The Congress Discussion Questions

Although there are strengths in the way the United States Congress is built to deal with issues, there are many weaknesses that counteract these strengths. Congress is a bicameral legislature that is made up of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The strengths are in the way Congress has clearly established rules. The three branches of government were created to make a separation of powers so that no one branch can be more powerful than the next; which is known as checks and balances. The clearly established rules that Congress has to follow is a major strength, and although these checks and balances are beneficial, they tend to cause many dilemmas making the contemporary Congress a relatively weak institution of American national

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.

The American government—in particular, the presidency—was in a remarkably primitive state. But Washington 's performance in those early years was both surefooted and brilliant. He went to one session of the Senate to receive its advice about a treaty but was annoyed because senators felt uncomfortable in his presence and would not debate its provisions. Washington withdrew angrily and swore he "would be damned if he went there again," thus ensuring a tradition of separation between the executive and legislative branches. Departments of

The ratification of the Constitution introduced an era marked by individualism, political discourse, and the inevitable rise of the political party system. During the 1790s, rising tensions among members of George Washington’s cabinet fueled the development of two political parties, the Democratic Republicans and Republicans. At the forefront were Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, respectively. Their divergent temperaments, views on government, and perception of each other in their individual letters to George Washington on “9 September 1792” reveal the early roots of the party system, and to an extent, political polarization.

The movie Charlie Wilson’s War sets an example of what the role of a congress member is about. In the 1980s, Charlie Wilson was a United States congressional representative from Texas and was a member of two major foreign policy and covert-ops committee. Although, he has the responsibility for representing and law making his people, Charlie was a heavy alcohol drinker, womanizer, and always throwing huge galas. Charlie considers himself a liberal, but a romantic interest as well as his strongest and major conservative supporter, Houston Socialite Joanne Herring, Wilson learns about the suffering Afghan people and going through, but also help defeat the Soviet Union. She encourages him to do more in helping the Afghan people,

When discussing the makeup of Congress, one must first look to the intent of the framers around creating a bicameral legislature. This would take me to the first section of our class regarding the debates the founding fathers had about equal representation of the states in the Congress.

Congress has the power to make new laws, change existing laws, raise and support armed forces, declare war, establish post offices, secure patents, and copyrights, collect taxes, regulate commerce, oversee the national budget and regulate other aspects of other national finances. It also has the power to investigate other branches of government, confirm presidential appointments, ratify treaties, and impeach the President and other federal officials.

The modern Congress is a reformed Congress (Shaw, 2015:2). The power of the House of Representative was held in the hand of the Speaker in the early 1900s. However, a resolution was introduced by George Norris after leading the progressive Republicans and Democrats into a revolt against Joe Cannon, the Speaker, in 1910. The power was moved to the hands of the committee chairs, which were determined by seniority, after the revolt. (Shaw, 2015:3). The seniority system was challenged in the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, a greater role was placed on the Speaker of the House and the majority party on determining the assignment of the committee chairs. Moreover, the sub-committees had also become more important in the legislature. Later in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the wages of the Congress members and the number of staff had increased as a result of becoming more “professionalized”. The franking privilege, the privilege of sending certain matter

Today, 27 million slaves exist in the world. Many think slavery ended in 1865, but slavery has been going on forever. Not just 27 million people live in slavery; it is estimated more than 4.5 million are trapped in forced sexual exploitation globally (“Sex Trafficking in the U.S….”). In 1850, the height of slavery in the Americas for the production of tobacco and cotton, the United States Census showed 3 million slaves included in the population (DeBow 82). Most know about the 3 million slaves that once existed in the United States, but the current 27 million remain unknown to most. Those 27 million are hidden in the shadows of brothels, factories, rock quarries, and massage parlors; if the United States does not do something about it now,

The President executive branch, is the commander in chief so in turn has full control over the military. However the Congress legislative branch, controls the budget and grants the funds the president needs This way the Congress can limit the President by limiting funds, this goes to all agencies that the President control. The Congress also approves most of the nominations for president, , but the President may veto their legislation. The Congress can pass over the Presidents veto, however it would be the agencies controlled by the President that would imply and execute the laws created by Congress. This way every party has some means to work with the other and so cooperation and compromise is the only way for the government to operate.

The publics low approval of Congress is influenced by how superficial and negative the media coverage is- focusing on scandals, rivalry, and conflict rather than complex issues like policy.

Roger Davidson discussed his concepts of constitutional arrangements, the legislative presidency, the elements of coalition building, and patterns of inter-branch control. In regards to constitutional arrangements, Rogers argues that the constitution’s writers devoted Article 1 to the legislative branch. Congress is granted an awesome array of powers, embracing most of the government functions known to 18th century thinkers. Rogers sates that congress’s prerogatives embrace the historic parliamentary power of the purse in addition to sweeping supervision over money and currency, interstate and foreign commerce and defense policies, traditional prerogatives of the crown. Additionally, congress is charged with declaring War, ratifying treaties,

Evans (2007) infers that the affluent antiquity of the U.S. presidency is confused with illustrations of presidents endeavoring to practice their influence through this apparatus. The initially archived utilization of the signing statement is when President Monroe issued an announcement to ensure his presidential privilege. Be that as it may, the instrument did not turn into a generally utilized vital weapon until the Reagan organization had the capacity to get it included into the administrative history (Kelley 2007). Kelley

The history of Congressional power from 1890 to present day has varied from strong individuals, to strong committees. From 1890 to about 1910 the speaker would heavily influence the House of Representatives. Speakers had the power to appoint the committees to chairs, and had control of legislative agenda’s. But in 1910, a revolt had happened against Speaker Joe Cannon. Power shifted to the committees whose leaders were based on seniority. From the 1920’s to the 1970’s party influence was very weak and this was known as the era of committee government. Beginning in the 1970’s preferences of the party and its members became more similar. They did not have to be as concerned with the leader’s preferences, because it would