Chapter 11
Congress: Balancing National
Goals and Local Interest
2003
Congress faced the reality of a ballooning federal deficit that
was the product of a slow economy,
steep tax cuts, increased spending on social services, and
the rising costs of military operations abroad.
The appropriations (spending)
bill that was forged in Congress
contained more than $20 Billion
worth of new spending on
Pork – Barrel projects.
For Example, $50 Million was designated for
construction of a rain forest exhibit in the
state of Iowa. The bill was sponsored by
Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican with
a reputation for fiscal conservatism. He
argued that the rain forest project would be
good for Iowa and good for the country.
This story illustrates the dual
nature of Congress: it is both
a lawmaking institution for the
country and a representative
assembly for states and
districts. Members of
Congress have both an
individual duty to serve the
interests of their separate
constituencies and a
collective duty to protect the
interest of the nation as a
whole.
Chapter 11 Main Ideas
 Congressional elections tend to have a strong local orientation and
tend to favor incumbents.
 Congress is organized in part along political party lines; its collective
leadership is provided by party leaders of the House of
Representatives and the Senate.
 The work of Congress is done mainly through its committees and
subcommittees, each of which has its leader (a chairperson) and its
policy jurisdiction.
 Congress is limited by the lack of direction and organization usually
necessary for the development of comprehensive national policies.
Congress looks to the president to initiate most broad policy programs
but has a substantial influence on the timing and content of those
programs.
 Congress’s policymaking role is based on three major functions:
lawmaking, representation, and oversight.
Congress As A Career: Election To
Congress

Early Congress:
Nearly ½ the seats changed hands regularly.
Most members left voluntarily (travel
problems).
National Government was not the center of
power and politics.

