About CQ
Objective. Non-Partisan. Authoritative
Congressional Quarterly Inc. has been the nation's leader in political journalism since 1945. Over that time, the company has built a peerless reputation for objective, non-partisan and authoritative reporting on Congress and politics. Today, CQ stands on the leading edge of information companies publishing in both online and print platforms.
CQ has the largest press corps covering Capitol Hill. More than 150 reporters, editors and researchers keep subscribers informed on weekly, daily and real-time news cycles. In addition, CQ is the leader in legislative tracking. It offers a robust suite of fully integrated online services that includes bill coverage, schedules, CRS reports, government documents, member information, transcripts and more.
CQ is primarily a subscription-based publisher whose clients include members of Congress; leaders in the executive branch, business, nonprofit organizations and government affairs shops; and top academic institutions and media outlets. CQ also publishes a free political site, CQ Politics, which serves up a unique, compelling perspective on politics and campaigns.
Further, the nation's leading corporations, trade associations and advocacy organizations are also regular advertisers. They leverage CQ products to get their message in front of Congress and the policy-making community. A sister publication, GOVERNING magazine, has become the publication of choice for leaders and administrators in state and local government.
Congressional Quarterly is a unique company in a world of media conglomerates and newspaper chains. As a private, for-profit organization, CQ is a wholly owned affiliate of the Times Publishing Co., which publishes the St. Petersburg Times of Florida. TPC is owned by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit school for journalists in St. Petersburg named in honor of CQ's founder, Nelson Poynter.
CQ's Executive Team
President & Editor-in-Chief: Bob Merry
Robert W. Merry, publishing executive and author, is President and Editor-in-Chief of Congressional Quarterly Inc., the Washington-based publisher of news and information on Congress, politics and public policy. During 10 years as CQ’s CEO, Merry has earned a reputation as a pioneer in the development of web journalism and has addressed audiences on the topic throughout the country. He has more than doubled CQ’s revenue and increased staff by 50 percent at a time when many news organizations are in retrenchment.
Merry is the author of Taking On the World: Joseph and Stewart Alsop -- Guardians of the American Century (Viking, 1996). The New York Times called it a “rich and fascinating book....a sensitive portrait, executed with...critical acumen.” It won an Ambassador Award from the New York-based English Speaking Union. More recently, Merry wrote a foreign policy assessment entitled Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition (Simon & Schuster, 2005).
Merry holds a bachelor’s degree in editorial journalism from the University of Washington, where he served as editor of the campus Daily and won two major awards for student journalism.
Following Army service as a language-qualified counterespionage agent in West Germany, he received a master’s degree from Columbia University‘s Graduate School of Journalism. He holds a prestigious Alumni Award from the school’s Alumni Association.
In 1974, after a two-year stint at the Denver Post, Merry became a national political correspondent for the now-defunct National Observer, a Dow Jones newspaper. In 1977, he moved to the Washington bureau of The Wall Street Journal, where he spent nine years covering national politics, Congress, economic issues, and the Reagan White House. He also made numerous appearances on public-affairs television programs, including Meet the Press, Face the Nation, CNN’s Newsmakers, Good Morning America and C-SPAN.
Merry joined CQ in 1987 as Managing Editor and in 1990 was promoted to Executive Editor. He became CEO in January 1997. He also sits on the boards of directors of CQ and its parent company, Times Publishing Co. of St. Petersburg, Fla. He is a board member of the Washington-based Software and Information Industry Association.
Mr. Merry lives with his wife, Susan, in McLean, Virginia.
Publisher & Senior Vice President: Keith White
Keith White is the General Manager of Congressional Quarterly's professional publishing division, managing marketing, advertising and circulation sales, product development, human resources and financial services for the company. Mr. White brings over 15 years experience as a writer, editor and business executive in online and print publishing. Prior to joining CQ in 2001, Mr. White was Vice President of Publishing and Product Development for LexisNexis, where he ran two business units and product development for the $1.5 billion news, legal and public records business. Mr. White has also held sales, marketing, product management and editorial positions with The Washington Post, America Online, and Reader's Digest, and has launched some 30 new products with incremental revenues of over $100 million.
Mr. White's writing has appeared in numerous national publications, including The Washington Monthly, Utne Reader, and Reader's Digest. He is co-founder of a literary journal that was anthologized in a book published by W.W. Norton and Co in 1997. Mr. White holds a B.A. in English literature from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, where he was a Batten Fellow.
Editor & Senior Vice President: Michael Riley
As editor and senior vice president of Congressional Quarterly, Michael Riley oversees the company’s journalistic enterprises, including its online operation, CQ.com, and its print publications, CQ Today and CQ Weekly.
Before joining CQ, Riley served most recently as editor of The Roanoke (Va.) Times, a newspaper that gained national recognition for its innovative approach to online journalism. He began his journalism career in 1981 as a newspaper reporter at The Dispatch in Lexington, N.C., and then spent a decade as a senior correspondent and bureau chief for TIME magazine. While at the magazine, Riley covered national politics and several presidential campaigns.
In the early 1990s, Riley became intrigued by the emergence of digital technology and the Internet. In 1994, he was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard and used his time there to learn more about the forces that were beginning to transform the industry. A year later, Riley was tapped to lead a TIME-CNN venture to create a Web site, allpolitics.com, which became one of the nation’s first comprehensive political Internet sites.
In the 1980s, Riley received a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he studied politics and economics. He earned his undergraduate degree in English from Wake Forest University.
Born in New Jersey, Riley grew up in Charlotte, N.C. He and his wife, Arline, have two daughters and live in Arlington, Va.
Press Releases
Archives
2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001
12/03/2008:
CQ Reporter Jonathan Allen Wins Dirksen Award For Distinguished Reporting On Congress
Award is a Record Eighth for Congressional Quarterly
11/25/2008:
Congressional Quarterly Acquires Voxant’s Broadcast Transcripts Media Assets
11/24/2008:
CQ Politics Announces Key Appointments, Launches New Blog
Katherine Rizzo named executive editor; Adriel Bettelheim becomes new White House correspondent
11/14/2008:
Congressional Quarterly Acquires TrendTRACK
11/03/2008:
CQ Advertising Announces Strategic Hires and Key Promotions
Holly Maine, Emily Akhtarzandi join CQ; Constance Witherspoon promoted to manage events
10/30/2008:
Comprehensive Election ’08 Coverage and Features
10/29/2008:
Congressional Quarterly and the Public Affairs Council to Host CQ’s Election Impact 2008 Conference
Keynote address by Mark Shields, PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
10/08/2008:
CQ Politics Launches “11 Issues For The Next President,” Interactive “Cabinet Maker”
“11 Issues for the Next President” highlights the critical issues facing the incoming president; “Cabinet Maker” injects a dose of interactive fun by letting readers build the next president’s cabinet
09/17/2008:
CQ BillTrack Mobile Delivers On-the-Go Legislative Tracking
Comprehensive legislative tracking now fully optimized for use with Web-enabled handheld devices
09/17/2008:
PolitiFact Wins 2008 Knight-Batten Award for Excellence in Journalism
St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly collaboration wins Special Distinction Award
08/25/2008:
CQ to Provide Unrivaled Coverage of the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions
Offers the hottest breaking convention news, schedules and commentary in both print and online
08/08/2008:
CQ Politics Launches 2008 Election Forecasts For All 50 States
New series features state-by-state race ratings and analysis of the presidential race and competitive congressional contests
07/23/2008:
Congressional Quarterly Wins Mark Logic Innovation Award Acknowledging “Stellar Best Practices”
07/07/2008:
CQ Forum On Technology: Privacy in the Digital Age
06/27/2008:
CQ Politics Launches New Blog: SpyTalk
New blog penned by Jeff Stein provides daily “Intelligence to Thinking People”
06/23/2008:
CQ's Jonathan Allen Wins Hume Award for Excellence in Political Journalism
06/18/2008:
CQ Forum Presents Summit Results on Livable Communities
CQ to deliver findings of four-part summit series sponsored by AARP
06/13/2008:
Victoria Lion Monroe Named Associate Publisher, Vice President of Advertising for CQ
06/05/2008:
CQ Politics Launches Interactive Game, VP Madness (Democratic Edition)
New “bracketology” feature lets users pick Obama’s running mate; follows on the success of the popular GOP Edition
06/03/2008:
CQ Forum on Health: Innovations in Cancer Research
Discussion Sponsored by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Advocacy Alliance
05/30/2008:
SAGE Acquires CQ Press, Book-Publishing Unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc.
05/20/2008:
Congressional Quarterly Launches CQ Floor Video
CQ Floor Video brings multimedia to legislative tracking
05/14/2008:
Governing Presents an AARP Summit on Livable Communities
Keynote remarks by John Hoeven, governor of North Dakota
05/13/2008:
CQ to Present Forum on America's Infrastructure
05/12/2008:
Beth Bronder to Become Publisher of GOVERNING
Mark Stencel to assume the newly created position of editor and deputy publisher
05/01/2008:
CQ Politics Launches Interactive Game, VP Madness (GOP Edition)
New feature lets users pick McCain's running mate
04/28/2008:
CQ Race Ratings Shows How Democratic Presidential Fight May Aid Republican Congressional Campaigns
Week-long coverage on CQ Politics and district-by-district and state-by-state assessments in April 28 issue of CQ Weekly
04/17/2008:
CQ to Present Forum on Energy and Environment -- Fueling the Future of Transportation
04/15/2008:
CQ's Catharine Richert Named Best Overall Writer by NAAJ
04/09/2008:
CQ Announces Enhancements to Key Sites in its Legislative Tracking Service
CQ TranscriptsWire and CQ Schedules upgraded to provide expanded coverage, improved functionality
04/08/2008:
CQ Politics Launches "Beyond the Dome" Blog by David Nather
New political blog examines the White House race through the lens of Congress
03/07/2008:
St. Petersburg Times and CQ's Politifact.com Wins Edgie Award for Best Overall News Site
PolitiFact tops washingtonpost.com and StarTribune.com as best large-newspaper site
03/03/2008:
Taegan Goddard's Political Insider to Be Published on CQ Politics
Creator of one of the first and most influential political blogs joins esteemed team of analysts
02/04/2008:
CQ Budget Tracker to Provide In-Depth Coverage of the President's Proposed 2009 Federal Budget
01/28/2008:
CQ to Present Forum on Housing and Energy
Senator Thomas Carper slated to deliver keynote
01/03/2008:
Times Publishing Co. Announces Plans to Sell CQ Press, Unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc.
01/02/2008:
CQ Politics Launches 2008 Primary Guide
Dynamic interactive guide a must for primary watchers
More About CQ Weekly
Our flagship publication, CQ Weekly was founded in 1945 to provide comprehensive and unbiased reporting on Congress.
Over the years, CQ Weekly has evolved to fit changing times and meet the new desires and demands of our readers, while always staying true to its original mission.
Available in print or online, it’s no wonder that nearly 80% of CQ Weekly subscribers say the publication is their single-most important source for objective information regarding legislation and public policy issues facing Congress.
Every issue of CQ Weekly—in print or online—features:
Vantage Point. Quick-read analyses of emerging trends in government, commerce and politics.
In Focus. In-depth coverage of public policy developments across the governmental spectrum, from Congress to the White House to the Supreme Court.
Cover Story. A weekly cover story on major issues unfolding on Capitol Hill, K Street, or at the White House, with a special focus on their impact on the legislative process.
Columns. A fresh perspective on national issues with an insider’s insight on public-policy implications.
Weekly Report. The week’s legislative news, including “Box Scores” and detailed information on bills, amendments and votes.
For the Record. A comprehensive review of all bills up for vote in the Senate and the House during the previous week.
More About CQ Today
CQ Today delivers unparalleled coverage and analysis from the floor, committee markups, hearings and more.
Start each Monday with a forward-looking issue that previews the legislative week to help you plan ahead and ensure you don’t miss critical information.
The most comprehensive daily publication on congressional activity, CQ Today in print is hand-delivered in Washington by 7 a.m. each day Congress is in session and is also available in PDF format.
CQ Today on CQ.com is continually updated throughout the day as news breaks on Capitol Hill so you never miss an important story.
You can also elect to receive CQ Today Extra, a late-afternoon e-mail that provides an updated preview of tomorrow’s schedules on Capitol Hill.
Further, you can create custom e-mail alerts that notify you when there is congressional action on the issues that matter to you.
Regular features of CQ Today include:
Today at a Glance. A quick look at the day’s scheduled House and Senate floor and committee actions, news events and more.
Pulse of Congress. An insider’s briefing on the players and activities of both chambers.
People on the Move. Job changes on and off the Hill.
Daybook. The most comprehensive calendar of important events on and off Capitol Hill, with a description of the event, key speakers, agenda, and the name, date and location.
More About CQ Budget Tracker
Providing in-depth news, expert analysis and an array of real-source documents, CQ Budget Tracker delivers rich content that keeps you on top of federal spending.
CQ Budget Tracker offers:
Original reporting on budget issues, as well as feeds from CQ Today and CQ Weekly to keep you in the know.
Fact sheets and conference report summaries prior to floor action, so that you’re always prepared.
Budget information on federal agencies and programs.
Extensive news and analysis on each appropriations bill.
Agency and congressional summaries and briefs.
Coverage of congressional hearings and committee markups, including transcripts and conference action.
Draft versions of bills and reports.
Bill pages are organized by appropriations subject area so that House and Senate bills appear on a single page. View real-time updates on a bill’s status, know whether it is moving or has stalled, and see funding differences between House and Senate versions.
Amendments
Amendments are proposals to alter or rewrite legislation being considered by Congress. The amending process provides a way to shape bills into a form acceptable to a majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives.
The process of amending legislation has three aspects. First, it is one of the chief functions of the legislative committees of Congress. Second, it is at the heart of floor debate in both chambers. Third, it is vital to working out compromises on bills during House-Senate conference negotiations. (See Legislative Process.)
Amendments have many objectives. Members may introduce amendments to dramatize their stands on issues, even if there is little chance that their proposals will be adopted. Some amendments are introduced at the request of the executive branch, a member's constituents, or special interests. Some become tools for gauging sentiment for or against a bill. Some may be used as “sweeteners” to broaden support for the underlying measure. Others are used to stall action on or to defeat legislation. In the House, where debate is strictly limited, amendments may be used to buy time; a member may offer a pro forma amendment, later withdrawn, solely to gain a few additional minutes to speak on an issue.
Amendments themselves are frequently the targets of other amendments offered by members having different points of view. The amending process becomes the arena for a struggle among these diverse viewpoints. At times, amendments become the most controversial elements in a bill.
Some amendments take on an identity of their own, regardless of the legislation to which they are attached. The Hyde amendment, a proposal to ban federal funding for abortions, is a classic example. Its sponsor, Rep. Henry J. Hyde, an Illinois Republican, touched off an emotional battle when he first offered his amendment in the 1970s. The amendment became widely known and variations of it were still being attached to legislation decades later.
In Committee
Legislation comes under its sharpest congressional scrutiny at the committee stage. Typically a bill first undergoes section-by-section review and amendment by a specialized subcommittee, a process known as “marking up” the measure. Occasionally the subcommittee may approve the legislation unaltered, but it is more likely to amend the bill or even to substitute an entirely new version. The legislation then goes to the full committee, where the process may be repeated. The committee may accept the subcommittee amendments with little or no change, or it may make additional amendments.
If the changes are substantial and the legislation is complicated, the committee may introduce a “clean bill” incorporating the proposed amendments. The original bill is then put aside and the clean bill, with a new bill number, is reported to the full chamber. If committee amendments are not extensive, the original bill is “reported with amendments.” Later, when the bill comes up on the floor, the House or Senate must approve, alter, or reject the committee amendments before the bill itself can be put to a vote.
On the Floor
During floor action members may seek to change the intent, conditions, or requirements of a bill; modify, delete, or introduce provisions; or replace a section or the entire text of a bill with a different version. A member may offer an amendment that is entirely unrelated to the bill under consideration. Such an amendment, called a rider, is much more common in the Senate than in the House.
All these attempts to alter legislative proposals involve one of three basic types of amendments: those that seek to add text, those that seek to substitute alternative language for some or all of the existing text, and those that seek to delete some or all of the existing text.
Amendments that seek to revise or modify parts of bills or other amendments are called perfecting amendments. Substitute amendments aim to replace previously introduced, or pending, amendments with alternatives. A variation of the substitute, referred to as an “amendment in the nature of a substitute,” seeks to replace the pending bill with an entirely new version.
Although the rules are interpreted somewhat differently in the House and Senate, both chambers prohibit the offering of amendments past the “second degree.” An amendment offered to the text of a bill is a first-degree amendment. An amendment to that amendment is a second-degree amendment and is also in order. But an amendment to an amendment to an amendment—a third-degree amendment—is not permissible. The rule, simply laid out in Jefferson's Manual in the late 1700s, is more complex than it sounds because the two chambers differ in how they interpret first- and second-degree amendments. While there are usually only four amendments pending at the same time in the House, there can be more in the Senate.
Through use of amendments, members of Congress add their imprint to legislation. Here in a House Appropriations Committee meeting, Frank Wolf, R-Va., offers the Hyde amendment to legislation dealing with funding Medicare managed care plans. (Source: Scott J. Ferrell, Congressional Quarterly.)
Generally speaking, bills in the House are considered section by section, with floor amendments in order only to the section of the bill then being considered. In the Senate amendments usually are in order to any section at any time, unless such practices are prohibited by unanimous consent. It is a basic concept of the amending process that once an amendment has been rejected, it may not be offered again in precisely the same form (although sometimes another vote can be forced on the same amendment).
Committee amendments—those made by the committee that reported the bill—normally are considered before amendments introduced from the floor. However, committee amendments themselves are subject to floor amendments. Both chambers vote on second-degree amendments before voting on first- degree amendments, although the precise order varies from House to Senate because of their differing interpretations of the rules.
In Conference
Legislation cannot go to the president for signature until both chambers of Congress approve it in identical form. Differences between House and Senate versions of a bill—called “amendments in disagreement”—can be resolved in one of three ways: one chamber may simply accept the other chamber's amendments; amendments may move back and forth between the two chambers until both agree; or a conference committee may be convened.
When a bill goes to conference, the compromises that are reached are incorporated in a conference report, on which each chamber votes as a whole. But sometimes House and Senate conferees are unable to reach agreement on every difference in a bill sent to conference. Amendments still in disagreement must be resolved separately in each chamber once the conference report itself has been adopted. The bill will fail unless the two chambers reach compromises on all amendments in disagreement or agree to drop them altogether.
Conferees generally are able to reach agreement, and Congress approves the bill. On occasion there are irreconcilable disagreements over content, but the more typical disagreement is a technical one. This occurs when conferees reach agreement on their differences but the rules of one chamber— usually the House—prohibit its conferees from accepting certain provisions added by the other chamber. This occurs when the Senate adds unrelated, or nongermane, amendments to legislation passed by the House; when legislative provisions are added to appropriations bills; or when entirely new provisions are added by conferees. Such amendments are reported in “technical disagreement.” In the past, these amendments would not be included in the body of the conference report and the House would vote on them separately. But after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, the House leadership worked to avoid
the problem altogether by having the Rules Committee issue rules that waived points of order, or challenges, raised against such amendments, which were now included in the report itself.
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Document Citation
"Amendments." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8929-500912. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8929-500912 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8929-500912
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For More Information
Please see Committee Amendment Text.
Budget Process: Focus on Congress
Since the mid-1970s Congress has used a budget process to determine government spending requirements, decide how to pay for them, and examine the relationship between spending and revenues. The process requires legislators to set overall goals for government spending and revenues—and then to tailor their actions to meet those goals. Congress makes many of its most difficult policy decisions during this exercise.
The budget process is a cyclical activity that starts early each year when the president sends budget proposals to Capitol Hill. The president's budget lays out priorities for the fiscal year that will begin October 1. Before Congress adjourns for the year, the Senate and House of Representatives will have created their own budget and provided the money needed to carry it out.
Negotiations with the White House may narrow the differences between the two plans, but the congressional budget is likely to differ in important respects from that proposed by the president.
Lawmakers set their own priorities, deciding how much the government should spend and on what, whom to tax and by how much, and what gap should be allowed between spending and revenues. These decisions often bring Congress into sharp conflict with the president.
Beginnings
Through most of its history Congress acted piecemeal on tax bills and spending bills; it had no way of assessing their impact on the federal budget as a whole. Although the Constitution entrusted Congress with the power of the purse, primary control over budget policy passed to the executive branch.
Congress first conferred budget-making authority on the president in passing the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. That law required the president to submit to Congress each year a budget detailing actual spending and revenues in the previous fiscal year, estimates for the year in progress, and the administration's proposals for the year ahead. The law also created a Bureau of the Budget (renamed the Office of Management and Budget in 1970) to assist the president.
Congress was not bound by the president's recommendations. It could provide more or less money for particular programs than the president requested, and it could change tax laws to draw in more or less revenue. But half a century went by before lawmakers began drawing up their own comprehensive budget plans.
Budget Act of 1974
The congressional budget process grew out of fights over spending control in the 1970s. Angered by President Richard Nixon's refusal to spend money it had appropriated—a practice known as impoundment of funds—Congress decided to set up its own budget system. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 established a budget committee in each chamber to analyze the president's budget proposals and to recommend a congressional budget policy. The Congressional Budget Office was created to provide data and analyses to help Congress make its budget decisions.
