Political Glossary

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Bandwagon Effect: The “bandwagon effect” is a phrase used to describe the momentum that a particular candidate receives from earlier successes in the nomination process resulting from front loading or shifting primaries to the beginning of the election year. The “bandwagon effect” increases the importance of a candidate doing well in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries and causes the candidates to poor more time and resources earlier into campaigns in these primary states.

Bully Pulpit

Usually used to refer to the public prominence and singularity of the president to promote or steer public opinion or to push agendas or particular issues from his/her “superbly” prominent platform.

Casework: The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 allowed for the hiring of congressional caseworkers. These caseworkers perform a number of functions including assisting representatives in helping constituents to deal with agencies of the bureaucracy. Congressmen and women use casework and caseworkers to project a positive public image and to sure up their constituencies by helping members of the public get informed, find government jobs, deal with issues dealing with Social Security, veterans benefits, unemployment compensation, military cases, as well as tax, legal and immigration problems.

Cognitive Madisonianism

Cognitive Madisonianism is a phrase used to describe the thought process behind voters voting strategically to achieve the result of a divided government in the belief that government works best when divided. The derivation of the phrase can be traced back to James Madison’s tenth Federalist Paper where he describes that government works best when not dominated by one group or faction. While the Constitution attempts to enshrine this institutionally voters may feel that the dominance of one political party over the Executive and Legislative branches of government could negate this intention.

Congressional Oversight

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 formalized Congress’ oversight responsibilities. Along with provisions in the Act Congress utilizes a wide array of both formal and informal processes, some that have been enshrined in law through additional statutes to ensure that the law is working as intended. There are a number of tools at Congress’ disposal to accomplish oversight. Congress holds hearings and investigations, requires reporting by the president, federal agencies and departments, writes letters and makes telephone calls among other informal and formal processes, establishes independent Offices of Inspector General, uses the power of the appropriations purse and in extreme cases uses impeachment to check the executors of the law.All the conditions that exacerbate the willingness of Congress to perform its oversight duties in recent years have been in abundance. Closely divided government, increased partisanship, governmental ties with special interests, scandals, corruption, skepticism and cynicism with government are just a few of the reasons for the recent increase in oversight.

Executive Office of the President: The Executive Office of the President (EOP) is an informal organization that was established by executive order and consists of the staff immediately reporting to the president and their supporting staff. While smaller than and not a part of the Cabinet, the EOP consists of supporting staff that directly assists and advises the president and shares the president’s “executive privilege” as an extension of the president. The EOP has steadily grown in size from its first days under FDR and today it has a budget of $328 million and approximately 1800 personnel hired and fired by the president while a handful of EOP positions require senatorial confirmation.

Filibuster: The filibuster is typically thought of as an attempt by a Senator to debate indefinitely to either stall or kill pending legislation. Today, the filibuster is typically carried out using procedural methods. In theory the filibuster has been around since shortly after the formation of the United States but it wasn’t until 1841 that it was actually used. The filibuster has been used in most instances to protect minority rights, encourages deliberation on legislation and brings important issues into the spotlight although it can and has been used to stifle minority rights and for purposes of political grandstanding. Today, the stifling of legislation using the filibuster is carried out through blocking techniques such as holds and through the tacking on of numerous amendments to a bill, numerous points of order and consecutive roll call votes.Throughout their long history there wasn’t any procedural method to break a filibuster. Not until 1917 did the Senate adopt a rule to provide for a means of cloture. Cloture is attained when no less than 60 senators vote to end the debate. Today, the filibuster has been used increasingly more often and this has lead to the 109th Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist publicly saying that the use of the “nuclear option” may be attempted if President Bush’s nominees for Supreme Court are filibustered by the minority Democrats. The rule change would end the traditional and long-standing Senate rules and would pave the way for the Republican majority to override a filibuster by a simple 51 vote majority.

Franking Privilege

The franking privilege is the right of a member of Congress to send out mail bearing their signature without a stamp and at no cost to them. Mail sent in this manner can only be sent freely when used as an official communication to constituents. Franking is not intended for use in aiding incumbents in reelection but it does assist incumbency by at the very least reinforcing name recognition. Franking is a distinct advantage that incumbents have over challengers. Today, restrictions placed on franking incorporates mailing expenses into office allowances, while caps have been placed on total outgoing mail pieces, as well as requirements that members remove personal references and pictures of the member in the mailings.

Gerrymandering: Gerrymandering is the drawing of congressional district lines (redistricting) for political electoral purposes. The lines of a district are drawn to maximize the effective votes of supporters and minimize those of opponents usually for the purpose of protecting the interests of a particular party or ensuring that an incumbent is reelected. Packing and cracking are terms used to describe the strategies of breaking up a district either through drawing lines that push the undesirables into 1 district to minimize their voting effects on electorally close districts or by spreading these voters out over a number of districts to minimize their power in a particular district, respectively. These techniques have the effective outcome of decreasing voter turnout and ensuring incumbent reelection while spending little campaign contributions to do so.

Going Public

In Samuel Kernell’s book “Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership,” he describes “going public” as the “strategy whereby a president promotes himself and his policies in Washington by appealing to the American public for support.” The president bolsters his image and public prestige while attempting to shape public opinion and support for his policies by appealing directly to the public through the State of the Union Address, nominations, inaugural address and other public appearances. Additionally, while the president uses this strategy to provoke members of Congress to support his proposals it also can be used to stall the initiatives of his political opponents.

