Congress

I.                   The Powers of Congress

A.    Differences between Parliament and Congress

1.      Parliament—Members of Parliament (MPs) are usually more loyal to party leaders, who selected them for the offices they hold, since voters in a parliamentary government generally vote for a party rather than an individual. MPs who buck the government face the danger of not being re-nominated for the positions they hold.

2.      Congress—Congress is an assemblage of elected representatives empowered to make laws, but not to select the chief executive of the nation. A parliament is an assemblage of elected officials who both pass laws and select the nation’s chief executive (usually called the Prime Minister).

B.     Constitutional Powers of Congress—found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Consitution:

1.      To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.

2.      To borrow money.

3.      To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states.

4.      To establish rules for naturalization and bankruptcy.

5.      To coin money, set its value, and punish counterfeiting.

6.      To fix the standard of weights and measures

7.      To establish a post office and post roads.

8.      To issue patents and copyrights to inventors and authors.

9.      To created courts inferior to the Supreme Court.

10.  To define and punish piracies, felonies on the high seas, and crimes against the rule of the laws of nature.

11.  To declare war.

12.  To raise and support an army and a navy and make rules for their governance.

13.  To provide for a militia (reserving to the states the right to appoint militia officers and to train the militia under congressional rules).

14.  To exercise exclusive legislative power over the seat of government (the District of Columbia) and over places purchased to be federal facilities (forts, arsenals, dockyards, and “other needful buildings”)

15.  To “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States. This “necessary and proper” or “elastic” clause has been broadly interpreted by the Supreme Court.

II.                The Evolution of Congress

A.    A Bicameral Body—the US Congress consists of two legislative bodies—the House, where legislators are elected for two-year terms, and the Senate, where members serve staggered six year terms

1.      House of Representatives—members have to stand for election every two years. The Framers selected this relatively short term—although it was longer than most state legislative terms were—in order to keep representatives closest to the people they are suppose to represent. Legislation that involves taxation has to “begin” in this body (that is, when the President wishes to raise or lower taxes, s/he must find a sponsoring representative to “introduce” the legislation. The number of Representatives each state is granted in the House is determined by the population of the state from the decennial census.

2.      Senate—Currently, Senators are elected for 6-years terms—but the terms for the Senators are “staggered,” so that only one-third of the body comes up for re-election every two years. When originally conceived by the Framers, Senators were not directly elected by the people, but by state legislatures. This remained the practice until the passage of the 17^th Amendment in 1913, which changed the Constitution to allow for the direct election of Senators. The Senate was envisioned by the Framers as a more deliberative body than the House of Representatives, and was meant to be a brake on what the Framers feared was the excesses of democracy; in some ways today, it has moved to become a millstone around the neck of democracy, particularly since the changes in the use of the filibuster in the last decade or so.

3.      Checks and Balances in Congress—The Senate is, or course, meant to be a check on the House of Representatives, to ensure that no radically democratic legislation is passed. The qualifications to become a senator require more maturity (five years more, in fact—while one can be elected to the House at age 25, one had to be at least 30 to be elected to the Senate),  and the initial stipulation that required a senator to be elected by the state legislature also meant that someone elected to the Senate had some standing in his home state.

4.      Lack of Strong Central Leadership—while in a parliamentary system, the leader of the party in power provides a great deal of leadership, the congressional system is much more decentralized. This was meant by the Framers to ensure that no one person had too much political power, and the independence of individual members was to be protected.

B.     Who Serves in Congress?—Membership in the House of Representatives is fixed by law at 435 members, apportioned among the states according to population as determined by the decennial census. Each state has at least one representative, but beyond that representation is completely determined by population. In the Senate, each state is allocated two senators, and their election is staggered so that a state will not have two new senators in any given term. Most of the 535 members of Congress are middle-aged white males. Nearly one-half of the membership of the 111^th Congress ( 245 members—which was down from the 261 members from the previous Congress) are millionaires.