The law required Congress each year to adopt a budget resolution setting overall targets for spending and revenues and establishing congressional spending priorities. (Originally, two budget resolutions were required, but the requirement for the second was eventually dropped.) Budget resolutions did not require the president's approval—but the president retained veto power over legislation to carry out the congressional plans.
Once a budget resolution was in place, Congress was required to pass legislation making any changes in law needed to ensure that spending and taxing guidelines were met. These changes were made through the appropriations process and through reconciliation, a procedure under which individual committees were required to adjust revenues or cut the cost of entitlement programs within their jurisdictions to meet assigned spending limits. Appropriations bills were required to conform to limits established in the budget resolution. The 1974 act set a timetable for action to be completed before the start of the fiscal year on October 1.
Changes in Law
The process seldom worked as intended. Deadlines were rarely met, Congress's budgetary restraint was weak, and federal deficits ballooned to more than $200billion annually. In 1985 reformers pushed through a drastic change in the procedure. The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985—known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act for its congressional sponsors—established annual deficit reduction requirements that were designed to lead to a balanced budget by fiscal 1991. The law invented a new weapon, called sequestration, to make automatic the tough decisions on spending reduction that members were unwilling to face. It accelerated the budget timetable and strengthened procedures to make Congress meet its schedule.
Like the 1974 act, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act did not work as intended, and Congress voted a further revision in 1987. The new measure promised a balanced budget by fiscal 1993, two years later than required in Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. It also revised the procedures for automatic spending cuts to meet objections the Supreme Court had raised the previous year.
Senate Budget Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, and Christopher Shays, R- Conn., begin the 2004 budget conference, April 2003.
These meetings are joint sessions of the two chambers that seek to resolve differences in versions of bills passed by each chamber. Conference committees go out of existence after their work is done but during their short life are among the most powerful of Hill committees because they make many final decisions on legislation. (Source: Scott J. Ferrell, Congressional Quarterly.)
Congress overhauled its budget procedures once again in 1990. The revised law allowed Congress to pay less attention to the deficit. Any increases in the budget deficit that were the result of either economic conditions or spending required for new people eligible for entitlement programs would not be subject to the automatic spending cuts. Congress had only to abide by new discretionary spending limits and pay-as-you-go rules requiring revenue increases to cover any changes in the law that resulted in mandatory spending on new or expanded entitlement programs or tax cuts. The measure abandoned the idea of a balanced budget deadline.
The idea of amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget had been raised frequently since the early 1980s. Support built gradually as frustration mounted over the seemingly permanent budget deficit and the ever-growing national debt—the accumulation of those annual deficits. Over the years, the text of the constitutional amendment was crafted and massaged by members of both chambers and both parties. But supporters were not able to muster the two-thirds vote required in both houses to adopt it and send it to the states to be ratified.
When the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1995, the centerpiece of the House Republicans' ambitious agenda was adoption of a balanced budget amendment. The House passed a balanced budget measure in 1995, but the Senate failed in 1995 and 1996. In the next Congress, the Senate again rejected a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
The House declined to push for a floor vote, expecting certain defeat.
Another proposal to change the budget-writing process captured the attention of Congress for two years in the late 1990s, but it was rejected by the House in 2000. The proposal was born from complaints that the existing system forced Congress to spend too much time and energy on budgeting and appropriations but too little effort on program oversight and authorization. Critics also had complained about the growth of emergency and supplemental spending measures. The bill sparked a territorial war between its sponsors and the appropriators, who saw it as an assault on their power.
The bill would have created an annual reserve fund for emergencies, designed to limit nonbudgeted supplemental spending. The annual budget resolution would have been changed from a concurrent resolution, which does not require the president's signature, to a joint resolution, which has the force of law upon enactment. It would have eased pay-as-you-go budget rules to allow surpluses not generated by Social Security to be used for tax cuts or new entitlement spending, and weakened the Senate rule that required sixty votes to amend budget-reconciliation bills with nongermane provisions.
The White House was relieved when the House rejected the measure. The Clinton administration had objected to the bill. Its alternative, which also was defeated, would have created a two-year budget cycle, with passage of a budget resolution and appropriations bills during the first year of each session. The following election year would have been reserved for program authorization and oversight.
The statutory spending caps on appropriations and pay-as-you-go rules that had been first enacted in 1990 and subsequently extended expired in 2002, when Congress was unable to agree on a vehicle to extend them. Congress had routinely evaded spending caps by ignoring them in session-ending budget deals and had averted cuts by simply adopting language each year wiping the pay-as-you-go scorecard clean. Still, budget hawks said the rules had had a restraining effect on Congress and they vowed to revisit the issue in the next Congress.
Competition for Dollars
In the early years of the process, congressional budget-making was largely a process of accommodation. House and Senate leaders, anxious to keep the process going, proposed budget resolutions that left room for new programs and additional spending. As long as Congress remained in an expansive mood, the House and Senate were able to construct budgets that satisfied the particular interests of various committees and groups.
When Congress tried to shift to more austere budgets in the 1980s, it encountered much rougher going. While acknowledging the need to hold down spending, members sought to avoid cuts in programs important to their constituents. That became increasingly difficult as the competition for federal dollars increased.
Budget battles with the White House consumed Congress during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Upon taking office in 1981 Reagan used the congressional budget machinery to carry out sweeping cuts in spending and taxes, as he had promised in his election campaign. In later years Congress routinely dismissed Reagan's budgets, but it had trouble developing plans of its own that also were acceptable to the president. Each year witnessed the two branches battling over the federal deficit, which more than doubled during Reagan's first term.
The stalemate between Congress and the president led to a new form of budget negotiations in the late 1980s, called summits. An October 1987 crash in the stock market propelled a reluctant President Reagan into a budget summit with congressional leaders of both parties. Congress approved their work—a deficit reduction package of $76 billion over two years—but the experience did not make the summits popular. Many senators and representatives felt they had been excluded from the most important decisions of the session. “You work all year in your committees and then end up with three-quarters of the government run by a half-dozen people locked up in a room for three or four weeks,” said Rep. Marvin Leath, a Texas Democrat. “I resent that.”
Despite the anger over the 1987 budget summit, in 1990 President George H. W. Bush and the Congress attempted to use a budget summit to negotiate a massive deficit reduction package. Again, the summit alienated many members of Congress who were excluded from the negotiations. For ten days the negotiators met in seclusion at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, but they failed to reach agreement. As a last resort, a “hyper-summit” of only eight White House and congressional leaders drafted a deficit reduction plan. But the alienated members had their say, soundly defeating the plan and embarrassing the president. Congress finally passed a compromise $500 billion plan that was drafted by the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee.
The 1990 agreement limited Congress's ability to change spending priorities for a five-year period. The bill set spending limits for discretionary spending in three categories—domestic, defense, and international spending—for 1991 to 1993. For 1994 and 1995, the legislation set overall limits for discretionary spending. The agreement also included the pay-as-you-go rules to offset legislation that resulted in decreased revenues or increased spending for entitlement programs.
Building on a strong economy and two earlier rounds of deficit reduction, President Bill Clinton and the Republican majority in Congress struck a historic agreement in 1997 to balance the federal budget in five years, while cutting taxes and increasing spending in selected administration priorities in areas such as children's health care. It was almost immediately translated into a congressional budget resolution that formally set Congress's budget guidelines.
Angry Democrats denounced the closed-door negotiations and objected to their second-class status as Clinton and the Republicans made their final compromise. In the end, pro-business, conservative, and moderate Democrats were pleased with the budget agreement, while their more liberal, blue-collar counterparts viewed the package as tilted against the poor and the tax cuts as stacked in favor of the rich.
In fiscal 1998 the government posted a $70 billion surplus, the first surplus in twenty-nine years. A strong economy had boosted tax receipts, while the series of budget agreements over the previous years had constrained spending increases.
For the first time since the modern congressional budget process was established in 1974, Congress in 1998 failed to agree on a budget resolution for the coming fiscal year. The House and Senate passed dramatically different versions and never even began formal negotiations to work out the differences, which principally involved the size of a proposed tax cut and the consequent spending cuts needed to offset the revenue loss. An upward surge in projections for a budget surplus only served to deepen the differences.
But the era of surpluses would be brief. The fiscal picture changed dramatically. In fiscal 2001, the federal government dipped into Social Security funds—which lawmakers had vowed during the days of surplus budgets not to touch—in order to avoid a deficit. That year, the projected surplus of $281 billion dwindled down to $127 billion. Excluding the Social Security surplus, the actual budget reflected a $33 billion on-budget deficit.
A recession, a decline in the stock market, and President George W. Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut in 2001 forced a decline in revenues that had been soaring. At the same time, spending increased after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Afghanistan military campaign.
When Bush took office in 2001, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had projected a $5.6 trillion surplus over fiscal 2002–2011. But by 2003, CBO was estimating that if the 2001 Bush tax law were made permanent, as the administration wanted, the result for 2002–2011 would be a deficit of $386 billion.
During that time, the appropriations process was divisive and difficult as the White House sought to limit domestic spending on issues such as education while it proposed additional tax cuts and defense spending. In 2002 the Senate for the first time failed to adopt a budget resolution. The House adopted a budget that endorsed President Bush's fiscal blueprint, but appropriators of both parties said it was far too frugal. The result was an appropriations logjam and a series of continuing resolutions to fund the government. The budget battles were not resolved until early
2003, when Congress cleared a continuing resolution containing eleven appropriations bills.
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Document Citation
"Budget Process: Focus on Congress." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8932-500972. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8932-500972 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8932-500972
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For More Information
Please see CQ Budget Tracker, CQ Today and CQ Weekly.
Budget Terms
Appropriations
Acts of Congress that provide actual funding for programs within limits established by authorizations. Appropriations usually cover one fiscal year, but they may run for a definite or indefinite number of years. More than half of all federal spending—for programs such as Social Security and interest payments on the federal debt—has permanent appropriations, which do not have to go through the annual appropriations process.
Authorizations
Acts of Congress that establish discretionary government programs or entitlements, or that continue or change such programs. Authorizations specify program goals and, for a discretionary program, set the maximum amount that may be spent. For entitlement programs, an authorization sets or changes eligibility standards and benefits that must be provided by the program.
Budget
A financial plan for the U.S. government prepared annually by the executive branch. The budget sets out in fine print how government funds have been raised and spent and what the president plans for the country in the fiscal year ahead. It is sent to Congress each year in early February. The budget provides for both discretionary and mandatory expenditures. Discretionary funds are appropriated by Congress each year. Congressional appropriations bills are not required to follow the guidelines specified in the president's budget. Mandatory spending is for
entitlement programs such as Medicare and veterans' pensions. An entitlement can be changed only by a separate authorizing bill.
Budget Authority
Legal authority to enter into obligations that will result in immediate or future government spending, called outlays. Budget authority is provided by Congress through appropriations bills.
Budget Resolution
A congressional spending plan that does not require the president's signature. A budget resolution sets binding totals for broad categories of spending—expressed in budget authority and outlays—and for revenues. Authorization and appropriations bills must then observe these totals. The resolution assumes that certain changes will be made in existing law, primarily to achieve savings assumed in the spending totals. These savings are legislated in appropriations bills and sometimes in reconciliation bills. Each year Congress is supposed to complete action by April
15 on a budget resolution for the fiscal year that will begin October 1. From 1974 through early 2003, Congress had failed to adopt a budget resolution only twice—in 1998 and in 2002. (See Budget Process.)
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act
The 1974 law that established the congressional budget process and created the Congressional Budget Office.
Deficit
The excess of spending over revenues. A surplus exists if revenues are greater than spending.
Entitlement
A program that must provide specified benefits to all eligible persons who seek them. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are examples of entitlements. Generally, these programs are permanently authorized and are not subject to annual appropriations.
Fiscal Year
The federal government's accounting period. The fiscal year begins on October 1 and ends on September 30 of the following year. A fiscal year (FY) is designated by the calendar year in which it ends, so that FY 2002 began on October 1, 2001, and ended September 30, 2002.
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act
A 1985 act of Congress that set a timetable for achieving a balanced budget and specified a procedure designed to accomplish that goal through mandatory automatic spending cuts.
Originally, the act called for achieving a balanced budget by 1991. The timetable was amended in 1987 and again in 1990, at which time the size of the deficit was downplayed and a balanced budget target date was deleted. The act is properly called the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. It quickly became known by the names of its three Senate sponsors: Phil Gramm of Texas and Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire, both Republicans, and Ernest F. Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat.
Impoundment
A president's refusal to spend money appropriated by Congress. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 established procedures for congressional approval or disapproval of presidential impoundments.
Outlays
Actual cash expenditures made by the government. In passing appropriations bills, Congress does not directly vote on the level of outlays. Each year's outlays derive in part from budget authority provided in previous years. Outlays also include net lending—the difference between what the government lends and what borrowers repay—such as payments on student loans.
Receipts (Revenues)
Government income from taxes and other sources, such as import duties, user fees, and sales of federal assets.
Reconciliation
Legislation that revises program authorizations to achieve levels of spending required by the budget resolution. Reconciliation bills usually also include revenue increases. The bills are based on instructions in the budget resolution that require authorizing committees to draft legislation specifying revenues adjustments or cost-cutting changes in programs under their jurisdiction.
Sequestration
An automatic procedure for making spending cuts required by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law if Congress and the president fail to make them legislatively. Under the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law, as revised by subsequent laws, the president's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) determines whether spending will fall within the range set by law. If the legal limit is exceeded, OMB determines how much needs to be cut, or sequestered, from the budget. The Congressional Budget Office plays an advisory role. About two-thirds of federal spending is exempt in some way from the automatic cuts. If cuts are needed, they are imposed fifteen days after Congress adjourns.
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Document Citation
"Budget Terms." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8932-500975. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8932-500975 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8932-500975
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For More Information
Please see CQ Budget Tracker.
Campaign Financing: Electing Congress
Being elected to Congress requires money. Most candidates for House and Senate seats raise a great deal of money to pay for campaign staff salaries, travel costs, mailings, print advertising, radio and television commercials, political consultants, and many other expenses of campaigning.
Perhaps no other aspect of the American political system has aroused so much concern in recent decades as the financing of political campaigns. Debate on this subject involves basic issues of representative democracy and the integrity of Congress. As one reform advocate put it, “There are no fights like campaign finance fights because they are battles about the essence of politics and power.”
Over the years, congressional candidates have raised money from businesses, labor unions, individuals, and political organizations. The candidates themselves have been important sources of funds at different times during the history of Congress. Today businesses and unions are barred from contributing directly to campaigns, but they participate by forming and operating separate funds called political action committees (PACs). Other organizations, such as ideological and issue groups, also have PACs. PACs and individuals are the major sources of campaign funds for
congressional candidates.
Spending by political parties, although still small when compared to PAC and individual spending, rose sharply in the 1990s. Creative use of massive amounts of “soft money”—contributions to party committees that were ostensibly for nonfederal activities and therefore largely unrestricted by federal campaign finance law—as well as more federally regulated “hard” dollars increased the clout of party committees dramatically. But party leaders feared loss of their new-found influence in the wake of a ban on national party use of soft money enacted in 2002. The new law that included the soft-money ban, however, was challenged in the federal courts in 2003.
The enormous expense of modern campaigns has made the ability to raise funds crucial to political strength. The amount spent on all congressional races, including the primaries, in the 1999–2000 election cycle was more than double what had been spent at the beginning of the decade—$1 billion compared with $446 million. House candidates spent more than $572 million in the 2000 campaign and Senate candidates about $435 million. Winning candidates spent an average of $847,000 in 2000 House races and $7.2 million in Senate races.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., Rep. Martin T. Meehan, D-Mass., Sen. Russell D. Feingold, D-Wis., Sen. James M. Jeffords, I-Vt., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. speak at a news conference following a U.S. District Court's decision on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 20002. The campaign finance law banned “soft money,” increased the amount of “hard money” individuals can contribute to federal candidates and parties, limited issue-advocacy ads just before elections, and allowed individuals running against self-financed candidates to get larger contributions from individuals and political action committees. The three-judge panel ruled some parts of the law unconstitutional. The Supreme Court was expected to review the law in late 2003.
(Source: Scott J. Ferrell, Congressional Quarterly.)
The ability to raise money often is a key factor in measuring a candidate's chances of being elected. This is particularly true for challengers, who must work hard to raise enough money to pay for the political advertising needed to make their names familiar to the voters. Incumbents almost always have an easier time raising money. Particularly if they hold positions of influence in Congress, most incumbents can count on ample contributions from organized interest groups. Incumbents sometimes raise so much money in advance of an election that potential challengers decide not to run against them.
The campaign finance system depends on the willingness of individuals and organizations to make donations. People and groups give to candidates for many reasons. Ideally, contributions are made because the giver agrees with the candidate on important issues and thinks the candidate would do a good job of governing. Viewed this way, political contributions offer a constructive way for citizens to participate in political life.
But critics of the current system of financing campaigns worry that many members of Congress have become captives of special interests that pour money into campaign treasuries in return for favorable treatment on Capitol Hill. Some critics complain that contributors are buying votes. While other observers would not go that far, few would deny that donors are buying access.
Members are more likely to meet with donors or return their phone calls, thereby giving contributors an opportunity to argue their position on legislative issues. Members of Congress, of course, may vote against the interests of their major contributors, but they place themselves at risk of losing that financial support in the next election.
There is also concern that contributions made by special interests undermine loyalty to constituents and party while encouraging unnecessary expenditures. Since many of these contributions are made to incumbents, some have voiced concern about a “permanent” Congress in which there would be little turnover and entrenched interests would dominate. However, the switch from a Democratic to a Republican Congress after the 1994 elections did much to defuse that argument.
Politicians themselves are frustrated by the current system, which can force them into a constant and demeaning quest for contributions, often at the expense of their congressional responsibilities. Even some donors are becoming disenchanted with the system, complaining of multiple invitations to members' fundraisers and of
“shakedowns” by money-hungry campaigns.
Major reforms in the campaign finance system were enacted in the 1970s. But dissatisfaction with the campaign finance system grew during the next several decades, as loopholes in the law were increasingly exploited and scandals unfolded. After numerous attempts by Congress, laws to close what critics saw as several of the more egregious loopholes in the system were enacted in 2000 and 2002. Immediately after enactment of the 2002 law, opponents filed a lawsuit challenging key provisions.
History
Campaign financing was rarely controversial during Congress's first century. Fund raising at that time was completely unregulated. Most candidates paid their own campaign expenses or relied on a few wealthy backers.
By the 1860s federal workers had become the chief source of campaign money. The party that held the White House and controlled federal patronage was able to persuade or require government workers to contribute to its campaign coffers. In the 1868 election, for example, about three-quarters of the Republican Congressional Committee's campaign money was said to have come from federal employees.
The pressure on federal workers to contribute became one of the most unpopular aspects of the “spoils system,” under which the party in power was entitled to distribute jobs and contracts to its supporters. As early as 1867 Congress passed a law to protect workers in federal shipyards from having to make political contributions to keep their jobs. Agitation against the spoils system continued until 1883, when Congress passed the Civil Service Reform Act, which barred mandatory political contributions for federal workers and made it a crime for a federal employee to solicit campaign funds from another federal employee.
Political campaign managers next turned for funds to wealthy individuals and to corporations. Large companies had begun to exert increasing control over the economy in the last decades of the nineteenth century. In the 1896 campaign, financier Mark Hanna raised an estimated $3.5 million in corporate donations, a staggering amount for the time, to finance the successful campaign of Republican presidential candidate William McKinley.
The unrestrained spending by big business on behalf of favored candidates became a chief target of the reformist Progressive movement, which sought to end corruption and increase public involvement in political life. With the backing of President Theodore Roosevelt, Congress in 1907 passed the Tillman Act, which prohibited any corporation or national bank from making contributions to candidates for federal office.
In 1910 came the first Federal Corrupt Practices Act, which established the first requirement that political committees backing candidates for the House disclose their total receipts and expenditures, as well as the names of their contributors of $100 or more and recipients of $10 or more. But the reports were not due until thirty days after the election. The following year reporting requirements were extended to committees influencing Senate elections and to House and Senate candidates as well. The 1911 law also required preelection reports, extended
coverage to party primaries and nominating conventions, and set the first limits on the amounts that candidates could spend on their campaigns: no more than $10,000 for Senate candidates and $5,000 for House candidates, or the maximum amount permitted in their states, whichever was less. (The process for electing senators was also undergoing change at this time. The Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913 requiring direct election of senators by the voters instead of by the state legislatures.)
The federal law governing campaign finance was further overhauled in 1925, when Congress passed a new Federal Corrupt Practices Act in the wake of the Teapot Dome scandal. That law, which formed the basis of federal campaign law for nearly half a century, limited the amounts that general-election candidates could spend. (The Supreme Court had ruled in 1921 that Congress did not have jurisdiction over primary elections and nomination activities.) The new limits were $25,000 for Senate candidates and $5,000 for House candidates, unless a state law set a smaller amount. The act continued the existing prohibitions on corporate contributions and solicitation of federal employees, and extended the reporting requirements for campaign funds.
Laws enacted in the following decades expanded the scope of the 1925 act but left its basic structure intact. One change was the extension of reporting requirements and spending limits to primary campaigns, a move that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1941. Another made it unlawful for anyone to contribute more than $5,000 to a federal candidate or political committee in a single year, but contributions made through state or local party committees were exempt. Another made labor unions subject to the ban on political contributions that already applied to businesses.
The 1925 law and the other changes had little impact on the practices of congressional candidates. Spending limits and reporting requirements were widely violated over the years, but no one was ever prosecuted under the act. Candidates soon learned that they could ignore the law, raising and spending money freely with only token efforts to comply. Indeed, there were so many ways for candidates to get around the statute that it was said to be more loophole than law.
