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Bicameral Legislature
A legislature with two chambers or houses. In a bicameral legislature, there is an upper chamber and a lower chamber.
Big Sort
The trend over the past forty years in which Americans who are similar in educational level, lifestyle, and political orientation increasingly choose to live close to each other. Politically, this means Democratic Party voters with more liberal views and college educations are clustered in a relatively small number of densely populated counties and cities, while Republican Party voters with more conservative views are spread out in a large number of sparsely populated areas.
Bill
A draft of a proposed law presented to a legislature for consideration.
Budget Reconciliation
A process by which the federal budget can be amended through a simple majority vote. This has increasingly been used to circumvent the filibuster to enact major policy changes, but it is limited to only policies that directly impact the federal budget.
Citizen Legislature
A legislature with short terms and which legislators serve on a part-time basis, maintain careers and employment outside of their legislative duties, and receive limited or no monetary compensation for their legislative work. Operating as citizen-lawmakers outside the professional political sphere, legislators can provide representation rooted in the current conditions and experiences of their communities and constituencies, while relying less heavily on monetary and staff resources due to the built-in time constraints of a part-time position.
Cloture
A legislative maneuver that, if a three-fifths majority votes for it, limits Senate debate to thirty hours and has the effect of defeating a filibuster.
Conference Committees
Temporary committees that are formed to resolve differences between House and Senate versions of a bill.
Constituents
The voting citizens to whom which an elected representative is democratically accountable.
Constituent Service
A wide array of non-legislative activities -- from helping with issues with federal agencies to providing learning opportunities for students -- undertaken by Members of Congress or congressional staff that are aimed at helping and/or honoring constituents.
Crossover Day
The 33rd day of the Georgia General Assembly's legislative session, which is the last time a bill that has passed one chamber can be transmitted to the other chamber for consideration.
Delegate Model of Representation
Normative view of political representation that holds the first duty of representatives is to follow the opinions of their constituents. By this view, the people who vote for representatives are the ones who should exercise judgment over questions of public policy, and if representatives do not follow their lead, the representatives deserve to be voted out of office in the next election.
Descriptive Representation
A legislature is descriptively representative to the extent that its demographic composition is proportional to the demographic composition of the population served by the legislature.
Filibuster
A procedural tactic in the U.S. Senate whereby a minority of Senators prevents a bill from coming to a vote by holding the floor and talking until the majority gives in and the bill is withdrawn from consideration. A filibuster can only be stopped through a cloture vote.
General Bills
Acts of the Georgia General Assembly that result in statutes that are binding across the entire state.
Gerrymandering
The manipulation of legislative district boundaries as a way of favoring candidates from a particular party, group, or socio-economic class.
Great Compromise
Compromise (also known as the Connecticut Compromise) that sought to solve the disagreement between large and small states at the Constitutional Convention over how to apportion seats in Congress. By this solution, a lower chamber (i.e., the House of Representatives) has representation proportional to population and an upper chamber (i.e., the Senate) has equal state representation.
House Majority Leader
Second most influential leader of the majority party in the House of Representatives (behind only the Speaker of the House).
House Minority Leader
Top leader of the minority party in the House of Representatives.
Insecure Majorities
Description of the current era in Congress (since 1995), in which each election cycle results in small majorities in each chamber and party control changes frequently. This contrasts with the period of "stable majorities" from 1861 to 1995, in which elections more often resulted in large majorities and party control changed infrequently.
Joint Committees
Congressional committees composed of members of both houses and that perform advisory functions.
Jurisdiction (of a congressional committee)
The policy area in which a particular congressional committee is authorized to act.
Local Bills
Acts of the Georgia General Assembly that result in statutes affecting particular local jurisdictions (e.g., cities, towns, counties).
Line-Item Veto
The power of an executive to reject individual provisions of a bill.
Malapportionment
An unequal distribution of voting power per citizen across geographic electoral units (e.g., districts or states) due to divergent ratios of voters to representatives.
Mixed Regime
Idea, traceable to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, that a good political system should mix democratic and aristocratic elements to avoid the disadvantages of either a pure democracy or pure aristocracy while gaining the advantages of both.
