Congress has three major functions: lawmaking, representation, and oversight.

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1 Unit 5: Congress A legislature is the law-making body of a government. The United States Congress is a bicameral legislature that is, one consisting of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The framers assumed Congress would be the most powerful branch of government because it possessed the power to make law, including the power to tax and spend (the power of the purse ). 1. Major Functions Congress has three major functions: lawmaking, representation, and oversight. Lawmaking. The most fundamental power of Congress is the power to make law. Most major programs and public policies in the United States such as Social Security, Medicare, and environmental protection have their origins in laws passed by Congress. Although Congress alone is given formal lawmaking powers, in the chapters that follow we will see that Presidents, judges, and federal agencies also play important policymaking roles in the American political system. Nevertheless, federal law is the foundation of American public policy, and major policy change must typically go through Congress. Representation. Members of Congress represent the interests of their constituents the citizens of the district or state from which the member is elected. Representation takes many specific forms: supporting legislation favorable to the district, obtaining federal projects and grants for the district (e.g. for transportation), or intervening with federal regulatory agencies to help a local industry. Members also seek to provide individual service or casework to their constituents (e.g. presenting a flag at an Eagle Scout ceremony or helping a constituent receive favorable treatment from the bureaucracy, such as a dispute over veterans benefits). Senators and Representatives have large staffs, and staffers devote a considerable amount of time listening to constituents, responding to their requests, and attempting to develop a reputation for effective service. Members of Congress are sometimes criticized for being out of touch with the voters who sent them to Washington. This criticism, however, does not appear to be warranted: the typical member spends much of his or her time traveling to and from their home state and meeting with individual constituents and groups (business associations, unions, church gatherings, civic organizations, etc.). Oversight. Oversight refers to the congressional review and monitoring of the executive branch to determine whether executive officials are carrying out their responsibilities as intended by Congress. Congress may also investigate whether government officials are abusing their power. Congressional hearings meetings at which executive officials testify before a committee are a primary mechanism for oversight. Another oversight tool is the General Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency that conducts audits and investigative reports. 2. Basic Differences between the House and Senate Since Hawaii became the 50 th state in 1959, Congress has had 535 voting members: 435 Representatives and 100 Senators. Representatives serve two-year terms in office. The framers

2 expected the House would be the most democratic branch that is, the one most responsive to popular sentiment and closest to the people because incumbents must stand for reelection every two years. In theory, frequent elections increase the motivation of Representatives to stay in good standing with their constituents (otherwise they may be voted out of office). In the House, Representatives are elected to legislative districts. In 1929, Congress set the total number of seats in the House at 435. The Constitution requires that House seats are apportioned among the states on the basis of population, and that a census of the population be taken every decade for that purpose. States with rapid population growth gain seats after the census, while states with lower growth may lose seats. For example, in 2008 Pennsylvania had 19 seats and Florida had 25; after the 2010 census Pennsylvania lost one seat and Florida gained two. Thus, district lines had to be redrawn in each state to accommodate the new number of districts. Over the past fifty years, states in the South and West have gained seats at the expense of states in the Northeast and Midwest. The framers designed the Senate to be more distant from the people than the House. Senators serve six-year terms in office, and until the Constitution was amended in 1917 they were selected by state legislatures, not directly by the people. According to James Madison in Federalist 62, this distance from the common man would make the Senate less likely to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions. The Senate is the more prestigious institution: Representatives frequently seek to become Senators, but the reverse is extremely rare. Senators have greater constitutional responsibilities than do Representatives. The Senate has sole authority to approve the President s appointments to the executive and judicial branches. Known as the power of advice and consent, presidential appointees are confirmed by a majority vote in the Senate. The Constitution also gives the Senate the authority to approve treaties with foreign nations by a two-thirds vote. 3. Parties in Congress Political parties serve as the primary vehicle for organizing Congress and coordinating action among hundreds of individual legislators. In each chamber of Congress, the political party with the most members is known as the majority party; the minority party has the second most members. The majority party selects the leaders of the House and Senate, as well as the chairs of congressional committees. For reasons we will discuss below, the majority party dominates the House while the influence of minority party is typically very limited. In the Senate, however, the majority is less dominant and the minority has much greater political clout. In a nutshell: it is much better to be a member of the minority in the Senate than in the House. 4. Leadership: House vs. Senate The party leadership in Congress cannot control the voting behavior of rank-and-file members, who have independent electoral bases of support in their districts. Nevertheless, leaders do have resources at their disposal (such as influence over committee assignments) to encourage members to support the party line. Over the past twenty years parties in Congress have