Contributors and candidates developed a variety of ways to evade the law. The reporting requirement for contributions of $100 or more, for example, encouraged givers to make multiple contributions to candidates of $99.99. To get around the $5,000 limit on what an individual could give, wealthy people channeled much larger sums to candidates through family members and friends, each of whom was allowed to contribute up to $5,000 per committee. They also contributed to multiple committees set up to support the candidate and additional committees established in the District of Columbia. Corporations were able to make contributions by awarding special bonuses to executives, who in turn gave the money to candidates.
For candidates, another loophole was the provision of the law that applied the spending and reporting requirements only to financial activity made with the
“knowledge and consent” of the candidate. As a result, candidates could receive and spend as much as they wanted simply by maintaining the legal fiction that they did not know the transactions were taking place.
Frequently, candidates who conducted expensive campaigns reported that they had received and spent little or nothing. Candidates also could evade the limits by creating multiple committees, each with its own spending ceiling.
1970s Reforms
By the beginning of the 1970s television advertising was having a growing impact on political campaigns. This, together with the weakness of the existing law, convinced Congress that new campaign finance legislation was needed. Within the next few years Congress passed major laws changing the way both presidential and congressional campaigns were financed and conducted.
The first major change in campaign law since 1925 was the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. That legislation combined two different approaches to reform. One part of the law set strict limits on the amounts that federal candidates could spend on communications media. The law essentially limited spending on electronic and print media advertising by House and Senate candidates to $50,000 or ten cents for each voting-age person in the congressional district (or state, for Senate candidates), whichever was greater. In addition, no more than 60 percent of the total media amount was allowed to go for television and radio advertising.
The other part of the law tightened the reporting requirements for contributions to candidates. Backers of the law hoped that full financial disclosure would reduce the likelihood of corruption and unfair advantage for large donors. All the ineffective spending and contribution limits were repealed, except the ban on corporate and labor contributions.
The 1971 law was praised by many reformers for improving disclosure of campaign finances and limiting media spending. The law did little, however, to prevent widespread illegal campaign finance activities. A pattern of such activities was revealed by investigation of the Watergate scandal. Although most of those abuses involved the 1972 reelection campaign of President Richard Nixon, public outrage over the revelations led to pressure for further reforms in congressional as well as presidential campaigns.
The result was the federal election law of 1974, which was technically a set of amendments to the 1971 law but in reality the most comprehensive such legislation ever enacted. It overhauled the existing system for financing federal elections and established the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a six-member body responsible for overseeing campaign finance activities. The law imposed limits on the amounts that could be given to candidates in an election. Individuals were limited to a gift of $1,000 to a candidate per election (primary, runoff, special, and general
elections were each counted as a separate election with a separate limit), with an overall annual contribution limit of $25,000; political committees could give no more than $5,000 to any one candidate per election but were not limited in the total amount they could give. In addition, the law tightened reporting requirements and established a system of optional public financing of presidential elections.
The 1974 law repealed the media spending limits adopted in 1971 and replaced them with overall spending limits for Senate and House candidates. A candidate for the House could spend no more than $140,000: $70,000 in a primary race and $70,000 in the general election. A Senate candidate could spend no more than $250,000: $100,000, or eight cents per eligible voter, whichever was greater, in a primary campaign and $150,000 or twelve cents per eligible voter, whichever was greater, in the general election.
The Supreme Court overturned the candidates' spending limits in the landmark case of Buckley v. Valeo (1976). Both liberal and conservative plaintiffs in the case had argued that the law represented an unconstitutional restraint on the free expression of citizens and political candidates. Although the Court struck down the limits on the amounts that candidates could spend on campaigns (except for presidential candidates who accepted public funding), it upheld provisions of the law limiting the amounts that individuals and political committees could contribute to specific candidates, as well as the reporting and disclosure requirements. The Court also held that the composition of the FEC violated the separation of power principles because the law provided for Congress to appoint some of the commission's members.
Congress amended the campaign finance law in 1976 to bring it into line with Buckley. The amendments included a restructuring of the FEC so that its members would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and new limits on the amounts that individuals could contribute to PACs and national political parties, and that PACs could contribute to national political parties. The law also set down rules for fundraising by labor and corporate PACs. Further amendments to the campaign finance law enacted in 1979 reduced the paperwork involved in complying with the law, but compliance remained complex and time-consuming.
Soft Money Growth
The 1979 amendments also codified a Federal Election Commission ruling that encouraged political party activity. Party leaders had complained that the post-Watergate reforms had stifled state and local party activity. The 1979 legislation permitted those parties to use unlimited amounts of hard dollars to purchase grassroots campaign materials and conduct certain voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, without the money counting as a contribution even if the activities indirectly aided a federal candidate.
Also in the late 1970s the Federal Election Commission issued a ruling allowing political parties to use money raised outside the federal campaign finance law—direct contributions from corporations and unions, in this case—to defray a portion of their administrative costs and the costs of voter drives, as long as the federal share of these costs was paid in hard dollars. Prior to that time all the costs would have been paid in hard dollars. This cost-sharing had the effect of freeing up a substantial amount of hard dollars for the national parties to contribute to federal candidates. Plus, federal candidates benefited indirectly from any money spent on voter drives, no matter what formula of soft money versus hard money was used.
The combination of the 1979 amendments and the commission ruling prompted an influx of soft money into the 1980 elections, as the national parties raised millions of dollars from wealthy individuals, corporations, and unions.
Soft money contributions grew steadily, despite an outcry from reform advocates. But the commission did not revisit the issue until 1990, when, under pressure from a court case, it required that soft money contributions and disbursements be reported, beginning in 1991. It also set specific formulas for allocating the federal-state split of costs, but placed no further restrictions on soft money.
Reform Stalemate
After the wave of campaign finance overhaul efforts in the 1970s, momentum on the issue seemed to come to a halt. Disagreements between and within the parties, as well as between the House and Senate, blocked repeated attempts to change the system.
Congressional reform efforts were driven largely by the desire to find a way to limit spending without violating the mandates of the Buckley decision. With the ceiling on expenditures removed, campaign costs grew apace during the next decade, and candidates became increasingly dependent on raising money from PACs.
Because the Supreme Court in Buckley had upheld public funds for presidential candidates who agreed to abide by spending limits, reform advocates pushed for the same for congressional campaigns. Backers argued that it would reduce the influence of special interests. They contended that public financing had cleaned up the previously corrupt campaign finance system for presidential candidates. Opponents of public financing responded that it would give too great an advantage to incumbents. If challengers were blocked by law from outspending the incumbent, opponents argued, they would have little chance against the advantages of incumbency, such as free mailings under the congressional franking privilege and greater recognition among voters.
Most Democrats endorsed the idea of public funding to replace the loss of funds from private sources, but the idea was still controversial even among Democrats, and proponents differed on exactly where the money was to come from. Republicans asserted that the problem with the existing system of campaign finance lay with tainted sources of money, not with the amounts contributed. Instead of spending limits, which they feared would help lock in a Democratic majority in Congress, they proposed curbs on specific sources of funds, such as PACs. But Democrats were reluctant to give up PAC money.
Advocates of campaign reform made little headway for more than a decade. In 1992 congressional Democrats did manage to push through the most extensive legislation on campaign finance since the 1974 law, but they could not muster the votes to override the veto of Republican president George H. W. Bush. The bill would have, among other things, provided partial public funding for congressional candidates who accepted limits on campaign spending. Pressure for reform had built up in the wake of the savings and loan scandals that had tarnished Congress, most notably the Keating Five scandal. Televised hearings in 1990–1991 revealed how a wealthy businessman, Charles H. Keating Jr., used campaign donations to further his interests on Capitol Hill. Revelations about mismanagement of the House's internal post office and bank added fuel to the fire of voter outrage.
Proponents of campaign finance reform were encouraged by the election in 1992 of a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who during his campaign had endorsed reforms even more stringent than those included in the measure vetoed by Bush. But the stalemate continued. Legislation passed both chambers in 1993 but never made it to conference. In 1996 legislation was defeated in the Republican House and stymied by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
In the meantime, massive amounts of money moved through the system, another campaign finance scandal erupted, and loopholes in the law widened.
Campaign Finance Scandal
The Clinton administration's aggressive solicitation of soft money contributions to the Democratic Party in the 1996 presidential campaign triggered investigations by the Republican majority in the Senate and House. Republicans had hoped to showcase what they saw as egregious abuses of campaign finance laws by the Democrats during the 1996 elections. Beyond the numerous stories of bent or broken campaign regulation, Republicans believed they had a particularly explosive mix that included conspiracy by the Chinese communist government to try to influence U.S. elections; the virtual sale of the White House and high-level access by Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and the Democratic National Committee; and the spectacle of a variety
of Asian and Asian-American fundraisers contravening U.S. laws by funneling foreign cash into Democratic campaigns.
Although congressional investigators produced story after story of embarrassing behavior by Democratic fundraisers and painted a portrait of a White House and a Democratic Party desperate for reelection cash, there was no direct proof of a Chinese government conspiracy, no proof that the White House ever knowingly accepted foreign money, and no proof that the Clinton administration ever changed policy in return for campaign contributions. Moreover, Democrats managed to reveal that Republicans had in one instance been just as lax about fundraisers letting foreign money infiltrate their political organizations.
But other investigations into 1996 election activities continued for several years. Various requests were made for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Clinton and Gore, but the Democratic attorney general found no grounds for such an appointment. A Justice Department task force looked into allegations of illegal fundraising and ultimately a number of Democratic fund-raisers and donors were convicted of campaign law violations that included making illegal foreign contributions and contributions in the name of another. The FEC leveled civil penalties against individuals and corporations, as well as the Democratic National Committee and a Clinton/Gore campaign committee.
New Issues, New Laws
The emergence of what many regarded as new loopholes in the system recast the campaign finance debate in the 1990s. Since the 1970s, proposals for change had focused on public financing, limits on campaign spending, and limiting or banning PACs. But those issues were increasingly overshadowed by the millions of dollars of soft money contributions to the national parties.
One major concern of reform advocates was the use of soft money for “issue advocacy” advertising. These ads fell outside federal regulation because they did not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a particular candidate. But reform advocates scoffed at the distinction some attempted to draw between an ad during an election campaign that praised or criticized a member's stand on an issue and an ad that asked people to vote for or against that person.
Parties gained additional clout when the Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that they could spend as much hard money as they wanted on independent expenditures—spending that was not coordinated with a campaign—on behalf of federal candidates.
All of this contributed to unlimited amounts of money moving through the electoral system and sent reform advocates back to the drawing board.
The House passed legislation restricting soft money and issue ads in 1998 and again in 1999, but action on Senate proposals in the 105th and 106th Congresses was stymied by filibusters. One campaign finance loophole was closed in 2000, however, when a law was enacted to require disclosure of contributors to and spending by a growing number of secret political groups known as “527s” after the section of the tax code that governed their existence. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leader on this issue as well as broader campaign finance overhaul, had been targeted by a Section 527 group during his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. Two backers of Texas Gov. George W. Bush had formed a group called Republicans for Clean Air, which ran about $2.5 million worth of television ads attacking McCain's environmental record.
Major campaign finance legislation was finally enacted in 2002. McCain, along with Wisconsin Democrat Russell D. Feingold in the Senate, and Connecticut Republican Christopher Shays and Massachusetts Democrat Martin T. Meehan in the House, led the effort.
The new law—the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002—banned the national parties and federal candidates from raising and spending soft money. It also broadened the definition of issue ads to include any ad that referred to a specific federal candidate sixty days before a general election and thirty days before a primary. It barred the use of corporate or union money for such ads and required that the names of major backers of the ads be disclosed.
The legislation made a number of other changes. The limit on individual contributions to a federal candidate was raised from $1,000 to $2,000 per election, with an overall two-year-election-cycle limit of $37,500 for contributions to candidates and $57,500 for contributions to other committees, up from an aggregate annual limit of $25,000. Political parties were barred from making independent expenditures on behalf of a candidate if they made coordinated expenditures for that candidate.
As soon as the law was signed, opponents—including lead plaintiff Mitch McConnell, a Republican senator from Kentucky—went into court to challenge various provisions as an infringement of their First Amendment right to free speech.
Sponsors of the law soon were unhappy as well. They sharply attacked the Federal Election Commission's regulations for implementing the law as weak and loophole-ridden, and launched challenges in federal court and in Congress.
A lower federal court decision in McConnell v. the Federal Election Commission in May 2003 found parts of the new law to be unconstitutional. The ruling of the special three-judge panel was appealed to the Supreme Court, which was expected to hear the case later in 2003.
The System in Operation
As the Democrats and Republicans fought over ways to further reform campaign financing, spending on congressional campaigns grew at a steady pace. Candidates for House and Senate seats spent $115.5 million in the 1976 election cycle. By 2000, the total had risen to more than $1 billion.
A breakdown of the total receipts of congressional candidates in the 2000 election cycle—$1.047 billion—gives some idea of the advantage of incumbency. House and Senate incumbents together received a total of $492.5 million, while challengers received $227 million. Candidates for open seats (where no incumbent was running) received nearly $328 million. Individual contributors provided more than half the total receipts of both House and Senate candidates. PAC money accounted for about 32 percent of House candidates' receipts but only about 12 percent of Senate candidates.
How that money is spent varies from one campaign to another. The needs of a challenger differ from those of an incumbent. A Senate candidate in a large state runs a different campaign than does a candidate in a small state. Campaigns for the House depend on the character of the district—whether it is urban, suburban, or rural—and on the candidates' personal styles. Senate campaigns, because they cover an entire state, usually rely heavily on media advertising. House races more often feature personal campaigning.
Even when inflation is taken into account, the cost of congressional campaigns has increased dramatically since the 1960s. Population growth has contributed to this trend; as the electorate expands, so does the cost of reaching voters. But more important, campaigning has become a sophisticated enterprise. Campaigns that once featured volunteers stuffing envelopes and canvassing voters now rely on computerized mass mailings, slick radio and television ads, and well-paid political consultants. And that takes money.
Additional Readings
Cigler, Allan J., and Burdett A. Loomis, eds. Interest Group Politics. 6th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002.
Corrado, Anthony, Thomas E. Mann, Daniel R. Ortiz, Trevor Potter, and Frank J. Sorauf, eds. Campaign Finance Reform: A Sourcebook. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997.
Dwyre, Diana, and Victoria A. Farrar-Myers. Legislative Labyrinth: Congress and Campaign Finance Reform. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2001.
Magleby, David B., ed. Financing the 2000 Election. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2002.
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Document Citation
"Campaign Financing: Electing Congress." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8933-500984. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8933-500984 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Disciplining Members
Congress is legally responsible for monitoring the behavior of its members. The Constitution states that Congress may “punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” On that authority the House and Senate have sometimes voted to expel, censure, or reprimand an erring colleague. Other offenders have been stripped of chairmanships, rebuked, or fined.
Acting under the sweeping ethics codes Congress adopted in 1977 and enforced by law the following year, the permanent House and Senate ethics committees—formally known as the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics—investigate charges made against a member and recommend penalties. In some cases, the full House or Senate will act on the recommendations. Other times the ethics committees may express disapproval of a member's behavior without recommending formal sanctions by their parent chambers.
The most serious discipline, and the rarest, has been expulsion, which under the Constitution requires support from two-thirds of those voting. Only a majority is required for a vote to censure, reprimand, or fine a member. Discipline involving a loss of chairmanship or committee membership is usually handled by the caucus of party members, which is responsible for those assignments.
Sitting in judgment of a colleague is something most members would prefer not to do. Many of those assigned to the ethics panels are reluctant conscripts serving as a favor to their party's leaders.
Sometimes the panels are spared difficult decisions on disciplining members by the timely resignations of those under fire. In 1989, for example, House Democratic leaders Jim Wright of Texas and Tony Coelho of California resigned to avoid possible disciplinary action because of their financial activities. Wright, who was formally charged by the ethics panel with accepting improper gifts and using a book deal to evade House limits on outside earned income, became the first speaker forced by scandal out of office in the middle of his term. Coelho, the majority whip, resigned amid controversy over his role in a “junk bond” deal and calls by an outside government-watchdog group for an investigation.
Expulsion
Except for expulsions of southerners loyal to the Confederacy during the Civil War, Congress has rarely used its powerful authority to remove a legislator from office for misconduct. The first expulsion occurred in 1797, when the Senate ousted William Blount of Tennessee for inciting members of two Indian tribes to attack Spanish Florida and Louisiana. The expulsion followed a House vote to impeach Blount—the only time the House, which originates all impeachment proceedings, has ever voted to impeach a senator or representative. The Senate headed off the impeachment proceedings by voting to expel Blount, something the House had no authority to do.
During the Civil War fourteen senators and three representatives were expelled. On a single day, July 11, 1861, the Senate expelled ten southerners for failure to appear in their seats and for participation in secession from the Union. One of the ten expulsions was rescinded after the expelled member's death.
From the Civil War through 2002, formal expulsion proceedings were instituted eleven times in the Senate and fifteen times in the House. Only twice during that time, however, have members actually been expelled. The House voted in 1980 to expel Rep. Michael J. “Ozzie” Myers, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, after he was caught in the Abscam scandal, a sting operation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Myers, who had accepted money from an FBI agent posing as an Arab sheik, was the first member of Congress ever expelled for corruption. The House in 2002 expelled Rep. James A. Traficant, a Democrat from Ohio, after he was accused of demanding kickbacks from some of his congressional aides and using his office for personal gain. A federal court jury earlier had found Traficant guilty of conspiracy to conduct bribery, seeking and accepting illegal gratuities, obstruction of justice, and filing false federal income tax returns. A subcommittee of the House ethics committee, after examining the criminal proceeding, found Traficant guilty of nine ethics counts. The full committee then recommended his expulsion.
The years leading up to the Civil War were marked by violence in Congress. In 1856 two South Carolina representatives entered the Senate chamber where Rep. Preston S. Brooks proceeded to bludgeon Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner while he sat at his desk. This Winslow Homer political caricature is entitled “Arguments of Chivalry.” (Source: Library of Congress.)
In most other cases the House shied away from expulsion and instead opted for a lesser form of punishment. Eleven of the House expulsion cases resulted in censure or reprimand. Several members have resigned to avoid expulsion proceedings. Among them was Mario Biaggi, a New York Democrat who was twice convicted on criminal charges that included accepting bribes.
Biaggi resigned in 1988 to avoid near certain expulsion from the House.
The Senate Committee on Ethics in 1982 recommended the expulsion of New Jersey Democrat Harrison A. Williams Jr., another Abscam target. Senate floor debate had already begun by the time Williams, realizing that a vote to expel him was likely, announced his resignation. In 1995 Republican Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon resigned after the ethics panel recommended his expulsion on charges of sexual harassment and other misconduct.
Censure
By the end of 2002, there had been nine times in the Senate and twenty-two times in the House that a majority of legislators had voted to censure a colleague for misconduct. Censure is a formal show of strong disapproval that requires a legislator to listen as the presiding officer reads aloud the condemnation of his or her actions. In the House the member must stand at the front of the chamber while being censured and, unlike the Senate, usually cannot speak in his or her defense.
A typical censure was the wording read aloud in 1967 to Sen. Thomas J. Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut. Dodd, who had been charged with pocketing for personal use more than $100,000 in campaign contributions, heard that his conduct was
“contrary to accepted morals.” The censure said Dodd's behavior “derogates from the public trust expected of a senator and tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
Censure has been prompted by a wide variety of actions, including treasonable utterance, a fistfight on the Senate floor, insulting remarks made to colleagues, acceptance of stock for legislative favors, use of campaign contributions for personal expenses, and sexual misconduct. Probably the most publicized was the censure of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in 1954. Although his tactic of labeling colleagues and others as communists or communist sympathizers had long been controversial, the Senate for several years did nothing to curb the growing power of the Wisconsin Republican. Only after the nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings, when McCarthy's arrogance and abuses were seen by the public, did the Senate act to “condemn” McCarthy, an action historians consider equal to a censure.
Among those censured have been the following:
Laurence M. Keitt, censured by the House in 1856 for not acting to stop an assault on a senator, even though he knew of the plan in advance and actually witnessed the attack. Keitt, a South Carolina Democrat, allowed a fellow South Carolinian, Rep. Preston S. Brooks, to strike Sen. Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts Republican. Brooks attacked Sumner with a heavy walking stick while Sumner sat at his desk in the Senate chamber. An attempt to expel Brooks failed. Brooks resigned his seat but then was elected to fill the vacancy.
Oakes Ames, a Massachusetts Republican, and James Brooks, a New York Democrat, censured by the House in 1873 for their part in a financial scandal involving stock of the railroad construction company Crédit Mobilier that had been given to members of Congress in return for legislative favors.
South Carolina Democrats Benjamin R. Tillman and John L. McLaurin, censured by the Senate in 1902 for engaging in a fistfight in the Senate chamber.
Hiram Bingham, a Connecticut Republican, censured by the Senate in 1929 for placing on his staff a manufacturing association employee whose assignment was to advise on tariff legislation.
Charles C. Diggs Jr., a Michigan Democrat, censured by the House in 1979 for taking kickbacks from the salaries of his office employees.
Charles H. Wilson, a California Democrat, censured by the House in 1980 for using campaign contributions to cover personal expenses and accepting gifts from an individual with a direct interest in legislation before the Congress.
Gerry E. Studds and Daniel Crane, censured by the House in 1983 in separate cases of sexual misconduct. Studds, a Democrat from Massachusetts, had admitted having a homosexual relationship with a teenager working as a congressional page. Crane, a Republican from Illinois, had an affair with a female page.
