AP US Government and Politics Unit 3- The Legislative Branch

AP US Government and Politics Unit 3- The Legislative Branch

Congress

• Bicameral legislature
• Congress has historically underrepresented women and people of color, and while these numbers are on the upward trend, Congress still does not accurately represent the racial and gender makeup of the country
• The public generally has low approval ratings for Congress as a whole, but higher ratings for their own members (hence high reelection rates)
• Incumbency advantage: the #1 predictor of the outcome of elections (sometimes 90% of incumbents are reelected in the House)
• Safe seats:
• Swing seats:

Reapportionment, Redistricting, and Gerrymandering

• Reapportionment: every ten years, after the census, states undergo reapportionment so that the number of representatives that they elect to the House reflects their population
• Redistricting: should the number of representatives change after reapportionment, states undergo redistricting, where the districts that elect each representative are redrawn to reflect the number of representatives
• Gerrymandering- two types

1. Partisan Gerrymandering: drawing House of Representative districts to give one party an advantage in upcoming elections. SCOTUS has deemed that this is NOT unconstitutional
2. Racial Gerrymandering: drawing House of Representative districts to give one racial group (“majority-minority” district) an advantage in future elections. SCOTUS has deemed that this is unconstitutional as it violates the 14th Amendment.

• Results of Gerrymandering:

1. Oddly shaped districts
2. More safe seats, resulting in a decrease in competitive House (and state elections) races
3. More ideological and extreme members of Congress elected who are less willing to compromise. Therefore, more partisanship and less bipartisanship

Baker v. Carr (1962)

• Voters have the right to challenge what they feel are unequally representative districts
• SCOTUS ruled that states must abide by the “one person, one vote” principle, so urban and rural districts must be roughly equal in terms of population
• 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause supported this ruling
• Baker won

Shaw v. Reno (1993)

• Race cannot be the dominating factor in redistricting, as this is a violation of the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause
• In the past this clause protected minorities and people of color, but in this case, SCOTUS extended it to cover majority whites.
• Shaw won

Models of Representation

• Delegate: voting by constituents’ views
• Trustee: voting by their personal views/conscience

1. “Trust me”

• Partisan: views of their party

1. Biggest influence in recent years
2. “Party loyalty score”

• Politico: blend of the three aforementioned models
• Other small influences:

1. logrolling/reciprocity: vote-trading among legislators
2. Interest groups: gives donations in order to influence
3. Presidents
4. Congressional staff

The House of Representatives v. the Senate

Congressional Leadership

House of Representatives

• Speaker of the House

1. Most powerful position in Congress
2. Presides over House by directing business on House floor, allowing other representatives to speak, break ties, etc.
3. Assigns bills to committees
4. Third in line for president

• Majority and Minority Floor Leaders

1. Picked by congressional members of the individual parties
2. Help plan party legislative strategy (which bills to prioritize passing or blocking)
3. Serve as party leaders on floor
4. Unify party members and keep them in line- exert pressure to support the leadership position on bills

• Majority and Minority Whips

1. Assistant floor leader
2. Inform party leaders on the “mood” of the House
3. Keep nose count on important votes
4. Unify party members and keep them in line- exert pressure to support the leadership position on bills

Senate

• Vice President is president of the Senate

1. Presides over Senate when they are there, which is very rare
2. Not a powerful position
3. May only vote in the case of a tie
4. Usually present for things like swearing-in new members

• President Pro-Tempore of the Senate (temporary president)

1. Presides in the absence of the vice president- so most of the time
2. Somewhat ceremonial job

• Senate Majority Floor Leader

1. Most powerful leader in Congress
2. Most powerful leader in the Senate
3. Recognized first in all debates
4. True leader of the majority party in the Senate
5. More than anyone else, usually first in consultation with the Minority Floor Leader, he decides when and if bills will appear on the floor for debating/amending/voting. Because there is no Rules Committee in the Senate, they set the rules themselves, like whether or not to schedule Senate floor time and this keep the bill alive, what say and how much time it will get, etc, for legislation coming to the Senate floor

• Minority Floor Leader and Party Whips

1. Same as the House (see above)

Types of Committees

• Committees are formal organizations of Congress, unlike caucuses
• Rules Committee

1. Very powerful as they decide which bills get to proceed. In other words, issues a rule to govern debate on the floor and sends it into full House
2. Most powerful committee in the House
3. Not in Senate

• Standing Committees

1. Permanent and cover a particular subject

• Select Committees

1. Temporary and special
2. Ex: Watergate

• Conference Committee

1. A committee of senators and representatives who meet to reconcile differences between bills. Once an agreement is reached, a compromise bill is sent back to the House and to the Senate
2. Does not happen in every bill to law process

How a Bill Becomes a Law

• A bill can start in either chamber and is then introduced to a standing committee, who refers it to a subcommittee

1. In the House, the bill is introduced by the speaker

• The bill heads to a subcommittee who holds hearings and “marks up” the bill. They discuss and revise it. If the bill is approved in some form, it goes to full committee
• The bill is sent to the full committee. They consider the bill and if it is approved in some form, it is reported to the full House/Senate and placed on the House/Senate calendar

1. #1 place where bills die
2. The committee can be overridden if a discharge petition is signed, containing signatures from at least half of the House in support of the bill

• In the House… The Rules Committee issues a rule to govern debate on the floor and then will send it to the full house. Aka, permission to proceed
• In the Senate… because there is no rules committee, majority and minority leaders by “unanimous consent” agreements schedule full Senate debate and vote on a bill. This is why the majority leader is so powerful
• The bill proceeds to the full House/Senate. They debate the bill and possibly amend it. If the bill passes in a different form than the opposite chamber’ version, it must go to a conference committee.

