Lecture Outline: Chapter 10

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1 Lecture Outline: Chapter 10 Congress I. Most Americans see Congress as paralyzed by partisan bickering and incapable of meaningful action. A. The disdain that many citizens have for Congress is expressed in the myth of Congress as the broken branch, the belief that Congress is incapable of effective action. B. Even members of Congress seem to perpetuate the myth as they run for Congress by running against Congress. C. Although examples of ineffectiveness abound, the myth does an injustice not only to what Congress does but also to what it is supposed to do. II. Despite rather minimal constitutional requirements, a group portrait of Congress reveals an institution whose membership is drawn from the upper levels of American society. A. The Constitution states that before taking office, members of Congress must meet the following requirements: 1. Senators must have reached the age of 30, must have been U.S. citizens for nine years, and must reside in the state from which they are elected. 2. Representatives must have attained the age of 25 and have been citizens for at least seven years. Members of the House must also reside in the state from which they are elected, but they do not have to reside in the district that they represent. B. Almost all members of Congress hold a college degree, and most have some form of post-graduate work. 1. The most common occupation of members is law. 2. Next to law, business and banking are the most common occupations of legislators. 3. Occupations such as factory workers, farm laborers, and domestics are seldom found among the members of Congress. C. Despite some gains, racial minorities and women are still underrepresented in Congress. D. Congressional elections have been marked by the impressive success of incumbent candidates. Since 1946, on average, 90 percent of the incumbents who have sought reelection have won. In 2002, 98 percent of the incumbent house members won reelection. This happened despite the myth of congressional ineffectiveness. E. As the 2002 election suggests the indications are that incumbency success rates will remain high. Several explanations are usually offered for the incumbency success rate. 1. Some explain the success rate as a result of gerrymandering, but incumbents have been receiving larger percentages of the vote even in states that have not redistricted. 2. Other observers of congressional elections explain the incumbency advantage by noting the wide array of resources that members can use to pursue reelection (such as franking). 3. Sitting members of Congress also have ample opportunity to engage in credit claiming and pork barrel politics. 4. Careful attention to what Fenno calls their home style enables incumbents to build constituent trust, something challengers, in the short space of a campaign, find difficult to do.

2 III. 5. Challengers can defeat incumbents, but barring scandal, challengers must be able to raise and spend large sums of money. Unfortunately, since money, especially big contributions, tends to flow to proven winners, challengers are at a distinct disadvantage. 6. The success of incumbents has created a demand for term limits. 7. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that state laws imposing term limits on members of Congress violate the Constitution. The founders were united in their belief that the legislature was to be central to governing. As a result, the Constitution assigns many responsibilities to Congress. A. Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution lists a series of specific lawmaking powers known as the enumerated powers. In addition, the Supreme Court has given a broad construction to the necessary and proper clause. B. The setting of taxing and spending policies is one of the most important duties assigned to Congress by the Constitution. 1. Always controversial tax policies took on greater importance in the 1980s, when President Reagan pushed for and got, in 1981, significant tax cuts. 2. By 1982, however, concern over budget deficits led Congress to institute large tax increases. 3. In 1986, Congress passed the Tax Reform Act, which dramatically overhauled the federal income tax structure. 4. Recently, Congress has attempted to deal with the spending policy (appropriations) by centralizing authority. The passage in 1974 of the Budget and Impoundment Control Act resulted in the creation of budget committees for each house, which recommend total spending limits. 5. Congress also sought to limit appropriations by passing the Gramm-Rudman Act in It provided that the General Accounting Office was to make cuts in expenditures if the budget exceeded congressionally mandated targets. The Supreme Court declared this portion of the act unconstitutional. 6. In 1990, the results of applying the provisions of Gramm-Rudman threatened to so disrupt government spending programs that Congress and the president entered into an agreement that once again reformed the budgeting process. Under the 1990 act, discretionary spending was divided into three categories defense, domestic, and international. Each category operated under a spending cap. If spending in any of the categories exceeded the cap, automatic triggers cutting the budget in that category occur. Moreover, savings in one category could not be used to offset expenditures in another category. Finally, the act instituted the payas-you-go feature for entitlements. Any changes in entitlement programs that increased expenditures must be offset by decreases in other entitlement programs or tax increases. 7. In 1997, Congress and the President agreed to a bipartisan plan to balance the budget by The goal of a balanced budget was reached in fiscal year 1999, and subsequent years produced projected budget surpluses. 8. By 2003, however, the surplus had disappeared, and the nation began, once again, to run large deficits, increasing the national debt. C. Members of Congress are also expected to provide constituents with personal services called casework. Indeed, senators, representatives, and their staffs spend a great deal of time providing these services. Many dislike it, but casework is good politics. D. Congress is responsible for overseeing the actions of the executive branch agencies.