Of the nine members the Senate had in effect censured, the word censure was used against only five of them. As in the McCarthy case, historians have regarded the Senate's substitute terms as synonyms for censure. These have included the condemnations of Bingham and McCarthy and the denouncements of Herman Talmadge, a Georgia Democrat, in 1979, and Dave Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican, in 1990 (both for financial misconduct).
Reprimand
The reprimand was first used by the House in 1976 as a milder form of punishment than censure. A reprimanded House member is spared the indignity of standing before his or her colleagues to be chastised.
The most notable use of this punishment was the 1997 reprimand of Newt Gingrich, the first Speaker of the House ever to be sanctioned. The case against Gingrich grew out of a series of televised town hall meetings and a college course the Georgia Republican had taught. They were financed through donations solicited by tax-exempt groups, an arrangement that allowed supporters to make undisclosed contributions and to claim tax write-offs as well—two benefits not available to political contributors. While the Speaker maintained that the course was nonpartisan and thus eligible for tax-exempt support, an ethics subcommittee found that it was probably tied to party politics and to Gingrich's quest to lead a Republican takeover of Congress.
In a kind of plea-bargaining arrangement, Gingrich did not admit to improperly using tax-exempt groups for partisan politics, but instead acknowledged that he had failed to seek legal advice in his use of foundations to finance the activities. He also conceded a more serious offense—that he had given the House ethics committee misleading information in the course of its investigation, which he publicly blamed on his lawyer. In addition to the reprimand, Gingrich was required to reimburse the ethics committee $300,000 to cover some of the costs related to sorting out the misleading information he had given the committee.
The House ethics committee first suggested a reprimand instead of censure in the 1976 case of Florida Democrat Robert L. F. Sikes. The longtime chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction was reprimanded for failing to disclose stock holdings in a defense contractor and a bank on a naval base and for conflict of interest.
The House again opted for the lesser penalty in 1978, when John J. McFall, Edward R. Roybal, and Charles H. Wilson, all California Democrats, were reprimanded for their failure to report either campaign contributions or cash gifts from South Korean rice dealer Tongsun Park. In 1983 the ethics committee recommended a reprimand for Studds and Crane, but the House instead chose to censure them. George Hansen, an Idaho Republican, was reprimanded in 1984 after being convicted of violating federal financial disclosure laws. The next member to be reprimanded was Pennsylvania Democrat Austin J. Murphy in 1987; the House said Murphy had diverted government resources to his former law firm, allowed another member to vote for him on the House floor, and kept a “no show” employee on his payroll.
Rejecting calls for expulsion or censure, the House in 1990 went along with the ethics panel in reprimanding Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank for using his office to help a male prostitute. Frank, who acknowledged in 1987 that he was homosexual, had befriended the man two years earlier.
On the Senate side, Alan Cranston, a California Democrat, was reprimanded in 1991 for improper conduct in the Keating Five scandal. His case marked the Senate's first use of a reprimand as a form of punishment halfway between a committee rebuke and a full-Senate censure. The language used to reprimand Cranston was as severe as in a censure but there was no formal action by the full Senate. The matter was taken to the floor and, without asking for a vote, Senate Ethics Committee leaders said the panel imposed the reprimand “on behalf of and in the name of the U.S. Senate.” The Senate action differed from a House reprimand in that Cranston was present for the reprimand and gave a rebuttal and there was no vote.
Rebuke
A committee rebuke is yet another form of chastisement. The Senate Ethics Committee, for example, in 1991 rebuked four of the “Keating Five” for their role in the scandal. The panel issued a more formal rebuke in 1992 as a disciplinary action against Oregon Republican Mark O. Hatfield. The committee resolution rebuked Hatfield for violating the 1978 ethics act by neglecting to report the receipt of several expensive gifts. Most of the gifts were from a former president of the University of South Carolina, which had received a federal grant while Hatfield headed the Appropriations Committee. As in the Cranston reprimand, the committee said it was acting against Hatfield “on behalf of and in the name of” the full Senate, with no further action recommended. But the unusual floor presentation of the Cranston case was not repeated.
The Senate Ethics Committee in 2002 “severely admonished” Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, D-N.J., for improperly accepting expensive gifts from a former campaign supporter who was serving an eighteen-month prison term for making illegal contributions to Torricelli's 1996 campaign. The committee action followed a four-year Justice Department investigation of Torricelli's finances.
Federal officials concluded they lacked sufficient credible evidence for an indictment but forwarded their findings to the ethics panel. Two months after the panel's rebuke, Torricelli abandoned his campaign for a second term amid plummeting poll ratings.
In other cases, both the House and Senate ethics committees have issued “letters of reproval” to members where more stringent action was not deemed necessary. The House committee took this path in 2001 when it formally rebuked five-term Rep. Earl A. Hilliard, D-Ala., following a nineteen-month probe into misuse of campaign money. The panel found Hilliard diverted campaign money for, among other things, campaign staffers doing work for businesses connected to Hilliard's family. The committee had issued a letter of reproval in 2000 to Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, after a lengthy investigation of his ties to campaign donors and his business relationship with a former top aide-
turned-lobbyist. The probe revealed, among other things, that Shuster received advice and scheduling services from the former aide eighteen months after she left his House office.
Loss of Chairmanship
Depriving members of chairmanships has been used as a form of punishment in the House since the 1960s.
Removal from his chairmanship was one of several disciplinary actions taken against Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a Democratic representative from New York's Harlem district, who in the 1960s was the most prominent African American in Congress. Powell came under investigation for misuse of committee funds and other alleged abuses. He was deposed as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee in a 1967 vote by the Democratic Caucus. The full House then voted to exclude Powell from the House, an action that the Supreme Court overturned two years later.
In the mid-1970s two powerful House Democrats resigned their positions as committee chairs to avoid having them taken away by the party caucus. Wilbur mills, a Democrat from Arkansas who chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, came under fire after publicity about his affair with an Argentine strip dancer, Fanne Foxe. Mills, who was eventually treated for alcoholism, gave up his influential position in late 1974 but served out the term to which he was reelected that year.
Two years later the spotlight was on Wayne L. Hays of Ohio, who chaired both the House Administration Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Hays was accused of keeping a mistress, Elizabeth Ray, on his payroll. He was about to be stripped of both positions by the Democratic Caucus when he gave them up. Hays resigned from the House before any further disciplinary action was recommended.
Florida Democrat Robert Sikes, who was reprimanded by the House in 1976, subsequently lost his Appropriations subcommittee chair. In 1979 Diggs, who had been reelected in 1978 despite being convicted of taking kickbacks, voluntarily stepped down as chair of the House District of Columbia Committee and gave up a subcommittee chairmanship as well. Diggs was later censured by the House.
Under rules adopted by the House Democratic Caucus in 1980 and the House Republican Conference in 1993, indicted committee and subcommittee leaders had to step aside in favor of the next ranking member if indicted for a felony punishable by two years or more in prison. If the charges were dropped or reduced or if the member was
acquitted, the member could resume the committee leadership post. If the member was convicted or censured by the House, caucus members would choose a permanent replacement.
It was not long before the rules came into play. By the end of 1980, Democrats John M. Murphy of New York and Frank Thompson Jr. of New Jersey had lost full committee chairmanships following their indictments in the Abscam scandal, and Wilson had been stripped of his subcommittee chair after his censure. Others have been affected by the rule since then but, as of 2002, none more powerful than Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. The Illinois Democrat stepped down in 1994 after he was indicted on criminal charges stemming from an investigation of the House Post Office. Rostenkowski lost his reelection bid in 1994 and pleaded guilty to reduced charges in 1996.
When the Republican Conference adopted its rule in 1993, it exempted pending cases. As a result, Joseph M. McDade of Pennsylvania, who was under federal indictment on corruption charges, was allowed to keep his position as ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee. However, when the Republicans took control of the House in the next Congress, McDade was ordered to step aside until the case against him was resolved, and Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana was chosen to chair Appropriations. McDade was acquitted in 1996, but Speaker Gingrich refused to accept Livingston's resignation to make way for McDade to chair the powerful committee.
Loss of Vote
When a member of Congress is convicted of a crime, the question arises whether he or she should continue to vote on the floor or in committee. To deny that right also denies representation to the people of the legislator's state or district.
Many years ago indicted senators voluntarily remained off the floor and did not vote. But in 1924 Montana Democrat Burton K. Wheeler continued to vote before he was acquitted of bribery, a charge he said was trumped up by the Harding administration. Since then senators have kept on voting. Williams did so until he resigned in March 1982 following his Abscam conviction in May 1981.
The House in 1975 added to its rules a policy statement that members convicted of a crime for which the punishment could be two or more years in prison should refrain from participating in committee business or floor votes. The voluntary prohibition would end when they were cleared or reelected. On the latter basis, Diggs, who was convicted in October 1978 and reelected the next month, continued to vote until he resigned from Congress in 1980 and went to prison. His decision to vote, however, triggered a Republican-led effort to discipline him that eventually resulted in his censure.
Exclusion
Exclusion is a disciplinary procedure that applies to those not yet formally seated in the House or Senate. One purpose of the procedure is to resolve debate over whether just-elected legislators meet the basic constitutional qualifications for office; Congress has found some who did not. Legislators have also tried, sometimes successfully, to exclude Mormons who practiced polygamy, colleagues considered disloyal because of the Civil War, and individuals charged with misconduct.
The broad use of exclusion as a disciplinary tool was apparently ended by the Supreme Court decision in Powell v. McCormack (1969), which limited exclusion to cases in which constitutionally set qualifications for office were not met. Powell, who had challenged his exclusion from the House, had a flamboyant lifestyle that fueled colleagues' anger over his frequent absences, his extensive use of public funds for travel, and his payment of a congressional salary to his wife while she lived in Puerto Rico. Powell's response to the criticism was to insist that he
was a victim of racism. New York Democrat Emanuel Celler, who chaired both the House Judiciary Committee and the special panel set up to investigate Powell, agreed publicly that he saw an element of racism in the vote to exclude him. In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Powell argued that Congress could refuse to seat an elected legislator only if the individual did not meet the qualifications spelled out in the Constitution: age, citizenship, and residence in the appropriate state or district.
The Supreme Court agreed with this argument and sharply limited the application of exclusion. However, the Court left up to Congress the discipline of members already seated. Powell, who had been reelected in 1968, took his seat in 1969 after the Court decision. The House then fined him $25,000 for his earlier misuse of
government funds and stripped him of his seniority. After returning to Congress Powell rarely attended sessions, lost his seat in 1970, and died less than two years later.
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Document Citation
"Disciplining Members." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8934-501063. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8934-501063 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8934-501063
Executive Privilege
Presidents occasionally refuse congressional demands for information or for
officials' testimony before committees by claiming executive privilege. The term is modern, but the practice is as old as the nation.
The Constitution does not specifically grant executive privilege, but presidents since George Washington have asserted a right to withhold information from Congress based on the constitutional separation of powers. Congress has been reluctant to seek a decisive court ruling on the validity of executive privilege. Instead it has tried to rally public opinion in support of congressional demands for information, and occasionally it has cited executive branch officials for contempt of Congress.
Presidents have offered a variety of reasons to justify denying information to Congress. Perhaps the most common is the need for secrecy in military and diplomatic activities. Other reasons for withholding information include protecting individuals from unfavorable publicity and safeguarding the confidential exchange of ideas within an administration. Critics frequently charge that an administration's real motive for refusing to supply information is to escape criticism or to cover up wrongdoing.
The most dramatic clash over executive privilege between Congress and the White House came during an inquiry into the Watergate scandal, which brought about the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. The Watergate affair began with a 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building in Washington, D.C. As the scandal unfolded, it revealed administration political sabotage that went far beyond the original incident.
Claiming executive privilege, Nixon tried to withhold tapes and documents demanded by congressional investigators. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in July 1974 that Nixon must give up tapes showing his involvement in the scandal. Days later the House Judiciary Committee recommended that Nixon be removed from office for, among other things, failing to comply with a committee subpoena, or demand, for the tapes. The president quickly resigned, ending the Nixon impeachment effort.
The Court's ruling on the Nixon tapes was a defeat for one president but a victory for the presidency. In its unanimous opinion in United States v. Nixon, the Court said that the public interest outweighed Nixon's need for confidentiality in the case of the tapes, which might contain evidence relevant to a criminal prosecution. But at the same time the Court recognized executive privilege as a legitimate, if limited, aspect of the president's authority.
In 1998 a federal district court ruled that President Bill Clinton could not invoke executive privilege to keep his White House aides from testifying in Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's investigation of alleged criminal conduct by the president. The ruling—triggered by subpoenas from Starr's grand juries, not a congressional committee—created a new area of case law on executive privilege. Previously, negotiations between the White House and Congress and the framers' precepts of checks and balances had been sufficient to settle most disputes over its usage.
The expected effect was that power had been shifted from the presidency to Congress and that future Congresses would be emboldened to issue subpoenas to future administrations.
George W. Bush's administration invoked executive privilege on several sensitive matters, angering many in Congress. The Bush administration in 2002 refused to allow then-director of the Office of Homeland Security Tom Ridge to testify before Congress in support of domestic security budget requests and other priority-setting matters, citing Ridge's role as a confidential adviser to the president. Among administration officials' concerns was the prospect of lawmakers getting Ridge to commit under oath to various spending proposals.
The administration also provoked a major showdown with the general accounting office (GAO)—the investigative arm of Congress—by refusing to disclose which energy industry executives were consulted in 2001 by a task force headed by Vice President Richard Cheney that was charged with formulating energy policy. The GAO in 2002 took the unprecedented step of suing in federal court to compel disclosure. After a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the GAO could not sue for the records, the GAO in early 2003 decided not to appeal the decision.
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Document Citation
"Executive Privilege." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8935-501096. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8935-501096 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8935-501096
Filibuster
The Senate has long been famous for the filibuster: the deliberate use of prolonged debate and procedural delaying tactics to block action supported by a majority of members. Filibusters have been mounted on issues ranging from peace treaties to internal Senate seating disputes. Editorial writers have condemned them, cartoonists have ridiculed them, and satirists have caricatured them. But filibusters also have admirers, who view them as a defense against hasty or ill-advised legislation and as a guarantee that minority views will be heard.
Filibusters are permitted by the Senate's tradition of unlimited debate, a characteristic that distinguishes it from the House of Representatives. The term filibuster is derived from a word for pirates or soldiers of fortune; the term originated in the House, although the modern House seldom experiences delay arising from a prolonged debate.
The Senate proudly claims to be a more deliberative body than the House. George Washington described it as the saucer where passions cool. But many people believe the modern filibuster impedes rather than encourages deliberation. Once reserved for the bitterest and most important battles—over slavery, war, civil rights—filibusters today have been trivialized, critics say.
Historically the rare filibuster provided the Senate's best theater; participants had to be ready for days or weeks of free-wheeling debate, and all other business was blocked until one side conceded or a compromise acceptable to all was found. In the modern era the number of filibusters have increased but drama is rare. Disappointment awaits visitors to the Senate gallery who expect a real-life version of actor Jimmy Stewart's climactic oration in the 1939 classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. They are likely to look down on an empty floor and hear only the
drone of a clerk reading absent senators' names in a mind-numbing succession of quorum calls. Often the filibusterers do not even have to be on the floor, nor do the bills they are opposing.
Despite the lack of drama, filibusters and threats of filibusters remain a common weapon of senators hoping to spotlight, change, delay, or kill legislation. Frequent resort to the filibuster, real or threatened, often impedes Senate action on major bills. Success is most likely near the end of a session, when a filibuster on one bill may imperil action on other, more urgent legislation.
Since unanimous consent is out of the question, a filibuster can be ended by negotiating a compromise on the disputed matter or persuading a supermajority of senators to vote for a cumbersome cut-off procedure known as cloture. The two are often interrelated, as compromises win more votes for cloture.
The longest speech in the history of the Senate was made by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond, a Democrat who later became a Republican, spoke for twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes during a filibuster against passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. (Source: Strom Thurmond Institute.)
Dramatic filibusters do still occur on occasion, as demonstrated by a 1987–1988 Republican filibuster against a campaign finance reform bill. To counter Republican obstruction, the majority leader, Democrat Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, forced round-the-clock Senate sessions that disrupted the chamber for three days. When Republicans boycotted the sessions, Byrd resurrected a little-known power that had last been wielded in 1942: he directed the Senate sergeant-at-arms to arrest absent members and bring them to the floor. In the resulting turmoil, Oregon Republican Bob Packwood was arrested, reinjured a broken finger, and was physically carried onto the Senate floor at 1:19 a.m. Democrats were still unable to break the filibuster, and the campaign finance bill was pulled from the floor after a record-setting eighth cloture vote failed to limit debate.
As Old as the Senate
Delaying tactics were first used in the Senate in 1789, by opponents of a bill to locate the nation's capital on the Susquehanna River. The first full-fledged filibusters occurred in 1841, when Democrats and Whigs squared off, first over the appointment of official Senate printers and then over the establishment of a national bank.
Slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and blacks' voting rights in turn were the sparks for the increasingly frequent and contentious filibusters of the nineteenth century. Opponents had no weapon against them, since the only way to terminate debate was through unanimous consent, and proposed rules to restrict debate were repeatedly rejected.
Minor curbs were adopted early in the twentieth century. But they did not hinder Republican filibusterers from killing two of President Woodrow Wilson's proposals to prepare the nation for World War I: a 1915 ship-purchase bill and a 1917 bill to arm merchant ships. As a political scientist in 1882, Wilson had celebrated “the Senate's opportunities for open and unrestricted discussion.” After the 1917 defeat he railed, “The Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when the majority is ready for action. A little group of
willful men… have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
Public outrage finally forced the Senate to accept debate limitations. On March 8, 1917, it adopted a rule under which a filibuster could be halted if two-thirds of the senators present voted to do so. The framers of this first cloture rule predicted it would be little used, and for years that was the case. The first successful use of the rule, in 1919, ended debate on the Treaty of Versailles following World War I.
Nine more cloture votes were taken through 1927, and three were successful. The next successful cloture vote did not occur until 1962, when the Senate invoked cloture on a communications satellite bill.
Only sixteen cloture votes were taken between 1927 and the successful 1962 vote, most of which involved civil rights. Southern Democrats were joined by westerners and some Republicans in an anticloture coalition that successfully filibustered legislation to stop poll taxes, literacy tests, lynching, and employment discrimination.
Many filibusters turned into grueling endurance contests. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set a record for the longest speech in the history of the Senate. Thurmond, a Democrat who later switched to the Republican Party, spoke for twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes during a 1957 filibuster of a civil rights bill. Speakers did not always confine themselves to the subject under consideration. Democrat Huey P. Long of Louisiana entertained his colleagues during a fifteen-and-a-half-hour filibuster in 1935 with commentaries on the Constitution and recipes for southern
“pot likker,” turnip greens, and corn bread.
During a 1960 filibuster of a civil rights bill, eighteen southerners formed into teams of two and talked nonstop in relays. Supporters of the bill had to stay nearby for quorum calls and other procedural moves or risk losing control of the floor. Then-majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, a Texas Democrat, kept the Senate going around the clock for nine days in an effort to break the filibuster. That was the longest session ever, but Johnson ultimately had to abandon the bill. Later in the year a weaker version passed.
“We slept on cots in the Old Supreme Court chamber [near the Senate floor] and came out to answer quorum calls,” recalled William Proxmire, a Wisconsin Democrat who supported the bill.
“It was an absolutely exhausting experience. The southerners who were doing the talking were in great shape, because they would talk for two hours and leave the floor for a couple of days.”
Changing the Rule
Proponents of the right to filibuster gained a further advantage in 1949, when they won a change in the rules to require a two-thirds vote of the total Senate membership to invoke cloture, instead of just those present and voting. But the civil rights filibusters in the 1950s stimulated efforts to make it easier to invoke cloture.
The 1949 cloture rule had banned any limitation of debate on proposals to change the Senate rules, including the cloture rule itself. Since any attempt to change the cloture rule while operating under this stricture appeared hopeless, Senate liberals devised a new approach. Senate rules had always continued from one Congress to the next on the assumption that the Senate was a continuing body because only one-third of its members were elected every two years. Liberals now challenged this concept, arguing that the Senate had a right to adopt new rules by a simple majority vote at the beginning of a new Congress.
The dispute came to a head in 1959, when a bipartisan leadership group seized the initiative from the liberals and pushed through a change in the cloture rule. The new version permitted cloture to be invoked by two-thirds of those present and voting, as the original cloture rule adopted in 1917 had, and it also applied to proposals for changes in the rules.
Once cloture was invoked, further debate was limited to one hour for each senator on the bill itself and on all amendments affecting it. No new amendments could be offered except by unanimous consent. Nongermane amendments and dilatory motions (those intended to delay action) were not permitted. (See Amendments.)
Although they did not address the continuing-body question directly, members added new language to the rules, stating that “the rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next unless they are changed as provided in these rules.”
The Modern Filibuster
In 1964 the Senate for the first time invoked cloture on a civil rights bill, thus ending the longest filibuster in history after seventy-three days of debate. Other civil rights filibusters were broken in 1965 and 1968. Liberal supporters of civil rights legislation, who had tried repeatedly to tighten controls on debate, became less eager for cloture reform in the wake of these victories. By the 1970s they themselves were doing much of the filibustering—against Vietnam War policies, defense weapons systems, and antibusing proposals.
