Congress Flashcards
What type of structure does Congress have?
Congress is a bicameral legislature, with two equal legislative bodies. The House of Representatives (or simply
‘House’) awards political representation to states in proportion to their population - so larger states have more seats. In the Senate, there are two politicians per state, regardless of population, giving a degree of protection to the interests of smaller states.
Term length of senators
6 years
Term length of congressmen
2 years
How many senators are there?
100
How many congressmen are there?
435
How many senators per state
2 per state. Each senator represents the whole state.
How many congressmen per state
Proportional to population
Wyoming: 1
California: 52
What are the mid-term elections?
Congressional and state-based elections held mid way through a president’s
four-vear term.
How often do congressional elections take place?
Congressional elections take place every two years in November. All members of the House are on the ballot, but only one-third of Senators, so the party majority in either chamber can change every two years. Some congressional elections take place at the same time as the presidential election.
However, mid-term elections take place in the middle of a presidential term and occur every four years.
Powers given to Congress in the Constitution (4)
The Constitution awards a number of roles and powers to Congress. Concurrent powers are those given to both the House and Senate, creating yet more checks and balances and power sharing within the Constitution.
-Legislate
-Representation
-Amend the constitution
-Declare war
Origin of Congressional power to legislate
Article I, section 1 states that all legislative powers shall be vested in a Congress. Article I gives Congress the power to overturn a presidential veto with a two-thirds vote in each chamber.
Origin of Congressional power to representation
Article I outlines the need for congressional elections. In the original Constitution the Senate was not directly elected. This was changed by the 17th amendment in 1913.
Origin of Congressional power to amend the constitution
Article V allows Congress to share this role with the states. An amendment requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber of Congress.
Origin of Congressional power to declare war
Article I, section 8. Congress was given the right to initiate military action. There is a constitutional ambiguity here with the president also claiming power to initiate military action.
Exclusive powers of The House (3)
-To impeach
-Elect the president if no candidate has
over 50% of Electoral College Votes (ECV)
-Begin consideration of all money bills
Exclusive powers of the Senate (4)
-Try an impeachment case
-Elect the vice president, if no candidate has over 50% of ECV
-Ratify treaties
-Confirm executive appointments
House power to impeach and examples
Impeachment does not mean removing a politician from office. Rather it means the House wanting to bring formal charges against a public official because, in their view, there is sufficient evidence of
‘Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors? (Article Il, section 4).
Two US presidents (Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998) and one
Supreme Court justice (Samuel Chase in
1804) have been impeached.
Trump (twice?)
House power to Elect the president if no candidate has over 50% of Electoral College Votes (ECV) and examples
With only two parties seriously contesting presidential elections, it is possible (though unlikely) for each candidate to get 269 ECVs. This power has only been used twice: in 1800 and 1824. Each state has one vote in the House, voting as a bloc.
House power to begin consideration of all money bills
Most legislation can begin in either chamber (many bills effectively pass through both at the same time), but all revenue-raising bills (those imposing taxes) must pass through the House first.
Given the sensitivity of taxing people, the Founding Fathers wanted to give the House, the only elected chamber at the time, more influence over taxation than the Senate. This power is not very significant today as all House decisions still have to be accepted by the Senate, which can amend or reject House
decisions.
Senate power to Try an impeachment case and examples
If the House impeaches a public official there is a trial in the Senate. A two-thirds Senate vote is then required to remove someone from office.
Clinton was impeached but not removed from office, mainly because of the result of the midterm elections in 1998, which saw the Democrats increase their share of seats in the House. The Republican failure to gain seats in the Senate was largely seen as public reaction against the ongoing Republican pursuit of Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky affair. Johnson and Chase survived the attempt to remove them in the Senate.
Trump?
Senate power to Elect the vice president, if no candidate has over 50% of ECV
Much like the House power to select the president, this power has rarely been used.
Senate power to ratify treaties and examples
All treaties negotiated by the president are subject to confirmation by the Senate, requiring a two-thirds vote. Obama achieved ratification of the START treaty in 2010, a deal with Russia to scale back nuclear arsenals. The last Senate rejection was in 2012, of an Obama-backed treaty on disabled rights, which gained the support of only 61 Senators. The role of treaty ratification has been eroded by the president’s use of executive agreements.
Senate power to confirm executive appointments
Over 1200 senior appointments - Cabinet members, some senior members of the EXOP and all federal judges, including Supreme Court justices - are scrutinised, usually through Senate committee hearings, with the Senate having
the right to confirm a presidential nomination by a 50% + vote. This appointment process has become more politicised in recent years, although a president can expect almost all of his or her Cabinet members nominated. The extent of scrutiny depends partly on the nature of party control of the presidency and the Senate.
