Congress / Chapter outline Part 3

HOW CONGRESS IS ORGANIZED TO MAKE POLICY 1. Making policy is the toughest of all the legislative roles. Congress is a collection of generalists trying to make policy on specialized topics. The complexity of todays issues requires more specialization. Congress tries to cope with these demands through its elaborate committee system. American bicameralism. 2. A bicameral legislature is one divided into two houses. The U.S. Congress and every American state legislature except Nebraskas are bicameral. Each state is guaranteed two senators in the U.S. Congress, with representation in the House of Representatives based on population. 3. The framers of the Constitution thought the Senate would protect elite interests. They gave the House (which they expected to be closest to the masses) the power of initiating all revenue bills and of impeaching officials; they gave the Senate the responsibility for ratifying all treaties, for confirming important presidential nominations, and for trying impeached officials. 4. The House and Senate each set their own agenda. Both use committees to narrow down the thousands of bills introduced.

House of Representatives
5. The House is much larger and more institutionalized than the Senate. 6. Party loyalty to leadership and party-line voting are more common than in the Senate. 7. Debate can be ended by a simple majority vote. 8. One institution unique to the House is the House Rules Committee, which reviews most bills coming from a House committee before they go to the full House. Each bill is given a rule, which schedules the bill on the calendar, allots time for debate, and sometimes even specifies what kind of amendments may be offered. Members are appointed by the Speaker of the House.

Senate.
1. The Senate is less disciplined and less centralized than the House. Todays senators are more equal in power than representatives are. 2. Party leaders do for Senate scheduling what the Rules Committee does in the House. 3. The filibuster permits unlimited debate on a bill. In practice, this sometimes means that opponents of a bill may try to talk it to death. At the present time, 60 members present and voting can halt a filibuster by invoking cloture (closure) on debate. 4. Congressional leadership. 5. Much of the leadership in Congress is really party leadership. Those who have the real power in the congressional hierarchy are those whose party put them there. 6. Power is no longer in the hands of a few key members of Congress who are insulated from the public. Instead, power is widely dispersed, requiring leaders to appeal broadly for support. 7. House leadership. A. The Speaker of the House is second (after the vice president) in the line to succeed a president who resigns, dies in office, or is impeached. B. At one time, the Speaker had almost autocratic powers. Many of the powers were removed from the Speakers control in 1910 and given to committees; some of the powers were later restored. C. Formal powers of the Speaker today include: presides over the House when it is in session; plays a major role in making committee assignments; appoints or plays a key role in appointing the partys legislative leaders and the party leadership staff; exercises substantial control over which bills get assigned to which committees. D. The Speaker also has a great deal of informal power both inside and outside Congress. E. The Speakers principal partisan ally is the majority leader. The majority leader is responsible for rounding up votes on party legislation and for scheduling bills in the House. F. Party whips work with the majority leader to round up votes and to report the views and complaints of the party rank-and-file back to the leadership.

G. The minority party is also organized (with a minority leader and whips), and is prepared to take over the key posts if it should win a majority in the House. H. Senate leadership. I. The Constitution names the vice president as president of the Senate. Vice presidents typically have little power or influence in the Senate, except in the rare case when their vote can break a tie. J. The Senate majority leaderaided by the majority whipsis the position of real power and authority in the Senate. He rounds up votes, schedules the floor action, and influences committee assignments. K. Congressional leadership in perspective. L. The structure of Congress is so complex that it seems remarkable that legislation gets passed at all. Its bicameral division means that bills have two sets of committee hurdles to clear. Recent reforms have decentralized power, and so the job of leading Congress is more difficult than ever. M. Congressional leaders are not in the strong positions they occupied in the past. Leaders are elected by their fellow party members and must remain responsive to them. N. Party leadershipat least in the Househas been more effective in recent years. Following the Republican takeover in 1995, Speaker Newt Gingrich began centralizing power and exercising vigorous legislative leadership. The committees and subcommittees. A. Most of the real work of Congress goes on in committees. B. Committees dominate congressional policymaking. C. They regularly hold hearings to investigate problems and possible wrongdoing, and to investigate the executive branch. D. They control the congressional agenda and guide legislation from its introduction to its send-off for the presidents signature. E. Committees can be grouped into four types: standing committees (by far the most important), joint committees, conference committees, and select committees.

F. Standing committees are permanent subject-matter committees, formed to handle bills in different policy areas. Each chamber has its own committees and subcommittees. In the 103rd Congress, the typical representative served on two committees and four subcommittees, while senators averaged three committees and seven subcommittees each. G. Joint committees are study committees that exist in a few policy areas, with membership drawn from both the Senate and the House. H. Conference committees are formed to work out the differences when different versions of a bill are passed by the two houses. Membership is drawn from both houses. I. Select committees are temporary committees appointed for a specific (select) purpose, such as the Senate select committee that looked into Watergate. J. The committees at work: legislation and oversight.

