Congress Flashcards
Give 2 powers of the House of representatives.
- propose fiscal bills
- Issue articles of impeachment - e.g. Trump for alleged affairs with Ukraine.
Is congressional oversight effective?
No: Oversight can be said to only be effective during divided government.
- Majority of Senate rejections have occured during divided government - e.g. Robert Bork (1987) and Merrick Garland (2016).
Compare Parliament vs Congress scrutiny when regarding the constitutional arrangements.
e.g divided gov vs parliamentary whips
US - a divided government was the intention of the Founding Fathers - leads to better scrutiny - e.g. Obama faced difficulty passing the Affordable Care Act
UK - PM is the leader of the largest party - use party whips to ensure MPs favour the bill - e.g. 21 Con. rebels were dismissed when they voted against a bill that would prevent a no-deal Brexit.
Compare Parliament vs Congress, power regarding committees.
US - greater powers of subpoena - e.g. Mark Zuckerberg appeared before a Congressional committee earlier in the same year due to more austere consequences in the US.
UK - weaker powers of subpoena - e.g. Mark Zuckerberg refused to appear at a joint committee on misinformation in 2018
Compare Congress and Parliament regarding their effectiveness at representing.
US - greater accountability in US - ignoring them may prove fatal - e.g. Albert Wynn was defeated in the 2008 primaries for ignoring the will of their constituents.
UK - Safe seats are common in the UK - e.g. Liverpool Walton - Labour regularly polls 85% of the vote
Compare Congress and Parliament on the idea parliament is more effective regarding legislating.
US - Congress is regularly deadlocked - e.g. Affordable Care Act - the only way to overcome this is pork barrelling
- Parliament Acts of 1911 and ‘49 place HoC above HoL - prevents legislative deadlock - e.g. Hunting Act 2004.
Compare Parliament and Congress on the idea that Parliament is more effective regarding scrutiny.
US - President can veto bills - though it can be overridden - e.g. Trump’s veto of the National Defence Authorisation Act 2021 was overridden.
UK - Face-to-face scrutiny of the executive due to the fusion of powers - BJ faced a particularly tough PMQs following allegations of sleaze within the party
compare Committees - UK vs US
- legislation - committees in the US can make amendments to bills in the US before they are passed - Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
- scrutiny - select committees come up over individual issues and investigate it (e.g Watergate / hurricane Katrina)
- confirmation process - judicial appointment committees (Bork, Betty DeVos) - used to scrutinise presidential selection - compared to UK independant comission that appoints