Modern Congress: Most members of Congress are professional
politicians.
Salaries are reasonably good ($150,000 /
year).
Prestige of their office is substantial
(especially the Senate).
A long career is the goal of most members
(re-election is of highest priority).
Using Incumbency To Stay In
Congress
 Incumbent – holder of a public office.
 Incumbents have a high probability of
being reelected (95% of House / 90%
Senate). The reason is that many
congressional districts and a few
states are so lopsidedly Democratic or
Republican that the candidate of the
weaker party has little or no realistic
chance of victory.
 An incumbent promotes his or her
reelection prospects by catering to the
constituency: the body of citizens
eligible to vote in their state or district.
Incumbent Advantages
1.
Pork Barrel Projects – Laws whose tangible benefits
are targeted at a particular legislators constituency.
Ex. - Special projects for a particular locale
(highways / hospitals)
2. Service Strategies – Each House member receives an
office allowance of $750,000 / year, which
supports a personal staff of fifteen to twenty
full-time staff members. These
Congressional staffers spend most of their
time not on legislative matters but on
constituency service and public relations –
things that pay off on election day.
3. Campaign Funds – Incumbents have a decided advantage
when it comes to raising campaign funds.
Price of Victory:
House more than $1 Million.
Senate - up to $15 Million.
The Pitfalls of Incumbency
1.
Troublesome Issues - Disruptive issues are a
potential threat to incumbents. Most
elections are not waged in the context of
such issues, but when they exist,
incumbents are at greater risk.
(economic and social conditions)
2.
Personal Misconduct – Members of Congress
can
fall prey to scandal.
Democratic Rep. Gary Condit – Romantically
linked to Chandra Levy who was missing and
later found dead. Condit was defeated.
The Pitfalls of Incumbency
3. Redistricting: A Problem for House Members
Every ten years, after each population census, the 435
seats in the House are reallocated among the
states in proportion to their population. This
process in called reapportionment. The
responsibility for redrawing House election
districts after a reapportionment – a process called
redistricting – rests with the State governments.
States are required by law to make their districts as
nearly equal in population as possible.
Gerrymandering – the process by which the party
in power draws election district lines in a way that
is to the advantages of its candidates.
Constitutional Requirements for
Serving In Congress
Representatives
Senators
“No person shall be a
Representative who
shall not have attained
to the age of twentyfive years, and been
seven years a citizen of
the United States, and
who shall not, when
elected, be an
inhabitant of that State
in which he shall be
chosen.”
“No person shall be a
Senator who shall not
have attained to the
age of thirty years, and
been nine years a
citizen of the United
States, and who shall
not, when elected, be
an inhabitant of the
State for which he shall
be chosen.”
(Article 1, Section 2)
(Article 1, Section 3)
Congressional Leadership
The Speaker of the House and the other top leaders in
Congress are crucial to its operation, but unlike their
counterparts in European legislatures, they cannot demand
the loyalty of the members they lead. The result is an
institution in which the power of the top leaders rests on
the willingness of other members to support them.
Party Caucus - A group that consists of a party’s members in
the House and Senate and that serves to elect the party’s
leadership, set political goals, and determine party strategy.
(Automatic membership)
Party Leaders – Members of the House or Senate who are
chosen by the Democratic or Republican caucus in each
chamber to represent the party’s interest in that chamber
and who give some central direction to the chamber’s
deliberations.
The House Leadership
The main party leaders in the House are the Speaker, majority
party leader, majority whip, minority leader and the minority
whip. The Constitution provides only for the post of Speaker.
The Speaker of the House is to be elected by the members of the
House. In practice, this means that the Speaker will be a
member of the majority party, because it has enough votes to
ensure that one of its own members is chosen.
Speaker’s Formal Powers
1.
2.
3.
4.
Right to speak first on legislation during debate.
Controls the power to recognize speakers.
Gives members permission to speak.
Chooses the chairperson and the members of the House
Rules Committee. (controls debate of bills)
5. Can delay sending bills to the floor for debate (until there is
enough support for it to pass).
Speakers’ Major Powers
The Speaker can limit debate, influence
voters because of sheer numbers, and
presides over a House that carries a
lesser feeling of a “chamber of equals”
than the Senate. For these reasons,
the Speakers’ powers are greater than
those of the Senate Majority leader.
The Senate Leadership
In the Senate, the most important party leadership position is
that of the majority leader, who heads the majority-party
caucus. The majority leader’s role is much like that of the
Speaker of the House in that the Senate majority leader
formulates the majority party’s legislative agenda.
Senate Majority Leader
1. Not the chambers presiding officer.
Constitution gives that right to the Vice President.
The Vice President is allowed to vote in the Senate
only to break a tie.
The President Pro Tempore presides over the Senate in
the absence of the V.P.
(Largely an honorary position held by majority party’s
senior member.)
The Senate Leadership
2. Has limited power because each
senator has the right to speak at
any length on bills.
3. Schedules bills for debate.
The power of all party leaders, in the
Senate and the House alike, rests
largely on the trust placed in them
by the members of their party.
The Committee System
Most of the legislative work of Congress
takes place in the meetings of its
thirty-five standing (permanent)
committees and their numerous
subcommittees, each of which is
handled by a chairperson.
Standing Committees – Permanent
congressional committees with
responsibility for a particular area of
public policy. (Ex. – The Senate
Foreign Relations Committee)
The Committee System
Select Committees – Created to perform a specific task.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – Oversees
the CIA.
Joint Committees – Composed of members of both houses /
performs advisory or coordinating functions.
Joint Committee on the Library – oversees the largest
library in the world.
Conference Committee – Joint committees formed
temporarily to work out differences in House and
Senate versions of a particular bill.
About ten thousand bills are introduced during each twoyear session of Congress. The sheer volume of legislation
would paralyze the system if it did not have a division of
labor.
Committee Membership

Each committee is made up of Democrats and
Republicans, but the majority party holds the
majority of seats on each committee and its
subcommittee.

Members of the House typically serve on two major
committees and no more than five subcommittees.