1.      Years of service—the emergence of the “career politician” (which I argue precedes the 1950s that Wilson cites in his text) gave greater power to those politicians whose seniority gave them prized positions an powerful committees—often as the chair, who got to set the agenda of the committee.

a.       Term-limits—a popular cause of the 1990s, which was suppose to rid us of the scourge of the “career politician.” In practice, term-limits has largely created a game of musical chair among the career politicians, who simply exchange positions—while empowering an unelected bureaucracy and ideological think tanks to actually write legislation (which is how we ended up with laws like Senate Bill 5).

2.      Party—the tendency of voters to return incumbents (even today, while people hold historically low opinions of Congress, they believe their own Congressional representative is the exception), the New Deal coalition of the Democratic Party was able to hold sway in Congress for nearly 50 years.

a.       Incumbency—with the extended postwar expansion (in part due to the implementation of the New Deal), incumbency was an asset. When that began to fall apart in the 1970s—coupled with the scandals of Watergate, and then several Congressional scandals including Abscam and the Keating Five (senators who introduced legislation deregulating the Savings and Loan industry in the early 1980s at the behest of a man named Charles Keating, who owned a large savings and loan, whose subsequent failure precipitated a financial crisis in the late 1980s), Democrats became the whipping boys for the “problems” that beset Washington.

C.     Getting Elected to Congress—Necessitates winning an election, and getting more votes than your opponent. This usually also necessitates having the backing of one of the major parties—Democratic or Republican—in your state. In the past, this was generally accomplished by running for local offices, using the experience and connections made to then run for state office, and then parlaying that experience and broader connections to run for national office. The increased frustration that many people feel toward career politicians has opened the door to the super-rich who can self-finance their campaigns, because some how these super-rich will better represent the interests of “regular” people.

D.    The Organization of Congress: Parties and Interests—both parties in the House and the Senate are organized by party leaders, who themselves are elected by the party membership in both bodies.

1.      Party Organizations—while the party with the majority of members chooses the leader of the Senate—called the president pro tempore of the Senate—real power in that body lies with the Majority Leader, who schedules the business of the Senate and therefore decides which legislation the Senate will consider, and when that will be done. The Majority Leader is assisted in the legislative process by a Majority Whip, who is responsible for advising the Majority Leader when the majority party has enough votes to pass legislation. In the Senate, legislation is usually advanced in consultation with the Minority Leader, in part because of the obstacles the minority party can use (like the filibuster) delay or kill legislation. In the House of Representatives, the Speaker—elected by the majority—sets the legislative agenda.

E.     Party Voting—Because the parties today—particularly the Republican Party—are more ideologically driven than in just about any other time period in the last 100 years, much of the comity that had existed in both legislative bodies has disappeared. Why is that so?

1.      New Deal—with the implementation of the New Deal in response to the economic situation caused by the Great Depression, the economic hegemony that the very rich had exercised over the economy was called into question. Although the New Deal was not a programmatic solution (it was, in fact, trial and error), it fostered the belief that government could—and should—be used to regulate the perceived excesses of capitalism. The success that this program experienced led to the Democratic Party controlling both houses of Congress into the 1980s—and also meant that the New Deal legislative program was largely unchallenged until it began to falter in the late 1960s.

2.      Rise of Think Tanks and Foundations—because implementing a legislative program was largely closed off, conservative turned to think tanks and foundations to propagate their ideas until they could regain control of the legislative process.

3.      Barry Goldwater—the emergence of an attractive political figure, Arizona politician Barry Goldwater, gave conservatives a foothold in the Republican Party. Even his landslide defeat after winning the Republican presidential nomination in 1964 did little to discourage conservative activists.

4.      Richard Nixon—While initially Nixon’s re-emergence seemed to spell defeat for conservatives, Watergate proved to be just the opening for conservatives to take over control of a demoralized party

5.      Ronald Reagan—Reagan’s victory in the 1980 election, and his partial implementation of his legislative agenda—coupled with the lack of a viable alternative offering by the Democratic Party—made the Republican Party more attractive for conservatives, and less so for those who were not conservative.

6.      Caucuses—smaller groups within a larger party who join together to agitate for the implementation legislation along a specific agenda.

