Chapter11Congress2020.pptxChapter 11: Congress
American National Government
PL-102
Instructor Walter Pearn
Chapter Objectives
Describe the major legislative and representative functions of Congress.
Define the leadership offices, roles, and functions in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Explain the major types of congressional committees, and discuss how the committee system operates in each house.
Describe the various steps in the legislative process.
The Functions of Congress
The U.S. Congress has two primary roles.
It acts as a legislative assembly
As a representative body.
Its primary function is to enact laws consistent with the delegated powers assigned to Congress under Article I of the U.S. Constitution.
Congress is also a collection of 100 senators and 438 House members elected from hundreds of legislative communities across the fifty states.
Each member of Congress is responsible for representing a constituency.
Legislative Functions: Expressed Powers
Taxing and Spending
Budget Process
Interstate Commerce
Foreign Affairs
Taxing and Spending
Congress passes tax laws, which collect money for the government, and appropriations laws, which determine how the money is spent.
Under the terms laid out in the U.S. Constitution, all tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives. Spending bills involve a two-stage procedure: authorizations and appropriations.
Authorizations establish specific programs and set limits on the amount that may be spent on them by the executive branch.
Appropriations provide the actual money for the programs.
Budget Process
The annual budget process is dictated largely by the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
This law created budget committees in both houses of Congress and established the Congressional Budget Office to provide Congress with economic information.
Congress considers the budget not as a single document but rather thirteen spending bills, each dealing with a basic area of governmental activity, such as defense, agriculture, homeland security, or education.
Budget Process
Budget deficits force the government to borrow money to finance current expenditures.
With the exception of a few years in the early part of the twenty-first century, federal budget deficits have been a feature of American government for more than forty years but have been growing recently.
The budget deficit for 2011 alone was $1.4 trillion and the total accumulated debt more than $14 trillion.
Interstate Commerce
Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce.
The Supreme Court has adopted a very broad interpretation of this power.
Thus, the commerce clause provides the constitutional basis for many of the laws Congress has passed to control and regulate the American economy.
The scope of the commerce clause has included air traffic control, radio and television broadcasting, labor-management relations, and stock and commodity exchanges.
Congress also used the power of regulating interstate commerce to help end racial discrimination in businesses engaged in interstate commerce, such as hotels and restaurants.
Foreign Affairs
Although the Constitution gives the president the primary role in foreign affairs, it also gives Congress the power to regulate international commerce, to declare war, and to raise and support an army and navy.
In addition, Congress can directly affect foreign and military policy through its power to appropriate funds.
Article II, Section 2, requires that all treaties receive the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate before they can become effective.
Foreign Affairs
Although Congress has not issued a formal declaration of war since World War II, disputes over the relative roles of Congress and the president in foreign policy have become increasingly common, as most clearly exemplified in the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
Presidential compliance with this legislation has been halfhearted, as evidenced by Barack Obama’s contention that it did not apply to the U.S. military’s involvement in Libya in 2011.
Legislative Functions: Implied Powers
Representation
In addition to its role in passing legislation and representing constituents, Congress exercises a number of additional functions as outlined in the Constitution.
Watchdog and Oversight
Appointments
Electoral Functions
Vice Presidential and Presidential Disability
Impeachment
Amendments to the Constitution
Disciplining and Expelling Members
Legislative Functions: Implied Powers
Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution contains a provision that grants Congress implied powers: a broad range of choices in selecting the best means of carrying out its expressed powers.
This provision is also referred to as the necessary and proper clause, or the elastic clause.
For example, a military draft in time of war has been seen as a “necessary and proper” way for Congress to carry out its delegated power to “raise an army.”
Representation
Congressional representation takes two basic forms: policy representation and service.
Policy representation is mainly concerned with passing legislation that is in the best interests of the members’ constituents.
Service consists of non-legislative activities—such as locating late or lost Social Security checks, tracking down tardy tax refunds, and naturalization problems.