Each standing committee has a fixed number of
members, and a committee must have a vacancy for
a new member to be added.
Committee Jurisdiction – The policy area in which a
particular congressional committee is authorized to
act. This is the major source of the committee’s
power.
How A Bill Becomes A Law
Bill – A proposed law (legislative act) within Congress or
another legislature.
Many bills are prepared by executive agencies, interest
groups, or other outside parties, but members of Congress
also draft bills, and only they can formally submit a bill for
consideration by their chamber.
Committees kill more than 90% of the bills submitted in Congress. Most
bills die in committee because they are of little interest to anyone other
than a few members of Congress or are so poorly conceived that they
lack merit. Some bills are not even supported by the members who
introduce them. They only introduce them to appease a powerful
constituent group, then quietly withdraw their support.
Some bills are “marked up” in both the House and the
Senate. That is, the bills are revised.
If the majority of the committee votes to recommend
passage of the bill, it is referred to the full chamber
for action. The House Rules Committee then
decides how long the debate will last, when the bill
will be voted on and closed or open rule
(amendments or no amendments). The Senate also
has a rules committee, but it is less powerful.
All Senate bills are subject to unlimited debate unless a
three-fifths majority of the full Senate votes for
cloture, which limits debate to thirty hours. Cloture
is a way of thwarting a Senate filibuster, a procedural
tactic whereby a minority of senators prevent a bill
from coming to a vote by holding the floor and
talking until other senators give in and the bill is
withdrawn from consideration.
Filibuster
Senator Thurmond
stands as the oldest
and longest serving
Senator in U.S.
history with 48
years at the age of
100.
Republican from South
Carolina
• Unlike the House, any senator can
propose any amendment to any bill.
Senate amendment proposals do not
have to be germane to the bills topic. A
senator may propose an antiabortion
amendment to a bill dealing with
defense expenditure. Such and
amendment is called a rider.
• Rider – An amendment to a bill that
deals with an issue unrelated to the
content of the bill.
Conference Committees and
the President
• An important ingredient in Congressional
action is – Party Discipline – the willingness
of a party’s House or Senate members to act
together as a cohesive group and exert
collective control over legislation.
• For a bill to pass, it must receive a simple
majority (50% plus one) of the House or
Senate members voting on it. To become
law, however, a bill must be passed in
identical form by both the House and the
Senate.
• Legislation that is passed by the House and the Senate
is not assured of becoming law. The president also
plays a role. If the president signs the bill, it becomes
law – a legislative proposal that is passed by both the
House and the Senate and is either signed or not vetoed
by the president. If the president exercises the veto, a
rejection of the bill, the bill is sent back to its originating
chamber with the president’s reasons for the veto.
Congress can override a veto with two-thirds vote of
each chamber – bill then becomes law.
• If the president fails to sign a bill within ten days
(Sunday exempted) and Congress has remained in
session, the bill automatically becomes law anyway. If
the president fails to sign a bill within ten days and
Congress has adjourned for the term, the bill does not
become law. This situation is called a pocket veto.
Congress’s Policy Making Role
• The Framers of the Constitution expected
Congress to be the leading branch of the national
government. It was to be the legislature – the
embodiment of representative government- that
the people were expected to look to for policy
leadership.
• Congress’s policy making role revolves around
three legislative functions: lawmaking,
representation, and oversight. In practice, the
three functions overlap, but they are conceptually
distinct.
The Lawmaking Function of
Congress
• Under the Constitution, Congress is granted the
lawmaking function: the authority to make the laws
necessary to carry out the powers granted to the
national government. In other words, Congress has
the power to enact legislation.
• Congress is structured in a way that makes
agreement on large issues difficult to obtain. Neither
the House nor the Senate can enact legislation
without the other’s approval, and the two chambers
are hardly two versions of the same thing.
• Congress is biased towards blocking legislation
rather than passing it.
The Lawmaking Function of
Congress
Broad Issues
• Congress often has difficulty taking the lead on broad issues of
national policy. The presidency is better suited to the task of
addressing broad issues. First, whereas Congress’s authority
is divided, the presidency’s authority is not. Executive power is
vested constitutionally in the hands of a single individual – the
president.
• Most of the legislation passed by Congress is “distributive” –
that is, it distributes benefits to a particular group while
spreading the costs among the general public. Veterans’
benefits and business tax incentives are examples. Such
legislation, because it directly benefits a constituent group or
special interest group, is the type of policy that members of
Congress are most inclined to support.
The Representation Function
of Congress
• Representation Function – The responsibility of a
legislature to represent various interests in society.
• A recurrent issue has been whether the primary
concern of a representative should be the interest of
the nation as a whole or those of his or her own
constituency.
• Logrolling – the trading of votes between legislators
so that each gets what he or she most wants.
• However, partisanship is the main source of division
within Congress. Real and substantial differences
between members of the two parties often results in
their voting on party lines on the opposite sides of
legislative issues. In the past two decades, partyline voting has been relatively high.
The Oversight Function of
Congress
Oversight Function – A supervisory activity of
Congress that center on its constitutional
responsibility see that the executive branch
carries out the laws faithfully and spends
appropriations properly.
** Carried out largely through the through the
committee system of Congress.
Examples:
“Legislative Veto” - Requires that an executive agency
have the approval of Congress before it can take a
specified action. (Legislative vetoes are under
challenge as an unconstitutional infringement on
executive authority; their future is unclear).
The Oversight Function of
Congress
Most federal programs have their funding reviewed
every year.
Sunset Law – A law containing a provision that fixes a
date on which a program will end unless the
program’s life is extended by Congress.
Limit to Oversight Function
Executive Privilege – The right to withhold confidential
information affecting national security.