The Committee System of Congress

Question 1

What are the three important committees that you need to know?

Answer 1

1) House rules
2) standing
3) Conference

Question 2

Why are standing committees called standing committees?

Answer 2

Because they’re permanent

Question 3

What are the four Ps of the standing committee?

Answer 3

Power
Policy Specialist
Permanent
Prestigious

Question 4

How many standing committees in the Senate?

Answer 4

16

Question 5

How many standing committees in the House?

Answer 5

17 plus the House Rules Committee

Question 6

What do most standing committees have?

Answer 6

their own sub committees

Question 7

How many senators on each senatorial standing committee?

Answer 7

18

Question 8

How many house members on each HoR committee?

Answer 8

45-50

Question 9

What is the party balance on each committee?

Answer 9

About the same as it is in the chamber as a whole

Question 10

Where do the chairpeople of the committees come from?

Answer 10

The chamber’s majority party

Question 11

How are most chairmen chose for standing committees and for which house is this especially true?

Answer 11

Seniority rule Senate

Question 12

what is the seniority rule?

Answer 12

States that the chairman of a standing committee will be the member with the longest continuous service on that committee

Question 13

What are the two functions that standing committees in both houses have?

Answer 13

1) conduct the committee stage of the legislative process

2) To conduct investigations within the committee’s respective policy area

Question 14

What is the one exclusive function that standing committees in the Senate have?

Answer 14

To being the confirmation process of numerous presidential executive and judicial appointments

Question 15

The functions of conducting investigations within the committee’s respective policy area fulfils which of congress’s functions?

Answer 15

oversight

Question 16

What kind of power is oversight?

Answer 16

Implied

Question 17

how does the Senate standing committees use its power of the appointments process?

Answer 17

Hearings are held and at the end of these hearings comes a vote on whether to recommend action to the full chamber

Question 18

When oversight occurs, where does questioning happen?

Answer 18

committee rooms rather than the chamber floor

Question 19

What do some say about oversight?

Answer 19

It is perhaps more effective when there is divided government

Question 20

How does the House Rules Committee relate to the standing committees?

Answer 20

it is officially one of the standing committees in the house but it performs a different function to them

Question 21

In the Senate timetabling is achieved through unanimous consent agreements, what is the equivalent in the House?

Answer 21

The house rules committee

Question 22

What two stages does the House rules committee transition between?

Answer 22

The committee stage and the first reading

Question 23

What does the House rules committee prioritise?

Answer 23

The most impotent bills and gives them quick passage to the House floor

Question 24

What does the House rules committee give each bill?

Answer 24

A ‘rule’ to each bill passing onto the floor for its second reading.

Question 25

What does the ‘rule’ that the House rules committee gives each bill passing onto the floor for its second reading do?

Answer 25

Sets out the rules for debate, for example, what, if nay amendments can be made to the bill at this stage

Question 26

If the differences between the two versions of the concurrent bills cannot be sorted out informally or amicably between the two houses, what must be set up?

Answer 26

Conference committee

Question 27

How are the Conference committees ad hoc?

Answer 27

They are temporary for a particular bill and then disbanded

Question 28

What does the conference committee contain?

Answer 28

Members from both of the houses

Question 29

What is the single function of the conference committees?

Answer 29

Reconcile the difference between the two versions of the same bill

Question 30

When the conference committee comes up with an agreed version of the bill, what then happens to it?

Answer 30

It must be agreed in by the floor of each house

Question 31

How has the use of the conference committees declined?

Answer 31

The system has become more similar to the of the UK. One chamber is simply asked to endorse the legislation by the other, a more leadership driven approach.

Question 32

As the use of the conference committee has declined, one chamber is simply asked to endorse the legislation by the other, a more leadership driven approach. What shows this?

Answer 32

Obama ACA 2010

Question 33

Why are committees in the USA more important than they are in the UK?

Answer 33

They come before the whole chamber debates the bill