RETURN TO “ELECTIONS 2000” CONTENTS

   CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS   
By John Aldrich

While the media will focus most of their attention on the presidential election in 2000, Americans will be voting at the same time to elect thousands of others to office. Elections for the U.S. Congress, in particular, may be as competitive and nearly as important as the presidential campaign. The balance of power in Congress between the two major political parties is quite close. Indeed, the Republicans hold a scant six-seat majority (out of 435) in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, and a five-seat majority (out of 100) in the Senate, the upper chamber. Therefore, which party will control Congress after 2000 is very much in doubt.

The congressional elections are also important because of the central role the Congress plays in making policy. Unlike a parliamentary system, the American system is one of separate powers divided between Congress and the president. It is the Congress that writes and must pass all laws before the president signs (or vetoes) them. In addition, separate and independent elections for every office mean that it is quite possible for one party to control the Congress while a member of the other party is president.

This so-called divided government has become very common. Different parties have controlled the House and the presidency for 14 of the last 20 years, with the Republicans holding majorities in Congress since 1994 — that is, for six of the eight years that Democrat Bill Clinton has been president. Whether there is a divided U.S. government or unified partisan control of the Congress and presidency is also therefore very much at stake in 2000.

HOW THE CONGRESS IS CHOSEN

The House of Representatives and the Senate have nearly equal powers, but their means of election are quite different. The founders of the American republic intended members of the House to be close to the public, reflecting its wishes and ambitions most faithfully in legislating. Therefore, the founders designed the House to be relatively large and to have frequent elections (every two years). Originally, a two-year term was considered by some as too long. Today, a more common concern is that frequent election means that incumbents are always running for reelection. According to this view, legislators are more interested in what is best for their electoral fortunes than in what is best for the nation.

Each House seat represents a geographic constituency, and every member is elected from a unique, or “single-member,” district by plurality rule (the candidate with most votes wins election). Each of the 50 states is assured at least one seat in the House, with the rest allocated to the states by population. Alaska, for example, has a very small population and holds one seat in the House. California has the largest population and currently holds 54 seats.

The Senate was originally designed to represent the states, and, in fact, senators were originally selected by state legislatures. Only since passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1913 have they been directly elected by their state’s constituents. Every state has two senators elected for six-year terms, with one-third of the Senate seats up for reelection every two years. In effect, then, senators are chosen by plurality vote of the electorate, with a state serving as a single-member district.

Elections that are decided by plurality rule, especially from single-member districts, are very likely to result in a system with only two major political parties. This is so because voters generally believe that third-party candidates have very little chance at winning and prefer not to “waste” their votes. Consequently, candidates, wanting to win elections, usually avoid affiliation with a third party. The United States is the clearest illustration that plurality elections result in a two-party system. Throughout its history, the United States has never had more than two major parties; in this decade, in fact, only one person not affiliated with either the Democratic or Republican party (which have been America’s two major parties since 1860) has been elected to the House, and none has won a seat in the Senate.

WHAT INFLUENCES CONGRESSIONAL VOTING

Throughout most of this century, congressional elections were “party-centered.” Because most voters had long-term loyalties toward one political party or the other, they tended to cast their votes along party lines. Members of Congress were often reelected, sometimes holding their position for decades, because a majority of their constituents supported their party. Their efforts as individual candidates often only marginally added to (or subtracted from) their support. Since the 1960s, candidates themselves and issues have emerged as forces that add to the impact of party loyalties.

In the 1960s, national elections became increasingly “candidate-centered.” The ability to campaign over television, to raise huge amounts of money via direct mailing, and to conduct polls and other aspects of modern campaigning made the voter more aware of the candidate as an individual. As a result, voters began to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates in addition to their party loyalties.

Candidate-centered voting is a major advantage to the incumbent members of Congress. Incumbents have far more exposure on television and in newspapers than those challenging them, especially during the years between elections. With greater media exposure and substantial influence over public policy, incumbents are also able to raise far greater sums of money with which to campaign. For these reasons and more, incumbents who run are very likely to win reelection. In 1998, 401 House members ran for reelection and only seven were defeated, while a mere three out of 29 senators running for reelection lost. With a reelection rate of 90 percent or greater, congressional elections are not just candidate-centered but incumbent-centered as well.

