Participant observation has provided some of our most impressive insights into the contemporary Congress. In particular, two scholars relied upon this method for results that must be regarded as shaping our current paradigm on Congress and its members: David Mayhew, who, six years after serving as an APSA Congressional Fellow, published his essay, Congress: The Electoral Connection (1974), and Richard Fenno, who traveled with representatives and senators in order to assess how members of Congress interact with their constituents and the impact of those interactions upon their performances in Washington in Home Style (1978) and its companion volume on the Senate (1982).

Despite the influence of these works, some ambiguities remained when I began my stint as a Congressional Fellow in the fall of 1984. For one thing, Mayhew and Fenno had reached different conclusions regarding the impact of the need to run for reelection. Mayhew asserted that congressional behavior and congressional outcomes could be explained solely by the goal of getting reelected; on the other hand, Fenno contended that members could establish separate “home styles” and “Washington styles,” as leeway in the latter increased with more successful presentations of self back home. Likewise, whereas Mayhew made no distinction between the strength of the electoral incentive for representatives and senators, Fenno argued that having longer terms than representatives provided much more temptation for senators to do something besides merely run for reelection. A second ambiguity was that most of Mayhew's and Fenno's fieldwork was accomplished in the early to mid 1970s, before the sea-change in American politics best symbolized by Ronald Reagan's election and the dramatic shifts in policy and in political style that ensued (see especially Edsall, 1984; Chubb and Peterson, 1985). While studies suggest that congressional decision-making has changed only slightly in the Reagan years (e.g., Smith, 1985), the altered electoral environment may have produced far-reaching changes in how the electoral connection shapes Congress.

The first session of the 99th Congress was a year of wrenching institutional and political realignment. Facing monstrous structural budget deficits in excess of $200 billion a year. Congress struggled to adjust its distributive urges to the unpleasant realities of a redistributive era. Unlike previous budget crises that were caused by economic events beyond Congress's control, the current problem was created by an unwillingness to raise sufficient revenues to pay for the nation's defense and social program commitments. Frustration, gridlock, and partisan warfare eventually ended in surrender to the Executive Branch: a balanced-budget act was adopted that could radically alter Congress's power of the purse.

During the 99th Congress, many Democratic members also continued to realign their policy positions in accordance with contemporary economic and political forces. Democrats in Congress searched for an appealing formula that would ensure political survival and continued control of the House. But the strain of reconciling their traditional public philosophy with conservative trends left Democrats demoralized and in disarray.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the legislative process is not an efficient or speedy one when it comes to major legislation or significant policy changes. According to Price (1985, p. 162), “Congress is often difficult to mobilize, particularly on high-conflict issues of broad scope.” The multiyear effort to enact Medicare legislation and the inability of Congress to enact comprehensive energy legislation in the 1970s are but two examples of the deliberate pace of the deliberative process.

Yet in 1985, a major reform of the budgetary process, popularly known as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, was enacted in a relatively short time without the benefit of extended subcommittee and committee deliberation. This “fast track” legislation, on the heels of other accelerated decisions since 1981, makes it difficult to draw the conclusion that Congress is unable to act quickly on major policies. In fact, the nature of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings debate suggests that modifications to our theories of the legislative process are needed.

No one who has watched Congress would labor under the misconception that legislation routinely follows the process outlined on those neat charts in introductory American government textbooks. There are all too many examples of major bills that were approved as riders to minor legislation or that bypassed the normal committee process. For example, portions of President Carter's energy package were approved as amendments to tariff bills on bicycle parts and bobsleds. Furthermore, there are many examples of steps taken to bypass a powerful committee chairman, such as the drafting of the 1963 civil-rights bill so that it would go to the Senate Commerce Committee instead of the Judiciary Committee where it would be killed by Chairman James Eastland (D-Miss.).

While slightly unconventional, the earnest request of Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Quayle's six-year-old daughter (Conconi, 1985, p. B3) is nothing new to Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.). Indeed, Majority Whip Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) has said that the senators Dole must lead are “like children lining up in the elementary school classroom asking when they can go to the bathroom” (Granat, 1983, p. 1429). They are all impatient, and they all want their way.

When Quayle was elected in 1980 no one suggested that it would be a 9-to-5 job. And it has not been. Late night sessions, filibusters, endless quorum calls, repeated and repetitive votes numbering in the hundreds, crowded schedules, and yes, even the plaintive request of a six-year-old daughter conspire to make life difficult for a senator. On this particular night, Quayle could make his daughter's performance. Not so much because of the note she had sent to Dole, but because Dole and other Republican senators were scheduled to roast Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and then quickly return to the House to hear President Reagan report on his Geneva summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.

As majority leader, Dole must play to at least five closely related constituencies and overcome numerous obstacles to succeed. He must represent Reagan. He must represent his Republican Party colleagues. He must protect the interests of the 22 Republican Senate seats at risk in the 1986 election—including his own. He must represent and to some extent promote the interests of the entire Senate. And, of course, he must represent the people of Kansas. It need hardly be added that the interests of these constituencies frequently conflict.

On a drizzly late afternoon, soon after the November 1984 elections and well before the start of the 99th Congress, I slogged into the Cannon House Office Building for an interview with a real, live congressman. This was not a new experience. As a television reporter for a decade, I'd interviewed dozens of representatives and senators along the way. This interview was entirely different, however, because this time I was looking for a job, and the member was looking for an APSA Congressional Fellow to help out in his office.

After the usual half hour wait in the lobby, I was ushered in to meet the member. It was football season and before settling into the couch, he was bragging about his alma mater's quarterback. Fortunately, my home team had a hot quarterback too, so we debated quarterback's arms instead of the nuclear or conventional variety. I was scheduled for 20 minutes with the member, and half the time expired before the member abruptly turned to the real subject at hand—hockey. About the time I'd run through the last fact in my hockey memory, the member actually picked up my resume and scanned it.

One fact leaped from the page and got him even more worked up than his quarterback's passing percentage. “So you're a TV reporter, huh? I've always liked having TV guys around.” By now the 20-minute interview time was up, but it would be another 1½ hours before I got back out into the rain, with my first real insight into politics and TV news, from the other side of the camera.