F.      The Organization of Congress: Committees—Committees are charged with doing much of the work of Congress; it is in committees where most legislation gets debated and shaped. Committees recommend legislation to the floors of Congress for voting—or, sometimes, refuse to allow a particular piece of legislation out of committee to be voted on (such legislation is then said to have “died in committee”)

1.      Standing committees—deal with the most important legislation, and can also directly recommend legislation to the floors of Congress (or not, as discussed above).

2.      Select committees—usually temporary committees formed to undertake specific hearings, or on specific matters for legislation

3.      Conference committee—membership is made up from both the House and the Senate, and the committee is charged with reconciling legislation that was passed by both bodies, but with parts of the bills not in total agreement.

G.    The Organization of Congress: Staff and Specialized Offices

1.      Staff—each member of Congress is assigned (or, given a budget to hire) personnel to staff his office. A member of Congress is not able to keep up with all the legislation that comes up for voting, or with the expectations of those in their district or state who express their concerns over some piece of legislation (or some other problem), and rely upon their staff to address these problems

2.      Staff Agencies—Often times, members of Congress need specialized advice that their own staff cannot provide. It is the job of the staff of the Congressional Research Service, the General Accounting Office, and the Congressional Budget Office to provide this information in a non-partisan manner

H.    How a Bill Become Law

1. Introducing a Bill--any member of Congress can introduce a bill; in the House, members can simply hand it to a clerk or drop it in a special box; in the Senate, the member must be recognized by the presiding officer and then announce the bill's introduction. Today you hear much about the President (or, in reality, the White House staff) introducing legislation. While this is strictly true (the White House staff is often the direct author of legislation), the President herself cannot introduce legislation in Congress--she must still find a member of Congress to be the official sponsor.

2. Resolutions--besides bills, Congress can also pass resolutions. Either house can use simple resolutions for matters like establishing operating rules in each body (like the filibuster, for example--but more on that later). Concurrent resolutions settle housekeeping and procedural rules that effect both houses (the Republican-controled House of Representatives, for instance, has insisted that both bodies remain in session continuously since they gained control, to prevent President Obama from making any "recess appointment"). A joint resolution requires approval by both houses, and usually a presidential signature--it is essentially the same thing as a law. A joint resolution is also used to propose a constitutional amendment; in that case, it must be approved by a 2/3 majority in both houses, and does not require the signature of the president.

3. Study by committees--a bill is referred to a particular committee for consideration by either the Speaker of the House or by the Senate's presiding officer; this power (along with the power to appoint member to committees) is the source of influence for each of these leaders. When committees decide to act on a bill, they usually hold hearings at which interested parties and experts testify

After the hearings, the committee or subcommittee makes revisions and additions to the bill, but these will not become law (like the bill itself) until it is voted upon by the entire body. If the committee or sub-committee does not report the bill to the floor, members can sign a discharge petition to get the bill to the floor (at least 218 members must sign the petition); this is rarely done--even more rarely succeeds.

4. Floor debate--in the House of Representatives, when a bill is brought to the floor for debate, it is discussed by the Committee of the Whole--whoever happens to be on the floor at the time, so long as at least 100 members are present. To actually vote on a bill, a quorum needs to be present (at least 218 representatives). In the Senate, the rules are a bit different: there are no Committees of the Whole, and no rule limiting debate. What the Senate has instead are filibusters and sometimes irrelevant amendments called "riders" (see, for example, Howard W. Smith and the 1965 Civil Rights Act).

I.       How Members of Congress Vote

1.      Representational View--This explanation of why a member of Congress votes in a particular fashion relies upon the point that most members want to get re-elected, and therefore will vote as her constituents wish (this assumes, of course, that the member thinks that constituents are paying attention to the way they vote)

2.      Organizational View--on many issues, members rely upon the leadership of their party leaders, or on leaders of a particular caucus they are members of.

3.      Attitudinal View--Because many members of Congress become involved in politics in order to further a particular view they have of politics (whether that view is liberal or conservative), often their voting is based upon their ideology.

J.       A Polarized Congress in an Unpolarized Nation(?)


K. Ethics and Congress


L. The Power of Congress


II. What it all Means