Government Powers

What is a standing committee?

permanent committee that deals with a recoccurring topic

What is a select committee?

They deal with specific problems on events temporarily

Why are HOR members more specialized in specific areas than senators?

Every sentator gets assigned more committees than the house members

What does the Ways and Means Committee deal with?

Taxes

What does the rules committee do?

They set the rules of debate around each bill they’re in charge of

Why is the Rules Committee so powerful?

They can sway the rules of debate in their favor by making it more or less difficult to discuss

Who is charge of the committees?

The chair is the majority party member who has served on the same committee the longest

What are the three theories for the committee system?

Distributive theory, information theory, partisan theory

What is the distributive theory?

Members of congress are trying to get benefits for their district

What is logrolling? What theory is it under?

Asking for votes on one’s own bill in exchange for voting on another member’s vote; distributive theory

What is informational theory?

Members of congress are exchanging information on each other’s bills when they trade votes

How does informational theory work in practice?

Representatives who don’t know a lot about a separate subject area and have to vote on a bill in that subject area will find someone in that subject area in their own same party that inform them on the bill and how it will affect their party

What is the partisan theory?

Committees exist to further drive political agender. Leadership within each party decides who gets a seat and getting into more or less important issue areas depending on your political party is a reflection of what party is trying to pass what agenda

What are the steps for a bill becoming a law? (11)

1. Sponsor Introduces a Bill

2. Referred to a committee

3. Subcommittee Hearings

4. Mark Up

5. Full Committee Vote

6. Rules Committee Determines Rules

7. Roll Call Vote

8. Conference Committee

9. Vote Again

10. Presidential Approval

11. In case of a veto, it goes to congress for a chance of overriding it

How can a congress member introduce a bill?

They write a draft and drop it in a box

How do congress members utilize bills for credit-claiming and statement-making?

By proposing a bill, one can advertise in campaign ads that they “introduced legislation” to pass something

What happens in the “referred to committee” stage of passing a bill?

A member of congress empties out the proposed bills and sends them to their responding committees

What is a subcommittee hearing?

A panel where a subcommittee listens to an expert speak about specifics in a bill to inform members on what the pros and cons of voting a certain way for a bill are

How are subcommittee hearings twisted to fit agendas?

The “experts” they bring in can be specifically selected to more heavily push a certain political party’s policies, and there’s no criteria for who is considered an expert

What happens to most bills at the subcommittee stage of passing a bill?

The bills intentionally planted purely for campaign reasons die here mostly because hearings rarely ever actually get scheduled

What is a mark up stage of passing a bill?

A bill is revised after hearing experts, and funding is often either cut or doubled depending on importance of the issue

What does the Rules Committee have to decide on when selecting the voting rules for a bill?

1. Open or closed rule

2. Germaneness

3. Unlimited debate or limited debate

Define open and closed rule

Open rule means any house member can “amend” changes to a bill, closed rule means no amendments are allowed

Define general germaneness rule

Any debate and amendments should pertain to the bill

Define unlimited debate and limited debate

How long people are allowed to debate before they have to come to a decision

What about the Senate’s rules committee is different from the HOR’s Rules Committee?

The senate’s rules committee has no general germaneness rule, is open rule, and operates under unlimited debate

The HOR requires the germaneness rule, operates always under limited debate, and varies whether it is open or closed rule

Define filibuster

In the senate, the strategic use of debate to pass a bill (talking about nonsense that’s not related to the bill for a prolonged period of time in order to delay a vote)

What techniques are in place to manage filibuster? (3)

1. Cloture petition

2. 24 hour notice until the debate has to end

How does a cloture petition work?

16 senators all sign the petition to agree to initiate a vote for ending debate, and then 60/100 people have to vote to end it

Filibuster proof majority definition

minimum number of votes required in the U.S. Senate to override a filibuster and force a final vote on legislation, which is currently 60 votes.

What is the one exception in the senate to amendments to the lack of general germaneness rule?

Annual Budget

How can non-germane amendments be exploited against the bill becoming a law system?

If there’s a bill that’s been introduced and held up at the committee, you can propose your entire bill as an amendment and skip the process of how a bill becomes a law and force a vote

How can non-germane amendments be exploited for party goals?

You can propose overly positive amendments and blame everyone who didn’t vote for them in campaign ads later

Define discharge petition and why it’s never used

Collecting enough signatures to jump to steps 4 or 6 in the bill becoming a law process/used when committees aren’t scheduling a hearing for a popular issue people want to pass

Define conference committee

Special committee with members of both the house and the senate that finds a compromise between the house and senate version of the bill

What is entailed during the vote again step of how a bill becomes a law?

If identical bills pass both houses, the president has to approve the bill

What can the president do to pass a bill during the presidential approval stage?

