It is a quarter of a century since Richard F. Fenno published his classic work Home Style: House Members in Their Districts (1978). That book set the standard, and high one it was, for on-site, soaking-and-poking observation of members of Congress as they make their rounds back home, keeping in touch with their constituents. What animates the members? How do they see their constituencies? What are their strategies? What kinds of things do they do? In light of this evidence, what does representation seem to amount to?

In recent years, Fenno has taken to the trails again and produced two new works that are extensions, and in some respects updates, of Home Style, although the new works have few new members under scrutiny and Fenno is careful not to make any claims about representative sampling. Any fan of Home Style will want to curl up with these new books, too. My undergraduate class raved about the first of them, Congress at the Grassroots: Representational Change in the South, 1970–1998 (2000).

Now we have Going Home, and welcome to it! This work deals exclusively with African American members of Congress—four of them. Two of the four, Louis Stokes of Cleveland and Barbara Jordan of Houston, are repeaters from Home Style. The material about them, aside from a brief revisit to Stokes, is taken from Fenno's research records of the 1970s, although the two members are treated here by name rather than, as previously, anonymously. New to Fenno's collection are Chaka Fattah of Philadelphia and Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, members of the current congressional generation. Tubbs Jones succeeded the veteran Stokes in the same district in 1998, which allows a touch of then-and-now analysis.

Again, the numbers are small, but what is it that emerges as distinctive about these black members and their connections of representation? I would say four things, drawing on Fenno's analysis. First, all these members have aimed to serve what Fenno calls a fourth constituency—“a national constituency of black citizens who live beyond the borders of any one member's district, but with whom all black members share a set of race-related concerns” (p. 7). This adds to the concentric threesome of home constituencies that all House members need to worry about—their full geographic districts, their November election coalitions, and their primary election supporters (a typology rendered familiar by Fenno in Home Style). Second, all four members have accented their symbolic representation of African Americans. In appearances back home and elsewhere, there is a recurrent theme of standing for, exemplifying, setting standards for, and blazing trails for (p. 34). This is a role unavailable to white politicians otherwise serving blacks (p. 260). Third, in policy endeavors and otherwise, all four members have emphasized education. This propensity stuck out for Fenno and surprised him: “Cumulatively, they spent more time talking about education than about any other single subject….They harped on it continually as the necessary foundation of African American strength” (p. 258). Fourth, all four members have enjoyed edgy, or at least wary in the case of Tubbs Jones, relations with their local Democratic party organizations. All those organizations had been run by whites who did these black politicians few favors early in their careers.

Yes, there is some evidence of change across the three decades. The familiar scenario of “from protest to politics” is to some degree borne out. Today's House members Fattah and Tubbs Jones appeal to many whites as well as blacks, they build citywide coalitions for various purposes, and they enjoy relatively easy relations with their cities' media. The mayors possibly aside, they are the leading politicians in their cities. Those options and standings were less available to urban black members in the early 1970s.

But that is just about it for distinctiveness, which at any rate seems to be declining. Then and now, these black members seem an awful lot like House members, period. In Fenno's accounts, I was continually impressed by the initiative, aggressiveness, energy, craftiness, and political finesse exhibited day after day by these black politicians. That is the story of House members in general, to which Fenno here adds richly. Congressional politics is a Darwinian universe. You need to get there and stay there by yourself. You need to be better at it than anyone else (although you also need luck). A part exception in Fenno's foursome is the somewhat reticent Louis Stokes, who rose in politics largely courtesy of his brother, the mayor of Cleveland, Carl Stokes. But Barbara Jordan, Chaka Fattah, and Stephanie Tubbs Jones have been forces of nature from their early days.

Also rubbing against distinctiveness is the diversity among these four black politicians in what Fenno discusses as their personal goals (p. 256). The entire House membership is probably not more diverse in this respect. Fenno characterizes Stokes as “group-interest intensive.” His finest hour came as a feisty founder of the Congressional Black Caucus. Tubbs Jones is “person intensive.” She specializes in personal contacts and in generating civic participation back in Cleveland. Fattah is “policy intensive.” So far, his finest hour has come as author of the Gear Up program in 1998, an effort to attract low-income high school students into college by offering suit-able incentives early on. To get this plan enacted, he needed to devise a credible incentive scheme, engage the Clinton White House, win over a few Republicans on the House Education Committee, and strike a deal with Senator James Jeffords. All that was done. Fenno classifies Jordan as “influence intensive.” We remember her for her rhetoric at the Nixon impeachment hearings and as keynoter at the Democratic convention in 1976. But she came into Congress before that as the ultimate inside operator and power builder, a role she had rehearsed in the Texas state senate.

To study representation, Fenno shows in these accounts once again and argues here explicitly (pp. 5, 252, 263), should be to study more than matches between roll-call votes and constituency opinion. Other techniques are useful, too. He closes with these words: “The test will come if, as, and when more political scientists find themselves ‘going home,’ too” (p. 264).