In 1975, however, the liberals tried again to tighten restrictions on debate. They succeeded in easing the cloture requirement from two-thirds of those present and voting (a high of sixty-seven votes, if the full Senate was there) to three-fifths of the Senate membership (a flat sixty votes, if there were no vacancies). The old requirement still applied for votes on changes in Senate rules.
The 1975 revision made it easier to invoke cloture. But the revision's success relied on the willingness of senators to abide by the spirit as well as the letter of the chamber's rules. When cloture was invoked, senators in the past had generally conceded defeat and proceeded to a vote without further delay.
But minorities soon found other ways to obstruct action on measures they opposed. The most effective tactic was the postcloture filibuster, pioneered by Alabama Democrat James B. Allen, a frequent obstructionist. In 1976, when the Senate invoked cloture on a bill he opposed, Allen demanded action on the many amendments he had filed previously. He required that each be read aloud, sought roll-call votes and quorum calls, objected to routine motions, and appealed parliamentary rulings. Other senators soon adopted Allen's tactics.
As filibusters changed in character, the Senate's enthusiasm for unlimited debate eroded. At the mere threat of a filibuster it became a routine practice to start rounding up votes for cloture—or to seek a compromise—as soon as debate began. Most of that action occurred behind the scenes. If the first cloture vote failed, more were taken. Meanwhile, leaders often shelved the disputed bill temporarily, with members' unanimous consent, so that the Senate could turn to other matters. That tactic, known as double-tracking, “kept the filibuster from becoming a real
filibuster,” as one senator said.
In 1979 the Senate agreed to set an absolute limit of one hundred hours on postcloture delaying tactics. The television era prompted additional restraints on debate. When live televised coverage of Senate proceedings began in 1986, members gave new thought to their public image. Senators shied away from several proposals designed to quicken the pace and sharpen the focus of their proceedings for television viewers. But they did agree to one significant change in Senate rules. They reduced to thirty hours, from one hundred, the time allowed for debate,
procedural moves, and roll-call votes after the Senate had invoked cloture to end a filibuster.
Despite these restrictions, filibusters continue to be an effective tool to obstruct Senate action. And, in fact, the number of filibusters has increased in recent decades. Several factors account for the increase. More issues come before the Senate, making time an even scarcer commodity than in the past. More issues are controversial, and there is greater partisanship. In addition, constituents and special interest groups put more pressure on members, and members are more apt to pursue their political goals even if it means inconveniencing their colleagues.
With this increase in filibusters has come an increase in cloture votes as well. From 1961 to 2001, there were more than 500 cloture votes in the Senate, with more than one-third being successful in cutting off debate. While some senators have called for additional restrictions on filibusters, many members are reluctant to curb the hallowed Senate tradition—a tradition cherished by Democrats as well as Republicans.
During President Bill Clinton's second term, a particularly partisan period from 1997 to 2001, more than 35 percent of cloture votes were decided by a majority of 70 votes or more in favor.
This higher success rate than during previous decades suggested that cloture was being used less to close debate on far-reaching national issues, as often had been the case in the past, and more for political and legislative maneuvering. That is largely because, when invoked, cloture requires amendments to be germane to the legislation being debated. Under normal procedures, senators may offer nongermane amendments to get a vote on proposals that were blocked in committee or advocated by only a few senators. In some cases, a nongermane amendment may be aimed at advancing a political agenda or requiring senators to take a position that can be used against them in the next election. Those types of amendments can be avoided by invoking cloture even if a true filibuster is not expected. Thus, increasingly, cloture votes have come to be used by the majority party to control the Senate agenda.
Additional Readings
Binder, Sarah A., and Steven S. Smith. Politics or Principle? Filibustering in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1997.
Burdette, Franklin L. Filibustering in the Senate. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940.
Whalen, Charles, and Barbara Whalen. The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Washington, D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1985.
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Document Citation
"Filibuster." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8936-501102. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8936-501102 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8936-501102
Foreign Travel
Foreign trips by senators and representatives have been one of the most visible and controversial perquisites of serving in Congress. Defenders of foreign travel see it as a valuable way to educate legislators about world problems, particularly when many congressional votes deal with foreign affairs. But critics call the trips junkets—adventures or vacation trips at taxpayers' expense. They also criticize travel paid for by corporations, nonprofits, or educational organizations, saying such trips give these groups an unfair advantage in promoting their agendas.
Most trips are sponsored by congressional committees, but House and Senate leaders receive special travel allowances. In 1988 Jim Wright, a Texas Democrat and House Speaker at the time, caused comment by taking thirteen members and seven staff aides to Australia for a week to celebrate the centennial of that country's parliament. The excursion cost $188,266.
Winter recess is a popular time for members to go on fact-finding trips, generally in more temperate climates. In January 1998 Trent Lott, a Republican from Mississippi who was Senate majority leader at the time, led four other senators, their wives, and staffers—twenty-three people in all—on a government-paid trip through Central America and Mexico, staying one night in the colonial capital of Guatemala at a luxury hotel built from a seventeenth-century monastery. Lott's office said the trip was to study trade and efforts to curb smuggling of drugs and
immigrants.
Large delegations also go each year to meetings of the Interparliamentary Union and the North Atlantic Assembly, which bring together U.S. and foreign legislators. And congressional travel has provided a means of showing expressions of solidarity in the war against terrorism. In 2002 four House lawmakers, led by Democrat Peter Deutsch of Florida and Republican Jack Kingston of Georgia, flew with aides and a security detail to visit hospitalized Israelis and Israeli Arabs injured in the Palestinian uprising. Lawmakers initially said they were not on a diplomatic mission, were not traveling to areas controlled by Palestinians, and did not plan to meet with senior Israeli officials. After questions about the necessity of the trip surfaced, aides said meetings with Israeli officials had indeed been scheduled.
Often congressional delegations travel on military planes, accompanied by Marines or other military escorts who help with baggage and act as flight attendants. Embassy personnel in each city they visit are expected to set up meetings with local officials, arrange tours, and sometimes take the visitors to see night spots. But not all trips are luxury excursions. In 1989 Rep. Mickey Leland, a Texas Democrat, was killed in a plane crash while helping deliver food and supplies to famine-ridden Ethiopia.
Senators and representatives have been required since the 1950s to file accounts of travel spending, but the rules have been rewritten several times since then. In 1973 Congress voted to stop requiring that travel reports be printed in the Congressional Record, but the rule was restored in 1976 after public protest. Under the rules, committees have to file quarterly travel reports with the clerk of the House or the secretary of the Senate. Individual members, staff, or congressional groups authorized by the leadership to travel have to report within thirty days after a trip.
Although information on the use of public funds for travel is once again published in the Record, it is still difficult at times to tell the true cost of travel. For example, when military transportation is used, the cost is not counted in.
Reports do not have to be filed on trips funded by the executive branch or by private groups, but members are required to list private trips on their annual financial disclosure forms. In 1989 Congress declared that members could not accept trips abroad that lasted longer than seven days (excluding travel time) from private interests. Congress reiterated this limit in 1995 as part of overall tighter restrictions on gifts.
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Document Citation
"Foreign Travel." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8936-501117. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8936-501117 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8936-501117
Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating the shape of legislative districts to benefit a particular politician, political party, or group of voters. The practice is almost as old as the nation.
The word was coined in 1812, when the Massachusetts legislature redrew the boundaries of state legislative districts to favor the party of Governor Elbridge Gerry. One of the redrawn districts, it was pointed out, looked like a salamander, a kind of lizard. An artist added a head, wings, and claws to the district map, and a Boston newspaper published the resulting drawing, which it called a “GerryMander.”
Gerrymandering is the practice of shaping voting districts to benefit a particular politician, party, or group of voters. It takes its name from a salamander-shaped legislative district created by the Massachusetts legislature under Gov. Elbridge Gerry in 1812. (Source: Library of Congress.)
The oddly shaped district was drawn to encompass most of the state's Federalists. Governor Gerry's strategy was to let the Federalists win there and to leave his party, the Anti-Federalists, with the balance of power in all the other districts of the state. The term gerrymandering quickly became part of the American political vocabulary, and the practice it describes is still in use. In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that gerrymanders are subject to federal court review. However, the Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the practice.
After the 1990 census many states redistricted according to the mandates of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibited diluting the voting power of minorities. The result was a handful of bizarrely shaped minority districts. The Supreme Court during the 1990s struck down a number of these districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. The Court ruled that the strangely shaped district lines were drawn up with race as an overwhelming factor. The Court, however, avoided setting clear redistricting guidelines for states that had to redraw minority districts.
Although gerrymandering to enhance the chances of minorities winning was much less pronounced in the redistricting that followed the 2000 census, the lines of many districts were as peculiarly shaped as always. Much of the meandering lines of districts came from the effort of politicians to design areas that favored reelection chances of incumbents. It was a practice followed by both Democrats and Republicans, and often in cooperation with one another.
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Document Citation
"Gerrymandering." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8937-501127. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8937-501127 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8937-501127
Legislation
Legislation is a bill or resolution that Congress uses as a vehicle to create a law or state a policy. It may be broad enough to affect the entire nation or so narrow it affects only one person. It may be done in conjunction with the executive branch or it may be a matter within Congress or just one chamber of Congress.
Congress uses various types of legislation to differentiate how the thousands of bills and resolutions introduced each term are handled by the committees and scheduled for floor action.
Different types of legislation receive different treatment. (See Legislative Process.)
Both chambers use four types of legislation. Two of these, bills and joint resolutions, become law if passed in identical form by both houses and signed by the president (or passed over a presidential veto). In the House of Representatives, these measures are labeled “HR” for a bill and “H J Res” for a joint resolution. In the Senate “S” denotes a bill, and “S J Res,” a joint resolution.
Every legislative proposal is given a number that reflects the order in which it is introduced during each two-year congressional term (HR 1, HR 2, HR 3, etc.; S 1, S 2, S 3, etc.). If passed and signed by the president, a bill that is public in nature receives another designation, a public law (PL) number. Public law numbers also include the Congress in which they are enacted; thus, “PL 108-1” identifies the first public law enacted in the 108th Congress.
The vast majority of legislative proposals—recommendations dealing with either domestic or foreign issues and programs affecting the U.S. government or the population generally—are drafted in the form of bills. These include authorization bills and appropriations bills.
Joint resolutions—the other form of legislation that can become law—have a more limited focus, though occasionally they may be used for omnibus legislation. Proposed constitutional amendments also are drafted in the form of joint resolutions, as are some emergency and catchall appropriations measures. In addition, routine measures making technical or minor changes in existing law or correcting errors in newly enacted legislation may be drafted as joint resolutions.
There are no significant differences in consideration of joint resolutions and bills. Both must be passed in identical form by the House and Senate and signed by the president (or passed over a veto) to become law. There is one major exception, however: joint resolutions embodying proposed constitutional amendments are not sent to the president for signature after they have been approved by Congress (by a two-thirds vote in each house). Instead, they are forwarded directly to the fifty states for ratification, which requires approval by a three-fourths majority (thirty-eight
states).
One other form of legislation can be enacted into law: private bills (also labeled either “HR” or “S”). If enacted, these bills have a separately numbered system of laws. Private bills deal primarily with matters for the relief of individuals or private parties and are not of a general nature affecting the nation. Immigration cases and grievances or claims against the United States constitute the largest categories of private bills today.
The other two forms of legislation are concurrent resolutions and, simply, resolutions. These are labeled “H Con Res” and “H Res” in the House, “S Con Res” and “S Res” in the Senate. Unlike bills and joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions and resolutions are not signed by the president, do not become law, and thus do not receive PL numbers. Concurrent resolutions are internal measures of Congress and are considered by both the House and the Senate. Simple resolutions are considered only by the chamber in which they are introduced.
House and Senate concurrent resolutions address matters involving Congress itself as well as some wider issues that do not require the president's signature. Examples of the first category are the resolution that fixes the time of adjournment of a Congress and the so-called sense of Congress resolutions, which are expressions of congressional sentiment that do not have the force of law. Of potentially greater impact is the second category of concurrent resolutions, such as the annual congressional budget resolutions setting Congress's revenue and spending goals for the coming fiscal year. These are drafted as concurrent resolutions because they are not binding on the federal government and thus do not have to become law. Instead, they are statements of congressional intent or expressions of Congress's budgetary priorities.
House and Senate resolutions deal with internal matters of each chamber, often of a housekeeping nature. For example, resolutions are used periodically to set the spending levels for the various legislative committees or to revise the standing rules of each chamber. In the House, resolutions also embody the rules granted by the Rules Committee setting the guidelines for floor debate on each bill.
Introducing Bills
Legislation can be introduced only by senators and representatives and only when Congress is in session. All bills must be printed and made available to the public as well as to members of Congress. There is no limit on the number of cosponsors a bill or resolution may have or on the number of bills a member may introduce. Once it has been introduced, assigned a number, and printed, a bill almost always is referred to the appropriate legislative committee.
Frequently, identical legislation is introduced in both houses. So-called companion bills are employed primarily to speed the legislation through Congress by encouraging both houses to consider the measure simultaneously. Sponsors of companion bills also may hope to dramatize the importance or urgency of the issue and show broad support for the legislation.
Major legislation undergoes changes in nomenclature as it works its way through the legislative process. When a measure is introduced and first printed, it is officially referred to as a bill and is so labeled. When the bill has been passed by one house and sent to the other body, it is reprinted and officially labeled an act (although it generally still is referred to as a bill). If cleared by Congress and signed by the president or enacted over a veto, it becomes a law (and also may still be referred to as an act).
When legislation is heavily amended in committee, all the changes, deletions, and additions, together with whatever is left of the original bill, may be organized into a new bill. Such measures, which are reintroduced and given a new bill number, are referred to as clean bills. For parliamentary reasons, this procedure is a timesaver once the bill reaches the floor of either house. If the original bill, with all the changes, is considered by the House or Senate, those changes must be considered and voted on by the chamber. In a clean bill, all the changes made
in committee become part of the new bill, so that only one vote is needed to approve it, unless additional amendments are introduced from the floor. This not only saves time but reduces the opportunities for House members to raise challenges that additions to the bill are not germane, or relevant, to the original bill.
Treaties
In the Senate a unique type of resolution, known as a resolution of ratification, is used for consideration of treaties. These resolutions have their own “treaty document” number, which indicates the Congress and the order in which treaties are submitted to the Senate. For example, “Treaty Doc 108-1” would indicate the first treaty to be submitted in the 108th Congress. Before the 97th Congress (1981–1983), resolutions of ratification were listed in alphabetical order along with the Congress and the session in which they were submitted (Exec [for Executive] A, 96th Cong., 1st sess.).
Of all the varieties of legislation used by Congress, resolutions of ratification are the only ones that do not lapse at the end of the Congress in which they are introduced. If not acted upon by the Senate, these resolutions are held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and may be brought before the Senate during any future Congress. (The Senate also can show its lack of enthusiasm for a treaty by voting to return it to the president.) Approval of resolutions of ratification requires a two-thirds vote of senators present. The House does not participate in the ratification process, although it does play an equal role in passing legislation to implement a treaty.
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Document Citation
"Legislation." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8940-501193. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8940-501193 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8940-501193
Legislative Process
The procedures Congress uses to write the laws of the land are collectively known as the legislative process. Through this process the ideas of presidents, members of Congress, political parties, interest groups, and individual citizens are transformed into national policy. The lawmaking function as set forth by the Constitution is complicated and time-consuming. It is governed by detailed rules and procedures, as well as more than 200 years of customs and traditions.
To become law a proposal must be approved in identical form by both the Senate and the House of Representatives and signed by the president—or else, infrequently, approved by Congress over the president's veto or allowed to become law without his signature during a session of Congress. Legislative proposals usually follow parallel paths through the two chambers of Congress.
Bills are referred to committees for preliminary consideration, then debated, amended, and passed (or rejected) by the full House or Senate. The process is repeated in the other chamber.
When the House and Senate pass different versions of a major bill, a temporary Senate-House conference committee normally is appointed to work out a compromise. Both chambers must approve the conferees' changes before the bill can be sent to the president for signature.
Not surprisingly, relatively few bills make it through this complex process. In the 107th Congress (2001–2003) more than 9,000 bills and joint resolutions were introduced, but only 377 public laws were enacted.
Bills that are not passed die at the end of the two-year term of Congress in which they are introduced. They may be reintroduced in a later Congress.
A typical bill that survives the many roadblocks to enactment generally travels the route described in the remainder of this article.
Introducing Legislation
All legislation must be formally introduced by members of Congress, although members themselves do not originate most bills. Much of the legislation considered by Congress originates in the executive branch—the White House and federal agencies. This is especially true if Congress and the president are of the same political party. Special-interest organizations, such as trade unions or business associations, are another fertile source of legislation. There are many other sources as well, including Congress itself, state and local government officials, and ordinary citizens.
Legislation is drafted in various forms. Bills originating in the House are designated “HR,” and resolutions are labeled “H J Res,” “H Con Res,” or “H Res,” depending on the type of resolution.
Senate measures are designated “S,” “S J Res,” “S Con Res,” or “S Res.” Each measure carries a number showing the order in which it was introduced: “HR 1” or “S 1” would be the first bill introduced at the beginning of a new Congress. Many bills fall into one of two categories:authorization bills, which establish or continue government programs or policies and set limits on how much money may be spent on them, and appropriations bills, which provide the actual funds to carry out authorized programs or policies or provide funds to operate government agencies.
Authorization bills may be valid for several years, but appropriations bills generally are valid for only one year.
Committee Action
Once a bill has been introduced by a member, it is almost always referred to a committee that has specialized knowledge of the subject matter. Bills that involve more than one subject may be referred to two or more committees, a practice known as multiple referral. Senators and representatives are far too busy to follow every bill that comes before Congress, and they cannot be experts in all the different subjects bills cover. They must rely on the committees to screen most of this legislation.
A bill usually faces the sharpest scrutiny in committee. It is here that most deliberation and rewriting are done. This is especially true in the House; in the Senate deliberation and revision by the full chamber sometimes are equally important in determining a measure's final form.
Bills may be considered by the full committee initially or by a subcommittee. Sometimes the major review of a bill takes place at the subcommittee level, and the full committee simply endorses the subcommittee's recommendations. But frequently the full committee will propose additional amendments to alter the proposal.
The committee or subcommittee generally holds hearings on legislation before taking further action on it. Comment is requested from administration officials and from federal bureaucrats who run the programs that might be affected by the bill. Heads of cabinet-level departments of the government testify on the most important proposals. Scholars and technical experts also may appear at hearings. Lobbying groups and private citizens may testify for or against the legislation.
Most of the deliberation and rewriting of House legislation is done in committees and subcommittees. Here on a Ways and Means subcommittee in the 105th Congress, ranking minority member Robert T. Matsui, D-Calif. (center), makes his point in front of chair Philip Crane, R-Ill. (left), and Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y. (Source: Congressional Quarterly.)
Committee hearings help set the legislative agenda and shape its political tone. They are one of the most important forums for finding out what the public thinks about national problems and how to solve them. Hearings also may have an educational function. Members of Congress need political support for the actions they take, especially when controversial issues or remedies are involved. Hearings assist Congress in developing a consensus on proposed legislation.
After the hearings, committee members may meet to consider the provisions of the legislation in detail, a process known as marking up the bill. Sometimes bills are heavily amended—that is, revised—or entirely redrafted in committee. Votes may be taken on controversial amendments and, finally, on whether to approve the bill and recommend that the full House or Senate pass the measure.
When committee action has been completed, the panel prepares a written report describing the bill and its amendments, and explaining why the measure should become law. Both the members supporting the bill and those opposed may include their views in the report, which is filed with the parent chamber. At this point a bill is said to be reported to the House or Senate.
The fate of most bills is sealed in committee. Bills that gain committee approval do not always win consideration by the parent chamber, but those that do are likely to pass—although they may be revised on the floor. Most bills simply die in committee. Procedures to remove a bill from an unsympathetic committee seldom succeed.
Scheduling Floor Debate
House
The House Rules Committee functions as a sort of traffic cop for bills reported from the legislative committees. Its power is considerable, and its role in the legislative process is crucial. The power of the Rules Committee comes from its authority to control the flow of legislation from the legislative committees to the full House and to set the terms of debate for almost every major bill that reaches the floor of the House. Generally, it acts on behalf of the Speaker in facilitating and promoting the majority party's program.
The chair of the Rules Committee, who is the Speaker's personal choice for the post, has wide discretion in arranging the panel's agenda. The decision to schedule, or not to schedule, a hearing on a bill will usually determine whether the measure ever comes before the House for debate. Under regular House rules, bills must be brought up and debated in the order in which they are reported from the committees. The large volume of bills vying for action makes it necessary to have some system of setting priorities. In the modern Congress there is just not enough time to act on all the legislation working its way through the legislative process.
Once the Rules Committee has given a bill the go-ahead for floor debate, it drafts a special rule for House debate, which is custom-made for each bill. The committee decides how many hours the House may have to debate the bill and whether all amendments, some amendments, or no amendments may be introduced from the floor. Although it has no authority to amend bills that come before it from other committees, the Rules Committee can strike bargains on proposed amendments desired by various members in return for granting the rule.
Until the 1980s the vast majority of rules were open, allowing any germane amendment to be offered on the floor at the appropriate time. Closed rules, barring all but committee amendments, generally were reserved for tax bills and other measures too complicated or technical to be tampered with on the House floor. But, as the number of amendments increased substantially and the leadership seemed to be losing control of the amendment process, the Rules Committee began to draft an increasing number of modified rules, specifying which amendments could be offered and often stipulating in what order they would be considered. The modified rules varied considerably. They could, for example, allow amendments only to specific sections of a bill, or permit only amendments that had been drafted and printed in the congressional record in advance of the debate. After the Republicans took control of the House in 1995, they claimed a return to more open rules, but, predictably, the Democrats disputed their statistics and definition of “openness.”
