Chapter 10 (Congress)
I.
Powers of Congress (i.e. “C”)
A. Constitutional Powers
• Powers of House Only – (1) Originate Tax/Spend Bills
(2) Bring impeachment charges.
• Powers of Senate Only – (1) Advise and consent to
(ratify) treaties (2) Confirm appointments to federal
judiciary, ambassadors, cabinet, and high executive
agency chiefs (3) Try impeachments.
B. Institutional Conflict: Constitutionally, C could exert
considerable power over the other two branches. Yet,
“over the long term, national leadership and policy
initiative have tended to shift from Congress to the
president.”-Dye.
C. Dividing Congressional Power: House and Senate
(Fig. 8.1)
1. Bicameral legislature: A legislature that consists of two
separate bodies.
• House of Representatives (435 members who serve
2-year terms; chosen from local districts; more rules)
• Senate (100 members who serve 6-year terms.
Senate elections are staggered so that 1/3 of
senators are elected every 2 years; chosen from
entire state; fewer rules)
• Both houses must pass identical bills before it goes
to Pres.
D. Domestic versus Foreign and Defensive Policy – C is
more powerful in domestic than in international
affairs. It usually follows the President’s wishes with
respect to foreign policy. Only C can “declare war,”
and they have done so only 5 times.
E. The Power of the Purse – C’s constitutional and
exclusive power to authorize federal expenditures
(both foreign and domestic) is very important.
F. Oversight of the Bureaucracy – C and Congressional
oversight committees oversee the functions of
government agencies (again, attention to
compliance is necessary since C controls the
budget)
G. Agenda Setting and Media Attention – Through
Congressional Hearings and Congressional
Investigations, C can set the agenda for the media
(i.e. anti-Clinton group, incumbency advantage:
more appearances, popularity for policies favored
by Congress)
II. Congressional Apportionment and Redistricting
*“Representatives…shall be apportioned among the
several states…according to their respective
Numbers.”
•
Congress determines the size of the House (not
Constitution like with the Senate). In 1910 C
fixes the size of the House to 435.
A. Apportionment – the process of allocating seats in
legislative bodies, like C, among the states: The
formula used was created in 1929 and
considers a state’s % of population represented
by 435 positions.
B. Malapportionment: This occurs when a district is
over or under represented in terms of
population (e.g. In 1962, GA had two districts
with large population disparities; 272,154 – rural
and 823, 860 – urban)
C. Supreme Court: The S. C. intervened in 1962 (Baker v.
Carr). They ruled that severe malapportionment violates
the Equal Protection Clause. One person’s vote must
roughly equal anothers.
D. Redistricting – Drawing of legislative district boundaries
following each census. State legislatures draw these
and they must pass both houses of the State legislature
as well as receive the governors; signature.
E. Gerrymandering – Drawing lines in such a way as to gain
political advantages. Parties controlling state
legislatures typically engage in this. The court has
generally not stopped this practice, but if “a voter’s or a
group of voters’ influence on the political process” is
consistently degraded, the court has used language
allowing for judicial intervention.
• splintering: creating districts with very low
concentrations of a particular voting population (e.g.
minorities)
• packing: creating districts with a very high concentration
of a certain voting population
F. Racial Gerrymandering – Drawing lines to render a
minority’s voting influence worthless violates both
the equal protection clause and the Voting Rights Act
of 1965. The VRA requires that states with a history
of racial gerrymandering and voting discrimination
have their district lines approved by the federal
justice department.
• After 1982, the motivation to racially discriminate
was no longer the only requirement. Instead,
state legislatures must redistrict their states as to
maximize minority representation in Congress and
state legislatures (create “majority-minority”
districts). The Court has begun to consider both
affirmative and negative racial gerrymandering
unconstitutional.
III. Getting to Capitol Hill
A. Who runs for Congress? – They typically come from
law, business, or public service. More and more,
members of Congress are career politicians, in the
sense that they decided early in life to pursue
political offices.
