Chapter 4: Congress

The Functioning of the Legislative Branch

Section 4.1: The Constitution and Congress

1. Article 1 of the Constitution

• Describes the Legislative branch

• Result of a compromise between large and small states

• Bicameral:

  • Lower: House of Representatives (large states appeased)

    • 25+

    • 7 years citizen

    • Resident of state

    • 2 year terms

    • District constituency

    • Idea: to be closer to the people’s wants and needs

  • Upper: Senate (small states appeased)

    • 30+

    • 9 years citizen

    • Resident of state

    • 6 year terms (staggered, not up for election all at once)

    • Entire state constituency

    • Idea: to be free from public scrutiny to do good

2. The House of Representatives

• “The people’s branch”

• Close and accountable to people

• More strictly structured than senate

  • Debate time is limited

• Current breakdown:

  • 215 Democrat

  • 218 Republican **

  • 2 Vacancies

  • Moderates hold a lot of power right now

2. Nebraska House Districts

• Mike Flood, Don Bacon, Adrian Smith

• District Boundaries are drawn so each district has roughly the same number of people

  • Don Bacon

    • Party Affiliation: Republican

    • First elected in 2016

    • Up for reelection in 2026

    • Former Air Force Officer

    • A member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which represents the most moderate of the five GOP faction in the House

3. The Senate

• More stable branch

  • Insulated, protected from the whims of voters

  • Elected every 6 years

  • Originally selected by state legislatures “Billionaire’s Club”

  • Current breakdown:

    • 45 Democrat

    • 53 Republican **

    • 2 Independent

4. Nebraskan Senators

• Deb Fischer

  • Party Affiliation: Republican

  • Defeated Dan Osborn

• Pete Ricketts

  • Party Affiliation: Republican

  • Appointed after Ben Sasse dropped out to serve the last 2 years

  • Decided not to appoint the governor, let Jim Pillen appoint him instead

  • 2024: both Senate seats were on the ballot

  • Finishing the

4. Exercising Checks and Balances

• War making: Congress declares, Senate ratifies treaties

  • POTUS (president): commander in chief and negotiates treaties

• Judicial authority:

  • Congress creates lower federal courts, sets number of justices

  • Senate has “advice and consent” of judicial presidential nominees

• Executive Nominations:

  • President selects bureaucratic and department heads

  • Senate also must approve these nominees

• Impeachment (removal of Federal officers):

  • House of Representatives, charges (simple majority)

    • “Have been impeached” not removed from office!

  • Senate hold trial and convicts with a 2/3 majority

  • Removed from office, no longer president/leader

• CHECKS AND BALANCES!!

  • Prevention tyrannical rulers

Section 4.2: Politics of Congressional Elections

1. Constituency: The Boundaries of Representation

• Constituencies- bodies of voters in an area who elect a representative or senator

• Members of the House of Representatives serve in single-member districts (winner take all)

  • There is one seat for one Congressional Districts

• Senators serve in staggered elections

  • No two Senate seats from the same state will be up for grabs in the same election

  • There is unequal representation in the Senate

    • Wyoming 586,107 per 2 Senators

    • California 39,144,818 per 2 Senators

    • Smaller states have A LOT of power because of the Senate

2. Apportionment : The Boundaries of Representation

• 435 seats must be divided among 50 states

• Census date, proportion of whole redivided

  • Leads to “redistricting”

  • Done by the state legislature

3. Types of Gerrymandering

• GERRYMANDERING

  • Massachusetts district created in 1812 to break up a delegation of Federalist senators

  • Increase representation of one party at the expense of another

    • Only around 40 seats in the House are actually competititive

• Cracking

  • Majority party spreads out support so minority party loses seats

• Packing

  • Packing opposing voters into one district

  • Pushes opposing voters into districts to overpower them

4. Court Cases

• Baker v. Carr

  • Was the drawing of congressional districts a political process that should be left to the states?

  • Decided Incorrectly apportioning districts was unconstitutional

    • Ended favoring rural voters more than urban ones

    • One person=one vote

• Shaw v. Reno

  • North Carolina produced 2 majority-minority districts approved by the Department of Justice

  • Protested, Fourteenth Amendment “Equal protection clause”

  • Supreme Court overturned the race-conscious drawing of a strangely shaped legislative districts

    • You must have an oddly shaped district with the distinct purpose of grouping or separating out certain people

5. Incumbency Advantage

• Incumbent: person who already inhabits office

• Incumbency advantage: institutional advantages held by those already in office who are trying to fend off challengers in an election

  • Greater in the House than Senate

• Why is it that Congress has a low approval rating, yet incumbents tend to win?

  • Familiarity

  • Name recognition

  • Effort to familiarize

  • Bigger donor base

• Why might an incumbent lose?