3 increasingly voted as cohesive blocs, and it has become uncommon for members to vote against the wishes of party leaders on important votes. In the House, the majority party s leader is the Speaker of the House; the minority party is headed by the minority leader. The Speaker is a very powerful position, and he or she is expected to use this power to enact legislation supported by the majority party. One important source of power is the Speaker s influence over the Rules Committee, whose members are appointed by the Speaker. This committee determines when a bill comes to the floor for a vote and the number of amendments that may be proposed to alter the bill. Generally, opportunities to amend the bill will be used by opponents to reduce its chances of passage, so supporters will usually prefer a closed rule which severely limits floor debate and the introduction of amendments. Additionally, the rules may be used to ensure that the minority party cannot offer amendments to the bill. In sum, acting through the Rules Committee, the Speaker has considerable influence over which bills will be debated and voted on by the House, and which bills are likely to pass. Other members of the House leadership are the majority leader (the second ranking position behind the Speaker) and party whips who keep track of votes and rally support for legislation. The most powerful leadership position in the Senate is the majority leader. Compared to the Speaker of the House, the majority leader has less influence over his chamber s legislative agenda. There is no Rules Committee in the Senate; the Senate relies on unanimous consent to conduct its business (scheduling votes, placing limits on debate, etc.). This means that one Senator can stop the Senate from proceeding. A Senator who objects to a bill may threaten a filibuster, which is a delaying tactic to prevent action on legislation (the hope is that the Senate will move on to other matters and effectively kill the proposed bill). A classic filibuster consists of making a lengthy speech (the record is held by South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, a segregationist who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes to block a 1957 civil rights bill). In practice, Senators simply announce a hold, a signal to withhold unanimous consent if the bill is brought to the floor. In this manner a Senator can block legislation without having to go through the trouble of speaking for hours and hours. The majority can cut off a filibuster with a cloture vote, but it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture. Thus, without a 60 vote supermajority the majority leader cannot effectively shut the minority party out of the legislative process. Because one party rarely has 60 or more seats, Senators in the minority are often in a position to exert influence over the legislative process. They may say, in effect, bargain with me or I will block your bill. Defenders of the filibuster argue that it protects the interests of the political minority (either Democrats or Republicans, depending on the politics of the day) and promotes compromise and bipartisanship. We are better off, defenders say, with a Senate in which the majority party must work with the minority and cannot simply disregard them. Opponents of the filibuster argue that the practice has been abused. Once rarely used and reserved for major issues of contention, critics charge that in recent decades the filibuster has become so commonplace it has undermined the basic democratic principle of majority rule by giving the minority a veto over the legislative agenda. In response to perceived abuse of the filibuster, in 2013 the Democratic Senate voted to require only a majority vote to end filibusters for certain executive and judicial nominees.

