The Relationship Between the Presidency and Congress
The book Congressional Responses to the Twentieth Century by Samuel P. Huntington best discusses the relationship between the presidency and Congress and why it has changed. Hunting contends that the relationship of power between the Presidency and Congress has shifted as a result of changes in American culture. The society was changing due to new technology, growing urbanization, and the advent of the postindustrial era. At the same time, the State was deeply involved in international politics. The developments brought about new forces in American politics, resulting in shifts in power distribution. Other large national bureaucratic organizations like banks, labor unions, insurance companies, trade associations and radio-TV Networks led to an expansion of the national government. He also explains that the institution failed whenever it lose its previous sources of support and then it fail to adapt to new social forces that were arising. The Congress had adaptation crisis due to changes in the previous source of support and was unable to adapt to new social forces that were arising. The presidency was highly affected by these forces in the nineteenth century under Henry Clay leadership because the House of Representative held the centre of power in the national government. However, the Congress had dictated for presidential nominations leading to minimal support for the presidency. The House of Representative had absorbed all the effective power of the country. It led to weakening the presidency as the secondary instrumental organ of the government. The two organs also disintegrated due to the new social organs that were developing and were demanding to be admitted to the political world with the view of sharing in the political leadership.
The Decline of Congressional Power
Failure of the government to adapt to social changes as well as the rise of the new views led to the Congress Legislation losing its power stem in the American society. Congress leadership had lost its incentive to take care of the Legislative issues as well as handling national problems that were emerging. In the Congress, the power had dispersed among many committees and subcommittees officials. For that reason, the central leadership of Congress had lost its ability to look at the national legislative priorities. The legislative function of the congress was no more important because the federal bureaucratic had made the administrative to take care of the functions of the Congress. The process continued until in the 1900s when there existed no gap between the congressmen and American society leaders and politics. Later, the American society and the institutional evolution of Congress changed leading to a vast gap between bureaucratically oriented leadership and the congressional leaders. The gap increased due to the increase Tenure of an office where the congressmen had increased the average tenure with a high percentage of members in the Congress serving more five terms in the House of Representatives. At the same time, about one percentage of the members had served in more than ten terms. The increase tenure of Congress is also linked to the increasingly importance of the role of seniority whereby men were recognized and achieved the virtue of seniority with the longer they stayed in the Congress. However, the seniority was more important in the Senate than in the house where the speaker was mandated to appoint committees and to designate them their chairpersons.
The Compelling Argument
This argument is so much compelling because it is explaining what led to the division between the presidency and the Congress. It has explained on how increased tenure of office as well as the role of seniority led to the disintegration of the presidency and the congress. The remaining arguments are not useful as they are too much detailed and are not Cleary explaining the relationship between the two.
