2.2 The functions of Congress Flashcards
What are the congressional committees you need to know?
- Standing committee
- House Rules Committee
- Conference committee
- Select committee
What are standing committees?
A permanent, policy specialist committee of
Congress playing key roles in both legislation and investigation
What does a typical senate standing committee look like?
18 members in the senate
House committee would be 30-40 members
What are motivations of committee members
House and Senate members seek assignments on committees that
are closest to the interests of their district or state
e.g Ilhan Omar and House Committee on Education and Labor
What are the functions of standing committees?
- Conducting committee stage of bills
- Conducting investigations
- Confirming presidential appointments
Whats the first function of standing committees in both houses
to confuct the committeee stage of bills in the legislative proccess
What does conduct the committee state of bills entail?
Holding hearings on the bills at which ‘witnesses’ appear
Who might these ‘witnesses’ be?
:
• other members of Congress
• members from the relevant executive departments or agencies, or
even from the White House
• representatives from interest groups or professional bodies likely to
be affected
• ordinary members of the public
What happens at the end of these hearings
At the conclusion of these
hearings, a vote is taken by the committee on whether or not to pass
the bill on to the full chamber for debate and votes — the next stage
in the legislative process.
What investigations do standing committes do up?
enables Congress to fulfil its oversight function.
Such investigations are often launched into perceived problems, crises or policy failures. They attempt to answer such questions as ‘Why did this happen?’, ‘Is current legislation proving effective?’ and ‘Is new legislationrequired?’
How do standing committees confirm presidential appointments?
The vote is not decisive but recommendatory –> important clue in the likely outcome of the nomination
Which standing committees get busy when cornifirming executive appointments?
Senate judiciary and foreign relations commission
What is a significant example of standing committee fucking over executive?
It was the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary
Committee that refused to hold hearings on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland in 2016.
What are limits to standing committee powers?
Committees are powerful but not all-powerful: they cannot legislate; they cannot require the executive to comply with their wishes; they cannot implement policies once
they have been approved
What is the house rules committee?
One of the standing committees of HoR but performs different function: responsible for prioritising bills coming from the committee state - has to deal with huge queue of bills
What is the membership of the rules committee saying?
Its smaller and more skewed to the majority party than other standing committees - 13 members - 9 D, 4 R
What is the most influential post in congress
Chair of House rules committee
What are confederence committees
Bills pass through both houses concurrently, meaning there are 2 versions of the same bills - if these differences cannot be reconcilled informally, conference is set up
When are conference committees called up
Ad hoc - set up to consider one particular bill
What happens if they don’t agree
. If
agreement is not forthcoming, the same conference committee may
be reconvened. Another compromise will be drawn up and sent to the
floors of both houses. Should that be unacceptable to one or both
chambers, the bill will be sent back to the standing committees that
first considered it
Why are conference committees important?
Conference committees are important because they are likely to
draw up what will become the final version of the bill.
What are select committees?
Known as special or investagive committees - all are ad hoc - to investigate a specific issues
- Most are done in one chamber
Why are selective committees needed when standing committees has an investigative function?
- does not fall within the policy area of one standing committee; or is
likely to be so time consuming that a standing committee would
become tied up with it, thus preventing the standing committee from
fulfilling its other functions
Example of select committee?
2014 the then Speaker of the House John Boehner set up the
House Select Committee on Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist
Attack in Benghazi that had resulted in the deaths of the American
ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other
Americans. Hearings began in September 2014 but it was not until
October 2015 that Hillary Clinton, who at the time of the attack was
serving as secretary of state (foreign secretary), appeared before the
committee for 11 hours of questioning. The committee published its
final report in June 2016.
Are there permanent select committees?
ye
the Senate
there are four, on Aging, Ethics, Indian Affairs, and Intelligence; in the
House there is just one, on Intelligence
Seniority rule
A ‘rule’ that the chair of a congressional standing
committee is the member of the majority party with the longest continuous service on that committee.
Where are standing committees chairs from?
the majority party
What powers do chair standing committees have?
• control the committee’s agenda
• decide when the committee will meet
• control the committee’s budget
• influence the membership, meetings and hearings of subcommittees
• supervise a sizeable committee staff
• serve as spokesperson on the committee’s policy area within
Congress, to the White House and in the media• make requests to the House Rules Committee (in the House) and
the party leadership (in the Senate) for scheduling of legislation on
the House floor
• report legislation to the floor of their respective chamber on behalf
of the full committee
What is the legislative process?
1 Introduction 2 Committee stage 3 Timetabling 4 Floor debate and vote on passage 5 Conference committee (optional) 6 Presidential action
How long do bills have to pass?
two years. So, for
example, the 115th Congress runs from January 2017 until December
2018. Any bills not completed in one Congress must start the process
again at the beginning of the next Congress.
Whats the percentage of bills enacted by congress 2019-21
2%
Whats this congress numbered?
117th - started this year
How does a bill get introduced?
There is no debate and no vote.
In the House, it involves nothing more than placing a copy of the bill
in a ‘hopper’ — a tray — on the clerk’s desk. In the Senate, the
introduction involves reading out the title of the bill on the Senate
floor. Bills are then numbered, p
How many bills get introduced?
a lot, 116th congress did up 16,000, an increase
Which part of the stage has more bills fail than at any stage?
committee stage
How do committees deal with the huge amount of bills given?
A significant number are pigeon-holed — put to one
side, with no action taken on them at all, no hearings and no vote.
Why is the committee stage so important?
The full House and Senate have not yet debated the bill. The standing committee members are regarded as the policy specialists in their policy area and they have the full power of amendment — anything can be added to and anything removed
from the bill at this stage.
What happens when the hearings are compelted?
, the committee holds a mark-up session — making the changes it wishes — before reporting out the bill, effectively sending it on to its next stage
What does the report written by the committee do?
states the main aims of the bill; reviews the amendments made by the committee; estimates the cost of implementation; and recommends future action to be taken by the full chamber
Unanimous consent agreement
An agreement in either the House or the Senate, made without objection, to waive the chamber’s normal rules
