The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era

To many observers, Congress has become a deeply partisan institution where ideologically-distinct political parties do little more than engage in legislative trench warfare. A zero-sum, winner-take-all approach to congressional politics has replaced the bipartisan comity of past eras. If the parties cannot get everything they want in national policymaking, then they prefer gridlock and stalemate to compromise. Or, at least, that is the conventional wisdom.

In The Limits of Party, James M. Curry and Frances E. Lee challenge this conventional wisdom. By constructing legislative histories of congressional majority parties' attempts to enact their policy agendas in every congress since the 1980s and by drawing on interviews with Washington insiders, the authors analyze the successes and failures of congressional parties to enact their legislative agendas.
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Their conclusions will surprise many congressional observers: Even in our time of intense party polarization, bipartisanship remains the key to legislative success on Capitol Hill. Congressional majority parties today are neither more nor less successful at enacting their partisan agendas. They are not more likely to ram though partisan laws or become mired in stalemate. Rather, the parties continue to build bipartisan coalitions for their legislative priorities and typically compromise on their original visions for legislation in order to achieve legislative success.

Author: James M. Curry, Frances E. Lee
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 09/22/2020
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.96lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9780226716350


Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2021

About the Author
James M. Curry is associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah. He is the author of Legislating in the Dark. Frances E. Lee is professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. Her previous books include Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign and Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate.