Office of Congressional Relations

Also known as the Congressional Liaison Office or Legislative Affairs Office, the Office of Congressional Relations (OCR) is a unit of the White House Office that assists the President in communicating with members of Congress about legislation. It also handles congressional mail and requests for information addressed to the White House. Its offices are in the West Wing of the White House; on Capitol Hill staffers operate out of the Vice President's suite on the Senate side and the office of the leader of the President's party on the House side.

Prior to World War II, White House liaison with Congress was handled by cabinet- and subcabinet-level officials, especially those who had served in Congress. Woodrow Wilson instituted the Common Council Club, a group of 30 subcabinet officials (including Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt) to round up support on Capitol Hill. Roosevelt used his postmaster general, James Farley, and he reserved the position of assistant secretary of commerce for an official in charge of congressional liaison.

During World War II the War Department performed liaison for the Roosevelt administration, with more than 200 officers assigned to its Legislation and Liaison Division. The Bureau of the Budget's Legislative Reference Division also lobbied in Congress. After the war the newly created Department of Defense established an assistant secretary for congressional liaison, the Department of State named an assistant secretary for congressional relations, and between 1949 and 1963 the other departments followed suit, assigning more than 500 officials to these units.

Departmental liaison offices were supervised by White House aides. Dwight Eisenhower created the first such formal unit in the White House Office. John F. Kennedy retained the unit. Richard Nixon, who named the office the Office of Congressional Relations, organized it into Senate and House divisions. President Jimmy Carter also relied on Vice President Walter Mondale, a former senator. Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton used Vice Presidents Dan Quayle and Albert Gore in the same capacity.

See also Executive Office of the President

Sources

• Jon R. Bond and Richard Fleisher, eds., Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books, 2000).
• Louis Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President, 4th ed., rev. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997).
• Rebecca K. C. Hersman, Friends and Foes: How Congress and the President Really Make Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000).
• Ralph K. Huitt, “White House Channels to the Hill”, in Congress against the President, edited by Harvey C. Mansfield, Sr. (New York: Academy of Political Science, 1975).
• John Manley, “Presidential Power and White House Lobbying”, Political Science Quarterly 93, no. 2 (Summer 1978): 255–75.
• Christopher H. Pyle and Richard M. Pious, eds., The President, Congress, and the Constitution: Power and Legitimacy in American Politics (New York: Free Press, 1984)