This chapter explains the nature of congressional election and organization. In describing the factors affecting electoral politics, it focuses primarily on the issue of incumbency, its drawbacks and advantages. The discussion includes and assessment of the influence of these electoral campaigns on members of Congress. The chapter then examines the organization of the institution, and the nature and sources of congressional leadership. These are the chapter’s main points:

Members of Congress, once elected, are likely to be reelected. Members of Congress have large staffs and can pursue a "service strategy" of responding to the needs of individual constituents. They also can secure pork barrel projects for their state or district and thus demonstrate their concern for constituents. House members gain a greater advantage from these activities than do senators, whose larger constituencies make it harder for them to build close personal relations with voters and whose office is more likely to attract a strong challenger. Incumbency does have some disadvantages. Members of Congress must take positions on controversial issues, might blunder into a political scandal or indiscretion, or face strong challengers; any of these conditions can reduce their reelection chances. By and large, however, the advantages of incumbency far outweigh the disadvantages, particularly for House members. Incumbents’ advantages extend into their reelection campaigns.

Congress is a highly fragmented institution. It has no single leader; the House and Senate have separate leaders, neither of whom can presume to speak for the other chamber. The principal party leaders of Congress are the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader. These party leaders derive their influence less from their formal authority than from having been entrusted by other members of their party with the task of formulating policy positions and coordinating party strategy. Individual party members can choose to follow or ignore their leader’s requests.

The committee system is a network of thirty-five committees and over 250 subcommittees, each with its separate chairperson. Each chair has influence on the policy decisions of the committee or subcommittee through the scheduling of bills and control of staff. Although the seniority principle is not absolute, the chair of a committee or subcommittee is usually the member from the majority party who has the longest continuous service. Party loyalty is not normally a criterion in the selection of chairs. As a result, committee and subcommittee leaders might or might not have the same national policy objectives as the party leaders.

It is in the committees that most of the work of Congress is conducted. Each standing committee of the House and Senate has jurisdiction over congressional policy in a particular area (such as agriculture or foreign relations), as does each its subcommittees. In most cases, the full House and Senate accept committee recommendations about passage of bills, although amendments to bills are quite common and committees are careful to take other members of Congress into account when making legislative decisions. Congress is a legislative system in which influence is widely dispersed, an arrangement that suits the power and reelection needs of its individual members.

In recent decades, the individualistic nature of Congress has been intensified by staffing changes. Larger committee and subcommittee staffs now make it easier for members of Congress to pursue their separate power and reelection goals. Congressional agencies strengthen the ability of Congress to act as a collective body by lessening the institution’s dependence on the executive branch for information relevant to legislative issues, but they also make it easier for members of Congress to function independently.