B. Competition for Seats – Careerism is aided by the
incumbency advantages.
House: 90%; Senate: 85%; State Legislators: 90%
•
Safe Seat – district where incumbent typically wins
by over 60% (70% of all incumbents). 10-18% face
no challenger.
•
Open Seat – No incumbent running in a district
(10% of seats).
C. Turnover – Change in membership. Recently, it has
been high. It usually results from retirement or
resignation or reapportionment (loss of seat), not
electoral defeat.
D. Congressional Electorate – These elections
rarely arouse much voter interest (60% can
name one Senator from their state; 40% can
name both; less than half can name their Rep).
Voter turnout for off-year elections (when the
president is not elected) is about 35%.
E. Congressional Campaign Financing –
• The candidate with the most money wins 90%
of the time.
• This fact and huge advertised campaign chests
serve to deter challengers.
F. Independence of Congressional Voting – Voters
quite often vote for different parties with respect
to the president and Congress.
G. Democratic Dominance of Congress (40 years, 1954-1994)
1. Why? Theories:
Unintentional
•
Party Theory - Dems more committed to winning and
staying in office than Reps.
•
Incumbency Theory-When elections modernized
(candidate centered, campaign finance) the Dems were
incumbents.
Intentional
•
Local elections and concerns theory – voters favor
Republican goals on national issues (security, lower
taxes, less spending overall); but they favor more
Democratic ideas locally (gov’t programs and “pork”)
•
Party Balance – moderate voters in the center
intentionally vote for different parties in order to balance
public policy.
2. Ended with GOP takeover in 1994; today, Congress is
more evenly split than ever.
IV. Life in Congress
A. Demographics and “Representativeness” of Congress
1. Race:
•
Black membership in Congress grew from one
(1891-1955) to 9% of the House today. Blacks are
12% of the population; these representatives
mostly come from “majority-minority” districts.
•
Hispanics (12% pop) makeup 5% of the House and
there is was Native American (Ben Nighthorse
Campbell switched in 1995 from D to Rep).
2. Gender: Women have made significant gains at
least in the House especially in 1992 “the year of
the woman.” There are 9 women senators and 60
Reps.
3. Other (Age, religion, income, occupation, etc.; next
slide)
B. Congressional Staff (25,000 people). Each rep has
about 20. Each senator has between 30-50
(depends on state size). Each Rep gets about
$500,000 a year in expense funds and Senators get
$2,000,000. Total expense spending for
Congressmen = more than $2 BILLION.
C. Workload (Day in the life of a Congressman)
• 12-15 hour days (2-3 in committee; 2-3 on floor; 3-4
meeting with people; 2-3 attending meetings or
events or conferences).
• May introduce 10-50 bills in one session (convenes
in January following a congressional election and
extends for 2 years until after next one)
• Vote 900-1,000 times a session
D. Pay and Perks
•
1998 – House pay = $154,000 (27 amendment,
203 years old, was ratified in 1992. Requires a
House election to intervene before pay hikes begin)
•
“Other perks include, travel and office expenses,
free congressional health club, free medical clinic,
free parking, free video studios for making selfpromotional tapes, free mailing privileges, and a
subsidized dining room, gift shop, and barbershop.”
V. Home Style (activities members direct toward
constituents at home)
•
Case work – services performed by members on
behalf of individual constituents. (lost Social
Security checks, information on a bill or vote, IRS
problems…). About 100 cases per week per
House office and 300 per Senate office.
•
Pork Barrel – “bring home the bacon”:
legislation or government programs, funds, or
“goodies” flow to particular districts.
•
Pressing the Flesh – be seen at home, often.
Congress usually follows a Tuesday-toThursday schedule to help each other out.
•
Puffing Images – Members use franking
privileges to enhance their image through mail,
newsletters, and other materials. They also use
the Congressional television studios to send to
local stations and all have webpages.