Imperial Presidency: The “Imperial Presidency” is the title of a book written by Harvard professor of history Arthur Schlesinger after observing both the LBJ and Richard Nixon’s presidencies. Schlesinger describes the ascendancy of a strong presidency post-WWII. Schlesinger traces the roots of the imperial presidency beginning with Franklin Roosevelt and continuing throughout the post-Roosevelt era. According to Schlesinger, in this period the de facto powers of the president have been steadily increasing, whereby the president seems too dominant both domestic and international politics. Schlesinger uses the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal as examples of overreaching presidential power that has ascended overtime and in Schlesinger’s opinion in many ways rivals those of the historical empire builders. Schlesinger credits the Great Depression, World War II and President Roosevelt’s presidency for the expansion of presidential power, the creation of the “Executive Office of the President” and for the subsequent transformation of the executive branch.

Iron triangles

Iron triangles is a phrase used to describe the relationship between special interest lobbying organizations, government agencies and the legislative committees or subcommittees members who formulate policy in specific areas of interest. These triangles represent a synergistic relationship whereby the constituent parts working together enhances the power and prestige of the other. Agency bureaucrats strengthen their positions by using relationships with committee members to either assist or block nominations that concern their agency while members of Congress rely upon these agency workers to bolster pork-barrel programs in their districts or states. Lobbyists provide information to the committees and the agencies in addition to providing campaign contributions and support for Congressmen who support policies favorable to their interest. These relationships typically formulate policy that often runs contrary to the greater interests of the population but they are so strong that they overcome this resistance.

Line-item veto: Normally, a presidential veto only allows the president to either accept or reject the entire bill. The line-item veto allows the president to eliminate specific portions of a bill. Proponents of increased presidential power promoted the line-item veto as a way to curb wasteful spending to reduce the federal deficit. The Line-Item Veto Act of 1996 constitutionality was successfully challenged and the line-item veto was rescinded.

Majority Leader of the Senate: Also referred to as the floor leader, the majority leader of the Senate is a relatively recently created position that has no constitutional mandate and has evolved in importance over time. Leaders are elected every 2 years by secret ballot by the party of the majority. They are the face and the spokesperson for their party in the Senate, the Senate floor leader and leader of the Senate. Unlike the House Majority Leader whose positional power is buttressed by House rules, the Senate Majority Leader must depend almost entirely on persuasion and personal contacts for influence to manage proceedings in a chamber whose informal rules change with each successive Congress. The recent era of increased partisanship and independently minded Senators has brought about new hurdles for the majority leader to surmount if they want to successfully wield power.

Midterm Effect

The “midterm effect” is a phrase used to describe the observation that the party of the president typically loses seats in the midterm election. It is believed that this effect is brought about by the turnout of opponents of the president in the opposition party who are more energized and mobilize in greater numbers. If turnout is low in midterm elections than smaller numbers of voters have a greater potential for swaying the election.

Neustadt’s Theory of Presidential Power: Neustadt explains presidential power in his book “Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents,” in which he claims that a president’s source of power is derived by his ability to persuade members of Congress and is rooted in his public prestige and professional reputation. Moreover, the success of the president to persuade members of Congress is rooted in his ability to create conditions favorable for persuasion either by using inherent and intangible powers granted by the constitution and/or through personal, bureaucratic or political wrangling.

PACs: Political Action Committees are formal political organizations created to elect representatives or promote particular issues or interests. PACs are restricted in the amount of money they can give to political candidates to $5,000 per year, to political parties of no more than $15,000 per year and to other PACs of no more than $5,000 per PAC, per year. In the 2006 presidential election 87% of all PAC contributions were to incumbents from corporations while 70% came from unions.

Skowronek’s Theory of Presidential Power: Skowronek explains the developments of presidential power in his book “The Politics Presidents Make.” Skowronek refers to presidential periods as “regimes” that are cyclical in nature and consist of 4 separate periods. The first period of regime is reconstruction, which is the most powerful period of regime. FDR is the best example of the reconstruction regime. Articulation follows reconstruction and is typified by the continuation of the policies of the reconstruction regime as exampled by Truman and LBJ. Pre-emption is the period characterized by misfits who don’t fit the mold of the reconstruction or articulation periods and are exampled by Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford. The final regime is disjunction and is characterized as being a period of weakness and dismantling of the dominant regime of the period and is typified by Presidents Carter and Hoover.

Super-Delegates

“Super-Delegates” were reintroduced into the nomination process by Democrats following the Democratic National Convention of 1968 after the findings of the McGovern-Fraser Commission effectively restored the power of the nomination to the people. Super-delegates were reintroduced to ensure that elected party officials and state and national party leaders would not be bound by the party primaries or caucuses and have a greater say in the nomination process.

Super Tuesday

“Super Tuesday” is a phrase used to describe the Tuesday in early March when a number of states hold their primaries in a presidential election year. The grouping of many southern states holding primaries all at once and early in the process is done purposely with the intention of using the predominant Democratic conservatism of these southern states to pull the overall party to the Right.

Whips: A “whip” is one of the top elective party posts whose duties are to ensure member’s attendance, encourage party discipline, monitor floor activity, count votes and use persuasion to mobilize partisan coalitions into voting with the prerogative of the leadership. In this way, parties have expanded their whip systems to include a variety of subordinate whip positions in order to incent party member to support the leadership. The expansion ensures broad leadership representation across party groups and is intended to garner outside constituency support for the party.