With more money, media coverage, and name recognition, incumbents win because they are known in the electorate, while challengers often are not. Surveys have shown that over nine in ten respondents recognize the name of their House or Senate incumbent, but only five or six in ten recognize the name of the major challenger, even at the end of the campaign. Because challengers are so little known, they have a very difficult time persuading those with money to give it to them. This fund-raising hurdle often leads to an unfortunate cycle in which potentially strong candidates frequently choose not to run against established incumbents. Those who do run have difficulty raising money to get their campaign started, and therefore they tend to remain unknown, never breaking through, and thus reinforcing the belief that incumbents are nearly unbeatable.

When challengers do become known to the electorate, voters are much more likely to treat the two candidates equally, voting for the candidate who the voter believes presents the stronger message. What appeals are most effective in congressional elections? This, too, has changed, especially in the most recent elections.

A former Speaker of the House, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, regularly proclaimed that “all politics is local.” By that he meant that congressional elections are decided upon the specific interests and concerns of each district and not on national issues. This local focus of elections fits nicely with the rise of candidate-centered elections, enabling the candidates to tailor their appeals to their particular district.

The 1994 midterm elections were a watershed. The Republican Party carried a majority in the Senate and won an astonishing 52 seats away from the Democratic Party in the House to emerge with a majority there for the first time in 40 years. Part of the strategy of their leader, Speaker Newt Gingrich, was a ten-point legislative program, called the “Contract with America.” This contract had been endorsed by a great majority of Republican candidates for the House early in the campaign. They were then free to use it, or any part of it, in their campaign appeals, or (as many did) ignore it entirely. The Contract with America became unusually important after the election. Gingrich promised that the new Republican majority would get it passed through the House in an amazingly rapid 100 days, and they did. This effort raised the profile of the House, the Republican Party, and the Speaker throughout the nation, and it set a standard by which national issues and an effective national party platform could be a key part of midterm campaigns.

Whether parties will adopt a strategy of running on a national party platform is unclear. There has been only one midterm congressional election since then, in 1998. In some ways, the 1998 elections were as surprising as the 1994 elections. For the first time since 1934, the party of the incumbent president won seats (in this case, five seats) from the opposition party in the House. While the Republicans still hold a majority in the House and Senate, they are widely perceived to have lost the 1998 elections. Many in the party believe this defeat was due to the failure to adopt a clear national stance on the issues. Whether true or not, party leaders therefore currently believe that national issues are important in congressional elections.

CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS IN 2000

The dramatic twists and turns of congressional elections in the 1990s make forecasting hazardous. Indeed, the most important point may well be that the old ways in which campaigns were conducted are no longer the most effective and that voters are in the process of changing how they reach their decisions. Still, there are some things to look for in 2000.

The most pressing question this year is whether the Democrats can capture six or more seats to regain the majority in the House of Representatives, with its 435 seats up for reelection. There are only 33 Senate seats up for election, 19 currently held by Republicans. Most incumbents are likely to seek reelection, and the incumbent Republican senators are quite strong candidates. Therefore, it appears unlikely that the Democrats can anticipate winning any seats, let alone five new ones. Hence, the Republican Senate majority appears safe, and attention will turn to the House.

Both parties are trying to recruit the strongest possible candidates and to mobilize resources for the House elections. A great deal depends upon recruiting new candidates, especially experienced politicians, such as members of state legislatures. Equally important, however, is the degree to which their party’s presidential nominee strengthens or weakens the chances of House candidates, particularly those running for seats not contested by the current occupant. The combination of experienced and effective candidates for the House and a strong campaign by the party’s presidential candidate creates the largest swings in seats between the two parties.

If national issues are increasingly important parts of congressional elections, the most important national force in 2000 will be the presidential candidates and their policy campaigns. Republicans recognized the enhanced importance of national leadership after the 1998 elections, and Newt Gingrich resigned his leadership post and House seat in the wake of the party’s losses. The strongly conservative direction in which he was taking the Republican Party during and after the “Republican revolution” of 1994 has been checked to a degree. Both parties seem likely to select presidential candidates who appeal to the moderates in their parties and to those independent of either party. Each party generally sees this strategy not only as the best stance for their presidential candidates, but their best hope for creating longer presidential “coattails” for winning more congressional seats for the party on the strength of the presidential nominee. We can be sure that congressional incumbents will win an overwhelming proportion of seats. The razor-thin Republican majority in the House, however, is at risk. With an open and competitive race for the presidency, and equally competitive congressional elections in 2000, the direction that American policy will take is also very much up for grabs.