Representatives often find it challenging to choose between meeting the demands of their constituents and carrying out their legislative responsibilities.
Some studies have concluded that casework tasks consume too much of the lawmaker’s time, taking him or her away from other pressing responsibilities.
Watchdog and Oversight
Congress is responsible for overseeing the executive branch of the government and thereby keeping the president and his administration accountable.
This oversight function is carried out by congressional committees that may conduct investigations, compel people to testify, and hold in contempt those who refuse to cooperate.
Appointments
Presidential nominations of ambassadors, Supreme Court justices and federal court judges, department heads, and “all officers of the United States” must face Senate confirmation.
Historically the Senate has rarely rejected a president’s choice for a position within the executive branch.
In order to avoid the rejection of a candidate, the president may sometimes choose to withdraw the candidate from consideration without a vote.
Example, President Obama’s selections for two cabinet secretary positions were withdrawn when ethical issues surfaced about the candidates that made Senate confirmation unlikely.
Electoral Functions
The House of Representatives has the power to elect the president from the three candidates with the most Electoral College votes if no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the general election.
Vice Presidential and Presidential Disability
The Twenty-fifth Amendment assigns Congress a major role when the office of vice president becomes vacant and during times of presidential disability: both houses of Congress must approve the president’s nominee for vice president should that office be vacated.
It also gives Congress a role in deciding whether the president is disabled, as well as when the president is well enough to resume his office.
Impeachment
The two houses of Congress play separate roles in the impeachment, conviction, and removal of the president, vice president, federal judges, and other civil officers of the United States.
The House of Representatives decides whether to bring formal charges against government officials if it believes those individuals to be guilty of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
This is impeachment. If an individual is impeached, the Senate conducts a trial to determine whether the accused is guilty or not guilty.
A two-thirds vote is required in the Senate for conviction.
Only when a person is both impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate is he or she removed from office.
Amendments to the Constitution
Congress has the power to propose amendments to the Constitution and to determine whether ratification shall be by a three-fourths majority of the state legislatures or by special state conventions.
Disciplining and Expelling Members
Article I, Section 5, of the Constitution gives each house of Congress the power to punish its own members. Historically, Congress has rarely exercised this power.
Example, no U.S. senator has been expelled since the Civil War, although the House expelled James Traficant (D, Ohio) after he was convicted of racketeering, corruption, and bribery in 2002.
The Congressional District
Seats in the House of Representatives are assigned to each state on the basis of population, with the largest states holding the greatest number of seats.
The allocation of seats among the states is called reapportionment.
Reapportionment is performed every ten years after the census.
The 2010 census resulted in increased representation in more conservative states in the South and the West and decreased representation in more liberal states in the Northeast and Midwest.
The legislature of each state is responsible for determining the boundaries of the congressional districts within that state, as well as districts for state legislative districts, so that each district is approximately equal in population.
The Congressional District
State legislatures sometimes try to draw district boundaries for House seats to include a majority of voters from one party, so that a House candidate from that party is more likely to win the seat.
This practice is known as gerrymandering. In the past ten years, there has been a tendency for state legislatures to draw district boundaries that protect incumbents of both parties.
Consequently, elections for Congress have become less competitive and the rate of reelection has increased.
While calls for reform have become more common, the Supreme Court has generally refused to become involved in debates over redistricting, calling such debates political questions and only rendering decisions in cases that involve discrimination against particular racial groups.
Two Houses Similarities and Differences
The two houses of Congress are equal partners in the lawmaking process; neither the House nor the Senate can makes laws on its own.
In each house, key leadership positions are held by the majority party.
The House has 435 voting members, while there are 100 senators.
The House has very rigid rules of conduct; the Senate is more relaxed and collegial.
House members serve two-year terms and senators serve six-year terms.
House members are elected from specific districts within each state while senators have statewide constituencies.