The drafting of legislation in the modern Congress is very complicated. In many cases, more than one committee works on a bill before it goes to the full House. Frequently their work involves fragile compromises, which lead to demands to keep these bills intact. Modified rules help to avoid hasty and sometimes ill-advised writing of legislation on the House floor. There also are political benefits for the leadership in controlling the amending process on the most controversial elements of a major bill. In the 1980s the Republican minority in the House skillfully used the
amending process to frustrate the Democratic leadership's floor strategy. Modified rules can often be used to head off embarrassing defeats or surprises during debates. The Rules Committee has become increasingly innovative in designing rules to keep floor debate under control and achieve the objectives of the leadership.
The rule from the Rules Committee also may waive points of order—that is, objections raised during the debate because something in the bill or a procedure used to bring the bill to the floor violates a House rule. A point of order is often used by a bill's opponents when they do not have enough votes to defeat the bill outright, in order to delay action and perhaps win concessions from the sponsors of the legislation. The Rules Committee can set aside temporarily any rule of House procedure—except those ordered by the Constitution—in order to facilitate action.
Like the bill to which it is attached, the rule for full House action requires the approval of a simple majority of the House. It is possible to amend the rule on the floor, but this happens infrequently. Rules are seldom rejected. Once the rule is adopted, the bill itself can be debated.
There are special procedures for bringing up measures stymied in legislative committees or in the Rules Committee: the discharge petition and calendar wednesday. In addition, the Rules Committee has a special power to draft rules dislodging bills from balky legislative committees. These procedures are seldom used.
There also are procedural shortcuts for bringing routine legislation to the floor. Most legislation is passed this way. The suspension of the rules procedure is the most frequently used. Bills debated under this shortcut can be passed quickly if they can garner a two-thirds majority vote.
Senate
Scheduling legislation for debate in the Senate is a more informal process. Although the Senate has an elaborate framework of parliamentary machinery to guide its deliberations, in practice its procedures are far more flexible than those of the House. Almost anything can be done by unanimous consent. But that very flexibility also means that only one senator can delay or threaten to delay action on a bill until a compromise is struck.
Almost all noncontroversial matters, including minor legislation, private bills, and presidential nominations, are called up by a simple unanimous consent request. Generally these matters are cleared with the leadership beforehand.
For major legislation, the Senate often legislates through what is called a unanimous consent agreement. This informal agreement geared to a particular bill is the functional equivalent of a rule issued by the House Rules Committee. Such an agreement may limit debate time on a bill and on proposed amendments and may specify what amendments can be introduced and by whom. It may set a time and date to consider the bill and, leaving nothing to chance, may even set a time for a final vote.
Frequently the agreement stipulates that any amendments offered must be germane, that is, they must pertain to the subject of the bill. Unlike the House, the Senate does not have a germaneness rule; unless there has been prior agreement to exclude extraneous policy provisions, there is nothing to prevent a senator from offering a measure concerning, say, water quality or civil rights as a rider to a health bill.
Unlike a House rule, a unanimous consent agreement is drawn up privately, without committee hearings, by the majority and minority leadership and other interested senators. Because a unanimous consent agreement cannot take effect if any senator objects, the drafters must be sensitive to the rights of all one hundred members of the Senate. In contrast to the House, where scheduling is solely a majority party responsibility, Senate scheduling requires bipartisan cooperation.
Once an agreement has been struck, the measure is brought to the floor at the prearranged time. Bringing up controversial legislation by any other method—for instance, by offering a motion to do so—is risky, since most Senate motions are debatable. Any senator may engage in unlimited debate on the motion, so that a time-consuming attempt to cut off this “debate” may be necessary even before the bill is formally before the Senate. (See Filibuster.)
Like the House, the Senate has several ways of bringing to the floor legislation stalled in committee or never considered in committee: bypassing the committee stage and placing the bill on the legislative calendar; suspending Senate rules; discharging the bill from the committee blocking it; or attaching the bill as a rider to another already on the floor. Of these, only the last is generally effective.
Floor Action
There are marked differences in how the two chambers debate and dispose of legislation. This stage in the legislative process is called floor action. The House, because of its size, must adhere strictly to detailed procedures designed to expedite legislative business. The Speaker of the House controls the agenda and is easily the most powerful member in either chamber. The smaller Senate operates more informally. Power is less centralized, and no Senate leader wields the power the Speaker of the House possesses. Scheduling in the Senate traditionally has been the joint work of the majority and minority leaders.
The philosophy behind the rules of the two chambers also is different. Senate procedures are intended to give great weight to the minority, even at the expense of legislative efficiency, while House rules emphasize majority rights.
Approval of bills and amendments in either chamber requires a majority of the members voting. Thus a tie vote spells defeat. In the Senate the vice president of the United States, who under the Constitution is the Senate's presiding officer, may vote to break a tie. But this is the only circumstance in which the vice president may vote. In the House the Speaker traditionally votes only to break a tie, although as an elected member of that chamber the Speaker may vote at any time on any proposal.
House
Most bills are debated and disposed of in the House in one afternoon, although some bills take two or three days. Rarely is action drawn out over many days or even weeks, as occurs in the Senate. House rules make filibusters and most other stalling tactics impractical. The House uses a parliamentary tool known as the previous question to close debate and guarantee that a bill will come to a final vote.
House parliamentary procedures are the same for most major bills, except those handled under shortcut methods. The rule, presented in a resolution reported by the Rules Committee, is debated and adopted. The House debates most legislation in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, or more simply, the committee of the whole. This is nothing more than the House sitting in another form. When functioning as the Committee of the Whole, the House uses special rules designed to speed up floor action. On each bill there is a period for general debate, as regulated by the Rules Committee's rule, and separate debate and votes on all amendments introduced and allowed under the rule.
General debate is controlled by floor managers for the majority and minority parties, who often are the chair and ranking minority member of the committee or subcommittee with jurisdiction over the bill.
General debate usually lasts one hour, although more time may be allowed for controversial measures. The bill then is read section by section for amendment. The House considers amendments under guidelines that give both the proponents and opponents at least five minutes to discuss each one. But a legislator can gain extra time by employing certain parliamentary motions.
Since the majority party sets the agenda, the minority party underlines its policy differences by trying to amend the bill. Amendments publicize the minority's positions even if there is little chance they will be adopted. Amendments also may be used as part of a strategy to defeat a bill. Opponents may attempt to weigh down the legislation with so many amendments that the bill will lose support. Some members, particularly on the minority side, develop great parliamentary expertise and act as self-appointed watchdogs of the rules and tactics of the majority.
Some votes in the House are taken by methods that make it impossible to tell how individual members voted. Others are taken by an electronic system that provides a public record of each member's vote on an issue. The Constitution spells out certain instances when votes must be individually recorded.
When all amendments have been disposed of, the Committee of the Whole dissolves and the bill is reconsidered by the members, now sitting as the House of Representatives. The House then proceeds through a series of parliamentary motions and votes that give opponents a final opportunity to influence the outcome while guaranteeing that the proponents—assuming they are in the majority—will be able to pass the bill. Unlike the situation in the Senate, a determined House majority can always be expected to prevail on a particular bill.
Bills that reach a final passage vote are seldom defeated outright. By that time the support or opposition has been clearly established, while attempts to revise the legislation have already been made during floor debate.
Senate
In the Senate much of what goes on has been planned in advance. Senators read speeches on legislation written by their staffs, and action on bills and amendments is by prior arrangement under unanimous consent agreements. Spontaneous debate is the exception. Normally there are few senators on the floor, except when crucial votes occur. Nevertheless, floor debate and procedural strategies are important in the Senate. One reason is that Senate rules make the legislative outcome less certain than in the House. The play of personalities and political influence affects the result to a much greater extent.
Floor action bears little resemblance to the procedures outlined in the formal rules. Scheduling is quite flexible. Debate is unstructured; for example, no period is reserved for general debate.
The Senate often conducts its business by setting aside its rules and operating through unanimous consent agreements. All senators can participate in scheduling. If there is broad backing for a bill, the Senate can act quickly. But if a political consensus is lacking, Senate action can be held up almost indefinitely.
On controversial bills for which agreements cannot be reached ahead of time, the majority leader may put the Senate on a track system. Tracking permits the Senate to have two or more bills pending simultaneously, with a specific time of the day designated for each bill. If one bill is being filibustered, the Senate can turn to another and thus not hold up all floor action.
The majority leader's greatest influence comes from control of the legislative agenda. The majority leader can schedule bills to suit certain senators or the White House, and can hold votes at times that benefit a bill's supporters or minimize the opposition's strength. The minority leadership, however, must be consulted.
The Senate mostly relies on two types of votes, voice votes and roll calls. The roll sometimes is called slowly to give absent senators time to hustle to the floor from their offices in nearby buildings. Senators have a second chance to vote when the roll call is repeated. Much legislation is passed by unanimous consent. Even measures on which the Senate is closely divided may be passed without a roll call because the controversial issues already have been resolved, either by approval or rejection of key amendments or by procedural votes that reflect the Senate's
positions before the bill itself is voted on.
The Senate does not use such House parliamentary tools as the previous question to end debate. Since unanimous consent is impossible, debate can be cut off only by informal compromise or by cloture; for most legislation a vote of three-fifths of the entire Senate, or sixty members if there are no vacancies, is needed to end debate by cloture. Even without the filibuster, senators have many devices at their disposal for sidetracking legislation. Certain rules may delay consideration of a bill after it has been reported by a committee, and an informal practice allows
senators to place “holds” on bills for varying lengths of time.
Action in Second Chamber
After a bill has been passed by one chamber it is sent to the other. At this point several parliamentary options are available. The normal practice for all but the most routine legislation is for the measure to go to committee, where there will be more hearings, followed by markup, a vote to approve the bill, and the drafting of a committee report. (In most cases, the other chamber has already begun action on its own version of a bill.) It may then go to the floor and be passed.
Differences between the House and Senate versions must be resolved before the bill can be sent to the president. On many noncontroversial measures, the second chamber may simply agree to the version passed by the first chamber. When that happens, no further legislative action is required, and the bill can be submitted to the president.
On virtually all major legislation, however, the second chamber approves a version that differs, sometimes radically, from the measure adopted by the first chamber. Often members and staff of the House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over the bill informally work out a compromise that the two chambers agree to. But some bills will require a House-Senate conference committee to negotiate a compromise.
Conference committees are for House and Senate negotiators to work out the final shape of legislation, resolving differences between the two chambers. (Source: Congressional Quarterly.)
Conference Action
The House-Senate conference is a critical juncture. Everything the bill's sponsors have worked for may be won or lost during these negotiations, and all the effort exerted by the executive branch and private interests to help pass or defeat it may have been in vain.
Either chamber may request a conference with the other to resolve the differences between the versions passed by the House and Senate. Conferees are appointed from each chamber. They are generally chosen by the chair and highest ranking minority member of the committee or subcommittee in which the bill originated.
Before House and Senate conferees begin their negotiations, each delegation may meet separately to work out its positions on the key differences. They decide what they are willing to sacrifice and what provisions they will not bargain away.
Conferences are more informal than regular committee bill-drafting sessions. The staffs play a more obvious role in the final bargaining. Spokespersons for the administration usually are present, and lobbyists try to influence proposed compromises during breaks in the meetings. In theory, conferees must observe certain rules: they may not amend or delete any section of the bill that is not in dispute, and they may not introduce new provisions not relevant to the differences already in the bills. In practice, however, many bills are largely rewritten in conference.
If there are disagreements among House conferees or among Senate conferees, such disputes must be settled by majority vote. The size of conference delegations varies, but each side votes as a unit on each provision in disagreement. The political influence and skill of conference leaders play an important part in the outcome.
After conferees have agreed to a compromise bill, they write a conference report, explaining specific changes they have made. The legislative intent of certain provisions may be written into the conference report rather than into the bill itself. The report becomes official once a majority of conferees from each chamber has signed it.
Finally, after the report has been printed, the two houses vote on the compromise. Under legislative rules, bills that have been approved in conference are not supposed to be further amended by the House or Senate. But if conferees have been unable to agree on any of the amendments in disagreement, separate votes are taken in both houses to resolve the disputed provision. The House also may vote separately on nongermane provisions added by the Senate; this practice, however, was largely abandoned under the Republican leadership in the 1990s. Sometimes bills are sent back to conference for further compromise efforts. The final version is rarely defeated, although this happens on occasion when wholesale changes are made in a long, controversial conference. Once the compromise has been approved, the bill is sent to the White House for the president's review.
President's Role
When a bill reaches the White House, the president has three choices:
Sign it, thus enacting the measure into law.
Veto it and return it to Congress with a statement giving the administration's objections. Congress may override the veto by a two-thirds majority vote of those present and voting in both chambers. The bill then becomes a law without the president's approval. (See vetoes.)
Take no action, in which case the bill will become law without the president's signature after ten days excluding Sundays—provided Congress does not adjourn for the year during that period.
Should Congress adjourn, however, the legislation does not become law. This is known as a pocket veto.
Additional Readings
Binder, Sarah A. Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2003.
Birnbaum, Jeffrey H., and Alan S. Murray. Showdown at Gucci Gulch. New York: Random House, 1987.
Davidson, Roger H., and Walter J. Oleszek. Congress and Its Members. 8th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002.
Elving, Ronald D. Conflict and Compromise: How Congress Makes the Law. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Oleszek, Walter J. Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2001.
Redman, Eric. The Dance of Legislation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973.
Sinclair, Barbara. Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U.S. Congress. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2000.
Smith, Steven S. Call to Order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1989.
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Document Citation
"Legislative Process." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8940-501197. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8940-501197 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8940-501197
Omnibus Bills
A noteworthy feature of the modern Congress has been its tendency to package many, often unrelated, proposals in a single, very long piece of legislation, called an omnibus bill.
Although omnibus bills have been used throughout the nation's history, they assumed new importance after Congress adopted its budget process in 1974. Using that process, each year the Senate and House of Representatives adopt a budget resolution setting an overall plan for government spending and revenues. In many years, they have followed up with an omnibus measure revising government programs to conform to the overall plan.
It became common practice in the 1980s for Congress to provide funding for most or all government departments and agencies in a single omnibus bill known as a continuing resolution. This type of resolution was usually used for stopgap funding and in the 1990s Congress began to back away from its use as an omnibus funding bill.
But this did not mean an end to other types of omnibus bills. In 1996, for example, Congress took a funding bill for one department and turned it into an omnibus bill containing all or part of five unfinished fiscal 1996 annual appropriations bills. Indeed, during Bill Clinton's administration, it was rare for the annual spending bills to move on their own rather than in an omnibus bill carrying at least two or more bills. In 2003, in the George W. Bush presidency, a continuing resolution was used once again, this time as the vehicle for eleven of the thirteen annual
appropriations bills.
Critics complained that individual provisions of omnibus bills often receive little debate, and members are forced to vote on the mammoth measures without fully understanding what is in them. Others defended the omnibus approach, however, arguing that members benefit from the broad overview of government activities it provides. Some noted that many politically unpopular actions, however necessary, might be impossible unless they were buried in an omnibus bill. Omnibus budget bills often enjoy special protections from floor amendments or filibusters.
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Document Citation
"Omnibus Bills." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8943-501257. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8943-501257 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8943-501257
Political Action Committees (PAC)
Political action committees (PACs) are organizations that raise and distribute campaign contributions to candidates for Congress and other offices. Their rapid growth during the 1970s and 1980s made them for a time one of the most controversial aspects of the campaign financing system. However, in the late 1990s, they were all but eclipsed by the hot issues of “soft money” contributions and issue advocacy advertising, two types of political spending not restricted at the time by federal campaign finance law.
Organizations commonly thought of as PACs fall into two main categories: those that are connected to either a labor organization or incorporated entity and those that are not. The first category—the largest—includes the PACs of corporations, labor unions, trade and health associations, and membership organizations. The nonconnected category includes ideological and single-issue groups.
The latter also includes a small but influential group of PACs within Congress called “leadership PACs,” or politicians' PACs. These PACs, which are separate from members' campaign committees, are set up by members to raise money for political goals other than reelection to Congress. These goals might include election to a leadership position, appointment to a prestigious committee, support for the party leadership, earning a favor from another member, or backing for a run for the presidency. Money raised by the leadership PACs may be used not only for direct contributions to other candidates but also to cover a variety of expenses, such as polling, direct mail, office overhead, and travel by the sponsoring member.
Sometimes the term “political action committee” is used more broadly to refer to other political groups formed to influence elections. Such groups—nicknamed “stealth PACs”—were set up under Section 527 of the tax code and initially were not subject to regulation under federal campaign finance law. Legislation requiring that these groups register with the Internal Revenue Service and disclose most of their receipts and expenditures was enacted in 2000.
PAC Contributions
Business PACs for years distributed their contributions relatively evenly between the two political parties. However, with the Republican takeover of Congress following the 1994 elections, business PACs made a decided shift toward the Republican Party. Labor PACs give overwhelmingly to Democrats, whether they are in power or not. Among other types of PACs, recipients vary. The National Rifle Association's PAC, for example, gives more to the Republicans, while EMILY's (an acronym for Early Money Is Like Yeast) List, an abortion-rights PAC, contributes
exclusively to Democratic women candidates.
Corporate PACs gave $84 million to congressional candidates in the 2000 campaign, of which nearly 68 percent went to Republicans. Association PACs gave $68 million, with almost 62 percent going to Republican candidates. Labor PACs gave $50 million, with about 92 percent going to Democrats. Ideological PACs gave almost $36 million, with 59 percent going to Republicans.
Under federal law most PACs are permitted to contribute $5,000 per candidate, per election. (Primary, general, run-off, and special elections are considered to be separate elections, each with a $5,000 limit.) There is no limit on the total amount they can give to all candidates. The National Association of Realtors PAC, for example, gave $3.4 million to federal candidates in the 1999–2000 election cycle. The top fifty PACs gave nearly $75 million.
PACs also can spend as much as they want independently to help candidates—for example, with heavy television advertising—as long as they do not coordinate their actions with the candidates' campaigns. But many candidates do not appreciate outside interference—well intentioned or not—in their campaigns, as reflected in the less than $15 million PACs devoted to independent expenditures in the 2000 congressional elections. However, there was some speculation that independent expenditures might become more popular when new campaign finance restrictions went into effect after the 2002 election. (A federal district court in May 2003 found parts of the 2002 law to be unconstitutional. Its ruling was then appealed to the
Supreme Court.)
Although PACs date back to the 1940s, their significance in political campaigns began with the passage in 1971 and 1974 of laws to reform campaign financing. These laws, along with later Federal Election Commission and Supreme Court rulings and a general waning of political party influence, allowed PACs to become a major factor in the financing of congressional elections. In 1974 only about 600 PACs were registered, and they gave about $12.5 million to congressional candidates. By 2000 registered PACs numbered more than 3,800, and PACs gave $245 million to congressional candidates running in 2000. (PACs contributed nearly $12 million more in the 1999–2000 election cycle to congressional candidates who were not up for
election in 2000 but in need of money to retire earlier campaign debts or to bankroll a future race. Most of these were Senate candidates.)
Top PAC Contributors to Candidates, 1999–2000 Election Cycle Realtors PAC
$3.4 million
Association of Trial Lawyers of America PAC
$2.7 million
American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees—P E O P L E, Qualified
$2.6 million
Dealers Election Action Committee of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA)
$2.5 million
Democrat Republican Independent Voter Education (DRIVE—Teamsters Union)
$2.5 million
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Committee on Political Education
$2.5 million
Machinists Non-Partisan Political League
$2.2 million
UAW-V-CAP (United Auto Workers Voluntary Community Action Program)
$2.2 million
American Medical Association PAC
$1.9 million
Service Employees International Union PAC
$1.9 million
Source: Federal Election Commission.
Note: Figures have been rounded.
Over the years PACs have provided a significant share of congressional candidates' funds. In the 2000 election cycle, almost one-fourth of their receipts came from PACs. PAC contributions are particularly important in House races—nearly a third of House candidates' funds in 2000 came from PACs. Senate candidates usually are less reliant on PACs—about 12 percent of receipts in 2000 came from PACs.
With the exception of candidates' leadership PACs and committees that spent soft money on issue ads, PACs have little involvement in presidential elections. They provide only a small share of funds needed by candidates seeking their party's presidential nomination, and they are barred from contributing to publicly financed general election campaigns.
Critics and Defenders
Many people are sharply critical of the role played by PACs, arguing that they allow well-financed interest groups to gain too much political influence. By accepting contributions from PACs, critics say, members of Congress become dependent on them. That may make the members reluctant to vote against the interests of the PAC, either from fear of losing the PAC's contributions or from fear of having the PAC help finance their political opponents. PACs also have been criticized for increasing their clout by “bundling” together checks from individual contributors and other PACs and then passing them on to candidates. EMILY's List has perfected the practice of bundling.
Critics also have argued that PACs have a bias toward incumbents that reduces competition in elections. Campaign contribution statistics show that PACs have a strong preference for incumbent legislators who are running for reelection, regardless of party affiliation. PACs give most often to incumbents because they are in a position to support PAC interests when legislation is drafted as well as when it comes to a vote. This is particularly true for committee chairs and party leaders, who have more power than other members to see that legislation is approved.
