Congressional Committees
I. Purposes of Committees
a. Effectively consider thousands of bills
b. Make compromises
c. Ease workload
i. Divide workload into smaller parts
ii. Lawmakers become specialists in their
committees
d. Act as power centers in Congress
i. Public hearings and investigations help the
public learn more about key issues
iii. Public attention to crucial issues
e. Most bills never make it out of committee
II. Four basic kinds of committees
a. Standing Committees (1)
i. Permanent groups that continue from
one Congress to the next
ii. May add or eliminate a committee
iii. Power of committees is usually in proportion
to power in Congress
b. Subcommittees (part of standing committee)
i. Standing committees are broken up into
smaller parts
i. House Republicans in the 104th Congress
limited most committees to no more than
5 subcommittees
ii. Often continue one Congress to the next
Standing Committees of Congress
House of Representatives
Agriculture
Appropriations
Armed Service
Budget
Education and Labor
Energy and Commerce
Financial Services
Foreign Affairs
Homeland Security
Judiciary
Natural Resources
Oversight and Government Reform
Rules
Science and Technology
Small Business
Standards of Official Conduct
Transportation and Infrastructure
Veteran’s Affairs
Ways and Means
Senate
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Appropriations
Armed Forces
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Budget
Commerce, Science, and
Transportation
Energy and Natural Resources
Environment and Public Works
Finance
Foreign Relations
Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
Homeland Security and Government
Affairs
Judiciary
Rules and Administration
Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Veteran’s Business
c. Select Committees (2)
i. Temporary committees formed to study
one specific issue and report findings
ii. Designed to study:
i. Matters of great public concern
ii. Overlooked problems
iii. Problems of interest groups
a. Example: Small business owners
iii. Usually last for one term of Congress;
can be renewed
i. Example: Select Intelligence
Committee reclassified as a
permanent committee
d. Joint Committees (3)
i. Goal: coordinate work in both houses
ii. Made up of members from both the
House and the Senate
iii.
Lack authority to deal directly with bills or
propose legislation to Congress
i. May be temporary or permanent
ii. Act as study groups to report finding
back to the House and Senate
a. Examples: Joint Economic
Committee, Library of Congress
b. Controversial matters: atomic
energy, defense, taxation
A bill can only be sent from Congress to the president once
both houses have passed it in identical form . . .
e. Conference Committees (4)
i. Temporary committee that is set up
when House and Senate have passed
different versions of the same bill
ii. Members usually come from the House and
Senate standing committees that handled
bill in question
iii. Goal: resolve differences between two
versions of the bill
iv. Compromise bill: conference report
a. With either be accepted or rejected
b. If accepted, goes to the president
III. Choosing Committee Members
a. Important for politicians: can make a career
i. May increase chances of reelection
ii. Vehicle to influence national policy
iii. Exert influence over other lawmakers
b. Chairpersons: some of most powerful positions
because they make key decisions