suspicion of the ex- ecutive branch during the Johnson and Nixon years, congressional reformers of the 1960s and '70s looked, naively, to "the American people" as a deus ex machina. Strip "the anti-democratic barons" of their powers and make them respon- sible to rank-and-file Democrats, thought re- formers such as Representative Donald Fraser (D.-Minn.), and the "will of the people" would push desirable (liberal) legislation through Con- gress. The House reforms of...