Exam 2 Review Congress 2 worlds of Congress lawmaking and representing The lawmaking world of Congress is referring to the world on Capital Hill in D C The Representing world of congress refers to the world of the district where the members relate to constituents Congressional elections are the baseline for this relationship between members and constituents power of congressional incumbency and advantages of incumbency congressional campaign spending Advantages of Incumbency 1 Name recognition and relevant experience 2 Money In order to be a viable threat against an incumbent around 1 million dollars is needed for a campaign 3 Time Challengers run a compressed campaign The more challengers are able to raise and spend the better they do on election day Guaranteed Exam Question Figure 11 4 The More Incumbents spend on average the worse they do on election day Guaranteed exam Question from figure 11 5 The conclusion that should be taken from this is that when an incumbent spends a lot of money it simply suggests that they are facing a strong challenger strategic politicians hypothesis Kernell and Jacobsons Strategic Politicians hypothesis suggest that experienced politicians make strategic rational decisions about when to run for higher office Potential campaign contributors make strategic decisions about when and to whom to contribute Appearance of a strong incumbent deters potential challengers Mayhew s continuous campaign continuous campaigns of incumbents leads to name recognition and service record People are more likely to vote for challengers when they recognize a name on the ballot advertising franking privilege able to take trips home etc When running for office its is important to not show controversial issues but rather good things that that person has done for the community for example building safe bridges credit claiming pork casework etc Members claim personal responsibility for moving govt to do things for the district and constituents Federal grants and e g pork barrel and earmarks concentrated benefits and dispersed costs Casework help constituents via staff to deal with govt bureaucracy Make friends and not enemies position taking Take the right position and cast the right vote on matters that are important to that district representation and ir responsibility in Congress Particularized benefits familiar criticism of congress in against members pursuit of particularized benefits programs projects earmarks tax breaks targeted at constituents pork members always tempted to over produce especially if primary concern is re election individual responsiveness to the district but danger problem of no collective responsibility on part of congress collective action problem collective action problem each member pursues a rational individually productive strategy collective irresponsibility In 1994 did voters react against collective irresponsibility gov that they perceived as nature of representation delegate trustee and sociological features of Congress that enable work to get done delegate members votes the way his her constituents want trustee member listens to constituents but votes his her own conscience sociological do members share sociodemographic charactericts of constituents role of congressional standing committees subcommittees House Rules Committee and conference committees etc A house rules committee attaches a rule to each peace of legislation The senate does not have a rules committee It is in charge of determining under what rule other bills will come to the floor Congressional standing committee Permanent legislative panels established by the U S House of Representatives and Senate Rules These committees consider bills and issues and recommend measures for consideration by their respective chambers Conference Committees A conference committee is a committee that has been appointed by both chambers of congress to resolve disagreements on a particular bill Subcommittees A subordinate committee consists of members appointed from a main committee They consider specific matters and then report back to the main committee role s of party leadership and political parties in Congress Speaker of the House majority and minority leaders in House and Senate etc Speaker of the House is the Presiding officer of a legislative body The senate minority and majority leader are the U S Senators who are elected by the party conferences that hold the majority and minority respectively They serve as chief Senate Spokesman for their designated party as well as manage and schedule legislative and executive businesses of the Senate Political leadership is stronger in the house compared to the Senate More info later in notes under differences between house and senate informal congressional norms and rules of behavior for example respect and institutional loyalty reciprocity and logrolling norms of respect and institutional loyalty norms of reciprocity be willing to bargain compromise work with others and legrolling vote trading why the rise in party unity disappearance of Conservative Coalition Large part of the answer is disappearance of conservative democrats in the south and the so called conservative coalition conditional party government Conditional party government rhode and Aldrich ideological homogeneity within each party but ideological divergence between the parties members willing to grant power to party leaders some basic differences between U S House and U S Senate including role of the filibuster unanimous consent agreements and cloture which tends to be more of a rode block the senate because of filibuster In the House relative to the Senate Party leaders tend to be stronger Greater specialization 2 year term relative to 6 year term More limits on floor debate and amendment no Rules Committee in the Senate and the possibility of a Senate filibuster unless a Unanimous Consent Agreement UCA invoking cloture can bring a filibuster to an end but requires 60 Senators so an effective working majority in Senate is actually 60 members 60 Rule committee attaches a rule to each legislation If you favor the rule thats coming out of committee you prefer closed rule that exact bill no amendments allowed Open Rule opened up to amendments on the floor Semi Closed Rule allow amendments on parts of the Bill Senate has no rules Committee Senate leaders will negotiate and say we have unanimous consent agreement for them to have equivalent of rules attached to legislation they have to
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