How Is Congress Centralized

The US federal legislature is bicameral, therefore it consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and in theory they should both be of equal power. However, in reality it is the Senate which is considered to hold the most power, although there are arguments to in favour of them having equal rights. In order to reach a balanced judgement I will consider both sides of the argument, beginning with the claim that the Senate is more powerful than the House of Representatives.

This written report is appertaining to the book How Congress Works and Why You Should Care, written by Lee H. Hamilton. This book is published by Indiana University Press in Bloomington, IL, it was copyrighted in 2004 by the publisher.

In this essay, I will be writing about how the power relationship between the United States Congress and the presidency has changed during the past two hundred years. I will be talking about how the executive branch is more powerful than the legislative branch and how the changing relationship between Congress and the president affected American democracy in a good way.

Throughout history, there have been many factors that seem to have influenced the operations of Congress. Some of these factors have been the committee system, seniority, and political parties. These are only a few of the factors that actually have an influence on Congress’s decisions of certain operations.

Congress is a complex lawmaking function that runs the country. In other words is the legislative body of our country made up of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Difficulties that are involved by the representation function have to do with Congressmen wanting to be reelected, opposition between the two parties, and the lobbying that takes place. These three difficulties are what causes the conflict with the lawmaking function of Congress.

In Federalist 51, Madison suggests that in order to maintain liberty, a government must be structured in such a way that it can control the governed, while obliging it to control itself (28). This control was built into the Constitution through an “internal structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places” (Madison, “Federalist 51” 27). This division of power is necessary for a society to have liberty because it allows for a means of constraining the ability of an individual or faction to gain enough power to oppress. Pitting the different branches against one another ensures that a multiplicity of interests and factions will be represented and therefore none will be able to monopolize the power. The concentration of power into a single representative, the president, threatens our liberty and democracy by eliminating this essential safeguard.

Mentioning that by looking to satisfy ones own constituents, they are doing what is asked of a representative. Feno then goes on to talk about comities focusing more on the House. He states that there are two kinds of committees, "committees which its members wish to pyramid their influence and therefore maintain their influence of their committee in the house" and committees were members are interested in national recognition (388). He defends the seniority rule which is used as a determining factors when choosing a committee chair and often is criticized. He says that although he does not see it as the best way of determining importance, it is not the biggest problem with committees, and often the committee majority is responsible for many of the problems.

Members of Congress are voted to office by their electorate as their representatives at the congress level of democracy. In their capacity, they may decide to exercise their powers by the will of the people or according to their personal judgment. When the members of Congress opt to be the people’s delegate, their actions in the House and other congressional engagements are a reflection of the will of their district. As such, the delegate representative does not have or exercise the autonomy to represent and decide for their district. Instead, a strenuous consultation process is required to keep the people in control of all relevant decisions.

Federalist 51 mentions that “the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for the inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches.” Keeping this idea in mind, it is the reason why the legislative branch is divided into the House of Representatives and the Senate. By dividing the legislative branch, Congress assures that too many individuals do not control one large portion of the government and that the legislative branch works with more efficiency without too many conflicting opinions. Additionally, in the Judiciary branch, the author explains that “some deviations [from absolute democracy] must be admitted.” The exception is necessary because according the Hamilton or Madison, the branch needs specific qualifications in order to elect essential members and that the position must be permanent so that it combat all dependence on authority. This concept sets up the process by which Supreme Court justices are put into power today where the president appoints a judge to serve for life or until the judge chooses to retire. Moreover, the article proposes the design that the overall government itself should be split into two sections, the federal and state level. This so that the state government can adhere to the values of its individual populations while the federal government lays down the general guidelines so that the state government’s values does not exploit the citizen’s natural

[The Great Compromise was made in the Constitutional convention and they decided to split the branch into House and Senate so that the house help the bigger States and the senate helps the smaller States. Doc D shows how congress was made by the house and the Senate and how the house a representative was based on the state's population[.According to Doc D “Representatives shall be appointed... according…( population)... The senate of the United States shall become posed of two senators from each state”. This quote shows how the House of Representatives is based on the state's population and how each state gets two senators to represent them. *This quote shows how the Constitution guard against tyranny because they would always be equal and the Constitution will protect small states and limit the power of the bigger states.

(Dalpe Discussion 4). Their power is still abundant, but it is more balanced with the centralization of the speaker of the house. It is possible to strike a balance between the extreme of Canon's centralization, and the post-canon baron committee chair decentralization system, and the answer is not to remove committees as they have a necessary role in

Prior to 1816, there was no standing committees in our political system. From 1789 to 1816 we had what was called temporary select committees. Originally, the select committees were established to allow Members to discuss particular pieces of statutes on behalf of the Committee of the whole. The first committee’s purpose was to draw up Senate rules of procedure. In the first session, committees usually consisted of only three members that worked on routine business and five members that worked on more important issues. One of the largest committee

After reviewing Figure 6.1 Congress receives a low confidence rating as a result of multiple dilemmas. Congress works less and gets paid more, they do not listen to what we want because to them the masses ideas do not matter to the people placed in congress. There is collection of 535 political entrepreneurs operating within a system with special interest, money. They are slow to act responsively which lends the citizens to feel that they are no longer a leadership body. Delegates are constantly in gridlock, furthering the hypothesis that congress is impractical.

The United States Congressional/Presidential system has Congress as the central power and is referred to as a singular form of governance with its own particular characteristics, whereas the parliamentarian system is governed by Cabinet Ministry. There is a definitive contrast illustrated between these two systems. One of them being as the “administration by semi-independent executive agents who obey the dictation of a legislature to which they are not responsible” and another one as being the “administration be executive agents who are accredited leaders and accountable servants of a legislature” that are dominant in all things.

The separation of powers is based on the assumptions that there would be a balance of power and an equal distribution of information. Those assumptions are no longer valid. First, Congress’ increasing polarization has weakened that body and unbalanced the separation of powers. Its’ newfound inefficiencies create a power vacuum that must be filled. Second, globalization has had a tremendous domestic impact. As foreign affairs and domestic policies increasingly come together, the executive’s information monopoly in foreign affairs affords it a decision-making advantage Congress cannot match. Finally, a self-reinforcing cycle means the rise of a strong executive is all but inevitable. The resolution should be affirmed, as its result would be more effective and more informed decision-making.