Congressional Committees

Question 1

What are Standing Committees?

Answer 1

• Standing committees exist in both houses of Congress. They are permanent, policy specialist committees who play key roles in both legislation and investigation
• Most standing committees are divided into sub-committees. A typical Senate standing committee comprises around 18 members, while a typical House standing committee is made up of around 30-40 members
• They also scrutinise the executive branch and begin confirmation of appointments (Senate only)

Question 2

What is the committee stage of a bill? (Standing Committee)

Answer 2

• Conducting the committee stage of bills. This involves holding ‘hearings’ on the bill at which ‘witnesses’ appear, these witnesses might be other members of Congress, celebrities or just ordinary members of the public. At the end of a hearing, a vote is taken by the standing committee on whether or not to pass the bill on to the full chamber for debates and votes.

Question 3

Conducting investigations (Standing Committee)

Answer 3

• The second function of standing committees in both houses is to conduct investigations within the committee’s policy area. This 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 legislation required?.’

Question 4

Confirming presidential appointments (Standing Committee)

Answer 4

• The third function of standing committees in the Senate is to begin the confirmation process of numerous presidential appointments.
• The two committees that are particularly busy in this regard are the Senate’s judiciary and Foreign Relations committees. The former must hold hearings on all the federal judicial appointments made by the president; the latter holds hearings on all ambassadorial appointments.

Question 5

House Rules Committee

Answer 5

• The House Rules Committee is one of the standing committees of the House of Representatives, but it performs a different function from the others.
• It is responsible for prioritising bills coming from the committee stage on to the House floor for their debates and votes.
• It will set out the rules of debate on a bill, for example whether any amendments can be made to the bill at this stage.

Question 6

Conference committees

Answer 6

• There are often two versions of the same bill - a House version and a Senate version. If, after being passed by each house, the two versions of the bill are different, and if these differences cannot be reconciled informally, than a conference committee is set up.
• Their sole function is to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the same bill.
• Once an conference committee has come up with an agreed version of the bill, this version must be agreed by a vote on the floor of each house.

Question 7

Select committees

Answer 7

• Also known as ‘special’ or ‘investigative’ committees. They are set up to investigate a particular issue. Most of them are just in one chamber, however sometimes a joint select committee is set up with members from both houses.
• Standing committees already have an investigative function, however sometimes select committees are needed because the investigation might not fall within the policy area of one standing committee, or is likely to be so time consuming that a standing committee would be tied up with it.