may be altered to fit membership structure rather than the other way around.

Caucuses, in short, are the very "back rooms" of politics that we hear of in vague terms. But few people actually understand caucuses in a comprehensive way. Learning more about caucuses would help us understand more about why the U.S. Congress works the way it does. Unfortunately, with the rise of Newt Gingrich's Republican Majority, the collection of regular information on the existence, membership and funding of caucuses came to an end. If citizens are to understand these important back rooms better, some members of Congress will have to be brave enough to let us have a peek.

References

Carley, Kathleen. 1991. "A Theory of Group Stability." American Sociological Review 56: 331-354.

Feld, Scott. 1981. "The Focused Organization of Social Ties." American Journal of Sociology 86: 1015-1035.

Hammond, Susan Webb. 1998. Congressional Caucuses in National Policy Making. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hammond, Susan Webb. 1997. "Congressional Caucuses in the 104th Congress." in Congress Reconsidered, 6th ed., Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer, eds. Washington: CQ Press.

Hammond, Susan Webb, Daniel Mulhollan and Arthur G. Stevens. 1985. "Informal Congressional Caucuses and Agenda Setting." Western Political Quarterly 38: 1044-1074.

McPherson, J. Miller and Lynn Smith-Lovin. 1987. "Homophily in Voluntary Organizations: Status Distance and the Composition of Face-to-Face Groups." American Sociological Review 52: 370-79.

Stevens, Arthur G, Daniel P. Mulhollan and Paul Rundquist. 1981. “Congressional Structure and Representation: The Role of Informal Groups.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 6:415-437.