Entrepreneur or Agent; Congressmen and the Distribution of Casework, 1977-1978

• Author: John C. McAdams,John R. Johannes
• Published date: 01 September 1987
• Date: 01 September 1987
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591298704000311
• Subject Matter: Articles

ENTREPRENEUR

OR

AGENT;

CONGRESSMEN

AND

THE

DISTRIBUTION

OF

CASEWORK,

1977-1978

JOHN

R.

JOHANNES

AND

JOHN

C.

McADAMS

Marquette

University

EMOCRATIC

theory

holds

that

legislators

should

be

responsive

to

their

constituents

by

representing

constituents’

policy

views

and

by

(re)presenting

their

grievances

and

particularistic

requests

to

government

(Eulau

and

Karps

1976).

A

strong

case

can

be

made

that

legis-

lators

have

a

responsibility

actively

to

probe

for

citizens’

views

on

the

issues

of

the

day

and

to

stimulate

their

interest

in

political

affairs.

It

is

far

less

clear

that

legislators

have

an

obligation

to

solicit

constituent

complaints

and

requests.

On

the

one

hand,

encouraging

constituents

who

were

hesi-

tant

to

make

or

incapable

of

making

demands

to

redress

grievances

would

seem

to

be

entirely

within

the

scope

of

the

representatives’

duties,

espe-

cially

if

legislators

thereby

could

increase

their

knowledge

of

how

laws

were

being

implemented.

On

the

other

hand,

if

doing

so

carried

with

it

elec-

toral

advantages

that

might

distract

or

isolate

legislators

from

constituents’

policy

views,

the

practice

would

be

dysfunctional.

In

a

real

sense,

it

would

undermine

policy

accountability.

Whether

efforts

to

stimulate

citizen

com-

plaints

have

this

negative

consequence

is

a

function

of

two

conditions.

First,

citizens

must

exhibit

gratitude

at

the

polls

for

favors

rendered

(or

be

suffi-

ciently

perceived

as

being

grateful

to

scare

off

incumbents’

potential

oppo-

nents) ;

second,

efforts

to

stimulate

a

demand

for

services

must

be

successful.

This

latter

consideration

lies

at

the

heart

of

this

paper.

The

concept

of

the

shrewd,

election-oriented,

entrepreneurial

congress-

man

has

become

a

theoretical

cornerstone

of

research

on

Congress

and

con-

gressional

elections.

In

their

efforts

to

win

reelection

and

increase

electoral

margins,

senators

and

representatives

lavish

attention

on

their

constituents,

providing

all

sorts

of

constituency

services,

the

focal

point

of

which

is

case-

work.

Extensive

casework,

well

performed,

is

claimed

to

return

dividends

at

election

time

(Mayhew

1974;

Fenno

1978;

Fiorina

1977;

Yiannakis

1981;

Cain,

Ferejohn,

and

Fiorina

1984 -

but

see

Johannes

and

McAdams

1981;

McAdams

and

Johannes

1983, 1984,

1985a;

Bond

1981,

1985).

Thus

mem-

bers

who

manage

to

receive

numerous

casework

requests

could

be

advan-

Received :

March

17,

1986

Revision

Received:

August

4,

1986

Accepted

for

Publication:

August

7,

1986

NOTE:

The

authors

are

indebted

to

the

Johnson

fund

of

the

American

Philosophical

Soci-

ety,

the

Marquette

University

Committee

on

Research,

and

the

Everett

Dirksen

Cen-

ter

for

the

Study

of

Congressional

Leadership

for

their

support

of

this

project.

The

1982

National

Election

Study

survey

data

were

made

available

by

the

Center

for

Political

Studies.

The

CPS

is

not

responsible

for

any

of

the

analyses

contained

herein.

The

authors

also

would

like

to

thank

their

research

assistants:

Maribeth

Kazmierczak,

Ed

Salzman,

and

David

Kennedy.

536

taged

electorally,

and

perhaps

in

terms

of

oversight

and

policy-making

as

well

(Johannes

1979,

1984).

But

how

much

opportunity

-

how

many

casework

requests

-

do

mem-

bers

of

Congress

get?

More

importantly,

what

determines

the

volume

of

requests?

The

theory

of

the

entrepreneurial

congressman

would

answer

that

clever

members

overtly

stimulate

constituent

complaints

against

the

bureaucracy

and

requests

for

favors,

thus

increasing

the

opportunities

for

rendering

services

for

which

constituents

would

be

grateful.

The

explana-

tion,

in

other

words,

lies

on

the

&dquo;supply

side&dquo;

of

constituency

service.

An

alternative

view

is

that

casework

loads

are

a

function

of

constituency

de-

mand :

congressmen

are

more-or-less

recipient

agents

of

their

constituen-

cies,

and

their

casework

operations

are a

response

to,

rather

than

a

cause

of,

casework

volume.

Unfortunately,

there

is

scant

research

available

to

resolve

the

issue.

Until

the

late

1970s,

there

simply

were

no

data

on

casework

volume.

Subsequently

the

House

Commission

on

Administrative

Review

published

some

exag-

gerated

figures

on

casework

loads

that

resulted

from

a

survey

of

approxi-

mately

150

representatives;

Cain,

Ferejohn,

and

Fiorina

(1983,

1984)

collected

casework

data

from

interviews

with

administrative

assistants

in

92

House

offices

in

1978;

and Johannes

(1980,

1984)

has

investigated

case-

work

in

155

offices

during

the

95th

Congress

(1977-78).

Our

purpose

in

this

paper

is

twofold.

First,

using

data

on

casework

vol-

ume

that

are

more

accurate

and

more

extensive

than

those

used

in

previ-

ous

studies,

we

describe

case

loads

in

1982,

noting

that

the

casework

burden

is

far

from

evenly

distributed

in

the

House.

Then

we

test

the

two

major

hypotheses

(congressmen

as

entrepreneurs

and

congressmen

as

agents)

that

may

explain

the

substantial

variation

in

case

loads

across

congressional

offices.

The

results

allow

us

not

only

to

answer

the

question

posed

above

(&dquo;can

congressmen

stimulate

casework?&dquo;)

but

also

to

speculate

on

how

such

constituency

service

is

perceived

and

thus

how

electorally

efficacious

it

is

likely

to

be.

DATA

The

primary

data

for

this

project

were

collected

in

1982.

The

basic

ap-

proach

was

multifaceted

and

resembles

that

used

in

1977-78:

(1)

question-

naires

were

mailed

to

House

offices

in

Washington

and

in

the

districts,

yielding

usable

responses

from

211

staffers;

(2)

106

personal

and

30

tele-

phone

interviews

were

held

with

staff

members

in

Washington;

and

(3)

136

telephone

interviews

were

conducted

both

to

follow

up

on

ambiguous

responses

in

the

questionnaires

and

to

contact

Washington

and

district

offices

that

did

not

respond

to

the

questionnaires.’

Overall,

these

483

contacts

1

Collecting

"hard"

data

on

case

loads

was

more

difficult

than

one

might

expect.

Since

only

36

percent

of

the

offices

surveyed

used

computers

to

track

cases,

the

authors

had

to

de-

pend

on

estimates

of

case

volume;

and

since

congressional

offices

take

a

variety

of

ap-

proaches

to

casework,

different

staff

members

were

interviewed

in

different

offices.

In

a

few,

the

administrative

assistants

could

refer

to

computer

printouts

of

casework

vol-