Government Chapter 6 Summary PDF

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Government Chapter 6 Summary...

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Chapter 6 – Congress: The First Branch Representation  Constituency: the district making up the area from which an official is elected  Delegates: a representative who votes according to the preferences of his or her constituency  Trustee: a representative who votes based on what he or she thinks is best for his or her constituency  How members of congress represent their districts - Individual constituents  Solve problems with agencies  Provide jobs  Sponsor private bills  Sponsor appointments to service academies  Answer complaints  Provide information - Organized interests o Introduce legislation o Intervene with regulatory agencies o Obtain federal grants and contracts o Help with importing or exporting o Help in securing favorable tax status o Make promotional speeches and symbolic gestures - District as a whole o Obtain federal projects o Obtain grants and contracts that promote employment o Support policies that enhance economic prosperity, safety, cultural resources, and so on o Participate in state and regional caucuses  Legislators not only represent others; they may be representative of others as well  Agency representation: the type of representation according to which representatives are held accountable to their constituents if they fail to represent them properly. That is, constituents have the power to hire and fire their representatives  House and Senate: Differences in representation - Bicameral legislature: a legislative assembly composed of two chambers, or houses - Senate: more deliberative of the two bodies: it is the forum in which any and all ideas can receive a thorough public airing - House: more centralized and the more organized of the two bodies: it is better equipped to play a routine role in the governmental process. House Senate Minimum age of member 25 years 30 years Length of US citizenship At least 7 years At least 9 years Length of term 2 years 6 years (staggered) Number per state Depends on population: 1 per 2 per state 30000 in 1789; 1 per 630000 today constituency Tends to be local Is both local and national

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The Electoral system - 3 factors related to the American electoral system affect who gets elected and what he or she does once in office: 1) who decides to run for office and which candidates have an edge over others 2) incumbency advantage 3) the way congressional district lines are drawn can greatly affect the outcome of an election - Running for office: voters’ choices are restricted from the start by who decides to run for office - Incumbency: holding a political office for which one is running - Casework: an effort by members of congress to gain the trust and support of constituents by providing personal service. One important type of casework consists of helping constituents obtain favorable treatment from the federal bureaucracy - Patronage: the resources available to higher officials, usually opportunities to make partisan appointments to offices and confer grants, licenses, or special favors to supporters - Pork-barrel legislation: the appropriations made by legislative bodies for local projects that often are not needed but are created so that local representatives can carry their home district in the next election - Franking: under a law enacted by the 1st Congress in 1789, members of congress may send mail to their constituents free of charge to keep them informed of governmental business and public affairs. - Gerrymandering: the apportionment of voters in districts in such a way as to give unfair advantage to one political party

Problems of Legislative Organizations  Cooperation in Congress - A number of factors make cooperation difficult in congress  Because campaigns are expensive propositions, most politicians are eager to please those who can supply resources for the next campaign – campaign donors, PAC’s, important endorsers, party officials, volunteer activists  The most recent campaign – one that the politicians won – provides them with information about just why their victory was secured. It is sometimes quite difficult to sort out the myriad factors, but at the very least the politicians have a good sense of what categories of voters supported them and may be prepared to support them again if performance is adequate  Many politicians not only aim to please campaign contributors and voters but also have an agenda of their own. Whether for private gain or public good, politicians come to the legislature with policy goals of personal importance - Congress consists of a heterogeneous group of legislators, and the specific public policies that they want to pursue are thus many and varied. They may be considered from 2 perspectives: 1. Owing to their different constituencies, legislators will give priority to different realms of public policy. 2. The opinions its members hold on any given issue are diverse. - Diversity in both priorities and preferences among legislators is sufficiently abundant that the view of no group of legislators predominates  Underlying Problems and Challenges - Matching Influence and interest  Legislatures are highly egalitarian institutions. Each legislator has one vote on any issue coming before the body. Whereas a consumer has a cash budget that she may allocate

