Congress, the Committees, and the House V.S. the Senate Essay

It would be as foolish to assume that a committee can know and understand a full piece of legislation as it would be to assume that individual members of Congress would. For this purpose, subcommittees are formed. Subcommittees are a further delegation of tasking within the review of legislation. Valerie Heitshusen, an analyst on Congress wrote, “Most committees form subcommittees to share specific tasks within the jurisdiction of the full Committee” (Committee Types and Roles 3). Subcommittees are expected to present their finding on their assigned area of a bill. They, along with experts (witnesses) testify before the full committee on their findings. After the full committee considers the subcommittees’ findings, a vote is taken as to whether or not the bill goes to the chamber.

Being a part of Congress is one of the most powerful political positions in America. Congress is made up of the House of Representative and Senate for a grand total of 535 members. While that may not give give an individual power, it gives the large group so much power to do many things and even override the president on certain occasions. Most decisions they make need a ⅔ vote from the group. Congress many other powers, maybe too much power. Congress has too much power because of its expressed powers, implied/inherent powers, and its “voting powers”.

The United States Congress is made up of two chambers the House of Representatives and the Senate. All together there are 485 congress people that come together to alter current laws or suggest new legislation. They are required to meet once per year on January 3 by the US Constitution, but they come together much more often than that. Their sessions can last months if the topic is very controversial. US legislation is slow and at times painfully inefficient. In order to make new legislation, the Congress has to go through a long process of getting a majority in the house as well as the Senate, and even after all that the President still has to approve of the bill in question. An example of this is the Healthcare bill that Barack Obama successfully passed in during his first term as President. He had to fight in order to get the reform passed, persuade the members of Congress that his bill should even be considered, and after all that the Supreme Court almost ruled that the legislation was unconstitutional. The US Congress is a headache on its best day. The system is set up to create gridlock and for the past 200 years it has works.

Congress is the legislative branch of our national government and shares power with the president as well as the Supreme Court. It has five fundamental functions, which include lawmaking, helping constituents, performing oversight, and educating the public,

The purpose of the legislative committee is to come up with a compromise when a bill is proposed to the Senate and House of Representatives. They decide if they go through with a bill or they don’t or if they need to make amendments to the bill and compromise with each other. There is a standing committee which is a permanent selection of people that has legislative jurisdiction they consider bills and issues then recommend any changes that they see need to be made. They have a responsibility to monitor agencies, programs and activities that are within their jurisdictions. The standing committees recommend funding levels, authorization for the government operations and for new and existing programs. The second committee is a select committee;

Stemming from a loose interpretation of the Constitution – and specifically the necessary and proper clause -- congressional oversight is one of many enumerated powers bestowed upon Congress per Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. As the legislative body, Congress is charged with overseeing the inner workings of the Executive Branch and its federal agencies as a part of a system of checks and balances. However, as previously mentioned, this power is one of the implied powers of Congress, thus making it very difficult for many to delineate rightful oversight from reckless meandering. In the Constitution, for example, there is no singular mention of a definitive power such as “congressional oversight.” Consequently, there is no

Committees and Campaign Promises The Texas House of Representatives serves a key role throughout the law-making process, but who exactly decides what bills pass or do not pass? Well, that is where things start to get complicated as there are various departments that must approve each bill before it is passed. Any congress member can propose a bill, but then it must be assigned to the proper committee for further evaluation. According to Ross Ramsey with the Texas Tribune, only about 23 percent of Texas bills get passed as 1,726 out of 7,419 bills were passed in 2009. That means that as a legislator, one must choose to serve the committees that best suits their

Congress functioned as a legislative body to pass laws and executive body to enforce them if needed.

An important point made in Weissert and Weissert concerning Congress and its committee structure is that the majority of the work in Congress is done through committees. They perform the majority of research on issues and possible solutions, get legislation written, re-written and amended, and support it as it moves through Congress and finally gets passed. They are the “workhorses of the legislature” (Weissert and Weissert, 29).

Congress retains a number of special powers. It can act as a judicial body to impeach and try a president or other civil officer for misconduct. For example, the House of Representatives impeaches the official and Senate does a trial. Congress is also empowered to create and use administrative agencies and boards, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to determine facts and to enforce its

If we go back in time Congress was doing good job. According to the book “The Broken Branch How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track” By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, earlys of 1820s, House and Senate were working together to process legislation. Most of 19th century, the Congress dominated policymaking maintain their privilege. I believe it in the late of 1950s the Congress was being controlled by independent people. By then there were not

A member of congress is split between making decision on-behalf of the two constituents that he serves: those at home and his colleagues within congress (Fenno sources). He cannot be at two places at once, nor equally impact the lives of both constituents. He has the option to be accountable to the demands/policy interest of, either, his home constituents or those on the Hill (Fenno).

Congress does something called redistricting which is a process of redrawing congressional districts to reflect the changes in population. Congress will also do something called gerrymandering this is when state voting district lines are drawn along partisan lines in an attempt to obtain a specific election result. While in office Congressional members are required to work long hours and hard. A typical day for a member of congress starts at 5 am and may end at 11

Committees can be made up of 20 to 50 representatives (Wasserman, 2015. p.104). Committees help the Senate and House to deal with more issues and go through them quickly by breaking them off into assigned groups for reviewing and decision over what to do with the bill. By doing this, Committees do most of the work of the House and the Senate. According to Wasserman (2015) committees are, “vital for creating legislation and providing specialized instruments for doing Congress’s business” (p.92).

The module goes on to address the changes made in the Congressional committee system. Committees are an integral part of our Congressional system without them in place the 435 members of the House and the 100 members of the Senate would be severely hindered in doing their job. Committees have been used in the Congress since the beginning at first the committees were ad hoc bodies put together to address issues and then reported back to their specific bodies as time went by permanent standing committees were formed. Over time members built careers within committees building seniority and power. “By the turn of the century, seniority had become such an iron-clad formula that in both House and Senate party leaders’ real discretion in committee assignments was limited primarily to new members.” (Loomis/Schiller p 156) The power amassed by committee chairmen began to rival party leadership and stifle junior members of committees. Both parties recognized that too much power rested with the chairpersons of committees and worked to place limits on this power and return it party leadership. The Democrat reforms occurred from 1959-1975 and included limiting the number of chairs a member could hold and fixed jurisdiction of subcommittees among other steps. The Republican changes reduced the number of staff personnel and did away with