American Government and Organization

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American Government and Organization

• PS1301
• Tuesday, 9 November

2
Announcements

• We will now move on to discuss political
  institutions beginning with the U.S. Congress and
  then move on to discuss the presidency
• Third midterm is scheduled for Thursday, November
  18th.

3
Organization of Congress

• While the Constitution outlined a basic framework
  for Congress, throughout two centuries the
  institution has evolved into a complex mix of
  rules, procedures, and customs.
• To understand the House and Senate, one must
  understand what representatives and senators want
  to accomplish and what obstacles they have to
  overcome to achieve their goals.

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The Basic Problems of Legislative Organization

• To exercise the powers conferred on them by the
  Constitution, the House and Senate had to solve
  some basic problems
• How to acquire information
• How to coordinate action
• How to resolve conflicts
• How to get members to work for common as well as
  personal goals.

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The Need for Information

• A legislator cannot regulate the the stock market
  or attack environmental pollution without having
  key information related to these areas.
• Congress has attempted to solve the problem by
  utilizing division of labor and specialization as
  tools.
• By becoming specialists (or employing them) in
  policy areas, and by creating a support
  foundation of information gatherers and
  interpreters, they can make more informed
  decisions.

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Coordination Problems

• Coordination (trying to act in concert) becomes
  more difficult (and necessary) the greater the
  groups workload and the more elaborate its
  division of labor.
• As Congress has grown, it has had greater need
  for traffic management.
• Congress has used its party leaders to act as the
  traffic cops giving them power to manage the
  business of legislating and control over the
  agenda.

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Resolving Conflicts

• Legislation is not passed until the majorities in
  both houses agree to its passage.
• Many of Congresss rules, customs, and procedures
  are aimed at resolving or deflecting conflicts so
  it can get on with the business of legislating.
• Norms of collegiality.
• Parties are ready made coalitions.

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Collective Action

• The problem what members do to pursue individual
  goals may undermine the reputation of their party
  or of Congress as a whole.
• Primary goal for individual members is to get
  reelected.
• The committee system, however, gives members
  individual incentives to work for collectively
  beneficial ends. How?
• Seniority rules automate decisions as to who
  serves on committees, etc. This minimizes the
  time and effort members might spend competing for
  these positions.

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Organizing Congress

• The two most crucial institutional structures
  created to exercise Congresss constitutional
  powers are
• the party system, and
• the committee system.
• Without them it would be difficult to overcome
  the barriers to effective collective action.

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The Importance of Consensus

• The degree of consensus within a party continues
  to affect how much authority party members are
  willing to delegate to party leaders.
• When there is broad and deep agreement, there is
  more cohesion among the coalition.

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The Importance of Consensus

• Over the decades, there has been significant
  variation in the coordinating ability of parties
  in Congress.
• Since the 1950s there has been a decline and
  resurgence of congressional partisanship.
• As they have become more unified, they also
  become more polarized along ideological lines.
• Republicans grew more conservative.
• Democrats became more liberal as their partys
  conservative southern members were gradually
  replaced in Congress by Republicans.

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Party Unity in the House
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Party Unity in Senate
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Party Leadership

• Party members give House party leaders resources
  for inducing members to cooperate when they are
  tempted to go their own way as free riders. These
  resources take the form of favors they may grant
  or withhold (committee assignments, direction of
  the legislative agenda).

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Party Organization (House)

• Majority leadership positions
• Speaker of the House (Dennis Hastert R-IL)
• Majority Leader (Tom Delay R-TX-22nd District
  includes Brazoria, Fort Bend, and Harris
  Counties)
• Majority whip (Roy Blunt-R-MO)
• Whips form communication network connecting
  leaders to members
• Minority leadership positions
• Minority Leader (Nancy Pelosi D-CA)
• Minority Whip (Steny Hoyer D-MD)
• Link to Leadership offices in House

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Party Organization (Senate)

• Majority leader (Bill Frist R-TN)
• Minority leader (Tom Daschle D-SD)
• Link to Senate leadership

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Party Leadership in the Senate

• Senators have never delegated as much authority
  to their leaders as have representatives.
• The norm of equality (ambassadors from their
  states to the national government) led them to
  retain wider freedoms of individual action.

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Committee System

• Standing Committee (exist from one Congress to
  the next)
• Fixed jurisdiction and stable membership
  specialization
• Bills are assigned to committees on the basis of
  subject matter
• Committees jurisdiction usually parallel those
  of the major departments or agencies in the
  executive branch.
• Each committee is unique
• Each committees hierarchy is based on seniority

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Types of Committees

• Link to House website

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Committee Power

• Numerous changes in Congress have negated some of
  the power of earlier committee chairs.
• Particular changes in the late 1950s and mid
  1970s produced a fragmented and decentralized
  committee system that impeded collective action
  because coordination was so difficult.
• When the Republicans took over the House in 1995,
  they revised the committee rules to ensure that
  the legislative agenda as outlined in the
  Contract with America would move swiftly to
  enactment.