in any ways she wishes to categories of consumer goods, a legislator is not given a vote budget in quite the same sense. - Information  Legislators do not vote for outcomes directly but rather for instruments (or policies) whose effects produce outcomes  Thus legislators to vote intelligently, must know the connection between the instruments they vote for and the effects they desire  Few legislators know how the world works in very many policy domains except in the most superficial ways. - Compliance  If legislators wish to have an impact on the world around them, especially on those matters which their constituents give priority, then it is necessary to attend to policy implementation, not just policy formulation  Congress is a place in which different kinds of representatives congregate and try to accomplish things so that they may reap the support of their respective constituents back home The Organization of Congress  Party leadership and Organization in the House and the Senate - Party caucus (Democrats)/party conference (republicans): a normally closed meeting of a political or legislative group to select candidates or leaders, plan strategy, or make decisions regarding legislative matters - Speaker of the House: the chief presiding officer of the House of Representatives. The speaker is elected at the beginning of every congress on a straight party vote. He or she is the most important party and house leader - Majority leader: the elected leader of the party holding a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives or the senate. In the House, the majority leader is subordinate in the party hierarchy to the speaker - Minority leader: the elected leader of the party holding less than a majority of the seats in the House or Senate - President pro tempore: senate  a position designated in the constitution, exercises mainly ceremonial leadership; usually the majority party designates the member with the greatest seniority to serve in this capacity - Majority/minority leaders: they control the senate’s calendar or agenda for legislation  The committee System: the Core of Congress - Standing committees: a permanent legislative committee that considers legislation within its designated subject area; the basic unit of deliberation in the House and the Senate - Jurisdiction o The world of policy is partitioned into policy jurisdictions, which become the responsibility of committees. o The members of the Armed services committee for example become specialists in all aspects of military affairs, the subject matter defining their committee’s jurisdiction. - Authority o Gatekeeping authority: the right and power to decide if a change in policy will be considered o Proposal power: the capacity to bring a proposal before the full legislature o After-the-fact authority: the authority to follow up on the fate of a proposal once it has been approved by the full chamber

Conference committee: a joint committee created to work out a compromise for House and Senate versions of a piece of legislation o Oversight: the effort by congress, through hearings, investigations, and other techniques, to exercise control over the activities of executive agencies. Subcommittees o Serve in the same manner as full committees o They have gatekeeping, proposal, interchamber-bargaining, and oversight powers Hierarchy o Seniority: the priority or status ranking given to an individual on the basis of length of continuous service on a congressional committee Decisiveness on committees o Median-voter theorem: if the alternatives under consideration can be represented as points on a line, if individuals have a most-preferred point, and their preferences decrease steadily for points farther away, then the most-preferred point of the median voter can defeat any other point in a majority contest Monitoring Committees o Agency loss: the difference between what a principal would like an agent to do and the agent’s performance Committee reform o

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The Staff system: Staffers and Agencies - Staff agencies: the agencies responsible for providing congress with independent expertise, administration, and oversight capability  Informal Organization: the Caucuses - Congressional caucus: an association of members of congress based on party, interest, or social characteristics such as gender or race Rules of lawmaking: How a bill becomes a law  Committee Deliberation - Closed rule: the provision by the House Rules Committee that prohibits the introduction of amendments during debate - Open rule: the provision by the House Rules Committee that permits floor debate and the addition of amendments to a bill  Debate - Filibuster: a tactic used by members of the senate to prevent action on legislation they oppose by continuously holding the floor and speaking until the majority backs down. Once given the floor, senators have unlimited time to speak, and it requires a cloture vote of three-fifths of the senate to end a filibuster - Cloture: a rule allowing a supermajority of the members of a legislative body to set a time limit on debate over a given bill  Conference Committee: Reconciling House and senate versions of a bill - Getting a bill out of committee and through one of the houses of congress is no guarantee that it will be enacted. - If the difference cannot be worked out by passing the revised version back to the other chamber, a conference committee composed of the senior members of the committees or subcommittees that initiated the bills may be required iron differences

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Before it can be sent to the president for signing, the House-senate conference report must be approved on the floor of each chamber  Presidential action - Veto: the president’s constitutional power to turn down acts of congress within 10 days of their passage while congress is in session. A presidential veto may be overridden by a twothirds vote of each house of congress - Pocket veto: a veto that is effected when congress adjourns during the time a president has to approve a bill and the president takes no action on it.  Procedures in Congress: Regular and Unorthodox - Distributive tendency: the tendency of congress to spread the benefits of a policy over a wide range of members’ districts How Congress decides  Constituency: members of congress spend a lot of time worrying about what their constituents think because these representatives realize that their choices may be scrutinized in a future election and used as ammunition by an opposing candidate  Interest groups: when members of congress are making voting decisions, interest groups that have some connection to constituents in the districts of particular members are most likely to be influential. For this reason, interest groups with the ability to mobilize followers in many congressional districts may be especially influential in congress.  Party Discipline - Party vote: a roll-call vote in the house or senate in which at least 50 percent of the members of one party take a particular position and are opposed by at least 50 percent of the members of the other party. Party votes are less common today than they were in the nineteenth century - Roll-call vote: votes in which each legislator’s yes or no vote is recorded - Committee assignments: leaders can create debts among members by helping them get favorable committee assignments. These assignments are made early in the congressional careers of most members and ordinarily cannot be taken from them if they later balk at party discipline - The whip system: a communications network in each house of congress. Whips poll the membership to learn their intentions on specific legislative issues and assist the majority and minority leaders in various tasks - Logrolling: a legislative practice wherein reciprocal agreements are made between legislators, usually in voting for or against a bill. In contrast to bargaining, logrolling unites parties that have nothing in common but their desire to exchange support -executive agreement: an agreement between the president and another country that has the force of a treaty but does not require the senate’s “advice and consent” -impeachment: the charging of a government official (president or otherwise) with “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” and bringing him or her before congress to determine guilt...