In fall 2021, Congress wanted to improve the national infrastructure

Democrat Nancy Pelosi wanted to lead with $3.5 trillion to social welfare and climate change and $1 trillion to infrastructure bill

$3.5 trillion package: expansion of child care and pre-K, coverage of college tuition for 2 years at community colleges, investments in clean energy for climate change, and expansion of Medicare

$1 trillion package: improvements to roads, public transit, train systems, etc.

9 Democrats wrote her a letter in opposition asking her to approve the infrastructure bill before the social welfare bill

Congresspeople threatened to pull their support from the infrastructure bill if Pelosi accepted

Pelosi ended up bringing up the infrastructure bill first which was signed by Biden on 11/15/2021, then brought the social welfare bill which passed the legislation but was stalled in the Senate due to lack of support by 2 democrats

Article I of the Constitution details the legislative branch

representation in the Senate is the same for each state: 2 senators per state

the state’s population determines representation in the House

Article 1, section 8 enumerates powers not held by Congress in the Articles such as the authority to make laws, declare war, coin money, and regulate commerce

section 8: necessary and proper clause

the House is composed of 435 members; the Senate has 100 members

The House has strong party leadership that is hierarchical; the Senate tends to be less formal and more personal in communication

Members of the House are directly elected every 2 years by citizens in their congressional districts

Senators used to serve six-year terms and were chosen by state legislatures until 1913 with the 17th amendment; now, there is a direct election of Senators

Because House members are re-elected more frequently, they are more likely to follow rules because they want to keep their seats

The House can introduce tax legislation and initiate impeachment proceedings which are then checked by the Senate’s power

The Senate has the power to approve major presidential appointments and ratify treaties

The House of Representatives used to only have 65 members, but the Constitution said the House number would increase with the increase in population growth.

Congress passed a bill in 1929 to limit the House’s size to 435

Every ten years, they check population growth and shift, then Congress redistributes the seats to each state based on their population changes (reapportionment), and then the states decide how to redo their congressional district lines (redistricting)

In 2020, Texas gained 2 seats while California and a couple of other Midwest and Northeast states lost a seat

Gerrymandering - politicians draw congressional district lines for electoral advantages

origin: The 1812 redistricting of Massachusetts was to favor the Democratic party, and so a political cartoon was drawn resembling a salamander, and the salamander and Governor Elbridge Gerry’s name were joined together to create the word Gerrymander

Partisan Gerrymandering - when state legislators draw lines to guarantee that a certain political party will win seats in Congress

Incumbent Gerrymandering - when state legislators draw lines to guarantee that the current officeholders will win the reelection

Majority-Minority Districts - congressional districts where black people make up the majority of the population (136/435 qualify as majority-minority districts)

Baker v Carr (1962), the Supreme Court decided that it would oversee that no states would use characteristics such as class, race, or partisanship to decide congressional district lines

Since then, the Court has reviewed every questionable new congressional district

Partisan gerrymandering

packing: concentrating one party or group into a specific district so that they all vote for the same candidate

cracking: voters of one political party or group are divided up into multiple voting districts so they can’t elect the candidate that they want

since democrats usually live in certain parts and republicans live in different parts, its much easier for this to happen so its mostly the voters fault, not gerrymandering

sometimes oddly drawn districst are drawn that way because they are trying to include a lot of minority groups

North Carolina’s 12th district used to be referred to as the country’s most gerrymandered district and has appeared in the Supreme Court 5 times since the 1990s. It helped elect a black dude (Melvin Watt) since the reconstruction

partisan gerrymandering decreases the number of competitive districts

scale: -1 (liberal), 0 (moderate), +1 (conservative)

filibuster: used to block or delay a bill/vote in the Senate

cloture: motion to end a filibuster that requires 60 votes

there is a lot of extremism in the Congress

People are “self-sorting” - changing their political opinions to the ones their neighbors have or moving to places where they share political opinions with others

voters can be severe extremists; fewer and fewer Democrats and Republicans have overlapping views; it went from 49% in 1994 to 32% in 2017

Congress seems to have become less productive over the past few decades, passing fewer and fewer bills

How a bill becomes a law

a bill is drafted and then introduced by either the Senate or the House of Representatives then goes through each chamber of Congress: it starts where it was introduced (either the House or Senate), and once the chamber has voted it through, it proceeds to the other chambers.

both houses of Congress have to vote in favor of it, and the bill can be stopped at any stage

How Laws are in in the House

a bill is introduced when it is dropped in the hopper,

which is then numbered and printed by the Clerk of the House,

then sent to the appropriate committee for review and discussion,

and then the committee chair considers it and directs it to the relevant subcommittee which reviews and schedules public hearings before the subcommittee edits and revises provisions of the bill,

then the subcommittee takes a vote on the bill,

it returns to the full committee for hearings markups and another vote,

and if the bill doesn’t pass by vote then it is “tabled” or never seen or talked about again,

and if it is passed by vote, then it is “reported” to the full chamber of the House,

then goes through the Rules Committee and is given a “rule” (rules about the debate and amendments)

then the Speaker’s office schedules the bill for debate on the House floor

and if it passes after the full House debate and amendment, it is sent to the Senate for approval

congressional committee: small groups of legislators within each chamber that focus on specific legislative issues

