What are congressional caucuses?
Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Tom McClintock, R-Calif., have teamed up to create a new congressional caucus in the House of Representatives. The Fourth Amendment Caucus aims to limit the government’s ability to acquire Americans’ personal information from data brokers without a court order. Lofgren and McClintock have circulated a letter inviting their colleagues to join the new caucus.
What is a caucus?
A caucus is an informal group of lawmakers in the House and Senate. Caucuses are also referred to as informal member organizations, legislative service organizations (LSOs), and Congressional Member Organizations (CMOs). LSOs and CMOs refer only to House caucuses required to register with the Committee on Administration. LSOs and CMOs do not include informal groups not required to register in the House or Senate caucuses.
Caucuses share features like a name, membership list, designated leaders - or chairs - and staff. They may focus on partisan dynamics within the Democratic and Republican parties, the policy interests of their members, national constituencies, regional interests, or industry concerns.
While caucuses come in a variety of forms and perform many different functions, they all seek to influence the policy process. Caucuses try to shape policy outcomes directly through the legislative process or indirectly through the electoral process. Caucuses engage in a variety of activities to influence the agenda inside the House and Senate, determine the alternatives lawmakers consider during debates, and shape the final version of whatever legislation Congress eventually passes. They conduct policy research and craft legislation, circulate information about their policy proposals, and build coalitions to support those proposals on the House and Senate floors. Caucuses also offer lawmakers a forum for their members to socialize with one another apart from the Democratic and Republican parties in the House and Senate.
Caucuses help coordinate lawmakers’ efforts to advance specific policy proposals with allied advocacy groups outside Congress. Working with advocacy groups helps lawmakers compensate for the lack of internal resources that House and Senate committees and party organizations enjoy. Advocacy groups help caucus members persuade - or pressure - non-caucus members to support specific policies.
When do lawmakers form caucuses?
Caucuses exist outside of, or separate and apart from, the committee system and party organizations in the House and Senate. Lawmakers form caucuses when committees and/or parties do not help them achieve their goals. That is, lawmakers join caucuses because the party establishment does not provide leadership on an issue important to them, impedes consideration of that issue, or effectively blocks consideration of it altogether.
The Democratic Study Group (DSG) is considered the first modern caucus. Liberal rank-and-file Democrats in the House created the DSG in 1959 to serve as a counterweight to the more conservative southern Democrats who exerted an influential role in the legislative process as a result of their control of many of the most important committees. And liberal House Republicans formed the Wednesday Group in 1963 to provide a forum for like-minded members to discuss issues outside the regular party meetings.
Lawmakers formed the DSG and Wednesday Group caucuses when the formal committee system and party organizations no longer served as reliable structures through which they could achieve their goals. The DSG’s information activities represented an effort to compensate for the structural biases in the House at the time that privileged the committee system.
Similarly, conservative lawmakers formed the Republican Study Committee (RSC) in 1973 to help coordinate their activities in the House. Lawmakers needed the RSC because the Republican Conference was no longer solving the coordination problems faced by House conservatives in a way that helped them achieve their goals in the institution. House conservatives likewise formed the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) at the beginning of the 114th Congress. Lawmakers formed the HFC in response to the failures of existing caucuses - the RSC - to address their needs. That is, the impetus behind the formation of the HFC is the realization that a conservative alternative to the RSC was needed in which like-minded members can coordinate legislative efforts on policy and procedure. And conservative lawmakers formed the Senate Steering Committee (SSC) in 1974, one year after the RSC, to help coordinate their activities.
House-Senate Differences
Caucuses exist in both the House and Senate. But their particular characteristics and activities vary between the two chambers. For example, Senate caucuses are - on average - less active than House caucuses. House caucuses tend to place more emphasis on developing a research capability at the staff level. This is needed to compensate for the informational asymmetries between rank-and-file caucus members and committee and party leaders.
In contrast, lawmakers typically task Senate caucuses with solving a different coordination problem. The informational asymmetries confronting House members are not as large in the Senate because senators serve on more committees than their counterparts in the House. Individual senators also have a greater ability to participate in the legislative process on the Senate floor. This allows senators who do not serve on a committee to influence floor debate on legislation in which they are interested. Consequently, caucus activities tend to assume a more operational focus in the Senate and are focused on coordinating the lawmakers’ activities on and off the Senate floor.
The Takeaway
Caucuses serve an informational purpose or distribute benefits to their members in some other way. But their existence is best understood as a response to the failure of committees and parties to help lawmakers achieve their goals in the House and Senate.