6
Congress:
The First Branch
Which of the following institutions do you
trust the most?
A. Congress
B. The presidency
C. The Supreme Court
Institutional Approval Ratings
Gallup – September 5–11, 2011
• Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is
handling its job?
Approve – 15%
Disapprove – 82%
• Do you approve or disapprove of the job that Barack
Obama is doing as president?
Approve – 43%
Disapprove – 49%
• Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Supreme
Court is handling its job?
Approve – 46%
Disapprove – 40%
Institutional Approval Ratings
Gallup, July 10–14, 2013
• Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is
handling its job?
Approve: 15 percent
Disapprove: 78 percent
• Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack
Obama is handling his job as president? (tracking poll)
Approve: 46 percent
Disapprove: 46 percent
• Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Supreme
Court is handling its job?
Approve: 43 percent
Disapprove: 46 percent
Congress is the First Branch
• The U.S. Congress is more independent
and powerful than legislatures in other
industrialized democracies
• It is no accident that the makeup and
powers of Congress are outlined in Article
I of the Constitution and that Article I is, by
far, the longest Article of the Constitution
The Powers of Congress:
Article I, Section 8
• Congress is given a vast array of powers:
– Power to tax and spend
– Power to raise an army/navy and declare war
– Power to regulate commerce
– Power to coin money (regulate the currency)
– Power to make all laws “necessary and
proper” (elastic clause)
• Today, presidents play a bigger role in
each of these areas
Congress and Representation
• Congress is the most important
representative institution in government
• A member’s primary responsibility is to
their constituency – the district making up
the area from which an official is elected
• Good representation encompasses a wide
variety of activities
How Members Represent
Their Districts
Forms of Representation
• Agency Representation – The type of
representation according to which
representatives are held accountable to
their constituents if they fail to represent
them properly
• Delegate – Legislators see themselves as
perfect agents of others; they have been
elected to do the bidding of those who
sent them to the legislature
• Trustee – Legislator votes based on what
he/she thinks is best for the constituency
Descriptive Representation
• Legislators not only represent others; they
may be representative of others as well.
• Descriptive representation refers to the
idea that we seek to have a legislature that
has demographic characteristics similar to
the population it represents.
Demographic Summary of
Members of Congress
House and Senate:
Differences in Representation
• Congress is a bicameral legislative assembly –
composed of two chambers, or houses
• The Senate is smaller and more deliberative
• The House is larger, and thus power is more
centralized and the process is more organized
• http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-july-142005/headlines---homeland-security
House and Senate:
Differences in Representation
The Electoral System:
Who Runs?
• Because members of Congress are
agents, electoral considerations are very
important
• To win, candidates need:
– ambition
– money
– name recognition / strong political base
– charisma / strong personal organization
The Electoral System:
Incumbency
• Incumbency – holding a political office for which one is
running – is a huge advantage in congressional elections
• Some of the advantages include:
– casework
– patronage
– pork-barrel legislation
– early money
– name recognition
– http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-reportvideos/72021/july-20-2006/better-know-a-district--florida-s-19th---robert-wexler
Money in Congressional
Elections
• One of the big reasons congressional
incumbents are so safe is that they raise
and spend more money than their
opponents
• In part, this becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy as campaign donors only want
to give to those they think can win and
incumbents usually win … so they get
more money
The Electoral System:
Congressional Districts
• Every 10 years, House districts must be
re-apportioned among the states and lines
must be re-drawn to reflect population
changes
• There is a lot at stake in how these lines
are drawn as voters can be arranged so
as to give an advantage to one political
party. This is called gerrymandering
Changing Apportionment of
House Seats By Region
Problems of Legislative
Organization
Cooperation among many members is
difficult for several reasons
– Matching Influence and Interest: Each
member has particular priorities but one vote
on every issue
– Imperfect Information: Legislators cannot be
experts on every policy area
– Compliance: Monitoring legislative deals and
legislative outcomes requires collective effort
Legislative Organization:
Parties
• Members organize themselves into party
coalitions in the House and Senate called
a caucus (Democrats) or a conference
(Republicans)
• Members choose leadership (Speaker,
Majority Leader, Minority Leader, Whips)
• Members empower party leaders to
influence the agenda and manage
legislation
Legislative Organization:
Committees
• Members also organize themselves into
standing committees divided by policy
jurisdiction
• There are similar jurisdictional committees
in the House and Senate
• Committees have gatekeeping authority –
the right to decide if a change in policy will
be considered
Legislative Organization:
Committees
Legislative Organization:
Staffers and Agencies
• Each member of Congress has a large
staff that provides assistance on
everything from writing legislation to
correspondence with constituents
• Congress has also created staff agencies
like CRS, GAO, and CBO to provide nonpartisan policy advice to members
Clicker Question
Which of the following institutions serves as
a solution to Congress’s collective-action
problems?
