Congress

Congress

• They make laws through legislation and they represent the people. 

1. Concept of Representation

• It is up to the representatives to decide what they stand for based on what is right for everyone. 

• As a representative of the people, making them presents even though they are not there. 

2. How Should a Congressperson Represent You?

• Issue Based

1. Delegate

• Getting instructions from the people you represent. 

• How you should behave should be from your constituents. 

• Taking instructions from your constituents

2. Trustee

• They dictate what they can do. 

• “Trust Me”

• Use their own judgment in the best interest of the people

• “Your representative owes you, noot his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion” - Edmund Burke, 1774. 

3. Politico

• Someone who is being politic as a representative. 

• Vote them out if we don’t like how they are representing us

3. How Representative is Congress?

• Different ways to assess representation in Congress. 

1. Demographically?

• Descriptive representation

-  not in terms of age

-  gender

- race

- jobs

- racial and ethnic diversity.

• - Other Viewpoints Won’t Be Represented

118th Congress (2023-2024)

% in Congress % in population

• 18-24 0 - 12.0

• Black 11.2 - 13.6

• Hispanic 10.1 - 19.0

• Asian American 3.4 - 6.1

• Native American 1.0 - 1.3 

• Women 27.9 - 51.0

1. Most Underrepresented

• Health care debate exchange

2. In terms of policy decisions?

• Public opinion and expert opinion on gun legislation

- 100% of American Support

- Experts Say Effective

- Put in incentives (monatory) - red flag laws

-  Throw up a red flag and call authorities. 

- Before the act - didn’t have any gun laws before 2022

• It depends

• Saliency (does the public care about it)

• Simplicity/complexity of issue (congress does the best to pay attention to policy issues when they are simple, not complex. The complex issue are what the public needs, not what they want)

• Whose voices are heard - economic elites (people who have a lot of money) - organized business interest and economic elites are heard the most and average citizens are heard the least

4. The Legislative Process

• I’m Just a Bill (teaching kids about law and government)

1. Stages in the legislative process (“textbook process”)

• The process is designed to be slow and deliberate. 

1. Article 1, Section 1 

• Legislative Branch

• The Chamber that will necessarily dominate

• Each Chamber will set its own proceedings. 

• A Speaker of the House - Elected by other house members. Doesn’t have to be a member. 

2. Introduction of Legislation

• If a bill is going to raise revenue (taxations), have to begin in the House of Representatives

• Bills can only be introduced by members of Congress.

• Executive Agencies write bills, interest groups write bills. 

• 95% of the stuff will die within the legislative branch. 

• To move something in the process, it needs to move forward.

• There are about 10,000 pieces of legislation introduced in a 2 year period. 

2.  Committee(s) (Transp & Infra)

• Hearings are done in the committees

• Don’t have to be experts on everything congress has done

• Power committees, constituents committees, 

• All the work gets done

• Division of labor system

• Factories are organized (like ford)

• Reliability on Specializing

• Standing Committee

- Transportation and Infrastructure

• Largest Committee in congress (65 people)

• Lots of people want on it

• Non-partisan

• Bi-partisan transportation and infrastructure 

1. Gives money to the states

2. EX. Mississippi River damn needed fixing

• Federal money went to that

1. Pork

• “I’m able to get this stuff for you”

• Congressionally Directed Spending

• Earmarks

• Subcommittees

1. Smaller groups of people

1. Aviation

2. Coast Guard

3. Economic Dev.

4. Environment

5. Highways and Transit

6. Railroads

2. Split 35 R./30 D.

• Important to be the majority

1. Majority Rule

• Hearings and Markup 

1. Call Experts to testify

2. Can repeat

3. Vote and repeat, vote and repeat

4. Bill usually die

3. Scheduling

• The floor hearing

• The House and Senate do different things here.