Many of these leaders also have leadership PACs and solicit for party accounts as well. Challengers represent a gamble for PACs because only a few defeat incumbents in any election. By contributing to a challenger, PACs risk alienating a successful incumbent. Of the $245 million that 2000 congressional candidates reported receiving from PACs during the campaign, nearly $184 million went to incumbents, about $27 million to challengers, and $34 million to candidates for open seats.
But the argument that PACs perpetuate a “permanent” Congress with little turnover lost much of its force when Congress changed hands after the 1994 elections.
Defenders of PACs argue that the groups provide a legitimate means by which citizens can join together to support candidates. PACs encourage people to participate in politics, they say, and offer the most efficient method for channeling campaign contributions. PACs say they are seeking not to buy votes but to gain access to members of Congress, so that their views will be heard on legislative decisions affecting them.
Proposals to curb the influence of PACs have been debated by Congress. Some called for banning PAC contributions altogether, some would have reduced the amount a PAC could contribute to a candidate, and others would have imposed an overall limit on the amount of PAC money a candidate could accept. Some members of the House called for weakening PACs by providing public funds for congressional campaigns, as the federal government has done for presidential campaigns since 1976. But no such proposal has passed Congress. Legislation that included public financing and limits on PACs was vetoed by President George H. W. Bush in 1992 and effectively delayed to death in the next Congress. Efforts in the next several Congresses never reached the president's desk.
By the late 1990s the PAC issue had been taken off the table, overshadowed by growing controversy over campaign money that fell outside the reach of federal campaign finance law. PAC-related provisions were not included in the campaign finance legislation enacted in 2002. PAC contributions—limited by law and well-disclosed—paled in significance when compared to the unrestricted flow of soft money ostensibly for nonfederal political party activities and the rapid growth of “issue” advertising that critics said were thinly veiled campaign ads supporting or opposing specific candidates.
Additional Readings
Cigler, Allan J., and Burdett A. Loomis, eds. Interest Group Politics. 6th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002.
Corrado, Anthony, Thomas E. Mann, Daniel R. Ortiz, Trevor Potter, and Frank J. Sorauf, eds. Campaign Finance Reform: A Sourcebook. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1997.
Sabato, Larry J. PAC Power: Inside the World of Political Action Committees. New York: Norton, 1984.
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Document Citation
"Political Action Committees (PAC)." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8944-501277. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8944-501277 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8944-501277
House of Representatives
The 435 members of the House of Representatives share responsibility with the Senate for writing the nation's laws and overseeing operation of the federal government.
Representatives are elected every two years to represent districts of more than half a million people. Today, they work full time at a job that once took only a few weeks a year. Representatives must attend committee hearings, draft legislation, keep up with floor debate, consider or offer amendments, vote on bills, and respond to constituents' problems. At the same time they must campaign, because a new election is always less than two years away.
The House chamber is the setting for the president's annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. Here administration officials, justices of the Supreme Court, and other dignitaries listen to President Ronald Reagan's speech. (Source: Congressional Quarterly.)
The rapid rhythm of House procedures and the hubbub caused by the sheer number of representatives contrast sharply with the slower pace and quieter atmosphere of the Senate. The Senate, with one hundred members, is less than one-fourth the size of the House and prefers to operate informally. Senators' six-year terms allow them time between campaigns, a luxury House members do not enjoy.
Maintaining high visibility in their districts and raising campaign funds are part of the routine for most representatives. Most representatives travel home at least every other weekend; travel expenses are usually covered by official allowances. Meanwhile, newsletters are mailed out, letters answered, and individual problems with the federal bureaucracy handled, usually by the representatives' staffs in Washington and in the home district. political action committees and individuals are asked to contribute campaign funds; the solicitation is often accompanied by an
invitation to a cocktail party or a speech by the representative. In 2000, the average winning House candidate spent $847,000 on his or her campaign. (See Campaign Financing.)
The House is a complex institution, having at the beginning of 2003 nineteen standing committees, two select committees, and ninety-two subcommittees; decision making is spread broadly.
The leadership controls the key gateways to floor action, but participation is open and usually democratic in the first stages of the legislative process, when members question witnesses at hearings or debate amendments during bill-drafting sessions. The House has been most effective under strong leaders, who face the difficult task of satisfying a large and diverse body. (See “Speakers of the House of Representatives” and “House Floor Leaders” in the Appendix.)
More than two centuries of evolution have given the House thick volumes of rules and procedures, but the institution is far from rigid. Its decisions can turn in a matter of minutes on what Speaker Rayburn, a Texas Democrat, called “rolling waves of sentiment.” The basic principle in the House is that all points of view should be heard, but that minorities should not be able to block action. Filibusters, which are common in the Senate, are not allowed in the House. The idea of delaying a vote to accommodate a single member, as the Senate sometimes does, is almost unheard of. “Senate rules are tilted toward not doing things,” said Speaker Wright, also a Texas Democrat, in 1987. “House rules, if you know how to use them, are tilted toward allowing the majority to get its will done.”
Senators who have been representatives are often frustrated with the slow pace of the Senate and long for the relative orderliness of the House. “Simply to come here and work in a museum is not my idea of a modern legislative process,” said Democratic Sen. Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota, who had served four terms in the House before moving to the Senate where he would hold the posts of majority leader and minority leader.
Despite its tight procedures, though, the House often leaves major questions unresolved for years as opposing sides scramble for votes and compromises are drafted. The lack of national consensus on an issue is sure to be reflected in the House. The most difficult choices often are put off, and the last month of a session is a blinding whirl of legislative activity and night meetings. The habit is an old one. Davy Crockett, a legendary frontiersman who served three House terms (1827–1831, 1833–1835), said, “We generally lounge or squabble the greater part of the session, and crowd into a few days of the last term three or four times the business done during as many preceding months.” Barber B. Conable Jr., a New York Republican who served in the House from 1965 to 1985, was untroubled by disorderliness. He enjoyed saying that “Congress is working the way it is supposed to work, which is not very well.”
When the pace of voting is particularly frenetic at the end of a session, the House is filled with legislators who mill about, gathering in groups on the floor to talk, or streaming in and out of the chamber into the cloakrooms or nearby hallways. When a vote is close, representatives gather in the well of the chamber, near the rostrum, and watch the electronic voting chart, which displays how each member voted. Like spectators at a horse race, they wait expectantly for any vote switches and react with a collective gasp to any surprises. The Senate, which lacks a tally
board, has no such sport.
Although many senators arrive on Capitol Hill as public figures, having served previously as representatives or governors, members of the House face the prospect of anonymity among more than 400 colleagues. New representatives, called freshmen, jockey for spots on favored committees and try to develop expertise on a subject to avoid obscurity and gain credibility in debate.
Their ability to act independently is facilitated by their staff. Staff help was once reserved for senior members who ran committees, but reforms in the 1970s gave additional staff even to the most junior members.
Despite its reputation as an open, democratic institution, House members have seen their ability to influence policy diminish in recent decades. Budget constraints dominated the agenda in the 1990s, and members not on the fiscal committees—Appropriations and Ways and Means—complained that they were left out of major decisions. There was almost no opportunity to initiate new programs. Floor amendments had once offered a way for individuals to influence the committee-driven system of the House. Even this opportunity had been limited beginning in the 1980s, as the Democratic leadership convinced the Rules Committee to restrict floor action.
This drawing captures a nineteenth-century House session packed with visitors. (Source: Library of Congress.)
The ascendancy of the Republican Party at the beginning of the 104th Congress (1995–1997) added a new twist. Both chambers were populated by a new cadre of lawmakers more intensely antigovernment than any other in contemporary times. The large group of conservative freshmen, especially in the House, displayed remarkable ideological cohesion and became the most influential newcomers since fallout from the Watergate scandal swept reformist Democrats into Congress in 1975. The House GOP's “Contract with America”—their election platform—became the focal point of their legislative agenda. Moreover, the House adopted new rules challenging some of its most encrusted traditions.
Newt Gingrich of Georgia used his position to consolidate power like no Speaker since Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois in the early part of the twentieth century. Gingrich stepped in to overrule committee chairs whenever an issue was important to him or to the Republican Conference. In many cases, the chairs submerged their policy goals to the collective agenda as defined by Gingrich. Though Gingrich's involvement worked well for the Republicans as a whole, it raised questions about the ability of individual chairs to exercise the policy expertise found only at the
committee and subcommittee level. It also made maintaining discipline difficult for the chairs. Furthermore, Democrats complained bitterly about legislation being rushed to passage, without careful congressional consideration.
However, the ambitions of the House were often thwarted by the Senate and the White House during this time. President Bill Clinton successfully used the bully pulpit to curb Republicans' more aggressive legislative goals. As a result, the first year of the Republican revolution closed with institutional Washington much the way the Republican majority found it: No federal departments were eliminated and no longstanding social policies were reshaped. Their chief demand—that Clinton agree to balance the budget in seven years on their terms—ended in humiliating defeat. Hoping to force Clinton's hand, they twice allowed much of the federal government to shut down. But the public blamed the Republicans for the mess, their message was lost in the din, Clinton refused to concede, and Senate Republicans sought to distance themselves from the House activists.
The confrontational tactics of 1995 gave way to bipartisanship in 1996. Although Republicans went from revolutionaries to realists, they still managed to clear several major elements from their contract, including a bill making Congress live under the same laws as industry, a line-item veto empowering the president to kill specific spending items in appropriations bills (later declared unconstitutional), a modest increase in defense spending, and conservative changes in welfare.
But conservatives failed to win enough votes to clear constitutional amendments to impose term limits on members and to require a balanced budget. In 1997, Congress and Clinton agreed on a five-year balanced-budget plan. A year later, even as Republicans were preparing to impeach him, Clinton scored a significant win in the annual appropriations debate by forcing Republicans to accept higher spending for his priorities than they favored. Clinton also was able to force Republicans in Congress to at least consider issues that were not GOP priorities, such as legislation to provide managed care patients more leverage over their insurers; gun control bills; and plans to increase the minimum wage.
Shown here is the rostrum of the House chamber in the U.S. Capitol. On the left the mace, symbol of legislative authority, rests on its pedestal. (Source: Architect of the Capitol.)
Gingrich's grip on the legislative process loosened considerably after he ran into ethics problems and his most ardent followers became disgruntled with his willingness to compromise. A poor showing by Republicans in the 1998 elections compelled Gingrich to step aside as Speaker. The House selected Republican J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois to be Speaker of the House at the start of the 106th Congress (1999–2001).
Hastert was a proponent of allowing the majority of the House to “work its will” on issues by allowing committees to produce bills without excessive instructions from GOP leaders. However, on high-profile issues—or later in his tenure, on issues that were important to Republican President George W. Bush—Hastert was renowned for keeping his members publicly unified. In the 107th Congress (2001–2003), when Hastert's party maintained the narrowest margin of control over the House since 1954, he sometimes delegated the role of disciplinarian to Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, who was often effective in persuading reluctant members to support the leadership's position. DeLay's influence only grew as the 108th Congress convened in 2003 and he assumed the position of majority leader.
A Typical Day in the House A typical day in the House of Representatives might go like this:
The chaplain delivers the opening prayer.
The Speaker approves the Journal, the record of the previous day's proceedings. Often a member will demand a roll-call vote on the approval of the Journal.
At the request of the Speaker, a member comes forward and leads the chamber in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
After some procedural activities—receiving messages from the Senate or the president and granting committees permission to file reports—members are recognized for one-minute speeches on any topic.
The House then turns to its legislative business. Virtually every major bill is considered under a rule setting guidelines for floor action. The rule is usually approved with little opposition, but the vote may be the first test of a bill's popularity. Those who want a less restrictive rule, so they can offer amendments, often work with opponents of a bill to defeat the rule.
After the rule is adopted, the House resolves into the Committee of the Whole to consider the bill. The Speaker relinquishes the gavel to a chair, who presides over the committee. The debate time is controlled by the managers of the bill, usually the chair and ranking minority member of the standing committee that has jurisdiction over the measure.
After time for general debate has expired, members can offer amendments permitted under the rule. Debate on the amendments is conducted under a rule that limits each side to five minutes, unless the rule for the bill allows more time, as it usually does for major amendments. Members may obtain additional time by offering pro forma amendments to “strike the last word.”
Voting is usually by voice. Some votes are recorded electronically; members insert a plastic card into one of many voting stations on the House floor and press a button to record a vote of yea, nay, or present. Their vote is immediately recorded on a big screen on the wall above the Speaker's desk and tabulated, giving a running vote total. Most electronic votes are scheduled for fifteen minutes, though they usually are kept open as long as members are on their way to the chamber.
After the amending process is complete, the committee “rises,” and the chair reports to the Speaker on the actions taken. Acting once again as the House, the members vote on final passage of the bill, sometimes after voting on a motion by opponents to recommit the bill to its committee of origin.
On many noncontroversial bills, the House leadership wants to speed up action, bypassing the Rules Committee and the Committee of the Whole. It can do that by waiving, or suspending, the rules. Bills under suspension, sometimes as many as a dozen at a time, are usually brought up early in the week. Suspensions cannot be amended. Debate is limited to forty minutes, and then members are asked to vote on whether they want to suspend the rules and pass the bill. A single vote accomplishes both steps. A two-thirds vote is needed to suspend the House rules, making it
a gamble sometimes to bring up legislation under suspension. Measures that are even less controversial are placed on the consent calendar or are passed by unanimous consent.
After the House completes its legislative business, members may speak for up to sixty minutes under special orders. They must reserve the time in advance but may speak on any topic—often to an almost deserted chamber.
Origins and Development
The structure of the House was a victory for the more democratic-minded framers of the Constitution. The House “was to be the grand depository of the democratic principles of the government,” said George Mason of Virginia. He and his colleagues prevailed over others who wanted state legislatures to elect the House, as they did the Senate until 1913. “The people immediately should have as little to do” with electing the government as possible, argued Roger Sherman of Connecticut, because they lack information “and are constantly liable to be misled.”
Although the House and Senate have equal standing on most matters, the Constitution gave each chamber certain duties and responsibilities. The House has three special powers: to originate all revenue bills, to recommend removal of federal officials through the impeachment process, and to elect a president when the electors have failed to do so.
Originally the House was a body of just sixty-five legislators, compared with twenty-six in the Senate. In the early years of the nation, the House was seen as more desirable than the Senate.
Gradually, however, legislators such as Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster shifted to the Senate, cutting what became a well-worn path. The larger, more diverse House could not be easily swayed by an impassioned, eloquent speech. Rules, not orators, had already assumed control.
As early as 1841 the House limited debate, giving each representative an hour to speak on a bill. The rule prevails today, and the Rules Committee often curtails members' time to speak even further. That is in contrast to the Senate, where a senator's right to speak for as long as he or she wants is curbed only rarely.
The House almost from the start delegated the drafting of bills to committees. At first legislative debate took place on the House floor, and then a select committee was set up to write a specific bill based on floor discussions. The committee would return to the full House with its proposed language for a final vote. Often more than a hundred different select committees would be created in a session.
Over time the House established standing committees that had jurisdiction over particular subjects. Among the earliest were the Ways and Means Committee and the Commerce and Manufactures Committee (known today as Energy and Commerce). What is now standard House practice began in this period: committee members developed expertise in particular areas and thus gained credibility to back their positions on the House floor. The Rules Committee, set up in 1789 and made a standing committee in 1880, provided further structure to the legislative process. It was responsible for deciding which legislation should reach the floor and what rules should cover floor debate. The Rules Committee usually works with the leadership of the majority party, although it operated independently in the 1940s and 1950s and held up action on an array of liberal programs.
Shifting Power Centers
The center of power in the House has shifted several times during the past two centuries. Strong individuals, such as Henry Clay, Thomas Brackett Reed, Joseph G. Cannon, Sam Rayburn, and Newt Gingrich, have used their terms as Speaker of the House to consolidate power. At other times the House has been dominated by committee chairs, party caucuses, its Rules Committee, or voting blocs of members. For most of the twentieth century the Democratic Party was in the majority, though it was not always able to control House action.
The Speaker was the only House officer mentioned in the Constitution, which left undefined the rest of the organizational structure of the House. Only the Speaker is chosen by a formal House vote, though the Speaker is nominated and effectively chosen by the majority party. Each party votes in caucus to elect the majority and minority floor leaders. The whips, who rank next and are responsible for maintaining party loyalty, are also elected. These officials rank just below the Speaker in the House hierarchy.
The Speaker is usually chosen from among the most senior and loyal party members; since 1925 every Speaker except Hastert has first served as majority leader, minority leader, or minority whip. The post of majority leader was formally created in 1899. Before that time the chair of the Ways and Means Committee had been the floor manager and had been considered the deputy leader.
Forging a unified position is a difficult task with 435 members and the array of committees and subcommittees that are the first level of decision making in the House. Each panel competes to have its opinion heard—and its solution selected by the House. Most members serve on as many as four subcommittees; however, each can chair only one subcommittee.
Legislators also must ultimately answer to the voters in their districts. Although Democrats and Republicans have tried to strengthen party ties by providing campaign funds and other support, ideological differences within each party—and the need to “keep the voters back home happy”—make it difficult to keep the party voting together, particularly on controversial questions.
The House membership, though accustomed to rules, has occasionally revolted when the power structure became too rigid and failed to respond to changing demands. Cannon's autocracy, for example, gave rise to a coalition of Republicans and Democrats who in 1910 reduced the Speaker's powers. Rules changes in the 1970s were prompted by a seniority system that had grown more rigid because of the safe seats of conservative southern Democrats. Control of the House rested in the hands of a few elderly men whose ideas about civil rights, conduct of the war in Vietnam, and other major questions were at odds with the views of a growing number of House Democrats.
By the mid-1970s a new generation of legislators, both Democrats and Republicans, had rewritten the rules to make the leadership more accountable to the Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference, the party organizations. The new members of the House, once kept meekly disciplined, suddenly had a voice in picking the leaders.
Some retrenchment was evident after the Republicans became the majority party as a result of the 1994 elections. Republican Speaker Gingrich, who quickly maximized both the formal and informal powers at his disposal, effectively named the committee chairs and imposed term limits on them. Chairs could no longer build power bases from their committees.
Hastert modified Gingrich's centralized approach. Although he preferred to let committee chairs write the legislative details of bills that required strong technical expertise, Hastert did not hesitate to insist that the caucus endorse President Bush's legislative priorities. Hastert's style was far more low-key than Gingrich's, however. Hastert was most known for his willingness to listen to all of the various factions within his conference and bring them together to reach a consensus on controversial issues.
Membership
To serve in the House, a representative must have been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years and must be at least twenty-five years old. Members of the House must be residents in the state they represent, but they do not have to live in their particular district. In practice, few legislators need worry about the minimum age; the average House member in the 108th Congress (2003– 2005) was fifty-four years old. Most have been citizens since birth. And the overwhelming pattern is for representatives to live in the district they serve.
Characteristics
At the beginning of the 108th Congress, the House was dominated, as it always had been, by middle-aged white men who had a background in law or business and a Christian upbringing. But its membership broadened considerably to include fifty-nine women, thirty-seven blacks, and twenty-three Hispanics. (In addition, the nonvoting delegates for the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands were black women and the resident commissioner for Puerto Rico was Hispanic.) Fifty-four legislators were new to the House.
Representation
State legislatures redraw the lines of congressional districts every ten years, after the national census, to reflect population increases and shifts. Some states lose seats while others gain, depending on shifts in the national population. Politics plays a major role in the way the new district lines are drawn within each state.
Under the 2000 census, eighteen states were affected by changes in the size of their congressional delegations. Power shifted from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West. Four states won two more seats: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Four states gained one seat: California, Colorado, Nevada, and North Carolina. Eight states lost one seat: Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. Two states lost two: New York and Pennsylvania. Seven states with small populations were entitled to only one representative each: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. The largest House delegations were those from California (fifty-three representatives), Texas (thirty-two), and New York (twenty-nine).
Until the 1920s the House simply added seats to reflect population increases and to keep states from having the size of their delegations reduced. After a decade of dispute Congress in 1929 agreed to 435 permanent seats, the number reached after the 1910 census. The legislators also voted in 1929 to reapportion the districts after the 1930 census, thus avoiding another lengthy protest from the states losing seats. The 1930 census eventually cost twenty-one states a total of twenty-seven seats in the House.
In addition to its full members, the House has five delegates representing the District of Columbia and four islands closely linked to the United States: Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.
Incumbency
Although technically it becomes a new body every two years, the House in the mid-twentieth century changed only gradually, with familiar faces retaining the positions they had held for years.
The situation contrasted sharply with the mid-nineteenth century. In 1869, 145 of 243 members were new to the House. Most elections after 1949 brought fewer than 80 new members to the House. Just 33 new members were seated in 1991, but retirements and defeats caught up with the House two years later as 110 new members arrived.
Incumbents have a powerful edge in contests for House seats. Roughly three-quarters of all House members routinely win reelection with 60 percent of the vote or more. Since 1946 more than 90 percent of House members seeking reelection have retained their seats.
In the 2002 midterm elections, sixteen of the 398 House incumbents standing for reelection were defeated, giving incumbents a success rate of 96 percent. Several fell to primary challengers or other incumbents who had been moved to their districts during the redistricting process. Only four lost in the general election to nonincumbent challengers. The House leadership makes campaigning easier for members by giving them frequent four-day weekends and scheduling most House business on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
Additional Readings
Baker, Ross K. House and Senate. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.
Davidson, Roger H., and Walter J. Oleszek. Congress and Its Members. 8th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002.
Galloway, George B. History of the House of Representatives. Rev. ed. Edited by Sidney Wise. New York: Crowell, 1976.