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The Legislative Process

• A bill is introduced by a member (only a member).
  Although bills are introduced only by members,
  anyone may draft them. Executive agencies and
  lobby groups often prepare bills for introduction
  to friendly legislators.
• The Speaker assigns the bill to a committee (In
  the House). In the Senate, the majority leader
  assigns the bill to the appropriate standing
  committee
• Committee jurisdictions are largely fixed All
  bills dealing with a given substantive area are
  automatically sent to that committee

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Assignment to Committee

• After a bill is introduced, it is assigned a
  number and referred to a committee.
• Once a bill has been referred to a committee, the
  most common thing that happens next is NOTHING.
• Most bills die of neglect.
• If a committee decides on further action, the
  bill may be taken up directly by the full
  committee, but more commonly it is referred to
  the appropriate subcommittee.

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Committees

• In committee, the bill goes to a subcommittee
  (here the real work begins)
• The subcommittee decides whether to consider the
  bill
• If so, hearings are held. In a hearing,
  typically members of the executive branch and
  members of interest groups are invited to
  testify, though individuals can also testify

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The Purpose of Hearings

• Members of Congress (MCs) learn factual
  information about legislation
• research is presented, experts testify
• MCs learn political information about bills
• What interest groups support or oppose it?
• How strong are the pro and con sides?
• What compromises are possible?
• The arguments may be well known rehashes, the
  real information is who is on what side, etc.
• Link to committees (and hearings)

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The Purpose of Hearings

• Congress listens
• Often a fair hearing is sufficient
• Lobbyists can show their bosses that they tried
• Hearings outside of Washington may be for the
  sole purpose of campaigning
• Let the locals and journalists see their
  congressman
• Hearings dont have to be for legislation they
  can be oversight of the bureaucracy
• They can be to gather information for possible
  future legislation
• They can be to get attention to an idea that has
  not yet won majority support

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Reporting a Bill

• If the subcommittee decides to act on a bill, it
  marks it up drafts it line by line and
  reports it to the full committee.
• The full committee then accepts, rejects, or
  amends the bill (usually in deference to the
  subcommittee).
• If accepted, it is reported out of committee. The
  written report that accompanies it is the most
  important source of information on legislation
  for members of Congress not on the committee as
  well as other people interested in the
  legislation.
• These reports summarize the bills purposes,
  major provisions, and changes from existing law.

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Scheduling

• In the Senate, when a committee votes out a bill,
  it goes directly onto the calendar, which
  specifies when the bill will be heard on the
  floor
• In the House, the bill goes directly to the Rules
  Committee

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Rules Committee

• Control over procedure is control over policy. If
  you control the parliamentary procedure, you can
  often influence the outcome
• It gets a "rule" for debate in the House floor
  these rules specify how much time can be spent
  debating the bill and how many amendments can be
  added to the bill, amendments to what sections,
  in what order, ect.. This is a very political
  process
• What amendments, how long is debate, the order of
  motions, amendments, etc.
• Rules rarely stampedes large blocs of members
  (more subtle twists are more common).
• In the bad old days when Rules was independent of
  party leadership (pre-1961), the Rules Comm.
  regularly killed bills by refusing to grant them
  rules (esp. Civil Rights)
• Rules is now an arm of the leadership

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Example of a Rule
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Voting on Legislation

• Scheduling
• House calendar--all major public measures (for
  current House floor proceedings see Office of the
  Clerk)
• Consent calendar (non-controversial bills)
• Private calendar (immigration requests or claims
  against the gov)
• Rules for Debate
• If there is an open rule, opponents may try to
  load down a bill with so many objectionable
  amendments that it will sink of its own weight.
• The rules committee may also give the bill a
  "non-germane" open rule, meaning that irrelevant
  amendments can be added to the bill, which would
  practically kill the bill
• the reverse strategy is to propose "sweetner"
  amendments that attract members' support
• Debate and Vote upon on the floor, with
  amendments, ect.

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Scheduling Debate (Senate)

• The Senate does not have a Rules Committee.
• Thus, the leaders of both parties routinely
  negotiate unanimous consent agreements (UCAs) to
  arrange for the orderly consideration of
  legislation.
• UCAs are similar to rules in that they limit
  time for debate, determine which amendments are
  allowable, and provide waivers of Senate rules.
  In the absence of a UCA, anything goes.

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Process in the Senate

• Compared to the larger House which needs and
  adheres to well-defined rules, the Senate
  operates more informally
• In the Senate, filibusters (extended debates) are
  common, which members can effectively engage in
  to kill a bill
• Filibusters can be stopped by cloture which
  requires 60 votes (3/5ths called an extraordinary
  majority)

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Conference Committee

• If passed it goes to the other house it may start
  over. More often, parallel bills have been
  working through
• The parallel bills go to conference committee.
  This is an ad-hoc committee which is solely
  created to resolve the differences concerning a
  specific bill
• Equal numbers of each in proportion to party.
  They debate and may vote out a compromise bill
• If passed, the bill goes to both houses for a vote

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The President

• He may sign it or veto it
• Holding it for 10 days while congress is in
  session is the same as signing
• Holding it for 10 days during which congress
  adjourns is a "pocket veto", which cannot be
  overridden
• to override a veto, 2/3's of both houses is
  required

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The Process Reviewed