1. They can sign the bill

2. They can wait ten days and it will pass automatically

What are the ways the president can deny bills in the presidential approval stage?

1. The president can veto

2. The president can do a pocket veto

3. An executive can do a line item veto

Define pocket veto

The bill dies because congress goes into a recess during the ten day inactivity period.

Define Line Item Veto

An executive vetoes only parts of the bill

Who can cannot do line item vetoes?

The President

What happens when the president vetoes a bill?

It returns to congress for a chance to override the veto with a 2/3rds vote

Why do you usually have to go through the process of getting a bill approved twice in order to approve a bill? (2)

1. You need authorization: gives the government the authority to carry out the bill

2. You need appropriations: a separate bill that provides funding for the previous bill

What did David Mayhew say Congress’ faults were? (3)

1. Credit claiming

2. Advertising

3. Position-taking

Define Credit-claiming. Why is it bad?

Members of congress will focus on small, less urgent, easy to explain projects for the sake of getting re-elected

Causes unnecessary spending for insignificant problems that don’t look at the big picture

Define advertising according to David Mayhew. Why is it bad?

Rather than building one’s knowledge and credibility, candidates will do anything to build name recognition specifically for the fact that people will more often vote for the name they recognize rather than the most qualified candidate

Define Casework

When a member of congress acts as a mediator/negotiator for their people who are upset with their federal bureaucracy

What is position taking? Why is it bad?

Making it clear where you as a candidate stand on an issue without doing anything about it. Doesn’t solve any problems, only serves to get re-elected

What is a main motivation for why House of Representative members are obsessed with getting re-elected?

Their short term limits often mean they don’t have enough time to pass the bill they actually care about, so they focus on superficial, meaningless aspects of their image instead of helping to solve genuine problems

What are the president’s expressed powers? (6)

1. Convene congress/give state of union

2. Appointment

3. Can make treaties

4. Veto

5. Can command military

6. Pardon

Who can the president appoint?

Foreign ministers, ambassadors, federal judges,

How does the “giving the state of the union” affect the presidency?

They’re required to periodically inform congress on everything going on

True or false: the president can’t dismiss congress. Why?

True, because the British Monarch could dismiss congress

What can happen before a treaty is proposed and what happens after?

They can do initial negotiations with the foreign nation, but treaties have to be ratified by the senate

Define War Powers Resolution (what year)

A 1973 resolution designed to keep the president from unofficially declaring war that stated the president can’t send troops into hostile territory for more than 60 days without congressional approval

Why does congress and the president conflict so much over war?

It’s ambiguous in the constitution whether the president’s ability to command the military also allows them to unofficially declare war, which is technically congress’ job

What was the presidential argument with the War Powers Resolution?

The bill was an overrided veto because Congress moves too slow and too publicly to keep information secretive

Why has the War Powers Resolution not been fully considered unconstitutional?

Congress has agreed to declare war ever since the resolution was passed, so the supreme court has never had to chance to step in to declare it unconstitutional

define pardon

Return all rights and privileges to a person convicted or accused of a crime

How does pardoning reflect divine right monarchies?

Religious figures have the authority to “forgive” people of their sins

Define delegated powers

Legislative power that is delegated to the executive branch

Which branch is pardoning checked by?

Pardoning is not checked by any other branches and it can’t be undone

What power was delegated to the executive branch from the congress and why is it a problem?

The executive branch has the ability to do whatever to minimize risk in household products because congress doesn’t have time to research risks, meaning that the president is now creating rules instead of just simply enforcing them

What powers does the vice president have? (3)

1. Votes in case of a tie in the senate

2. Takes over as president is the president dies or is removed from office

3. Any other influence the president allows them to be included in

In what ways make it easier for the president to pass their legislative agenda? (5) (FAMPUP)

1. Unified government

2. Agenda-setting

3. Party loyalty

4. Mandates

5. Presidential Bargaining

6. Foreign Policy twisting

Define unified government vs divided government

Unified government - the president and majorities in both houses of congress are from the same party

Divided government - at least one house of congress has a majority that’s different from the president

Define agenda-setting

When it comes to legislation that the president wants to pass, bills that the president is in favor of are much more likely to make it to step 7 and these bills rarely die off privately

Define party loyalty in terms of congress and the president cooperating

If the president has the most members in both houses, legislation is passed for them because lawmakers feel an obligation to pass their party’s agenda

What does it mean to be tied ideologically and electorally as a congress member to the president?

Ideologically, if you’re from the same party, you likely agree on most of the same issues anyway. And electorally, voters tend to punish or reward entire parties for how well they perceive the president to be doing in passing his agenda

How public expectations factor into presidents’ agenda getting passed? (2)

The president creates mandates, which state that since the people voted for the president, they must inherently want the legislative agenda the president has in mind, so lawmakers are pressured into passing the agenda

The president is most adamant to getting controversial legislation passed right at the beginning of the presidency before approval ratings start to dip

How can the president be a hypocrite when proposing a mandate?