Info about congressional elections
The frequency of elections means voters’ voices are heard every two years, offering high levels of representation. Congressional elections use the first-past-the-post voting system (FPTP), in which members of both the House and the Senate are elected in single-member constituencies. These are whole states for the Senate (one Senator is usually elected in a state at any one time and districts for the House.
Congressional elections are also subject to primaries, much like presidential elections. A primary contest will only occur within a party when more than one candidate wants to represent the party for that seat.
Importance of mid-term elections
Mid-term elections are often effectively a referendum on the first two years of a presidential term.
The results can have a major impact on presidential power, as the president’s party can lose a majority in either chamber, or in both, making it harder to pass legislation. There is a clear pattern: the president’s party loses seats in mid-terms, with voters often trying to curtail presidential power. The presidential party has only ever gained seats in the House three times: under President Roosevelt in 1934, President Clinton in 1998 and President Bush in 2002. Update ?
How have mid-term elections changed? Examples
The nature of these elections has changed hugely. In mid-term elections, each party runs a national campaign based around a common party platform, usually under the leadership of the House speaker and the House minority leader. There has been a tendency for congressional candidates to develop their own individual policy platform, but this has been eroded by an increase in nation-based agendas. This came to the fore in 1994 when Newt Gingrich successfully moved from minority leader to speaker, based on his ‘Contract with America’, a fiscally conservative package presented to voters, which President Clinton was forced largely to accept. More recently, Nancy Pelosi and the ‘100-hour agenda’ in 2006 and John Boehner and ‘The Pledge to America in 2010 gave a national mandate to the incoming speaker as their party took a House majority. This mandate allows speakers to become more powerful, often setting the legislative agenda as much as the president. However, this is only true when the president’s party loses a mid-term and the opposing party takes control of one or more chambers.
Favourited congress control table
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What usually happens with the incumbent in elections? Example
notable feature of congressional elections is that the incumbent typically wins their seat again in the next election. In 2016 incumbency re-election rates were 97 per cent for the House and 90 per (ent for the Senate.
Incumbency rates for House and Senate
In the 2022 general election, an average of 94% of incumbents nationwide won their re-election bids.[
Reasons behind high incumbency rates (4)
-Use of office
-Safe seats and gerrymandering
-Pork-barrel legislation
-Financial advantage
Use of office benefit to incumbents
Congresspersons and Senators can use their place in office to establish popularity and attract maior donors. A proven track record inspires trust among voters and donors
Safe seats and gerrymandering benefit to incumbents
The winner-takes-all system has allowed a huge number of safe seats, where a candidate wins so convincingly that they are expected to keep the seat at the next election. An appropriate system of proportional representation would end this. However, this problem is made worse by gerrymandering - drawing electoral boundaries to favour a certain social group or party. This lets the dominant party draw district boundaries in their favour, at the expense of the opposition. Racial gerrymandering was common before the civil rights era as many state boundaries are drawn up by the politicians elected at state level.
A new report found that only 10 percent of the House races in the 2022 midterm elections were competitive, noting that both Democrats and Republicans had a high number of “safe districts.”
In June 2019, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in Lamone v. Benisek and Rucho v. Common Cause that federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges over partisan gerrymandering.[184]
What is Pork-barrelling?
This is when a member of Congress proposes an amendment to legislation that will bring benefits (especially financial ones, such as infrastructure projects or service provision) to a particular group. An amendment added by a politiclan to add expenditure to a bill that benefits their constituency is referred to as an ‘earmark’, which is often criticised for promoting unnecessary spending and contributing to the budget deficit. Even fiscal conservatives will engage in such proposals to improve their re-election chances.
Opposition to pork-barrelling
Some see pork-barrelling as evidence of the highly representative nature of Congress; others see it as a form of over-representation, in which financial benefits are not spread evenly around the country or constituency. In 2010, Republican leaders placed a moratorium on earmarks in order to restrict pork-barrel legislation, but this did not stop the practice altogether.
Examples of pork-barrelling
In 2016, Congress passed legislation to spend $475 million on a new navy ship that the defense secretary and navy did not want, especially after a Pentagon report showing Its unreliability. The project was supported by Representatives Byrne from Alabama and Ribble of Wisconsin, who represent districts with major shipbuilding companies.
Financial advantage of incumbents
Financial advantage: Incumbents can attract more money than challengers, allowing them to run more successful campaigns. Challengers can struggle to gain name recognition and often find themselves under attack through well-funded negative adverts.
Five most expensive senate races in 20222 saw 1.3 billion spent
Stats on incumbents’ financial advantage
House races 2021-22 saw 1.2 billion raised for incumbents and less than 400 million for challengers
Possible solution to unfair incumbency problem
High incumbency re-election rates can be seen as a threat to US democracy, suggesting an Ineffective level of representation. Some states tried to resolve this by creating term limits for their Congresspersons and Senators, but this was struck down by the Supreme Court. Term limits would end the stagnation of politicians in Congress, but they would only be attacking a symptom of incumbency. The major underlying causes, such as funding and gerrymandering, would remain along with significant concerns about how representative members of Congress were.
