—
This week Craig Benzine clears up the role of committees in Congress. We’ll talk about standing committees, joint committees, conference committees, and caucuses (and not the candidate-choosing kinds) as well as the staff agencies that help advise these committees and congresspeople. As most bills never even make it to the house and senate floors for a vote, the role of committees, and their respective chairpersons as gatekeeper is pretty important.
—
—
Transcript Provided by YouTube:
00:02
Hi, I’m Craig and this is Crash Course Government and Politics and today we’re going to get
00:07
down and dirty wallowing in the mud that is Congress. Okay, maybe that’s a little unfair,
00:12
but the workings of Congress are kind of arcane or byzantine or maybe let’s just say extremely
00:16
complex and confusing, like me, or Game of Thrones without the nudity. Some of the nudity, maybe.
00:23
However, Congress is the most important branch, so it would probably behoove most Americans
00:27
to know how it works. I’m going to try to explain. Be prepared to be behooved.
00:31
[Theme Music]
00:40
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are divided up into committees in order
00:44
to make them more efficient. The committees you hear about most are the standing committees,
00:47
which are relatively permanent and handle the day-to-day business of Congress. The House has 19
00:51
standing committees and the Senate 16. Congressmen and Senators serve on multiple committees.
00:56
Each committee has a chairperson, or chair, who is the one who usually gets mentioned
00:59
in the press, which is why you would know the name of the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.
01:03
Tell us in the comments if you do know, or tell us if you are on the committee, or just say hi.
01:08
Congress creates special or select committees to deal with particular issues that are beyond
01:12
the jurisdiction of standing committees. Some of them are temporary and some, like the Senate
01:16
Select Committee on Intelligence, are permanent. Some of them have only an advisory function
01:20
which means they can’t write laws. The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global
01:23
Warming has only advisory authority which tells you pretty much all you need to know
01:27
about Congress and climate change.
01:28
There are joint committees made up of members of both houses. Most of them are standing
01:32
committees and they don’t do a lot although the joint Committee on the Library oversees
01:35
the Library of Congress, without which we would not be able to use a lot of these pictures.
01:40
Like that one, and that one, and ooh that one’s my favorite.
01:43
Other committees are conference committees, which are created to reconcile a bill when
01:46
the House and Senate write different versions of it, but I’ll talk about those later when
01:50
we try to figure out how a bill becomes a law.
01:52
So why does Congress have so many committees? The main reason is that it’s more efficient
01:55
to write legislation in a smaller group rather than a larger one. Congressional committees
01:58
also allow Congressmen to develop expertise on certain topics. So a Congressperson from
02:02
Iowa can get on an agriculture committee because that is an issue he presumably knows something
02:06
about if he pays attention to his constituents. Or a Congressperson from Oklahoma could be
02:10
on the Regulation of Wind Rolling Down the Plain Committee.
02:14
Committees allow members of Congress to follows their own interests, so someone passionate
02:17
about national defense can try to get on the armed services committee. Probably more important,
02:22
serving on a committee is something that a Congressperson can claim credit for and use
02:25
to build up his or her brand when it comes time for reelection.
02:28
Congress also has committees for historical reasons. Congress is pretty tradish, which
02:31
is what you say when you don’t have time to say traditional. Anyway, it doesn’t see much
02:35
need to change a system that has worked, for the most part, since 1825.
02:38
That doesn’t mean that Congress hasn’t tried to tweak the system. Let’s talk about how
02:42
committees actually work in the Thought Bubble.
02:44
Any member of Congress can propose a bill, this is called proposal power, but it has
02:48
to go to a committee first. Then to get to the rest of the House or Senate it has to be reported out of committee.
02:53
The chair determines the agenda by choosing which issues get considered. In the House
02:56
the Speaker refers bills to particular committees, but the committee chair has some discretion
03:00
over whether or not to act on the bills. This power to control what ideas do or do not become
03:04
bills is what political scientists call “Gatekeeping Authority”, and it’s a remarkably important
03:08
power that we rarely ever think about, largely because when a bill doesn’t make it on to
03:12
the agenda, there’s not much to write or talk about.
03:14
The committee chairs also manage the actual process of writing a bill, which is called
03:17
mark-up, and the vote on the bill in the committee itself. If a bill doesn’t receive a majority
03:21
of votes in the committee, it won’t be reported out to the full House or Senate. In this case
03:25
we say the bill “died in committee” and we have a small funeral on the National Mall.
03:28
Nah we just put it in the shredder.
03:30
Anyway, committee voting is kind of an efficient practice. If a bill can’t command a majority
03:33
in a small committee it doesn’t have much chance in the floor of either house. Committees
03:36
can kill bills by just not voting on them, but it is possible in the House to force them
03:40
to vote by filing a discharge petition – this almost never happens.
03:44
Gatekeeping Authority is Congress’s most important power, but it also has oversight power, which
03:48
is an after-the-fact authority to check up on how law is being implemented.
03:51
Committees exercise oversight by assigning staff to scrutinize a particular law or policy
03:55
and by holding hearings. Holding hearings is an excellent way to take a position on a particular issue.