They’ll still impose mandates even when losing the popular vote

Define presidential bargaining

If a president doesn’t have enough support in congress to pass a bill, they’ll bribe members by agreeing to appear at future campaign events and offer photo-ops (if popular in your in your district) or lend them staff and help them out with casework (if unpopular in your district)

What factors encourage conflict between the president and congress? (4)

1. Constitutional ambiguity

2. Different constituencies

3. Different time frames

4. 2 Presidencies Theory

Define constitutional ambiguity

It’s often unclear which branch of government is in charge of which issue

Define different constituencies

Congress members will primarily vote for issues that are good for their district, not the good of the country, which can make it hard to pass legislation

Define how different time frames affect cooperation between congress and the president.

The president needs to tackle controversial issues directly at the beginning of their presidency when ratings are highest whereas congress members slowly gain job security the longer they are in office, meaning they want to tackle controversial issues later

What are the term frames and limits for the president, HOR, and senate?

President: 4 year term / 2 term limit

HOR: 2 year term/infinite terms

Senate: 6 year term/infinite terms

Define the 2 Presidencies Theory

The way that the president is treated by other branches of government is different based on whether you’re dealing with a domestic policy issue (congress doesn’t consult the president often) or foreign policy issue (congress relies heavily on the president)

How can the president utilize the 2 presidencies theory to fit their agenda?

They can twist issues to seem more like foreign policy issues so legislation is more easily passed

What did Richard Neustadt say about presidential power?

The heart of presidential power is persuasion and the most important policies were passed by persuading other branches and local governments to pass laws, not necessarily through their formally expressed powers

What strategies of persuasion did Richard Neustadt say the president used?

1. Party loyalty

2. Mandates

3. Going public

Define going public

A political strategy where the president tries to move public opinion on an issue that is just on the cusp of being passed hoping that voters will contact congress to address the issue (don’t overuse this power)

What does bureaucracy have a bad reputation for?

Being picky because everything has to be done exactly the way that it’s supposed to

What three bureaucratic departments are organized under the executive branch?

1. Departments

2. Independent Agencies

3. Government Corporations

Define independent agency and why they are independent

They’re not under a department and they answer directly to the president often because they don’t fit neatly into a department or they deal with highly sensitive information

Define government corporations and give examples

Businesses that are owned by the federal government (US Postal service, AMTRAK)

Examples of independent agencies

CIA / Nasa

Define independent regulatory commissions and give examples

Regulatory agencies that aren’t supposed to take orders from the president

SEC: Securities and exchange commission

FEC: Federal Election Commission

Fed: Federal Reserve Board

Define patronage system

The old system of bureaucratic promotion where government jobs are given to friends, family, political supporters, or elected officials through canvassing, the main method of campaigning at the time

Define canvassing

Directly contacting potential voters door to door and promising them a government job if the candidate wins

What was the issue with canvassing that led to the 1883 Pendleton Act?

When a new candidate of a different party is elected, everyone in government jobs from the previous candidate would be fired to make room for more government jobs

What was the biggest political benefit of canvassing?

It found campaign workers that matched a certain population, and people are more likely to listen to locals than randomly selected campaign workers

Define the 1883 Pendleton Act and the Civil Service System

changed the patronage system to the Civil Service System, where government jobs are now given out based on education, prior work experience, and exam performance, and political firing is now illegal

What is the hierarchical problem with the 1883 Pendleton Act?

It only affects the lower part of the Bureaucracy hierarchy, meaning everyone higher is still replaced when there’s turnover

How does one get into the higher part of the Bureaucratic Hierarchy? Why is this a problem with the Civil Service System?

They have to be appointed through the president, and this is a problem because as new appointees come in with the new political system, your boss changes and you essentially have to train them on how to do a job you’ve worked your whole life to be good at

What are the challenges and drawbacks of Bureaucracy?

1. Impossible/conflicting tasks

2. Difficulty measuring success

3. Slow to change

4. Expands over time naturally

Define impossible/conflicting tasks in the bureaucracy

Agents are assigned goals that are impossible to complete (0% poverty) or agencies have goals that directly conflict with each other (Create manufacturing jobs vs save the environment)

Why is it difficult to measure success in bureaucracies?

Agencies don’t make a profit, so it’s impossible to quantitatively and statistically define how well they’re doing

Why is bureaucracy so difficult to change? (2)

1. You have to change the entire system in order to change one thing

2. There’s big costs to make changes

Why is the constant expansion of bureaucracy a bad thing?

It’s impossible to pay for it and it doesn’t grow the most efficiently