3 IV. 1. This oversight function may be performed as part of the appropriation process, during committee investigations, or as an outgrowth of casework. 2. For some time now, Congress has exercised the oversight function by using the legislative veto. Although it was declared unconstitutional in 1983, Congress has taken advantage of some vagueness in the Court s opinion and continues to use the legislative veto. The U.S. Congress is an example of a bicameral legislature, but more important, unlike many bicameral legislatures, it contains two bodies nearly equal in power. A. The two houses of Congress were designed to serve different constituencies; the House was to serve as the voice of the people, and the Senate was designed to curb the radical tendencies of the House. B. The Constitution does not mention political parties, but congressional leadership is party leadership. 1. The most powerful position in the House is the Speaker of the House. Elected by the majority party in the House, the speaker presides over the House and serves as the leader of the majority party. 2. The majority leader, the second-ranking member of the House, schedules floor actions on bills and guides the majority party s legislative program through the House. 3. The minority leader, elected by the minority party, heads the opposition party in the House and consults with the speaker and majority party leader over the scheduling of bills. 4. Both the majority and minority leaders are aided by assistants known as whips. 5. The Constitution assigns the task of presiding over the Senate to the vice president, but this is largely a ceremonial position. The vice president, for instance, may vote only if the Senate is tied. The more important positions in the Senate are those of the majority and minority leader. V. The work of Congress is largely the work of the committees and subcommittees, to which bills are referred. These little legislatures, as Woodrow Wilson called them, define the agenda of Congress. Congress makes use of four types of committees. A. The most important committees the standing committees are permanently established and consider all proposed legislation in a specified and predefined policy area (jurisdiction). 1. Standing committees are further divided into subcommittees that cover a portion of the larger committee s jurisdiction. 2. Subcommittees have their own staff and defined jurisdiction, and some parent committees routinely approve any proposal coming out of their subcommittees. 3. The reliance on subcommittees creates small groups of members with great power in extremely specialized areas, and it further decentralizes decisionmaking. B. Select or special committees are temporary committees established to study particular problems. C. Joint committees are formed by equal numbers from both houses. D. Conference committees, sometimes called the third house of Congress, are temporary committees formed to reconcile differences between House and Senate versions of a bill. E. Questions of standing committee size and the partisan ratio are settled by negotiations between the party leaders. 1. As a result of pressure from members for good committee assignments, the leadership has tended to increase the size of standing committees.

