There’s a long and well-known literature in political science that say Members of Congress have three goals: re-election, increasing their internal power within the legislature, and making good public policy for their constituents (For example, see Fenno). In general, the re-election goals takes primacy, because without it, the other two become unattainable. And contrary to what your cynical uncle says, that’s probably a good thing: if Members did not concern themselves with getting re-elected, both the theoretical and practical underpinnings of republican representation tend to fall apart. This is not the kind of political science that is much up for debate; at this point it’s more or less self-evident to everyone. But it does leave a whole bunch of black boxes, namely how do you achieve any of those three goals?

Sometimes — especially when the three goals align together — it’s easy. You think policy X is a great idea, your constituents love it, and your party leadership not only loves it too, but they want you to lead the political fight for it, and they will reward you down the road for your leadership on the issue. Couldn’t be any easier. When it becomes interesting, however, is is when the three goals come into conflict: when increasing your power in the chamber means casting votes that hurt your re-election chances; when making good public policy for your constituents goes against their own perception of their interests (and thus your re-election chances); and when increasing your power in the chamber necessitates accepting bad public policy. It’s even harder when you factor in the endogeneity — sacrificing your constituents’ wants for more internal power may ultimately benefit your constituents down the road.

How Members make decisions when these goals come into conflict is perhaps the most interesting aspect of congressional behavior. Still, this doesn’t tell us much about the actual fieldcraft of power accumulation in a legislature. Imagine you are a freshman backbencher in a legislature, doesn’t matter if it’s Congress or just the town council. How do you go about becoming powerful?

I think there are two general strategies and skills: adding value and extracting value. Both are consequences of the institutional context of a legislature, which I think has the following key features: power is distributed asymmetrically, Members have long-term repeated interactions, and very few people can make things happen without help from others. Consequently, Members — even powerful Members — need to bargain with others in order to achieve any of their goals. This results in what James McGregor Burns calls “transactional leadership,” the trading of something of value in return for something of value.

So when I say adding value, in the most basic sense this simply means your vote on the floor. And on the bare face of it, this is all the freshman backbencher has at his disposal to bargain with. Is there another Member who’s help you need? Almost assuredly there is. What can you give them? Well, you can be loyal to them with your vote. This is, as most people know, a very common relationship between the leaders of a legislature and their partisan freshmen. The freshmen provide loyal votes — even if it goes somewhat against their constituents or their own thoughts on good public policy — and in exchange the leadership provides all the usual resources that come from holding a position of power in the legislature: desired committee assignments, help moving district-related legislation or earmarks, opportunities to speak on the floor or sponsor high-visibility bills or amendments, and perhaps help raising campaign funds for the next election. And so on and so forth.

But, of course, votes are not the only way that a freshman can add value, they just happen to be the formal power that comes with the office. Outside of the formal power lies an endless list of resource externalities that can be translated into added value. This includes personal attributes of individual legislators: are they smart? hard working? politically savvy? natural leaders? All of these things can add value to someone else’s pursuit of a policy agenda, which can result in transactional benefits to the possessor of the qualities. If you are capable of working endless 20-hour days to help someone else achieve their goals there is little doubt that you will build up an enormous amount of chits from them for future use. Even more importantly, you will develop a reputation that brings future clients to your door looking to put your value-added to use for them, and willing to trade you some present or future chits for that value.

But freshmen backbenchers can also develop resources that can create value added. Two examples of this are fundraising prowess and policy expertise. Both of those are highly desirable types of added value, and both (within limits) can be developed without relying on others. If you can begin your legislative career by raising twice as much money as you need for your first campaign, you will have cold hard campaign cash to donate to other Members. If you can turn yourself into an absolute wonk within key policy areas, you will be helpful in developing legislation, and in selling it to other Members and the public. Both of those commodities are highly desired by other Members, and you will be rewarded handsomely.

In short, in order to accumulate power, you need to provide scarce resources to those who are in positions to help you in return. But that’s not good enough: providing resources in exchange can get you things, but to develop long-term power, you need to trade immediate resources for continuous power. Logrolls to get your preferred legislation are certainly nice, and certainly can help you get re-elected. Loyally voting for the leadership can do the same. But they do not help you accumulate internal legislative power (at least not beyond the power that flows from pure seniority). What you need to do to accumulate internal power is trade immediate added value for lasting power. Tireless work on a bill in return for strong consideration for a good committee assignment. Loyal votes even in the face of your constituent preferences in return for an entry-level role in the caucus. These are the types of things that can get your power snowballing — using your added value in exchange for things that can themselves generate value added. To use an economic analogy, it’s the difference between labor and capital. Wages are good, but owning the company is better.

And that brings us to extracting value. As a backbench freshman, you definitely have your vote. But what is your vote worth? What can you get in exchange for it? Those who can get a lot are good at extracting value; those who cannot get much, or who give it away free, are not. Seems like a simple principle, but it is sure as hell not easy to put into practice. Maximizing the value of your resources is incredibly tricky; it’s like being good at poker, you need to be able to play the game well, and you need to be an astute reader of people and possibilities. Some people are good at it, and get a lot in return for their added value; others are fantastic at it, and get a lot more in return for their added value.

Creating value where there seems to be none is even trickier. There are those, however, — former Rep. Rostenkowski comes to mind — who were masters at extracting value by creating it, whether it was from other legislators or external political players like lobbyist and party actors. Rosty had a simple maxim on how to extract value out of thin air: figure out what the hell you want to do on some issue, and then get someone to reward you for doing it. That’s where the value is, precisely because there’s no downside; you already made your decision because it was the best thing for you, period. Now go get someone to pay you off for doing exactly what you were going to do anyway. No fuss, no muss. Every time you make a decision, someone was hoping you would do what you did. Get them to pay for it. Even if it’s just a tiny favor. Plain and simple.

This is one reason why I have always believed that the effects of political lobbying are overrated. Legislators have every incentive to string lobbyists along even if they already agree with them. Lobbyists provide all sorts of resources to legislators: information about policies, talking points for speeches, entire bills that can be introduced, staff support that can be called upon in a pinch to augment existing human resources. And so legislators love being lobbied hard. By all sides of an issue. And the upshot is twofold: first, legislators have a strong incentive to be coy about their positions on various decisions. Indecision — at least the appearance of indecision — is the key to maximizing extracted value. Second, extracting maximum from thin air requires a credible threat to make an alternative decision. You can’t pretend you are on the fence about something if you are not. People with 100% pro-choice ratings aren’t great at extracting value from thin air on abortion issues.

Which creates a dual-track system for approaching decision making. If you are faced with a legislative choice, figure out what you want to do. If you have no credible commitment to do the opposite, then your only chance to add value is to marshal what resources you have (your vote + the external resources you possess) and work to maximize your future rewards based on your immediate help. If you do have a credible commitment to do the opposite, then you might be better off sitting on the fence and seeing what offers come your way for you to do what you were going to do all along. Obviously, the moderate Members of a legislature spend a lot more time doing the latter, simply because they are much more often in the position of having a credible commitment to go either way on an issue.