Why does congress do so little? The structural incentives for "losing to win.".

• Author: Henneberger, Melinda
• Position: Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign - Book review

Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign

by Frances E. Lee

University of Chicago Press, 248 pp.

One of the many curious results of the recent election is that while Donald Trump received enough electoral votes to win the White House, handing the Republican Party unified control of government, the GOP's majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate narrowed. Usually, in American history, a winning president's party has gained seats in Congress. Yet the reverse has been happening with greater frequency in recent election cycles: George H. W. Bush in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, George W. Bush in 2000, and now Trump in 2016.

This is part of a larger pattern of congressional control seesawing between the two parties, thanks to an electorate that is split roughly in half and has been growing ever more partisan. Most observers are saying that the GOP's lock on Congress is secure, and that may be true; Democrats are likely to lose Senate seats in 2018, given that so many more Democratic senators face reelection that year. In general, however, the majority party tends to lose seats in off-year elections. If the Trump administration makes a hash of things (that would never happen, right?) and the public becomes disillusioned, Democrats could win back the House in 2018. And there is no telling which party will have control of either house after the 2020 campaign.

In her new book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign, Frances E. Lee, a University of Maryland political science professor and longtime congressional scholar, argues persuasively that this pattern of constant shifting of congressional control is an underappreciated structural reason for why the institution hasn't gotten much done. With the parties at roughly equal strength nationally--there hasn't been a presidential landslide since Ronald Reagan clobbered Walter Mondale in 1984--and congressional majorities being relatively narrow, lawmakers in both parties do less legislating and more "losing to win," casting show votes intended mostly to yield fodder for campaign ads. But what makes political sense for parties makes no sense for the health of the institution. Several national polls put Congress's job approval rate at a meager 12 percent.

It's possible that the Republicans will get a great deal done over the next two years, just as the Democrats did during President Obama's first two years. There is also the opposite possibility. At...