4 VI. 2. Generally, the party ratio on committees mirrors that of the parent body, but on occasion the majority party is unwilling to accommodate the minority party. F. Political parties assign their respective members to the standing committees. 1. Members seek out what for them are good committee assignments, often by enlisting the help of senior members and outside interest groups. 2. The members goals determine the desirability of committee assignments. Those particularly concerned with reelection, for instance, will want committees that serve their constituents. G. Committee leadership reflects the importance of political parties. Committee chairs are always members of the majority party. 1. Traditionally, committee leadership reflected the seniority system, a tradition that provides that the member, of the majority party, with the longest continuous service on a committee becomes its chair. 2. Reforms passed by the Republicans in 1995 significantly limited the seniority system and the power of chairs. Most importantly, chairs, in the House of Representatives, are limited to three consecutive terms and no committee Appropriations and Government Operations excepted may have more than five subcommittees. 3. The Senate still strictly observes the seniority rule. H. The modern Congress is characterized by a growth in the number of nonofficial groups. Often formed to combat the decentralization of Congress, these groups and caucuses have actually exacerbated the fragmentation. Reforms of the 104th Congress (1995) sought to cut back on these groups, however, by denying them the use of public monies. I. Congress has, since its early days, also dramatically increased its staff. 1. Every member of the House and Senate has an allocation to hire personal staff, numbering well over 11,000 employees. The staff workers perform a variety of functions, including constituent service (casework). Many also participate in the legislative process, representing their members in negotiations over legislation and preparing briefs on pending legislation. 2. In addition to the personal staff, Congress has over 2,000 people assigned to the various committees. 3. In 1995, the Republican leadership in the House cut the number of staff positions by a third, but none of these cuts came from the members personal staff. Congress represents an obstacle course for those who wish to pass legislation. The complex process favors the opponents of legislation. A. Any member may introduce a bill. In the House, the member simply drops the bill in the hopper. Senators need only give the bill to a clerk for publication in the Congressional Record. B. Once a bill is introduced in either the House or the Senate, the presiding officer assigns it to a committee. 1. The committee will generally assign the proposal to a subcommittee. For the vast majority of bills, this is the end of the process because the subcommittee kills the bill by taking no action. 2. If the subcommittee acts on the bill, it will hold hearings and take testimony from interested parties. 3. Afterward, the subcommittee meets in markup sessions, in which it votes on amendments and settles on the precise language of the bill.

5 VII. 4. Once out of the subcommittee, the bill goes to the full committee, which may repeat the whole process. The full committee may also take no action, thereby killing the bill. 5. If the bill survives the committee, it is sent to the floor, accompanied by a committee report that explains and justifies committee action on the bill. C. When the bill is reported to the floor, it is placed on a calendar, but what happens next depends on whether the bill is before the House or the Senate. 1. Bills presented to the House are referred to the Rules Committee, which grants a rule specifying, among other things, the amount of time allotted for debate on the bill. If the Rules Committee does not issue a rule, the bill dies. 2. The actions of the Rules Committee must be approved by the House floor before the bill can be considered and voted upon. Occasionally, members will vote against the Rules Committee actions to keep the bill from coming to the floor. This practice is known as a procedural kill. 3. Once a rule has been accepted, the House can begin debate, at the close of which the members will vote on the bill and any amendments attached to it. 4. The Senate has no Rules Committee. Thus, bills come off the calendar when the majority leader schedules them. 5. The Senate also allows members to engage in unlimited debate (filibuster), broken only by a successful cloture vote. D. Before a bill can be sent to the president, it must pass both houses in identical form. If the differences are minor, this requirement generally poses little difficulty. The bill is sent back to the originating house for approval of the changes. 1. If the changes are significant, a conference committee composed of members of both houses is formed to work out the differences. The product of this committee is then sent back to both bodies for approval. If the committee cannot work out a compromise, the bill dies. 2. Once the two houses have agreed on an identical bill, it is sent to the president. The president may sign or veto the bill. Members of Congress cast thousands of votes every year on a staggering array of issues. Although developing a precise explanation for each vote is difficult, general sources of influence can be identified. A. The best predictor of how a member will vote is political party. B. The precise effect of constituency is difficult to determine, in part because constituents views are not generally expressed. Nevertheless, constituents usually exert indirect influence because most members share their constituents viewpoints. C. Most members develop a set of colleagues with whom they are in general agreement and who can be trusted to provide honest and knowledgeable advice. These cue givers are usually experts in the subject matter of the bill. VIII. We began by noting the widespread acceptance of the myth of Congress as the broken branch. A. Nevertheless, individual members seem to be pleasing their constituents. B. Congress works slowly because it was designed that way. C. Congress is capable of formulating great change, but because it represents a diverse nation, it is unable to provide immediate gratification. D. Finally, it may be that Congress fails only in comparison with the inflated views of presidential effectiveness.

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