Congress

1
Congress

• Who helps get the job done?

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Congress

• The senators and representatives cant do it
  alone.
• They work in committees to pass bills more
  efficiently.
• They have secretaries, support staff, agencies of
  their own, and even an entire library to help
  them out.

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Committees

• A committee is a group within a group.
• Purpose One Since each Congressperson cant be
  an expert on every issue, they each join
  committees that match their expertise. This
  divides the enormous workload of Congress amongst
  smaller groups.

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Committees (continued)

• Purpose Two Committees weed out the bills that
  deserve further attention from thousands of bills
  that are introduced.
• Purpose Three Committees hold public hearings
  and investigations, and educate the public
• about problems and
• issues facing the nation.

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Committees (continued)

• Types of Committees
• Standing Committees
• Subcommittees
• Select Committees
• Joint Committees
• Conference Committees

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Committees (continued)

• Types of Committees
• Standing committees permanent, set up to deal
  with very specific issues (see pg. 143 of
  textbook for list). Majority party chooses the
  chairperson, membership usually matches the
  proportion of majority/minority in House or
  Senate (i.e. 60 Democrat, 40 Republican)
• Examples Agriculture, Education, National
  Security, Veterans Affairs

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Committees (continued)

• Types of Committees (continued)
• Subcommittees further subdivide the work of the
  Standing Committees
• Example--The Agriculture Committee has the
  following subcommittees Conservation, Credit,
  Energy, and Research Horticulture and Organic
  Agriculture Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, and
  three others.

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Committees (continued)

• Types of Committees (continued)
• Select Committees a temporary committee set up
  to explore a particular issue and report back to
  the Congress as a whole.
• Example The Senate has a Select Committee on
  Ethics, set up to overhaul the Senates Code of
  Ethics. Once thats done, the committee will
  dissolve (wont exist anymore.

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Committees (continued)

• Types of Committees (continued)
• Joint Committees made of members of both the
  House and the Senate joint committees may be
  either temporary or permanent, and generally
  study issues to report back to both the House and
  Senate.
• Examples Joint committees have been set up to
  investigate atomic energy, defense, taxation, and
  to deal with the Library of Congress (both houses
  use it).

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Committees (continued)

• Types of Committees (continued)
• Conference Committees this is composed of
  members of both the House and Senate. After a
  bill has passed both houses, it is sent to a
  Conference Committee to make sure that both
  versions of the bill match. They may make further
  compromises before the bill is sent to the
  President to be signed into law.

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Committees (continued)

• Miscellaneous Committee information
• Assigning members to committees is extremely
  important.
• Representatives and Senators want to be on
  committees that work with bills that directly
  benefit their state or district.
• This is the best way for a lawmaker to directly
  influence the national policies in many areas.
• The leaders of the party in charge decides who
  gets to the chairperson (leader) of each
  committee.
• Chairpersons are among the more powerful members
  of Congress because they decide which bills their
  committee will hear and which will get weeded
  out.
• Seniority usually decides the chairperson, but
  that has changed since the 1970s.

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Support Staff and Agencies

• The work of Congress is so massive and
  complicated that lawmakers need trained staffs to
  help them do their work effectively. (pg. 146)
• For the first 100 years of U.S. history,
  Congressmen had no staff to assist them. Now,
  they couldnt do their job without them.

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Support (continued)

• Types of support
• Personal staff
• Administrative assistants
• Legislative assistants
• Caseworkers
• Committee staff
• Support agencies
• Library of Congress
• Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
• General Accounting Office (GAO)
• Government Printing Office (GPO)

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Support (continued)

• Administrative Assistants
• Runs the lawmakers office, supervises their
  schedule, gives political advice, may deal with
  other powerful lawmakers or influential people
  who want to meet with the lawmaker.
• Other administrators serve as secretaries,
  receptionists, and file clerks for the lawmakers.

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Support (continued)

• Legislative Assistant
• Makes sure the lawmaker is well-informed about
  certain bills theyre working on or going to be
  voting on, does research, drafts bills, studies
  bills in Congress, writes speeches and articles
  for the lawmaker
• May attend committee/subcommittee meetings for
  the lawmaker if their schedules dont allow it.

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Support (continued)

• Caseworker
• Help to handle workload of constituents in the
  home district or state who are requesting help
  from the lawmaker.
• Most lawmakers have two offices one in D.C. and
  one in their home district or capital city of
  their state.

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Support (Continued)

• Committee Staff
• Each committee has specific staff that just work
  for that committee, no matter who the chairperson
  is.
• These may act as administrative
  assistants/secretaries for the committee, and may
  draft bills, study issues, collect information
  for the members, plan hearings, write memos, and
  prepare the committee reports. These unelected
  support personnel may be vastly knowledgeable
  about the work of each committee.

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Support (continued)

• Library of Congress
• Created in 1800 to purchase such books as may be
  necessary for the use of Congress.
• Purchased Jeffersons library of 6,000 books in
  1815 (including a copy of a Koran).
• Today, one of the largest libraries in the world.
• More than 100 million items,
• including books, journals,
• music, films, photos, maps.
• Hundreds of employees are responsible for
  answering requests from lawmakers for information
  about bills. They can find out almost any piece
  of information in the world.

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Support (continued)

• Congressional Budget Office coordinates
  budget-making process of Congress with work of
  executive branch, makes cost predictions for
  future
• General Accounting Office Watchdog over spending
  by Congressional programs
• Government Printing Office Prints EVERYTHING for
  the federal government! All bills, laws,
  committee speeches, etc.