1. In the House, debate time is usually very restricted. Closed rule or open rule depends on whether or not amendments are allowed
2. In the Senate, debate time is almost unlimited. Senators can hold and filibuster, which is an option to kill a bill by one who does not like it. They can only stop a filibuster by a cloture vote, which is a vote to move the bill right to the voting stage by supermajority (60%). This is not in the Constitution.

• Representatives from both chambers meet to iron out differences between the bills. When a compromise is reached, the edited bill is sent back to each chamber. If the bills are identical, they forgo this stage.
• The bill goes to the president who can: sign the bill into law, veto (vetoes are overridden by ⅔ majority vote in Congress), do nothing so that the bill automatically becomes a law after ten days of no action, or pocket veto (in last ten days of Congressional session, if the president does nothing, the bill dies without becoming a law, which Congress cannot override).

Pork Barrel/Earmark/Rider

• Provisions that may have little relationship to the bill they are attached to in order to secure their passage; money earmarked for back home to benefit a single member's constituents.
• Congressmen have shamed each other out of doing this commonly

Vocab to Know

• Discharge petition: signatures from majority of members in a chamber that override the veto of a committee
• Subpoena: a formal written order issued by a court that requires a person to appear in court or before Congress to testify and/or produce documents. It cannot be ignored as it is a court order
• Franking privilege: members of Congress can send free mail to their constituents
• Logrolling: exchange of votes between representatives

The Budget

• Budget Surplus: when the government takes in more than it spends (this is very rare)
• Budget Deficit: when the government spends more than it takes in
• National Debt: the accumulation of all of the combined deficit, minus the surplus, in the nation’s history
• Mandatory Spending: things the government is required to spend money on

1. Most of the federal budget is spent on mandatory spending, with entitlements taking up the most amount of money. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the three most expensive entitlements

• Discretionary Spending: things the government spends money on but is not required to

1. Ex. military
2. Hard to cut discretionary spending

• The biggest sources of revenue for the federal government are federal and income taxes

AP Govt Unit 3 Review

• Know what the House can do and what the Senate can do (including House v. Senate powers)
• Two SCOTUS cases

House v. Senate

• House has tighter rules due to more people (debate time, how long someone can speak)
• Members of district vote for house members, while everyone in the state votes for senators
• Enumerated Powers:

1. Declare war
2. Raise and maintain military
3. Budget
4. Taxes
5. Coin money
6. Regulate interstate commerce

• Necessary and Proper clause gives them implied powers
• Most powerful person in House: Speaker of the House
• Most powerful person in Senate: Senate Majority Leader
• Speaker of the House has more influence over entire country that Senate Majority Leader
• House spends more time on revenue-related bills (all finance bills)
• Senate deals more with foreign policy
• Senate must confirm all treaties, presidential appointments, and ambassadors
• House Rules Committee: very powerful because they decide which bills make it to the House floor
• 17th Amendment: citizens directly elect their senators (now all people elect senators openly rather than state legislatures)
• Pork barrel spending: adding something onto the bill that only relates to a specific state/district that has nothing to do with the bill itself
• Log Rolling
• Discharge Petition: forcing a bill out of committee
• Filibusters can only happen in the Senate, only ends with cloture vote
• How a Bill Becomes a Law

1. Bill can start in either chamber
2. Then goes to committee (most bills die here)
3. Full House Floor
4. Goes to other chamber of Congress
5. Repeat process in Senate
6. Conference committee, who irons out differences between the versions of the bill that went through the two chambers
7. President, who can
8. Veto
9. Sign into law
10. Do nothing (automatically goes into law after ten days)
11. Pocket veto (in the last ten days of a Congressional session, if the President does nothing, then it dies)

• Trustee: goes with conscience
• Delegate: what party wants them to vote for
• Politico: mix of other two
• Deficit: spend more than bring in
• Surplus: makes more than spends
• Two parts of budget;

1. Mandatory
2. Entitlements make up the biggest percentage of mandatory spending (medicare, medicaid, and social security)
3. Paying down national debt
4. Discretionary
5. Like military

• Baker v. Carr

1. Tennessee
2. Baker is upset that there are unequal populations in districts, making his vote worth less than others
3. Violation of 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause
4. Baker wins
5. “One- person, one- vote”

• Shaw v. Reno

1. North Carolina
2. Trying to get better representation by creating a district of almost entirely minority (majority-minority district)
3. Shaw won
4. Violation of 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause despite noble intentions
5. Shot down because race cannot be the driving factor for creating a district and it was just too oddly shaped

• Gerrymandering has created “safe seats” and less competitive elections, especially in the House