Jimmy Carter and the Water Wars: Presidential Influence and the P ...

Oral histories conducted at the conclusion of the Carter presidency with the principal actors provide additional qualitative evidence, as do interviews with many of the political actors involved in this case, and other observers. To a lesser extent, biographical accounts and secondary textual sources provide additional qualitative data. Quantitative data are generated from the archival sources. Specifically, we are able to identify those members of Congress who were directly lobbied by the president (and who were also lobbied by Tom Bevill), which allows us to estimate presidential influence more directly than any past study that we are aware of. We also employ congressional roll call votes, as well as other publicly available sources of data.

Organization of the Book

In chapter 1, we discuss the general features of the presidential veto and academic research that seeks to understand presidential influence in Congress. In chapter 2, we discuss the political context that faced the Carter administration on its arrival in Washington; we focus on the unsettled nature of the congressional context, the conflict between congressional expectations and the Carter legislative agenda, and the Carter transition and staffing of the administration. The origin of the water wars was congressional attachment to water projects, on the one hand, and Jimmy Carter’s dedication to fiscal discipline and changing how projects were authorized and funded by Congress, on the other. In chapter 3, we discuss the development of the Carter administration’s “veto strategy” that led to the most important veto of his presidency, as well as efforts by the administration and the president to sustain the veto.