4 5. Congressional Committees Like any large and complex organization, Congress requires a division of labor and specialization. The committee system is a central organizational feature of Congress. Standing Committees draft legislation and hold hearings for certain substantive policy areas (e.g. Armed Services, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs). Congressional committees are quite large particularly in the House, where some committees have over 50 members. Senate committees are smaller, typically between 20 and 30 members. Committee chairs have considerable influence over the work of their committees and are therefore among the most powerful members of Congress. Important committees include those dealing with money: taxes (the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee) and spending (Appropriations Committees in the House and the Senate). The Appropriations Committee is responsible for designating specific sums of money to be spent on authorized programs. Members seek committee assignments that will help them serve their constituents and advance their personal policy interests and goals. For example, a Representative from a district with a large military base will be attracted to the Armed Services Committee, and a Senator from a farm state will likely want to serve on the Agriculture Committee. Since just about everyone cares about federal spending, seats on the Appropriations Committees are highly prized in the House and the Senate. 6. The Lawmaking Process How does a bill become a law? The textbook lawmaking process follows seven steps: (1) A bill is introduced in the House and Senate and referred to a committee (most legislation begins as similar proposals in both chambers). (2) The bill will be assigned to a subcommittee (a smaller division of the full committee), which may hold hearings, amend the bill, and vote to send it back to the full committee. (3) The full committee considers the bill, and may hold hearings, amend the bill, and vote to send it to the floor of the House or Senate. (Note that in the House the bill goes to the Rules Committee for a rule before going to the full House.) (4) The full House and Senate debate the bill and vote. (5) If there are differences between the House and Senate bills, they will go to a Conference Committee of Senators and Representatives to reconcile the differences between them, so that an identical bill is sent back to both chambers. (6) The full House and Senate debate the reconciled bill and vote.

5 (7) The bill is sent to the President, who can sign or veto the bill. Congress can override the President s veto with a 2/3 vote in each chamber, but this rarely happens. The President can also do nothing, in which case the bill becomes a law unless Congress adjourns within ten days of passage, in which case the bill is considered vetoed; this is known as a pocket veto. The important thing to understand about this process is that there are many points at which a bill can be defeated (for example, most bills are never voted out of committee). Less than ten percent of bills become law. Thus, policy change through the formal legislative process is very difficult to achieve. The lawmaking system favors the status quo: blocking change is much easier than effecting change. Additionally, it is important to understand that lawmaking often deviates from this process in important ways. In fact, in recent years most important legislation does not go through the textbook process described above. For example, a bill may be brought directly to the floor by leadership, bypassing the committees. 7. The Advantages of Incumbency In recent decades, Congress as an institution has been highly unpopular; usually less than 25 percent of Americans have approved of the way Congress is doing its job. Yet the reelection rate for congressional incumbents has remained very high in a typical election year, more than 90 percent of incumbents standing for reelection have won. This paradox is best explained by one of the few iron rules of American politics: incumbency is a major advantage in congressional elections. Among the specific advantages of incumbency are fundraising (groups and individual seeking to influence Congress tend to give money to those already in office), casework (see above), and publicity (easy access to local media, plus the ability to send free mass mailings to constituents to informed of public affairs and are naturally used to publicize the member s activities). In addition, members of Congress have sizable personal staffs 18 in the House and an average more than 30 in the Senate. These staffers, working in offices in Washington and in the member s district or state, are dedicated to making their boss look good to the voters, particularly through casework and favorable publicity. Gerrymandering is another advantage for some House incumbents. Gerrymandering refers to the practice of drawing district lines to advantage one party at the expense of the other. Political professionals know the partisan leanings of different geographic areas typically, rural areas are more conservative and Republican while urban areas are more liberal and Democratic. After the census, state legislatures redraw district lines, sometimes resulting in bizarrely shaped districts. One strategy is to concentrate the opposition party s voters into a small number of districts so that they will win by large margins, thereby diluting the opposition s vote throughout the rest of the state. Gerrymandering may result in the creation of districts in which incumbents are unlikely to be defeated in the general election because they are disproportionately stacked with either liberals or conservative voters.

Chapter 12: Congress. American Democracy Now, 4/e

Chapter 12: Congress. American Democracy Now, 4/e Chapter 12: Congress American Democracy Now, 4/e Congress Where Do You Stand? How would you rate the overall performance of Congress today? a. Favorably b. Unfavorably c. Neither favorably nor unfavorably