Fenno, Richard F., Jr. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.
MacNeil, Neil. Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives. New York: David McKay, 1963.
Sinclair, Barbara. Legislators, Leaders, and Lawmaking: The U.S. House of Representatives in the Post-reform Era. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995
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Document Citation
"House of Representatives." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8938-501160. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8938-501160 (accessed May 28, 2008).
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Document URL:
http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8938-501160
Senate
Although the Constitution says the two chambers of Congress are equal, senators rarely leave the Senate to run for the House of Representatives. Representatives, however, often decide to run for the Senate.
The two chambers share the tasks of legislating, overseeing the federal government, and representing their constituencies. But striking differences exist between the two legislative bodies and how they go about their work. The Senate, once known as the “world's most exclusive club,” projects an image of influence and prestige that the House does not match. The Senate has 100 members—two from each state—while the House has 435 members, allocated among the states according to population. Senators are elected for six years, House members for two. Senators have a broad, statewide constituency, while most House members represent districts within states. These differences have shaped the practices and procedures of the two chambers.
Thanks to its small size, the Senate is informal and flexible, in contrast to the highly structured House. It is also more individualistic, with power more evenly distributed among its members.
The Senate shares certain executive powers with the president, which contributes to the chamber's prestige. With fewer members to share the limelight, senators enjoy more attention. But, by the same token, there are fewer members to share the workload, which is as heavy in the Senate as in the House. As a result, senators tend to be policy generalists, while representatives develop specialties. The Senate takes longer to consider legislation, in part because it sees its chief role as one of deliberation.
Representatives who move to the Senate feel a sort of political “culture shock” in their new environment. They welcome the Senate's tradition of deference to individual senators. But some look back with nostalgia on the efficient procedures of the House. Many miss the camaraderie of the House, though few wish to return to it. “Rules and tradition make it possible for every member of the Senate to play a significant role in legislating,” said Colorado Republican William L. Armstrong, who was elected to the Senate in 1978 after six years in the House. “It's possible
even for a brand new member to jump right in.”
“A senator has greater access to virtually anyone inside or outside of government,” remarked Paul Simon, an Illinois Democrat who moved from the House to the Senate in 1985. “There are very few people who won't return a phone call from a U.S. senator.”
Origins
The differences between the two chambers were not an accident of history but the result of a carefully crafted plan of the framers of the Constitution in 1787. The Senate was born of compromise—one so significant it was called the “Great Compromise” of the Constitutional Convention. Without it, the convention would have collapsed. When it was decided that representation in the House would be proportional to a state's population, the small states sounded the alarm. Fearful of domination by the more populous states, they insisted that states have equal representation in the Senate. The large states resisted until agreement was reached that, in return for equality of state representation in the Senate, the House would be given sole power to originate money bills, which the Senate could accept or reject but could not modify. This last provision was changed in the final draft to allow the Senate to alter or amend revenue bills.
Matthew Brady's photograph of the sixty-eight members of the Senate in 1859. (Source: Library of Congress.)
The convention also decided that voters would elect House members but that the Senate should be insulated from popular sentiments. To this end, the convention directed that senators be elected by the state legislatures and for six-year terms. James Madison explained the delegates' thinking: “The use of the Senate is to consist in its proceeding with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.”
State legislatures no longer elect senators, because the Seventeenth Amendment provided for direct election of senators. Despite their long terms, senators today devote considerable time and energy to running for reelection, so that they are no longer insulated from public opinion. Some observers would also question whether the Senate has stayed aloof from popular legislative battles.
Nonetheless, the framers' views can still be heard two centuries later. During a 1986 debate over whether to televise Senate proceedings, the discussion was laced with references to the differences between the two chambers, with the Senate depicted as the voice of reason and the House as the more impulsive voice of popular demands. The Senate ultimately voted to allow television cameras into the chamber, as the House had done earlier.
Powers
Contrasting views of the roles of the Senate and House were apparent in the Constitutional Convention's debates over congressional powers. For the most part, the two chambers were given equal powers, but there were several important exceptions.
Power of the Purse
One of the most significant instances in which one chamber was given precedence over the other was in the exercise of the power of the purse. The Constitution required that the House originate tax legislation. The convention's debate over the question of whether the Senate should be allowed to amend the House tax bills reflected the contrasting views of the Senate as likely to be either the most responsible branch or the most aristocratic one, to be strengthened or checked accordingly.
The question eventually was resolved in favor of the Senate's right to amend. This is a right the Senate does not hesitate to use, particularly toward the end of a session. Because the Senate has few procedures or rules to ward off amendments, the Senate often has turned a tax measure into a Christmas tree bill by attaching to it amendments that bestow benefits on various economic interests.
The Senate has even on occasion circumvented the constitutional stricture on originating tax bills. In 1982 it wrote what was at the time the largest peacetime tax increase in the nation's history by attaching the plan to a minor tax bill passed by the House that went straight to a House-Senate conference committee.
Power of Confirmation
Counterbalancing the House's precedence in money matters are the Senate's executive powers, which it shares with the president. These are the powers of confirmation of appointments and treaty ratification.
The Constitution requires that the president appoint government officials with the advice and consent of the Senate. The vast majority of nominations receive routine confirmation, but those for top positions in the federal government and judiciary are closely scrutinized by Senate committees and sometimes hotly debated on the Senate floor.
For example, grueling battles were waged over President Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominations in 1987. One nominee was defeated, and a second withdrew under intense Senate scrutiny before a third finally received Senate approval. One of President George H. W. Bush's cabinet nominees was rejected, becoming only the ninth cabinet nominee in history to be turned down by the Senate. President Bill Clinton faced severe attacks from conservatives for some of his nominees and President George W. Bush in turn was criticized fiercely by Democrats for some of his.
Treaty Power
The Constitution requires that the Senate give its advice and consent to a treaty. A two-thirds vote of the senators present is necessary for treaty ratification. The Senate's voting record on treaties has been overwhelmingly favorable. Outright rejection is rare. In 1920, however, after prolonged debate the Treaty of Versailles was ultimately rejected. The Treaty of Versailles was the World War I treaty of peace with Germany and also covered U.S. membership in the League of Nations.
Congressional involvement in the treaty process reached an unprecedented level in modern times during negotiation in the late 1970s of an arms agreement with the Soviet Union and during consideration of the Panama Canal treaties and related legislation. The Panama Canal treaties were eventually approved by the Senate, but the arms agreement was shelved after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Impeachment Power
The Senate and House share the power to impeach high federal officials. The House conducts the investigation, brings charges (called articles of impeachment) against an official, and argues for removal from office during a trial conducted in the Senate. The final decision is the Senate's. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the senators present to convict on any article of impeachment. Between 1789 and 2003 the Senate sat as a court of impeachment sixteen times. Seven cases ended in conviction and seven in acquittal. In two cases the Senate dismissed the charges.
A Typical Day in the Senate A typical day in the Senate might run as follows:
The Senate is called to order by the presiding officer. The constitutional presiding officer, the vice president, is seldom in attendance. Usually the president pro tempore presides over the opening minutes of the Senate session. During the course of the day, other members of the majority party take turns presiding for an hour at a time.
The Senate chaplain delivers the opening prayer.
The majority leader and the minority leader are recognized for opening remarks. The majority leader usually announces the plan for the day's business, which is developed in consultation with the minority leadership.
Senators who have requested time in advance are recognized for special orders; they may speak about any topic for five minutes.
After special orders, the Senate usually conducts morning business. During morning business—which need not take place in the morning, in spite of its name—members receive reports from committees and messages from the president.
After morning business, the Senate considers legislative or executive matters. If the majority leader wants the Senate to begin work on a piece of legislation, he normally asks for unanimous consent to call up the measure. If any member objects, the leader may make a debatable motion that the Senate take up the bill. The debatable motion gives opponents the opportunity to launch a filibuster, or extended debate, even before the Senate officially begins considering the bill. A few measures, such as budget resolutions and reports from Senate-House conference
committees, are privileged, and a motion to consider them is not debatable.
After the Senate begins work on a bill, floor debate is generally handled by managers, usually the chair and ranking minority member of the committee that has jurisdiction over the measure. Some measures are considered under a time agreement in which the Senate unanimously agrees to limit debate and to divide the time in some prearranged fashion. In the absence of a time agreement, any senator may seek recognition from the chair and, once recognized, may speak for as long as he or she wishes. Unless the Senate has unanimously agreed to limit amendments, senators may offer as many as they wish. Generally, amendments need not be germane, or directly related, to the bill. Most bills are passed by a voice vote with only a handful of
senators present.
Any member can request a roll call, or recorded vote, on an amendment or on final passage of a measure. Senate roll calls are casual affairs. Few members answer the clerk as their names are called. Instead, senators stroll in from the cloakroom or their offices and congregate in the well (the area in the front of the chamber). When they are ready to vote, senators catch the eye of the clerk and vote, often by indicating thumbs up or thumbs down. Roll-call votes are supposed to last fifteen minutes, but some have dragged on for more than an hour.
Often, near the end of the day, the majority leader and the minority leader quickly move through a wrap-up period, during which minor bills that have been cleared by all members are passed by unanimous consent.
Just before the Senate finishes its work for the day, the majority leader seeks unanimous consent for the agenda for the next session: when the Senate will convene, which senators will be given special orders, and sometimes specific time agreements for consideration of legislation.
Election Power
Both chambers have the responsibility of counting the electoral votes for president and vice president. If no candidate for the presidency has a majority of the electoral votes, the House chooses the president. If no vice-presidential candidate has a majority, the Senate makes the choice.
Only once has the Senate resolved a vice-presidential contest. In 1837, when Martin Van Buren was elected president, his running mate, Richard M. Johnson, was one vote short of a majority because Van Buren electors from Virginia had boycotted Johnson. The Senate elected Johnson vice president.
Development
The framers of the Constitution assumed that the House would be the preeminent chamber, with the Senate functioning as a revisory body and a restraining influence. Initially the House did overshadow the Senate. It was reported that, in the First Congress (1789–1791), the Senate often adjourned its own tedious sessions so that its twenty-six members could go listen to the livelier floor debates in the House.
The Senate's influence was soon felt. The importance of its treaty and appointment powers, in which the House had no share, was a factor; in addition, membership in the smaller Senate became more desirable than election to the rapidly expanding House. The Senate's longer term and more stable membership also made it more attractive.
The Senate's legislative importance increased gradually. In the early years the House dominated the great debates, such as those surrounding the War of 1812. But the Senate took the lead in the struggle over the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and succeeded in imposing on the House an amendment barring slavery in future northern states. In the years leading up to the Civil War, the Senate became the chief forum for the great antislavery debates. Illustrious figures, such as Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, dominated this “golden age” of the Senate.
Alexis de Tocqueville, French aristocrat, scholar, and astute observer of American life, wrote in 1834 that “the Senate is composed of eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and statesmen of note, whose arguments would do honor to the most remarkable parliamentary debates of Europe.” He had harsher words for the House of Representatives: “One is struck by the vulgar demeanor of that great assembly. Often there is not a distinguished man in the whole number.”
Legislative Process
Courtesy, dignity, and informality marked the proceedings of the early Senate. Sometimes on a chilly morning members would leave their seats and gather around the fireplace to conduct Senate business. An elaborate procedure or a formal division of labor was not needed because there was not much labor to divide. As the duties of Congress grew and as legislation increased in volume and complexity, however, a discernible legislative process began to evolve. “Rules are never observed in this body; they are only made to be broken. We are a law unto ourselves,” claimed Republican senator John J. Ingalls of Kansas in 1876. In the smaller, more individualistic Senate, rules have been far less important than in the larger House.
The Senate today operates largely by unanimous consent, suspending or adjusting its rules as needed. Because the early Senate saw its primary function as deliberation, no restrictions were placed on debate, and thus was born the Senate's cherished tradition of unlimited debate. There was little obstruction in the early Senate, but the filibuster—the practice by which a minority employs extended debate and delaying tactics to put off or block action on a bill—became increasingly common in the nineteenth century. A virtual epidemic of filibusters occurred in the 1880s and 1890s. A rule to cut off filibusters was finally adopted in 1917 and was first used several years later during the seemingly interminable debates on the Treaty of Versailles. Further reforms to curtail obstructionism in the Senate were adopted over the years. Yet the filibuster—or even the threat of one—remained a potent weapon.
The Senate originally conducted most of its deliberations in its chamber. Senators would consider questions brought before them and indicate the line of action to be followed before appointing a temporary committee to work out the details of proposed legislation. Ad hoc select committees soon grew to an unmanageable number (nearly one hundred in the 1815–1816 session), and the Senate established permanent legislative committees.
Committees developed into powerful, autonomous institutions during the nineteenth century. The important practice of having the majority party's most senior member of a committee serve as chair was begun at this time. These committee chairs often served as floor managers of bills until formal floor leaders were established.
The restored old Senate Chamber. (Source: U.S. Senate Commission on Art and Antiquities.)
The Constitution mentioned only two Senate officers: the vice president of the United States was to serve as the president of the Senate, and a president pro tempore was to act in his absence.
But neither officer was given any real power, and as a result neither has done much more than preside over the Senate.
Eventually the Senate developed a formal leadership hierarchy, but it did not build a tradition of strong leadership like that in the House. As Webster put it in 1830, “This is a Senate, a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators.”
Leadership was provided by powerful individuals or groups until political parties began to dominate. Modern party discipline made its appearance in the Senate in the 1890s, and formally designated majority and minority floor leaders followed in the early 1900s. These leaders came to play an important role in organizing the Senate to carry out their parties' programs. Senators reached top leadership positions after years of spending time on the floor, mastering parliamentary rules, and constantly doing favors for other members.
No Senate leader in modern times has rivaled the effectiveness of Lyndon B. Johnson, a Texas Democrat who served as minority leader in 1953 –1954 and as majority leader from 1955 until 1961, when he resigned to become John F. Kennedy's vice president.
Johnson's influence was the accumulation of hundreds of intense one-to-one relationships. He got his way by subjecting senators to his legendary “treatment”—cajoling, accusing, threatening, and promising—until he had won.
Johnson's power was not something that could be passed on to successors, partly because it was uniquely his but also because the climate in the Senate was changing. Organizational and procedural changes in the 1970s enabled less senior members of the Senate to gain power at the expense of older and more experienced legislators. With more staff, more money, and more power, individual senators were able to maintain their independence from party leaders and more easily pursue their own interests and legislative goals.
The Modern Senate
By the 1980s members were increasingly frustrated by the legislative system and the Senate's bouts of legislative paralysis. A few highly publicized retirements focused attention on the problems of the modern Senate. “We are legislators. Like baseball players who like to play nine innings, like farmers who like to plant all of their fields, we like to pass laws,” said South Dakota Democrat Thomas A. Daschle, who in 1987 moved from the House to the Senate, where in time he served as both minority and majority leader. “In an era of fast moving, globalized issues, the possibility that the world could pass the Senate by increases immeasurably.”
The Senate Chamber. (Source: U.S. Senate Commission on Art and Antiquities.)
Complaints about the Senate's cumbersome processes are as old as the institution itself. Because of its privileges of unlimited debate and virtually unlimited amending powers, the Senate may well spend days considering a measure that the House debated and passed in one afternoon.
To keep business moving, the Senate in the early 1970s began operating on a two-track system, with a certain period of time reserved daily for particularly controversial bills. It was hoped that in this way a much-debated bill would not interfere with other business. Nonetheless, delays and obstructionism continued to increase.
Filibusters, which a couple of generations ago were reserved for civil rights and a handful of other divisive issues, came to be used on dozens of less important subjects. A few intransigent senators—just one, if he or she was sufficiently determined—could block action on any bill that did not have the sixty votes required to end a filibuster. Probably no one voiced the growing frustration felt by many senators better than Barry Goldwater, who retired in 1987 after thirty years as a Republican senator from Arizona. “If this is the world's greatest deliberative body,” he told a colleague one day in 1982, “I'd hate to see the world's worst.”
Efforts to streamline procedures were made in the 1980s. Yet, in an institution as traditional as the Senate, those seeking changes in procedures and organization inevitably faced a battle.
Senior members jealously guarded their power bases. Others resisted change because they thought the Senate's constitutional role and its identity as a “deliberative” body were inextricably linked to its inefficiency. They feared that changes would weaken the power of the minority party—and even individual senators—to affect the outcome of legislation. The burden of proof rested heavily on those seeking procedural revisions.
The leadership in the 100th Congress (1987–1989) inaugurated a new system to answer one frustration of senators: the chamber's erratic schedule. The new plan called for the Senate to be in session for three five-day work weeks and then off for a week. Until then, the Senate generally had had floor business four days a week. Members had complained that the unpredictable schedule interfered with family events, meetings with constituents, and campaign fundraising events. But the Senate quickly returned to four-day weeks and unpredictable schedules. Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, had cautioned against expecting too much. “There is no magic solution that will automatically make the Senate a 9-to-5 job,” Byrd said in 1987. “We could make it a 9-to-5 job but it would no longer be the United States Senate.”
Byrd's successor as majority leader, Democrat George J. Mitchell of Maine, was more successful in improving senators' working conditions. He resumed the three-weeks-on, one-week-off legislative schedule and held few late-night sessions. Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, who held the position from 1996 until 2001, generally sought to avoid late-night votes until the intense workload at the end of the year required a more frenetic schedule.
Lott directed the Senate during the historic 107th Congress, which was comprised of fifty Democrats and fifty Republicans. Lott oversaw an unprecedented power-sharing agreement between the two parties that lasted only five months in 2001. The agreement gave each party equal representation on committees. If a panel tied on a vote, the full Senate could move the issue to the floor, where GOP Vice President Richard Cheney could break the tie.
However, the deal was short-lived. In June, Republican James M. Jeffords of Vermont left his party to become an Independent, handing control of the chamber to the Democrats. After the Democrats lost seats in the 2002 elections, control reverted to the Republicans in 2003.
Elections
Senators were elected by state legislatures until the early twentieth century. But in the Progressive era with its movement toward more democratic control of government, public opinion increasingly favored popular election of senators. Eventually the Senate was forced to participate in its own reform. The Seventeenth Amendment, approved by Congress in 1912 and ratified by the states the following year, provided for the direct election of senators.
The six-year terms of senators are staggered so that one-third of the Senate seats are up for election every two years, instead of all the seats being open at one time. In the event of a vacancy, a state governor may make a temporary appointment until the vacancy can be filled by a special election.
The length of a senator's term has always been considered a real advantage, especially by House members who face elections every two years. Historically, senators were able to act as statesmen for the first half of their terms and deal with politics in the last few years. But Senate seats today are not so secure as they once were, and senators are increasingly becoming permanent candidates, like their House colleagues. Senate races are not only more competitive but also more costly, with multimillion-dollar campaigns common. According to former majority leader Byrd, one of his biggest problems as leader was accommodating the senators' need for time away from the floor to raise campaign money. (See Campaign Financing.)
Qualifications
To serve in the U.S. Senate, the Constitution requires that a person be at least thirty years of age, have been a citizen of the United States for not less than nine years, and live in the state he or she is to represent.
Characteristics
Few senators in modern times have found the age requirement to be a problem. The average senator at the start of the 108th Congress in 2003 was 59.7 years old.
Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, and Sen. Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, speak at a news conference to call for passage of a jobs and economic growth package being advocated by Republicans, May 2003. (Source: Scott J. Ferrell, Congressional Quarterly.)
The Senate in 2003 counted fourteen women among its ranks, including two from each of three states, California, Maine, and Washington. These small numbers were hardly surprising, given that only thirty-three women had been elected or appointed to the Senate since its beginning. (Of these, one served just a day and another never was sworn in because Congress was not in session.) Only three African Americans had served in the Senate before Carol Moseley- Braun, the first black woman senator, was elected by Illinois in 1992. But Moseley-Braun lost her seat in the 1998 elections.
One telling statistic from the 108th Congress was the number of former representatives serving in the Senate: forty-nine, almost half of the membership. Although representatives tend to bristle when the House is referred to as the “lower chamber,” they recognize the incentives to make a run for the Senate: the Senate's greater prestige and publicity; its longer term, larger staff, and more generous perquisites; the opportunity for increased effectiveness; a greater role in foreign affairs; and the challenge of dealing with a statewide constituency.
More than half of the senators (sixty) at the start of the 108th Congress in 2003 listed law as their occupation. This was a much higher percentage than the 161 House members who cited a legal profession that year.
Only one former senator sat in the House in recent years. This was Florida Democrat Claude Pepper who, after serving as a senator from 1936 through 1951, became a House member in 1963 and served until his death in 1989. Even after Pepper's several decades in the House, people still called him by his more prestigious title,
“Senator Pepper.”
Additional Readings
Binder, Sarah A., and Steven S. Smith. Politics or Principle? Filibustering in the United States Senate. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1997.
Byrd, Robert C. The Senate 1789–1989. 4 vols. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988–1994.
Davidson, Roger H., and Walter J. Oleszek. Congress and Its Members. 8th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002.
Fenno, Richard F., Jr. Senators on the Campaign Trail: The Politics of Representation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
Haynes, George H. The Senate of the United States: Its History and Practice. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1938.
Loomis, Burdett, ed. Esteemed Colleagues: Civility and Deliberation in the U.S. Senate. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000.
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Document Citation
"Senate." CQ Electronic Library, CQ's Congress A to Z Online Edition, coaz4d-179-8950-501399. Originally published in Congress A to Z, 4th ed., edited by David R. Tarr and Ann O'Connor (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8950-501399 (accessed May 29, 2008).
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Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/congressaz/coaz4d-179-8950-501399