The Members of Congress
Most members of Congress are college graduates and had professional careers as lawyers, bankers, or businesspeople.
Though Congress is slowly becoming more demographically diverse, it is still overwhelmingly white and male.
Congressional Leadership
Although not as powerful as it once was, congressional leadership still wields considerable influence over the legislative process, particularly in the House of Representatives.
Leaders in both the House and Senate are chosen by their fellow members.
The Speaker of the House
The Speaker of the House is the most powerful individual in the House of Representatives.
While the Speaker is chosen by the members of the House, the Speaker is always a member of the majority political party.
The Speaker has a range of traditional powers, such as the right to recognize members for the purpose of speaking and the authority to interpret the rules of the House.
The Speaker also makes appointments to special committees and assigns bills to committees for deliberations and hearings.
Much of the informal power of the Speaker rests on the Speaker’s personal leadership qualities.
Senate Leadership
Under the Constitution, the vice president of the United States is also the presiding officer of the Senate, but the only significant power of president of the Senate is to vote in order to break a tie.
The majority party nominates a president pro tem to assist in presiding over the Senate.
While the president pro tem has the same rights of the presiding officer as afforded to the Speaker of the House, in practice the nature and structure of the Senate means that the president pro tem is less able to control the body.
Senator Harry Reid (D)
Senator Mitch McConnell (R)
Majority Leader
The Senate majority leader is chosen by the majority party of the Senate.
The Senate majority leader schedules the work of the Senate and guides majority legislation through the chamber.
In the House, the House majority leader is second in importance to the Speaker and is chosen by his or her party.
Unlike the Speaker, who must make some allowances to the minority, the majority leader’s sole responsibility is to secure the passage of legislation favored by his or her party.
Minority Leader and Floor Whips
House and Senate minority leaders are elected by the minority party in each house.
They plan their party’s strategy and are expected to study and criticize the majority party’s arguments and actions.
The majority and minority leaders are aided by assistant floor leaders, or whips, who round up the votes of party members and try to ensure that the parties vote as blocs.
The Committee System
Although floor debates are occasionally heated, most of the actual work of Congress is done in committees and subcommittees.
In committees, members can have a direct effect on the shaping of legislation. A member’s committee assignments can determine his or her effectiveness as a representative.
Types of Committees
Each house of Congress has four types of committees: standing committees, select or special committees, joint committees, and conference committees.
Each committee specializes in a particular policy area. Standing committees are the most important committees in Congress.
They are divided into subcommittees that deal with specialized areas of a bill under the parent committee’s jurisdiction.
Select, or special, committees are created to examine particular issues or new areas of legislation.
They are also created to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by government officials.
Types of Committees
They have most of the same powers as standing committees but are temporary in that they are adjourned or disbanded when their work is complete.
Joint committees are formed to deal with issues that require coordination between the House and Senate.
A joint committee may be created by either house. Joint committees are permanent but have limited authority to introduce legislation.
Conference committees are joint committees formed to work out a compromise when different versions of a bill have been passed by the House and Senate.
Identical versions of bills must pass both houses before they can be sent to the president for action.
Committee Assignments
Members of all standing committees are elected by the full House or the full Senate, and these selections follow party lines.
By tradition, the composition of the committees is generally proportional to the percentage of the national vote received by each party.
Committee Chairs
Historically, each house used the seniority system to establish who would chair each committee.
This system gave the chair to the majority-party member with the longest continuous service on that committee.
Presently in each house, committee chairs are selected by the party caucus and approved by the full House and Senate.
Seniority is still a major factor in this selection.
Major Committees
Key committees in the Senate include the Appropriations Committee, Foreign Relations Committee, Finance, Social Security, Armed Services, and the Senate Budget Committee.
Major committees in the house are Rules, Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Budget.
The Rules Committee is important because it determines the order in which all major legislation, except money bills, will be considered by the House as a whole.