K. More than 11,000 bills are submitted by members every two years, which must be sifted through and narrowed down by the committee process. Every bill goes to a standing committee; usually only bills receiving a favorable committee report are considered by the whole House or Senate. L. New bills sent to a committee typically go directly to subcommittee, which can hold hearings on the bill. The most important output of committees and subcommittees is the marked-up (revised and rewritten) bill, submitted to the full House or Senate for consideration. M. Members of the committee will usually serve as floor managers of the bill when the bill leaves committee, helping party leaders secure votes for the legislation. They will also be cue-givers to whom other members turn for advice. When the two chambers pass different versions of the same bill, some committee members will be appointed to the conference committee. N. Legislative oversightthe process of monitoring the bureaucracy and its administration of policyis one of the checks Congress can exercise on the executive branch. O. Oversight is handled primarily through hearings. Members of committees constantly monitor how a bill is implemented. The process enables Congress to exert pressure on executive agencies, or even to cut their budgets in order to secure compliance with congressional wishes.

P. Typically, the majority party will determine whether or not to hold hearings, since it controls the majority of committee seats and the majority of votes on the floor. Q. Congressional oversight occasionally captures public attention, such as congressional investigations into the Watergate scandal and the 1987 IranContra affair. R. Congress keeps tabs on more routine activities of the executive branch through its committee staff members, who have specialized expertise in the fields and agencies that their committees oversee (and who maintain an extensive network of formal and informal contacts with the bureaucracy). Getting on a committee. Just after election, new members write to the partys congressional leaders and members of their state delegation, indicating their committee preferences. Each party in each house has a slightly different way of picking its committee members, but party leaders almost always play a key role. Members seek committee assignments that will help them achieve three goals: reelection, influence in Congress, and the opportunity to make policy in areas they think are important. Although every committee includes members from both parties, a majority of each committees membersas well as its chaircome from the majority party. Getting ahead on the committee: chairs and the seniority system. A. Committee chairs are the most important influencers of the committee agenda. They play dominantthough no longer monopolisticroles in scheduling hearings, hiring staff, appointing subcommittees, and managing committee bills when they are brought before the full House. B. Until the 1970s, committee chairs were always selected through the seniority systemthe member of the majority party with the longest tenure on the committee would automatically be selected. C. Chairs were so powerful that they could single-handedly bottle up legislation in committee. D. The system also gave a decisive edge to members from safe districts, where members were seldom challenged for reelection. In the 1970s, Congress faced a revolt of its younger members.

E. Both parties in both houses permitted members to vote on committee chairs. F. Today, seniority remains the general rule for selecting chairs, but there have been notable exceptions. G. These and other reforms have somewhat reduced the clout of the chairs. The mushrooming caucuses: the informal organization of Congress. 1. The explosion of informal groups in Congress has made the representation of interests in Congress a more direct process (cutting out the middleman, the lobbyist). 2. In recent years, a growing number of caucuses have dominated these traditional informal groups. A caucus is a grouping of members of Congress sharing some interest or characteristic, such as the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, the Congresswomens Caucus, and the Sunbelt Caucus. Caucuses include regional groupings, ideological groupings, and economic groupings. 3. The proliferation of congressional caucuses (currently more than 300 of them) gives members of Congress an informal, yet powerful, means of shaping the policy agenda. Composed of legislative insiders who share similar concerns, the caucuses exert a much greater influence on policymaking than most citizenbased interest groups can. Congressional Staff. Most staff members work in the personal offices of individual members. In total, about 12,000 individuals serve on the personal staffs of members of Congress. Nearly one-half of these House staffers and nearly one-third of the Senate personal staff work in members offices in their constituencies, not in Washington. This makes it easier for people to make contact with the staff. 1. The committees of the House and Senate employ another 2,000 staff members. These staff members organize hearings, research legislative options, draft committee reports on bills, write legislation, and keep tabs on the activities of the executive branch.

2. Congress has three important staff agencies that aid it in its work. a. The first is the Congressional Research Service (CRS), administered by the Library of Congress. The CRS uses researchers, many with advanced degrees and highly developed expertise, to respond to more than 250,000 requests yearly for information. b. The General Accounting Office (GAO), with more than 3,200 employees, helps Congress perform its oversight functions by reviewing the activities of the executive branch to see if it is following the congressional intent of laws and by investigating the efficiency and effectiveness of policy implementation. c. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzes the presidents budget and makes economic projections about the performance of the economy, the costs of proposed policies, and the economic effects of taxing and spending alternatives.