Modern Filibuster
A warping of the original intent of the cloture rules, where Senators can request cloture before any bill can get a vote even if no one is actually filibustering. The increases the number of votes needed for a bill to advance from a simple majority to a super majority, thus allowing the Senate minority to obstruct legislation.
Omnibus Spending Bill
Type of bill that combines smaller ordinary appropriations (spending) bills into one larger single bill that can be passed at once. There are twelve different ordinary appropriations bills that need to be passed each year, and an omnibus spending bill combines two or more of those bills into a single bill.
One-Person, One-Vote Standard
Rule created by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1964 holding that if a state holds elections using single member districts, there must be a roughly equal number of voters in each district.
Parliamentarian
Official adviser in each legislative chamber with experts knowledge about chamber rules and procedures.
Party Conference or Caucus
A group that consists of a party's members in the House or Senate and that serves to elect the party's leadership, set policy goals, and determine party strategy.
Party Leaders
Members of the House and Senate who are chosen by the Democratic caucus or Republican conference in each chamber to represent the party's interest in the chamber and wield authority on behalf of the party.
Permanent Select Committee
A type of congressional select committee that has permanent status. It is similar to a standing committee, with the main difference being it covers issues that cut across the jurisdiction of multiple standing committees.
Pocket Veto
A way for Presidents to prevent passage of a bill without formally vetoing it. If the President receives a bill from Congress less than ten days prior to the end of the Congressional term, and if the President does nothing, the bill does NOT become law. For the bill to become a law after a pocket veto, Congress has to start the process all over again during its next term.
Professional Legislature
A legislature with long legislative terms and in which legislators serve full-time, rely on the position as their primary occupation, earn a relatively high salary, and are provided high levels of resources such as staff assistance. Such legislatures are designed to enable legislators to become highly informed about public policy, specialize in areas of legislation, exercise more effective oversight of the executive branch, and provide better service to their constituents.
Politico Model of Representation
Empirical model of representation that says elected representatives will act as either a trustee or delegate depending on rational political calculations about who is best served: their constituency or the nation.
Pork-Barrel Politics
Federal spending on projects designed to benefit a particular district or set of constituents (also known as "bringing home the bacon").
President of the Senate
Position assigned by the Constitution to the Vice President of the United States. The position has little power except for casting tie breaking votes.
President pro tempore of the Senate
Person in charge of formally "presiding" over the Senate in the absence of the President of the Senate (i.e., the Vice President of the U.S.). This mostly honorary and powerless position is typically assigned to the most senior senator of the majority party.
Reapportionment
The redistribution of seats in the House of Representatives based on changes in state population as revealed by the census.
Redistricting
The redrawing of congressional and other legislative district lines following the census, to accommodate population shifts and keep districts as equal as possible in population.
Resolutions
Acts of the Georgia General Assembly that are NOT intended to change or amend statutory law.
Senate Majority Leader
Powerful Senate leader who formally serves as head of the majority party. In terms of power and prestige, the Senate Majority Leader is the closest thing to a Senate version of the House's Speaker.
Senate Minority Leader
Top leader of the minority party in the Senate.
Speaker of the House
Powerful presiding officer of the House of Representatives selected by majority vote in the chamber and, thus, always the leader of the majority party in the House.
Standing Committees
Permanent congressional committees with responsibility for a particular area of public policy.
Temporary Select Committee
A type of congressional select (sometimes called "special") committee created for a specific time period and purpose.
Trustee Model of Representation
Normative view of political representation that says an elected representative is obligated to act according to their own best judgment of what is just or what will promote the public good even if it is unpopular and leads to their being voted out of office in the next election.
Unicameral Legislature
A legislature with only one chamber or house.
Unified Party Government
Where one party controls both chambers of Congress and the presidency.
Veto
The president's written rejection of a bill thereby keeping it from becoming law unless Congress overrides the veto.
Whips
Party leaders in the House and Senate responsible for whipping up votes and enforcing party discipline.