Major Committees
Certain House committees have been operating for hundreds of years.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has been in existence since 1795.
The Energy and Commerce Committee has broad jurisdiction. It has legislative oversight of five separate cabinet departments:
Energy, Transportation
Health and Human Services
several independent agencies including the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communication Commission.
The Legislative Bureaucracy
Members of Congress are assisted by numerous staff aides.
These aides mobilize public opinion, advise legislators on upcoming legislation, assist with casework, and negotiate with lobbyists.
The average House member has fifteen aides; in the Senate the average senator has thirty-one staff members.
Committees also have staff who do research and provide assistance on policymaking.
Some critics have raised concerns over the growing influence of congressional staffers, fearing that these individuals often undercut the lawmaking role of the Congress.
Despite these concerns, the size of legislative staffs has steadily increased.
Legislative Process
The starting point of legislation is awareness of public problems.
Once a problem or issue becomes prominent, it is likely to become a part of the policy agenda.
Then a bill may be introduced in Congress with the intent to address the issue.
A bill must pass through a number of stages before it becomes a law.
Any number of obstacles along the way can kill a bill.
The Introduction of a Bill
Any senator or House member may introduce a bill, but not every member has an equal chance of getting a bill passed.
The executive branch is the source of most major items of legislation.
The vast majority of proposed legislation fails to pass.
In 2009, for example, 7,415 bills were proposed, but only 125 public bills were passed.
The Committee Stage
Once a bill has been formally introduced, it is assigned to the appropriate committee for review.
If the committee decides not to consider the bill, it is considered dead.
In the House, a discharge petition may remove a bill from a standing committee and bring it to the floor of the House for consideration, though this rarely happens.
If a committee decides to review a bill it will be assigned to a subcommittee.
The Committee Stage
The subcommittee will study the bill in depth and will hold hearings to gather input from members of the public, lobbyists, and others.
After subcommittee work is done, the bill is sent to the full committee for consideration.
After a number of revisions, the bill, if approved, is sent to the full House or Senate.
Once the bill has passed both houses successfully, differences may be worked out by the conference committee.
The Calendar
When a bill is reported out of a standing committee, it is placed on a calendar in the House or Senate.
When a bill is reported out of committee and placed on the House calendar, the chair of the committee will request that the Rules Committee assign it a rule.
The rule takes the bill from the calendar and fixes the time at which it will be accepted by the entire House.
There are a number of legislative calendars used to schedule debates in Congress.
The Calendar
In the House, for example, a bill may be placed on the Union Calendar for appropriations and tax legislation, the House Calendar for other public bills, the Private Calendar for bills dealing with specific individuals or corporations, or the Consent Calendar for legislation that is uncontroversial and does not require significant time for debate.
Floor Procedure
In the House
When a bill comes up for debate in the House, the entire chamber usually transforms into a Committee of the Whole to facilitate debate.
Any amendments to a bill must receive the consent of the entire House.
Floor Procedure
In the Senate
The Senate operates under different rules than the House.
Bills are considered on the floor of the Senate either in the order in which they appear on the Senate calendar or, in the case of more controversial bills, under unanimous-consent agreements.
These agreements set the terms for consideration of the bill by placing limits on motions, amendments, and debate.
Floor Procedure
Filibusters
In the Senate only, a filibuster can be used to delay or postpone action on a bill.
A filibuster can be ended only by a cloture vote, which requires a three-fifths vote of the entire Senate.
The filibuster is most often used by the minority party to block the passage of particular pieces of legislation.
In the past, filibusters brought a stop to all business in the Senate, but under rules changes, present practice allows other legislation to be considered while a filibuster continues.
Presidential Approval or Disapproval
If a bill is passed by both houses, it is sent to the president for action.
The president may sign the bill, in which case it becomes law, or the president may veto the bill by returning it with noted objections to the house in which it originated.
Congress may override a president’s veto with a two-thirds vote, but such veto overrides are rare.
The End