1. Most important committee

2. Small 13 = All you do. 

3. 9 are majority party = 4 are minority party

4. They hold hearings

5. They write the new legislation

6. As a rule

• Write a rule 

1. When are we debating

2. How long are we debating

3. Can we amend this or not

• Everyone can amend it on it = open rule

• Nobody can amend it = closed rule

• Can give names on who can amend the bill = Modified Structured rule (Used the most)

• Senate

1. Debates (no ruling committee)

2. Limiting Debate

3. Senate Leadership

• Schedule for the floor hearings

• Senate Majority and Minority Leader

4. Bi-partisian

• UCA = Unanimous Consent Agreement

1. If one person says no, this doesn’t exist

• Leads to unlimited debate

• Less structure

5. Debate and Vote in Full Chamber

• Doesn’t have to be Germane

1. On Topic

• Doesn’t have to be limited

• Filibuster - ONLY in Senate

1. Old fashioned

• You talk and talk and talk and talk

• Holding the floor

• To stop a vote

• Exhaust the chamber

• Rare = Civil rights usually

• Filibuster = Strom  Thurmond - 24 hours and 18 minutes (1957 civil rights act)

• Delayed things

• Can read the bible, recipes news

• Talking a bill to death

2. New Filibuster

• Used everyday now 

• Do not physically make anybody do anything anymore

• Calls for Cloture Vote

• Cloture

1. 60= ⅗ 

2. Vote to end debate

4.  Debate and vote in full chamber

• Reconciliation Bill

• Bush Act

• Obama Care

• Trump Tax

• Only can do a couple of these every year

• C-SPAN

-  Usually know how it's going to turn out

- House - vote on card

- Senate - roll call vote

- House and Senate check each other

5.  Conference Committee

6.  Debate and vote (again)

• Another place for the bill to die

7. To President

• Accept or Reject (veto)

• If rejected - the president sends it back to the chamber it originated in. Tell chamber why it was rejected

• House takes a vote and ⅔ vote to override then goes to Senate

• Senate vote ⅔ to override then becomes a law.

• OR opposite

• How often are veto overridden 

D. Example: Antiterrorism legislation, 2001

• Unorthodox Lawmaking

• When they skip things - not unconstitutional or necessarily a problem, as long as they do what the Constitution says. 

• Known as the Patriot Act

• 9/11 - September 11, 2001

Path of the Anti-Terrorism Bill, 2001

House

October 2, 2001

• Introduced in House

• HR2975 by Rep. Sensenbrenner

• PATRIOT Act of 2001 (Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism)

• Popular title: Anti-terrorism Bill

• Referred to Committee(s)

• Judiciary

• Intelligence

• International Relations

• Resources 

• Referred to Subcommittee on Water and Power

• Ways and Means

October 3, 2001

• Mark-up

 House Judiciary Committee

• Amended

• Reported out 36-0

October 12, 2001

• Rules Committee Reports Rule to House

• One hour general debate

• No amendments

• In lieu of Judiciary committee’s amendment, amendment was added which substituted HR3108 for bill

• Result of a deal between House Republican leaders and White House

• Floor Debate

• Vote

• Passes House 337-79, 1 present

• Major Difference between the House and Senate version

• Sunset provision - House bill (+2) years, Senate none

• Money laundering provision in the Senate version, not House (sep. bill HR3004)

• Rather than going to the conference committee - they..

October 23, 2001

• Introduced in the House

• HR3162 by Rep. Sensenbrenner

• USA PATRIOT bull (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism)

• Took HR2975, HR3004, and S1510 and incorporated them into one bill. 

• Considered under suspension of the rules (no amendment)

October 24, 2001

• Vote

• Passes House 357-66

• Sent to Senate

Senate

October 4, 2001

• Introduced in Senate

• S1510 by Sen. Daschle

• Uniting and Strengthening America Act or USA Act of 2001

• Popular title: Anti-terrorism

October 11, 2001

• Floor Debate

• 3 attempts to amend by Sen. Feingold - all fail

• Vote

• Passes Senate 96-1

October 25, 2001

• Vote 

• Passes 98-1

• Bill present to President

October 26, 2001

• Bill signed by President - becomes PL 107-56

Major Provisions

• 7 day detention of immigrants without charges - of terrorists suspects who are non citizens (not indefinite detention as Administration wanted)

• Authority for roving wiretaps (phones,computers) - expires in 2005 (sunset provision) - Administration wanted permanent authority

• Criminal penalties for terrorism or harboring of terrorist

• Strengthening security along US-Canadian border

• Money laundering provisions - strengthen current law

E. Generalizations about Process

1. Slow

• American want things done quickly but the process of how a bill becomes a law was designed to be slow, so that everything is based on rationality, evidence. 