VI. Organizing Congress: Party and Leadership Fig.
8.8. C is organized around party leaders. This
is different from before the 1970s when C was
managed by the most senior members.
A. House: Majority Party elects the “Speaker” and
he/she assigns bills to committees.
B. Senate: Parties elect “Leaders” (majority/minority) who
formulate the party’s legislative agenda (and set vote
schedule for majority party). The “President” of the Senate
is the Vice President of the U.S, but he/she delegates that
responsibility to the president pro tempore. VP’s do cast tie
breaking votes.
VI. Committees
•
Standing Committees – permanent committees that
specialize in a particular are of legislation (e.g., House Ways
and Means, Ag, Rules, VA; Senate Appropriations). Majority
party has a majority in every committee. About 9,000 bills
are introduced every year so these committees are
important for screening.
•
Subcommittees – committees under the supervision of a
larger committee charged with considering specific pieces of
legislation
•
Committee Membership- assignments are very important to
members (capacity to bring home bacon and deliver on
campaign promises). These assignments are determined
by party leadership.
•
Chairs – though elected, senior members typically enjoy
priority over junior members when it comes to
chairmanships. Of course, the majority party will be the
chair first.
•
Most bills “die” in committee (voted down or simply ignored).
The only way to force a floor vote on a bill opposed by a
committee is to get a majority (218) of House members to
sign a discharge petition. The Senate needs a majority
vote as well, but senators can amend a bill any way they
wish (no need to do this).
VII. On the Floor (next slide) – know this process, and note
differences between House and Senate procedure
A. House Rules Committee – a bill must pass through the rules
committee in order to reach the floor.
•
Closed Rule – rule that forbids adding any amendments to a
bill on floor (15%).
•
Restricted Rule – rule that permits only certain amendments
(15%
•
Open Rule – rule that permits unlimited amendments on
floor (70%).
B. Senate Floor Traditions
• Unanimous consent agreements – negotiated by
Senate leaders; specifies when a bill will be
taken up on the floor, what amendments to
consider, and when a vote will occur.
• Filibuster – using the Senate’s unlimited debate
rule to prevent a vote on a bill.
• Cloture – Vote to end debate (stop a filibuster),
requires 3/5’s (60) vote of entire Senate.
• Rider – amendment to a bill that is not relevant to
the bill.
C. Floor Voting
• Amending a bill to death (i.e. Killer Amendments),
then claim support
• Voice Votes - not a recorded vote.
• Roll-Call Vote – recorded votes by individual
D. Conference Committees – Constitution requires
that both Houses pass identical bills. Similar
bills with different wording passed by each
house can be assigned to CC’s in order to
created one compromise bill to be voted on in
each house.
IX. Explaining Votes in Congress
A. Party Voting (next slide) – Majority of Dems voting
in opposition to a majority of Reps (recently
over 60% of the votes).
B. Party unity – percentage of Dems and Reps who
stick with their party’s position on a bill/vote
(recently, over 80%).
C. Presidential Support or Opposition – Presidential
proposals enjoy great support from members of
their own party. Why? President has access to
media, veto power, and bureaucratic
supervision.
D. Constituency Influence – Members must pay attention to
opinions of their voters (perhaps even when they disagree
with it). What about rational ignorance?
E. Interest-Group Influence – IG’s have especial influence over
the details of bills. They provide MCs policy expertise and
campaign support.
F. Personal Values
•
Trustees – Legislators who feel that they should have
discretion over decision making.
•
Delegates – Legislators who feel that they should vote in
accordance with their constituents.
X. Customs and Norms
•
Civility
•
Specialization and Deference (i.e. Dr. Bill Frist has been
deferred to on health policy; he’s a heart surgeon)
•
Logrolling – “If you vote for my bill [pork], I’ll vote for yours.”
This is the way that congressmen are able to get a majority
in the chamber to vote for their narrow pork projects.
XI. Congressional Ethics
•
Expulsion (2/3s vote)
•
Censure – “stand in the well” and be berated
by peers.