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.
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.