• Not moving things on the basis of emotion but on rational thought

2. Power dispersed and fragmented

• On purpose

• Overall design of constitution is to disperse and fragment power

• There is no one person in power in the House (in the process)

• The speaker of the House in the House (in the congressional process)

• The SoH only has power in the House not in the Senate

• Sub-committee chair

• Leadership in the senate, speaker in the house

3. Must clear hurdles to pass (inaction defeats)

• Really easy to do inaction

• Bills have to clear those hurdles to pass

4. Public finds distasteful

• One is sausage and one is legislation

• Nobody wants to know what is in sausage or in legislation

• The American public doesn’t pay attention or doesn’t understand the legislation process. 

• They see bickering instead of compromise being good (selling out on their principles)

• Political opponents are not enemies but political opponents

• If going to get things done have to get along with other political opponents

F. Major Differences between House and Senate

1. Size

• House has 435 people in it

• Senate has 100 people in it

• Haven’t changed the size of the house for over 100 years

• Congress overall is 535 people

2. Terms

• House is reelected every 2 years

• Collectively Americans won’t do that

• 95% of house members will get reelected. 

• Terms of office are there to insulate

• Senate is reelected every 6 years

• Term of office is important

3. Constituency

• House members represent a piece of the state -  viewpoint is the people

• 6 states have 1 house member

• Every other state has at least 2

• Every house member represent 700,000 Americans

• In the Senate - viewpoint is the state

• Having states broken up allow for smaller states to be represented

4. Procedures

• The house has a rules committee

• Senate has looser rules

• Both houses have different rules (more or less)

• In the house - notion of limited debate 

• In the senate - absent of limited debate (doesn’t have to be limited)

5. Structure

• House structure is more formal and more centralized - more people 

• Leadership in the house is more powerful than the senate

• Any individual house member is less powerful than individual senators

• Leadership in the Senate is less powerful than the House

• Any individual Senator is more powerful than an an individual house members

6. Policy

• Foreign Policy matters  - Senate has foreign policy duties that the House doesn’t have (ambassadors, treaties)

• Senators also are more generalized in the outlook

• Each Senator serves on 10 of the committees and subcommittees

• House members serve on 5 of the committees and subcommittees 

• House has more influence on budgetary matters than the Senate

• House members are more specialized because there are more of them

G. Three advantages for majority party

• Congress is organized on bi-partisan

1. All chairmanships of committees and subcommittees

• An important power center

2. Majority of all members on all committees and subcommittees

• Majority rule

• The majority doesn’t always work

• When the margins are smaller is when it really matters

3. House speakership

• The house speaker is elected by the membership of the whole house

• Party Line vote

• If the house speaker is the opposite party of the president they will be more vocal 

H. Leadership Positions

• Leadership structures of both chambers

1. House leadership 2023-2024 (118th Congress)

• Majority Minority

Speaker -  Johnson (LA)

Leader - Scalise (LA) Jefferies  (NY)

Whip - Emmer (MN) Clark (MA)

Whip keeps the group together. Head counts - important party position

These leaders are particularly powerful. Pyramid

2. Senate leadership

1. Presidents of the Senate

• Vice President of the United States

• She can only vote if it is a tie

• If there are small margins - very important

• If the vice president is of your party - your party is the majority party

2. President Pro-tempore (Murray D-WA)

• Most senior person in the Senate

• They get enhanced security

• Third in line to the presidents

• Not where the power is 

3. True Leadership 

Majority Minority

     Leader - Schumer (NY) McConnell (R-KY)

     Whips - Durbin (IL) Thune (R-SD)

Flat in nature. Individual Senators will have more power than individual house members but the whole House has more power than the whole Senate.