04:00
Thanks Thought Bubble. So those are the basics of how committees work, but I promised you
04:03
we’d go beyond the basics, so here we go into the Realm of Congressional History.
04:09
Since Congress started using committees they have made a number of changes, but the ones that have
04:12
bent the Congress into its current shape occurred under the speakership of Newt Gingrich in 1994.
04:17
Overall Gingrich increased the power of the Speaker, who was already pretty powerful.
04:21
The number of subcommittees was reduced, and seniority rules in appointing chairs were changed.
04:25
Before Gingrich or “BG” the chair of a committee was usually the longest serving member of
04:29
the majority party, which for most of the 20th century was the Democrats. AG Congress,
04:33
or Anno Gingrichy Congress, holds votes to choose the chairs. The Speaker has a lot of
04:37
influence over who gets chosen on these votes, which happen more regularly because the Republicans
04:41
also impose term limits on the committee chairs.
04:44
Being able to offer chairmanships to loyal party members gives the Speaker a lot more
04:47
influence over the committees themselves.
04:49
The Speaker also increased his, or her — this is the first time we can say that, thanks
04:53
Nancy Pelosi — power to refer bills to committee and act as gatekeeper.
04:57
Gingrich also made changes to congressional staffing. But before we discuss the changes,
05:01
let’s spend a minute or two looking at Congressional staff in general.
05:03
There are two types of congressional staff, the Staff Assistants that each Congressperson
05:07
or Senator has to help her or him with the actual job of being a legislator, and the
05:11
Staff Agencies that work for Congress as a whole.
05:13
The staff of a Congressperson is incredibly important. Some staffers’ job is to research
05:17
and write legislation while others do case work, like responding to constituents’ requests.
05:22
Some staffers perform personal functions, like keeping track of a Congressperson’s calendar,
05:25
or most importantly making coffee – can we get a staffer in here?
05:30
As Congresspeople spend more and more time raising money, more and more of the actual
05:33
legislative work is done by staff. In addition to the individual staffers, Congress as a
05:37
whole has specialized staff agencies that are supposed to be more independent. You may
05:41
have heard of these agencies, or at least some of them.
05:43
The Congressional Research Service is supposed to perform unbiased factual research for Congresspeople
05:47
and their staff to help them in the process of writing the actual bills. The Government
05:50
Accountability Office is a branch of Congress that can investigate the finances and administration
05:55
of any government administrative office. The Congressional Budget Office assesses the likely
05:58
costs and impact of legislation. When the CBO looks at the cost of a particular bill it’s called “scoring the bill.”
06:04
The Congressional reforms after 1994 generally increased the number of individual staff and
06:08
reduced the staff of the staff agencies. This means that more legislation comes out of the
06:13
offices of individual Congresspeople.
06:14
The last feature of Congress that I’m going to mention, briefly because their actual function
06:18
and importance is nebulous, is the caucus system. These are caucuses in Congress, so don’t confuse
06:22
them with the caucuses that some states use to choose candidates for office, like the ones in Iowa.
06:27
Caucuses are semi-formal groups of Congresspeople organized around particular identities or
06:31
interests. Semi-formal in this case doesn’t mean that they wear suits and ties, it means
06:34
that they don’t have official function in the legislative process.
06:37
But you know what? Class it up a little – just try to look nice.
06:40
The Congressional Black Caucus is made up of the African American members of the legislature.
06:44
The Republican Study Group is the conservative caucus that meets to discuss conservative
06:48
issues and develop legislative strategies.
06:50
Since 2010 there is also a Tea Party caucus in Congress. There are also caucuses for very
06:54
specific interests like the Bike Caucus that focuses on cycling.
06:57
There should also be a Beard Caucus, shouldn’t there? Is there a Beard Caucus Stan? No? What
07:02
about an eagle punching caucus?
07:05
The purpose of these caucuses is for like minded people to gather and discuss ideas.
07:08
The caucuses can help members of Congress coordinate their efforts and also provide
07:12
leadership opportunities for individual Congresspeople outside of the more formal structures of committees.
07:16
There are a lot of terms and details to remember, but here’s the big thing to take away: caucuses,
07:20
congressional staff, and especially committees, all exist to make the process of lawmaking more efficient.
07:25
In particular, committees and staff allow individual legislators to develop expertise;
07:29
this is the theory anyway. Yes it’s a theory.
07:32
Committees also serve a political function of helping Congresspeople build an identity
07:36
for voters that should help them get elected. In some ways this is just as important in
07:40
the role in the process of making actual legislation.
07:42
When Congress doesn’t pass many laws, committee membership, or better yet, being a committee
07:45
chair is one of the only ways that a Congressperson can distinguish him or herself. At least it
07:49
gives you something more to learn about incumbents when you’re making your voting choices.
07:53
Thanks for watching. I’ll see you next week.
07:55
Crash Course is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios. Support for Crash Course
07:59
US Government comes from Voqal. Voqal supports nonprofits that use technology and media to
08:03
advance social equity. Learn more about their mission and initiatives at voqal.org
08:08
Crash Course is made with all of these lovely people. Thanks for watching.
08:12
Staffer! Coffee! Please. Thank you.
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
—
Photo credit: Screenshot from video.
