American Government Power and Purpose Lowi Ginsberg Shepsle

American Government Power and Purpose Lowi, Ginsberg, Shepsle, Ansolabehere Congress: The First Branch Chapter 6

Clicker Question: Trust in Government Which of the following institutions do you trust the most? A. Congress B. the presidency C. the Supreme Court

Institutional Approval Ratings Gallup, July 13– 17, 2016 • Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job? Approve: 13 percent Disapprove: 83 percent • Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president? (tracking poll) Approve: 49 percent Disapprove: 47 percent • Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job? Approve: 42 percent Disapprove: 52 percent

Congress Is the First Branch • The U. S. Congress is more independent and powerful than legislatures in other industrialized democracies • It is no accident that the makeup and powers of Congress are outlined in Article I of the Constitution and that Article I is, by far, the longest article of the Constitution

The Powers of Congress: Article I, Section 8 • Congress is given a vast array of powers: – Power to tax and spend – Power to raise an army/navy and declare war – Power to regulate commerce – Power to coin money (regulate the currency) – Power to make all laws “necessary and proper” (elastic clause) • Today, presidents play a bigger role in each of these areas

Congress and Representation • Congress is the most important representative institution in government • A member’s primary responsibility is to his or her constituency, the district making up the area from which an official is elected • Good representation encompasses a wide variety of activities

How Members Represent Their Districts

Forms of Representation • Agency representation—legislators are held accountable by their constituents if they fail to represent them properly • Delegate—legislators vote according to the preferences of their constituencies • Trustee—legislators vote based on what they think is best for their constituencies

Descriptive Representation • Legislators not only represent others; they may be representative of others as well • Descriptive representation refers to the idea that we seek to have a legislature that has demographic characteristics similar to the population it represents

Demographic Summary of Members of 114 th Congress

House and Senate: Differences in Representation • Congress is a bicameral legislative assembly: it is composed of two chambers or houses • The Senate is smaller and more deliberative • The House is larger, and thus power is more centralized and the process is more organized

House and Senate: Differences in Representation (Table)

The Electoral System: Who Runs? • Because members of Congress are agents, electoral considerations are very important • To win, candidates need – Ambition – Money – Name recognition/strong political base – Charisma/strong personal organization

The Electoral System: Incumbency • Incumbency (holding a political office for which one is running) is a huge advantage in congressional elections • Some of the advantages include – – – Casework Patronage Pork-barrel legislation Early money Name recognition

Clicker Question 2 Can you name A. the member of Congress who represents you? B. the person who ran against your representative in the most recent House election? C. both? D. neither?

Turnover in the House of Representatives

The Power of Incumbency

Money in Congressional Elections • One of the big reasons congressional incumbents are so safe is that they raise and spend more money than their opponents • In part, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as campaign donors want to give only to those they think can win, and incumbents usually win, so they get more money

House and Senate Campaign Expenditures

The Electoral System: Congressional Districts • Every 10 years, House districts must be reapportioned among the states and lines redrawn to reflect population changes • There is a lot at stake in how these lines are drawn, as voters can be aggregated within certain districts so as to give an advantage to one political party; this is called gerrymandering

Changing Apportionment of House Seats by Region

Problems of Legislative Organization Cooperation among many members is difficult for several reasons: – Matching influence and interest: each member has particular priorities but only one vote on each issue – Imperfect information: legislators cannot be experts on every policy area – Compliance: monitoring legislative deals and legislative outcomes requires collective effort

Legislative Organization: Parties • Members organize themselves into party coalitions in the House and Senate called a caucus (Democrats) or a conference (Republicans) • Members choose leadership (Speaker, Majority Leader, Minority Leader, Whips) • Members empower party leaders to influence the agenda and manage legislation

Legislative Organization: Committees • Members are also organized into standing committees divided by policy jurisdiction • There are similar jurisdictional committees in the House and Senate • Committees have – Gatekeeping authority—the right to decide if a change in policy will be considered – Proposal power—the capacity to bring a proposal before the chamber

Legislative Organization: Committees (Table)

Legislative Organization: Staffers and Agencies • Each member of Congress has a large staff that provides assistance on everything from writing legislation to correspondence with constituents • Committees have staff • Congress has also created staff agencies like CRS, GAO, and CBO to provide nonpartisan policy advice to members

Clicker Question 3 Which of the following institutions serves as a solution to Congress’s collective action problems? A. party leadership B. committees C. congressional staffers D. All of these are correct.