How laws are made in the Senate (after the House)

Bills are introduced during the “Morning Hour”

the bill s directed to a committee and subcommittee

and then the Senate has no Rules Committee, so any amendment may be debated and added. the end

a bill can be defeated by a filibuster, which is used to delay or prevent an action on a bill by extending the debate time

filibusters used to require a senator to stand and speak the entire time, but now all a senator has to do is say they wish to block a bill

filibusters can only be ended by the procedure of a cloture, which requires 60 votes (simple majority)

Once both chambers pass the bill, it goes to a conference committee which reconciles any differences between the House version and Senate version

the committee produces a conference report and sends the revised version to both chambers and if both chambers pass the final version, it goes to the president for their signature

the president has ten days, not including Sundays, to act on legislation in which he can either sign the bill (it immediately becomes a law and is sent to the federal bureaucracy for implementation), or he can veto the bill in which it returns to Congress, and if Congress can get 2/3 majority vote in support, it can override the president’s veto, and if not the bill fails

Once the ten days are over and the president hasn’t signed or vetoed, the bill automatically becomes law unless Congress adjourns before the ten-day period then the law is effectively vetoed, which is known as a pocket veto and is used by the president to not suffer backlash

A member of Congress represents the people of a district or state and a political party

the party that controls the majority of seats in a chamber is considered a majority party and given significant power

institutional speaker is the speaker who is elected by the full House and is usually a member of the majority party, has administrative powers and legislative powers, and is second in line after the VP

whips - Members of Congress tasked with enforcing party discipline and ensuring the presence of other party members when votes are taken on the floor of each chamber

Speaker is the leader of the House, then the majority and minority leaders and whips

leader of the Senate is the VP and is the president of a chamber, and only votes when there’s a tie

VP is leader, followed by president pro tempore, then majority and minority leader, then majority and minority whip

president pro tempore - A high-ranking member of the Senate who presides over the Senate when the vice president is absent.

majority party controls the referral of regulation and selection of committee chairs which protects the party’s interests as bills are reviewed by the committee

majority party can control the extent to which a bill can be debated

unified government - when the president is the same party as the majority parties; one party controls the House, Senate, and White House

during periods of unified governments, the legislative process is usually very fast

during periods of divided government, policy developments are usually slow

when Trump wanted to build the wall, the government was unified, but a lot of Republicans didn’t want the wall then the House turned Democratic, and then they disagreed so badly that there was a 35-day partial government shutdown (Trump and Pelosi refused to compromise)

gridlock - A situation in which the government has difficulty passing legislation.

Standing committees - A permanent committee of the House or the Senate that reviews and reports legislation to the full chamber.

Conference committees - A temporary committee composed of members from both the House and the Senate responsible for working out the differences between chamber versions of a bill.

joint committee - A committee composed of members from both the House and the Senate with jurisdiction over specific issues of mutual interest.

special committee - A temporary committee organized around a specific purpose. Also called a select committee or an ad hoc committee, a special committee is usually investigative in nature and lacks the authority to review legislation.

authorizing committee - writes legislation

appropriations committee - allocating money to fund legislation

markup/amendment phase - makes changes before vote on the final bill

party leaders assigns Congress members to committees

committees check and balance executive power and bureaucratic discretion and they have congressional oversight over presidential appointments, control over jurisdictions, regulatory authority, and budgets of federal agencies

Obama’s ACA: criticism from the conservative Blue Dog Coalition, and it took a year of public debate before Congress sent a legislative package to Obama, and he signed the bill called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010

All Republicans in the House didn’t vote for the ACA, and Trump wanted to repeal the ACA but was unable to

logrolling - Exchanging political favors, such as votes, to achieve mutually beneficial legislative outcomes.

franking - The ability of members of Congress to send official mail free of postal charges. Franking privileges are restricted to mail sent only within the member’s district and cannot be used for mass mailings in the 90 days prior to an election.

casework - Services provided by members of Congress and their staff to assist constituents in dealing with bureaucratic agencies.

descriptive representation - The idea that elected officials should have a similar demographic makeup regarding gender, race, and ethnicity as their constituents.

118 Congress was the most ethnically and racially diverse

When a group has more representation in Congress than they do in the general population, that is overrepresentation

delegate - A model of representation calling for members of Congress to serve as the mouthpiece of their constituents in the legislative process. As a delegate, a member is expected to directly reflect constituent sentiment.

trustee - A model of representation calling for members of Congress to protect the interests of their constituents. As a trustee, a member is expected to use their best judgment in making legislative decisions.