  • Bad feelings = New candidate

  • Not representing their constituents well

• Experience

  • Building a reputation and expertise over time

  • Knowledge, political organization, political skills

• Money $$$

  • Lifeblood of campaign- ads, events, airtime, staff

  • Incumbents raise more money

  • Average cost of running

    • House seat: 500,000

    • Senate seat: $1.5 million

• Maximizing the Advantage

  • Incumbents advertise their experience and show off their position taking/credit claiming

  • Franking privilege: free use of mail for communications with constituents

  • Name recognition “the devil you know”

  • Casework: ability to use the office to aide constituents with federal services

Section 4.3: Political Parties in Congress

• Majority party: party with the most seat in each chamber

• Minority party: party with the 2nd highest number of seats

1. Speaker of the House

• Only House leadership position described in the Constitution

• Leader of the Entire House

• Normally member of the majority party

• Most powerful member

• Second in line of succession to the presidency

• Raises money for party member via PACs

• Controls House agenda and committee assignments

2. Other House Leadership

• Majority Leader: works for the speaker

• Minority Whip: gets votes for the minority party

• Current Situation

  • House Leadership:

    • Mike Johnson

      • Became speaker after days of chaos and gridlock

      • Far right republicans refused previous leader

      • Needed a speaker to do anything at all

    • Hakeem Jefferies

      • First black party leader in Congress

      • Likely would become speaker with a Democrat Majority

3. Senate Leadership

• Official leader Constitutionally is the Vice President

  • Casts tie breaking votes

• President Pro Tempore

  • Presides over the chamber’s proceedings when the VP is not present

  • No official power

• Senate Majority Leader

  • Head of the party with the most seats

  • Most powerful one person in the Senate, but not as powerful as the speaker

• Current Situation

  • Senate Leadership:

    • President of the Senate: JD Vance

      • First millennial in office

      • Third youngest VP in history

    • Pro Tempore: Chuck Grassley

      • Longest serving Republican, 91 years old!

    • Majority Leader: John Thune

      • Served in the House from 1997-2003, elected Senator in 2005

    • Minority Leader: Chuck Schumer

      • Democrat form New York

      • First Jewish Senate majority leader, now minority

4. Congressional Committees

• Created to divide the workload of legislating

  • Divide and Conquer

• Committees and subcommittees are Congress at work!

  • Membership reflects the ratio of the overall body

• Committee Chair: head of committee, set the agenda, member of the majority party, terms limited

• Types of Committees

  • Standing: permanent, divided by policy area, where work gets done

  • Joint: members of both chambers sit, do us public attention on an issue, gather information from Congress

  • Conference: members of both chambers sit, when there are differences between house and senate versions of a bill

  • Select: temporary, for investigations

Section 4.4: How a Bill Becomes a Law

1. The Lawmaking Process

• Only members of Congress can introduce bills

  • Can be influenced by president, cabinet, interest groups, etc

    • Do not formally introduce

• Referral to Committee

  • Bills are assigned to a committee, or multiple committees, based on policy area

    • Hear perspectives, lawmakers and interest groups

    • Call in experts

  • Markup allows members to make changes

    • Best version of the bill possible

• Debate and Processing in the House/Senate

  • Bills proceed from committee to floors of the House and the Senate

  • House has stricter debate rules than the Senate

  • Partisanship plays a role the entire way

  • Roll call vote: “yea” “nay” or “present”

  • Rules committee controls debate and consideration rules in the House

• Resolution of Differences

  • Reconsidering differences

  • Coming up with a compromise version of House and Senate bill

• Presidential Action

  • Signing: becomes a law

  • Sits for 10 days: law through inaction

• HOW BILLS CAN DIE

  • House: Rules committee or smaller committees never send bill out

  • Senate:

    • Hold: when a senator objects to a bill or part of a bill

      • Talks to majority leader

      • Delay’s bill’s passage

    • Unanimous consent agreements: sets terms for consideration of a specified bill

      • May limit debate time

    • Filibuster: using unlimited debate with the intention of talking a bill to death

      • Delay a motion or postpone action

      • Cloture: 60 senators vote to end the filibuster and proceed to action

  • Executive: President vetos bill, its dead

Section 4.5: Managing the Federal Budget

1. Setting the Federal Budget

• Federal government covers expenses for the fiscal year (October - September)

  • Recent budgets have been trillions of dollars

• Mandatory Spending: spending required by existing laws that is “locked in” the budget

• Discretionary Spending: for programs and policies based on the discretion of the Congress and President

• Who sets the budget

  • Both president and congress work together

  • President submits proposal

  • Congress produces a budget resolution with broad spending goals

  • Appropriations committees allocate for specific programs

  • Congress passes, president signs

2. Taxation, Deficits, and Debts

• Government takes in revenue via income taxes

• Government spends money via the budget

• Government spending less than government revenue- SURPLUS

• Government spending greater than government revenue- DEFICIT!

• OVER TIME, MULTIPLE DEFICITS = DEBT

3. Congress and Public Policy: Social Insurance

• Largest piece of the budget pie is on entitlement spending

• Goal: self funding

• Social Security:

  • Created in 1935 as old age pension/insurance via payroll tax

  • Destined to be self-funding, but beneficiaries outnumber contributors

    • Under severe financial stress

• Looming social security crisis

• Solving the problem:

  • RAISING PAYROLL TAXES

  • RAISING THE AGE TO COLLECT

  • PRIVATIZE THE SYSTEM VIA INVESTMENTS

Section 4.6: How Representation Works

• Challenges of Representation

  • Members of Congress are pulled in a number of directions

  • Theoretically members are expected to vote with their constituents’ viewpoints, but this is not always the case

  • How can a member reconcile representing their constituents, donors, the nation, their party, and themselves

    • Donors and Interest groups carefully watch what politicians vote for and apportion money based on this

• How Members Vote

  • Delegate Role: main duty of a member of Congress is to vote the way their constituents wish

    • Voters need to have a preference and provide this information to the member for this to work

  • Trustee Role: member of Congress makes decisions using their own knowledge and judgement

  • Politico Role: emphasizes that Congress is a politicized body where party allegiances reign supreme

• A Partisan Body

  • Recent Congresses are paralyzed by partisanship, this is known as gridlock

  • This is more common when party control of the presidency and one or both chambers of Congress is split