Clicker Question 3 (Answer) Which of the following institutions serves as a solution to Congress’s collective action problems? A. party leadership B. committees C. congressional staffers D. All of these are correct.

How a Bill Becomes a Law: Committee Deliberation • Bills must first be introduced by a member of Congress and referred to committee(s) • Most bills die in committee • Some are referred to a subcommittee, are amended, and are reported out to the full chamber

How a Bill Becomes a Law: Committee Deliberation Model

How a Bill Becomes a Law: Debate in the House • Bills reported out of committee first go to the Rules Committee, which determines the rules under which the bill will be debated on the floor, where the majority rules • The Rules Committee may provide – A closed rule: prohibits the introduction of amendments – An open rule: permits the addition of amendments

How a Bill Becomes a Law: Debate in the Senate • The Senate has a tradition of unlimited debate • It takes three-fifths of the Senate (60 votes) to invoke cloture (end of debate) • Recently, greater partisanship has meant that the minority frequently uses the filibuster—a delaying tactic in which senators do not allow debate to end—to kill legislation

How a Bill Becomes a Law: Reconciling Bills • To become a law, a bill must be passed in exactly the same form in both chambers • Frequently, the two chambers send the bill back and forth until one chamber passes a version passed by the other • Sometimes, a conference committee is appointed with members from each chamber to work out differences

How a Bill Becomes a Law: Presidential Action • The president may veto legislation, and Congress may only override the veto with a two-thirds vote in each chamber • Presidents generally use threat of a veto to shape legislation and try to avoid the embarrassment of having a veto overridden

How a Bill Becomes a Law

Unorthodox Lawmaking: Health Care Reform Act • Getting legislation through this long process sometimes requires unorthodox procedures • The Health Care Reform Act is a good example of this – Multiple referrals to committees – Use of reconciliation to pass changes to the bill that couldn’t overcome a filibuster

The Distributive Tendency in Congress • Building the super-majority coalitions in Congress necessary to pass legislation leads to a distributive tendency in legislation • This means that bills are frequently designed so as to distribute policy benefits as widely as possible

Clicker Question 4 Because it is very difficult to enact legislation in Congress, we tend to see A. a lot of “unorthodox lawmaking. ” B. legislative institutions that organize action. C. a distributive tendency in lawmaking. D. All of these are correct.

Clicker Question 4 (Answer) Because it is very difficult to enact legislation in Congress, we tend to see A. a lot of “unorthodox lawmaking. ” B. legislative institutions that organize action. C. a distributive tendency in lawmaking. D. All of these are correct.

How Members Decide • Constituency—members care about what constituents will think on Election Day • Interest groups—groups that educate the public, mobilize constituents, and make campaign donations • Party voting—members listen to party leaders more today than they did 50 years ago

Party Unity on the Rise

Widening Ideological Gap Between Parties in Congress

Causes of Increasing Partisanship in Congress • Greater power for party leaders – Committee assignments – Access to the floor – The whip system – Logrolling – Increasing power and visibility for the president • Gerrymandering

Beyond Legislation: Other Congressional Powers • Advice and consent (Senate only) • Ratification of treaties (Senate only) • Impeachment

Congress and the Policy Principle • The policy principle states that “political outcomes are the products of individual preferences and institutional procedures” • We have seen that individual preferences are very divergent and that institutional mechanisms have been developed in Congress to make collective action possible