A. party leadership
B. committees
C. congressional staffers
D. all of the above
How a Bill Becomes a Law:
Committee Deliberation
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeYBZFEzf8
• Bills must first be introduced by a member
of Congress and referred to committee(s)
• Most bills die in committee
• Some are referred to a subcommittee, are
amended, and are reported out to the full
chamber
How a Bill Becomes a Law:
Debate in the House
• Bills reported out of committee first go to
the Rules Committee, which determines
the rules under which the bill will be
debated on the floor where the majority
rules
• The Rules Committee may provide
– a closed rule – prohibits the introduction of
amendments
– an open rule – permits the addition of
amendments
How a Bill Becomes a Law:
Debate in the Senate
• The Senate has a tradition of unlimited
debate
• It takes three-fifths of the Senate (60
votes) to invoke cloture (end of debate)
• Recently, greater partisanship has meant
the minority frequently uses the filibuster
— a delaying tactic in which senators do
not allow debate to end — to kill legislation
How a Bill Becomes a Law:
Reconciling Bills
• To become a law, a bill must be passed in
exactly the same form in both chambers
• Frequently, the two chambers send the bill
back and forth until one chamber passes a
version passed by the other
• Sometimes, a conference committee is
appointed with members from each
chamber to work out differences
How a Bill Becomes a Law:
Presidential Action
• The president may veto legislation and
Congress may only override the veto with
a two-thirds vote in each chamber
• Presidents generally use the threat of a
veto to shape legislation and try to avoid
the embarrassment of having a veto
overridden
How a Bill Becomes a Law
Unorthodox Lawmaking:
Health Care Reform Act
• Getting legislation through this long
process sometimes requires unorthodox
procedures
• The Health Care Reform Act is a good
example of this:
– Multiple referrals to committees
– Use of reconciliation to pass changes to the
bill that couldn’t overcome a filibuster
The Distributive Tendency in
Congress
• Building the super-majority coalitions in
Congress necessary to pass legislation
leads to a distributive tendency in
legislation
• This means that bills are frequently
designed so as to distribute policy benefits
as widely as possible
Clicker Question
Because it is very difficult to enact legislation
in Congress, we tend to see
A. a lot of “unorthodox lawmaking.”
B. legislative institutions that organize
action.
C. a distributive tendency in lawmaking.
D. all of the above.
How Members Decide
• Constituency – Members care about what
constituents will think on Election Day
• Interest Groups – Groups educate the
public, mobilize constituents, and make
campaign donations
• Party Voting – Members listen to party
leaders more today than 50 years ago
Party Unity on the Rise
Widening Ideological Gap
Between Parties in Congress
Causes of Increasing
Partisanship in Congress
• Greater power for party leaders:
– Committee assignments
– Access to the floor
– The whip system
– Logrolling
– Increasing power and visibility for the
president
• Gerrymandering
Beyond Legislation:
Other Congressional Powers
• Advice and Consent (Senate only)
• Ratification of Treaties (Senate only)
• Impeachment
Congress and the Policy
Principle
• The Policy Principle states that “political
outcomes are the products of individual
preferences and institutional procedures.”
• We have seen that individual preferences
are very divergent and that institutional
mechanisms have been developed in
Congress to make collective action
possible.
THE MEDIAN VOTER IN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES
American Government, 12th Edition
Copyright © 2012 W.W. Norton & Company
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE HOUSE
AND THE SENATE
American Government, 12th Edition
Copyright © 2012 W.W. Norton & Company