The topic of this episode is: “What are the job descriptions of representatives and Senators?”

To answer that question, we have Dr. Casey Burgat. He's the director of the Legislative Affairs program at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. Dr. Burgat also has had stints at the Congressional Research Service, and he worked with me back when I was at the R Street Institute. Recently, he and Professor Charlie Hunt authored the book, Congress Explained: Representation and Lawmaking in the First Branch. Casey has been studying Congress and how it operates for years, which makes him a great person to ask the question, what are the job descriptions of representatives and Senators?

Kevin Kosar:

Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be, and that is why we are here to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC.

Dr. Casey Burgat, welcome to the program.

Casey Burgat:

Thanks for having me.

Kevin Kosar:

It's not unusual for Americans to grumble about Congress and to complain that these elected officials are not doing their jobs. But last I checked, there're no official job descriptions for the positions of representative and Senator. So in thinking about what these guys are supposed to be doing, I think we should probably start with the US Constitution. It certainly has some clues.

Casey Burgat:

Yes. Always, always start with the Constitution. It takes us back to the Founding. It sets the framework for how we're supposed to think about a lot of these institutional questions. This is one of them.

The Constitution does provide at least some clues, but definitely not as many as we assume are in there—especially in regards to the actual duties of Senators and representatives. It does give eligibility requirements of who can serve: you have to be 25 years old to be in the House, 30 in the Senate, seven years a citizen, etc. But after that, it gets surprisingly and oftentimes frustratingly sparse in terms of what individuals are supposed to do once they're elected. We have to look more broadly and deduce our expectations of job descriptions.

We can take some hints about what the individual members are supposed to do based on what the Constitution says that Congress as an institution—and the individual chambers—are tasked with. So Congress-wide, all legislative powers are granted to Congress. It's right there at the top—Article I, Section 1—no debate about it: Congress is the legislative branch. Then, they itemized what other powers Congress is supposed to have: to declare war, coin money, and—Kevin, I know this is for you—establish post offices, etc. We know that they're supposed to do that. Then each of the chambers has its separate roles: the House deals with revenue legislation, impeachment, etc. The Senate has advice and consent on treaties and nominations, and exclusively conducts the impeachment trials that the House sends them. Because Congress and the individual chambers are constitutionally tasked with these types of duties, if they don't do them, no one else will—at least in theory; in practice, we know it's not always that simple.

So given that the Constitution gives them these duties—both as an institution and as individual chambers—we can at least somewhat deduce that they are part of their constitutional job descriptions. But that's about where the Constitution runs out of the details on exactly what these 535 powerful members are supposed to do every single day. In fact, the vagueness of the Constitution is intentional. The Framers explicitly punt on a lot of these specifics that we often assume they've detailed for the individual members and Congress as an institution.

For example, the Constitution says things like “each House may determine the rules of its proceedings,” so it's left up to the members to decide how to operate and organize. This means they have to decide things like what—if any—committees to have, how to elect leaders (if they will have leaders), and how to process its business through procedures, especially in regards to legislation. Despite us thinking that it's an unbending, unmovable, and slow-operating institution, Congress has changed these things over time to suit the wants and needs of its membership.

But getting back to your original question about the frustration, this ambiguity and letting Congress figure out the details of the job on its own and changing things as they see fit has absolutely contributed to the public’s frustration with Congress. It's not like throwing a job posting up on Indeed of “Senator” and “representative.” It's up to all of us to decide exactly what these powerful people should be doing with their powers and their hours. And when we don't agree, we inevitably get frustration because you can't be everything to everyone at the same time. This is nothing new and has been a constant challenge for members since the beginning.

Kevin Kosar:

Americans also tend to have conflicting feelings about representatives and Senators. On the one hand, they'll say, "You guys just need to get things done." On the other hand they'll say, "Why aren't you deliberating more? Why aren't you bargaining?" And then on another hand, they'll say, "You need to stick to your principles and quit doing all that compromising and horse-trading." The very nature of the body of Congress itself—that it pulls these people from all over the place with different interests, and throws them into a big soup bowl together—seems to create its own theoretical problems with the expectations we should have for members.

Casey Burgat:

Absolutely. We are full of contradictions and it really helps to admit it. Then we can get past the lazy answer of what they're supposed to do—the bumper sticker version of all this stuff—and have conversations about what Congress is supposed to do and what's possible given all those contradictions baked right into the system.

Every few months we'll see a survey of Americans saying the vast majority of us—90% of us—say we want Congress to get something done, find common ground, compromise on things, etc. That's the lazy version. When we get down to the individual incentives of who these people represent, the thing you might want to compromise on is the thing that I deem as a principle that is uncompromisable. And in fact, the minute that my representative compromises on an issue like that, I'm looking for someone else to take the job.

We see this baked into campaign platforms where candidates will say this explicitly. "Send me there to stop them. Send me there to stop President Trump or President Biden.” Then this message is spun as standing up for principles. This just gets to the conflict that we've had since the beginning. We take all of these constituencies—all of these collective action problems—elect some people to be our voice, and say “Good luck.” Then we blame them when we don't feel represented on the one thing that really matters to us. It is just an incredibly hard job that leads to unrealistic expectations, which—in turn—lead to frustration that is easy to capitalize on. It's an impossible job, and I'm sympathetic to the members who have to navigate this every single day.

Kevin Kosar:

You just mentioned something that's important, which is that we have Senators whose job it is to represent whole states, whereas you have representatives who are supposed to represent districts. At the same time, they both come to Washington, DC and they're supposed to address matters of national concern—not merely local or parochial—which is another tension within there.

Let's set that aside and go to another thing that pulls at us when we think about the role of representative and Senator. Your book mentions these classic terms from political science—viewing the job of the legislator as being a <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/political-representation/