Congress Synthesis

Congress has it's main jobs of making laws, representing the people, and overseeing power. However, even after hundreds of years of operation, Congress still isn't perfect, and centers around the same mistakes. Challengers have a hard time making their mark on the nation, the overall work system of Congress can be quite slow and inefficient, and even the main branches of Congress have their main flaws.

Congress can be seen as a system centered on the incumbents. During midterm elections for House members, incumbents normally have the advantage. Unlike challengers, who have a fresh start and no connections, incumbents already have connections with various interest groups, organizations, lobbyists, etc. They may already have plans set up or to continue on if they win a second term, and therefore already have a worked out idea on what to focus on when reelected, whereas challengers still need to take the time to get used to the new position and figure out how to combat the latest issues. Often what happens during these elections is logrolling, when colleagues make the exchange of "I vote for you and you vote for me" deal.

The constituency are the people living in the incumbent's home state. Incumbents employ the use of the service strategy (tending to the constituency) to make money. For example, the Pork-Barrel spending is the practice of obtaining funds through legislation that favors their home districts (earmarks). Incumbents also benefit from a special tool call redistricting, redrawing the House election districts after a reapportionment, reallocating certain populations of a district before actually making the lines.. When used wrongly to redraw districts in a way that favors candidates of a party, it's known as gerrymandering. Most PAC's prefer donating to incumbents, as going against them (and losing) could mean losing a great deal of praise and precious money. Of course, during an open seat election, where there is no incumbent, the tables can turn either way. Incumbents are most vulnerable after getting exposed by a serious scandal, as shown with Nixon at Watergate and Clinton and his affair.

There are a few important figures in Congress to keep in mind of. In each chamber of Congress, there is a leader. In the House, it is the Speaker of the House whereas in the Senate it's the Senate majority leader (leader of the majority party in the chamber). The Speaker of the House is given many powers, including the ability to choose the chairperson and the majority-party members of the House Rules Committee (controls the scheduling of the bills), assigning bills to committees, and assigning members to conference committees. The House majority leader assists the Speaker by organizing debate on bills and lining up legislative support. The Senate majority leader holds a very similar job to the Speaker of the House, the main difference being that he/she is the not Senate's true chamber presiding officer (that would be the vice president/president pro tempore). The minority leaders of both chambers also hold very similar powers, which would be to head the party's caucus and develop the party's legislative positions.

Within Congress are several committees, all with the responsibility for a certain area of public policy. Standing committees are also known as the permanent committees, handling issues dealing with agriculture, foreign policy, labor, taxation, defense, government spending, and the judiciary. Select committees are created for specific job for a specific time period and purpose. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, for example, helps aid overseeing the CIA. Joint committees contain members from both houses and performs advisory functions. The Joint Committee on the Library, for example, helps oversee the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world. Conference committees play an important job in the bill making process, as merging of similar bills occurs here. Committees themselves also have a system of leadership. Every committees has important chairpersons that schedule committee meetings, determine the order bills will be debated on, and overall lead the debate.

Congress's first main job is lawmaking. Bills aren't easy to pass. 90% of them don't even get debated on. Since Congress is a bicameral legislature (two-houses), bills are first either introduced to the House or Senate and then taken to committees for revising. Subcommittees further refine the bills, and send them back to the full committees. Full committees have the ability to mark up, or make revisions, to a bill. If the bill is sent to the HOR, then the bill also has to go through an extra step of getting sent to House Rules Committee so it can define the rules of the debate in the House. The Senate does have this step since it since leadership takes on this job. After getting debated on in either the Senate or house, the bill is sent to the conference committee, which merges that bill with any other similar bill passed in the other chamber. Lastly, the bill is sent to the president, who can either veto or approve of the bill. Sometimes riders are proposed, which are irrelevant amendment to bills. Strangely enough, they aren't allowed in the House, but are allowed in the Senate.

A few problems with the lawmaking process is that it's hard to ever agree on anything. Congress is filled with many lawmakers with varying backgrounds, interests, and constituencies. It's not a surprise that there are many disagreements. For example, the precise definition of free trade is different for all members of Congress, as foreign competition to manufacturers of computer chips would be much different to that of manufacturers of automobiles. In addition, unlike the House which runs on a strict debate time limit, the Senate has "unlimited debate time". What sometimes happens when a party is presenting their proposal or idea that quite feasible, a senator of the opposing party will being a filibuster, when senators talk to take up time until the majority party gives up. A filibuster can be canceled, but only with a three-fifths majority approval among the Senate, known as a cloture.

In addition, although Congress holds a main job in representing the various people and beliefs of the nation. Similarly to the lawmaking process, it's quite hard to agree on anything since it's hard to satisfy and represent both the nation and the state interests. For example, there are those members of Congress from more rural areas of the nation that would oppose gun control legislation since whereas those from more urban areas would support it. In the case of conflicting interests, Congress members will normally side with those who align with their part and often have to unwillingly go against constituent interests. For example, when local businesses and labor groups take opposing sides on issues, Republicans will normally support businesses while Democrats will normally support labor.

Congress has a third function of supervising and overseeing “everything” so that power regulated and used properly. However, the task is so large and there is too much to oversee, and as a result, oversight is not pursued vigorously. Only when an agency is found to have acted improperly does Congress place restrictions on the agency and reduce its appropriation. The irony with oversight is that it's normally best to oversee things to prevent any possible mistakes or disasters. However, oversight only actually kicks in when a disaster or mistake like a war happens.

Congress still requires a great deal of improvement. The system is still quite inefficient, has a great deal of gridlock, congress members that don't reflect on the views on constituents and take advantage of their privileges, and fragmented relationships between the executive and legislative branches (especially when two different parties operate them). Possibly through actually imposing more regulations on privileges and operations can the system's conditions at least begin to ameliorate.