Case study: Gerrymandering and Operation REDMAP
After Obama’s election victory in 2008, a group of Republican tacticians developed a plan to increase their chances of winning congressional seats. They targeted Democrat states due to re draw their House-district boundaries, and concentrated resources to make sure Republicans could take control of the state legislature. After this, new Republican-held state legislatures changed constituency boundaries to maximise Republican success in House of Representative elections
Political writer David Daley has shown how in various states, such as Pennsylvania, the Republican Party spent significant campaign finance to attack a small number of Democrat state politicians, giving the Republicans a majority that they used to change boundaries for that stale. The impact of changing just one state seat from Democrat to Republican was enormous. In 2008, Obama won Pennsylvania and 12 Democrat Congresspersons won seats from this state. In ZOlZ. Obama won again, but only rive Democrats won House elections because the constituency boundaries had changed. In 2012 - the first election using the new maps - Democratic congressional candidates received 100,000 more votes than Republicans, but Republicans won 13 of the 18 seats: 51 per cent of the vote translated into just 28 per cent of the seats. Democrats won by huge margins in just live areas, but more Republicans dominated House elections, with tew changes in overall voung patterns.
Factors affecting voting behaviour within Congress (4)
-Public opinion/constituency
-Party/party leaders
-Caucuses
-Interest groups and professional lobbyists
How does public opinion affecting voting behaviour?
Representatives must take into account public opinion or run the risk of being voted out of office. Congresspersons and Senators are subjected to frequent elections, which provide public accountability due to the threat of removal. It can be argued that this factor is more important in the House, as elections to the House take place every two years, compared to six years to the Senate. However, separation of powers means that there are strong levels of representation in both chambers, creating an individual mandate for each politician. People are likely to vote for a certain candidate due to their individual policies rather than because of their party label or party leader. Politicians in the House and the Senate are clearly more accountable to public opinion than their own president.
E.g. The Sheboygan Press, a local Wisconsin newspaper, ran story about its congressman Tom Petri saying he only spent 95 days of the year in the state.
Examples of public opinion affecting voting behaviour
In 2009, several Democrats switched their position, dropping their support for Obama’s Affordable Care Act, after meetings with constituents and rising opposition to the bill. The New York Times stated that ten moderate Republicans opposed the Republican plan to repeal this act in March 2017. Some of these moderates represent districts which voted for Clinton in 2016.
How can the party/ party leaders affect voting behaviour?
By being members of a party, representatives are pressured to vote according to the majority party view. There is a sense of belonging to a party that encourages Politicians to vote together. Team competition - the desire to stop the opposing party - Contributes to higher unity. It is the sort of message that can be driven home during weekly Caucus meetings, where all members of a party in congress gather together, usually led by Senior members of the party. Party leaders also have limited use of patronage power with Promises of committee chairmanships or membership to induce politicians to vote a certain way.
Examples of the party/ party leaders affecting voting behaviour
No Republicans voted for Obama’s stimulus budget in 2009, arguably due to partisanship rather than an ideological belief that the economy should self-stabilise and the government should not interfere. However, the fact that local opinion led 11 southern Democrats to vote against Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package suggests that public opinion has a greater impact on the way Congresspersons vote.
Examples of caucuses
There are many factions within Congress, often called congressional caucuses. Some are based on ideology (such as the conservative Blue Dog Democrats). Other factions are based on social characteristics, such as the congressional black caucus, which has approximately 50 members. While it is dominated by Democrats, it is officially non-partisan: Mia Love, the first Republican black Congresswoman, is part of the group. Yet others are based on economic interests and are not set along party lines, such as the Congressional Steel Caucus containing approximately 100 members who mainly represent districts with steel manufacturers. These groups often vote together on legislative issues.
Evidence of influence of interest groups and lobbyists
These groups can influence voting through means including donations, which may influence a Congressperson or Senator to vote for policies that favour that group.
Some interest groups, such as the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) and the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), also have large, active memberships, so members can mobilise to create the threat of removal of members from Congress.
After the 2012 Newtown shootings, Obama was unsuccessful in passing legislation to limit guns, despite clear majority public support. Pressure from the National Rifle Association and the vocal (and sizeable) minority apparently carried more weight than public opinion.
Politicians may also be strongly influenced by professional lobbyists and big businesses. Members of Congress, once they leave Capitol Hill, can command a much higher salary within such an organisation.
Stages of the legislative process
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Initiation feature of legislative process
Presidents can dominate the political agenda, but leaders in the House or Senate - and individual members of Congress - regularly initiate policy. Congress may be more active in setting an agenda if the president’s party has recently lost control of Congress in a mid-term election or if bipartisan control exists.
