THE FIRST BRANCH How to teach about C ONGRESS

1. THE FIRST BRANCH How to teach about CONGRESS Fred W. Beuttler, Ph.D. Deputy Historian U.S. House of Representatives

2. THE FIRST BRANCH How to teach about THEHOUSE “THEPEOPLE’SHOUSE”

5. I. Why teach about Congress? Which is the “first” branch of government? Why? The House of Representatives and the “other body” Historical examples: How did Emancipation happen? Civil Rights?

8. II. The American Political System Sovereignty: Which governing body is “sovereign”? Federal System: National vs. State governments Separation of Powers: Legislative, Executive, Judicial For how many congresses does a president serve? In which branch does the Majority rule?

9. Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn Dem-Tx. 1941-1947 1949-1953 1955-1961 “I didn’t serve under anyone. I served with eight presidents.”

10. Who were the first and second presidents to address Congress in the Capitol?

13. State of the Union, January 2007

14. The Legislative Branch • Prerogatives of the Legislature • Role and Power of a Member of Congress • Cultures of the two Houses • House = majority rules; Senate = minority • Role of Speaker of the House • Committee System: Congress at Work • “Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.” Woodrow Wilson 1885 • Committees of Jurisdiction • Authorizing Committees and the Appropriations Committee • Who chooses what committee gets jurisdiction? • Politics, Policy, Procedure

16. IV. Bills and Laws • Civics version of how a bill becomes a law • Bill, committee, hearings, floor vote, • “other body,” conference, to president • Who can introduce a bill? • How hard is it to introduce a bill? • How many bills are introduced? How many actually pass? • Are most bills intended to become law? • Should you teach “How a bill becomes law”? • or • “How an IDEA becomes a law”?

19. What is missing in this chart?

20. How Many Bills Become Law

21. Woodrow Wilson Congressional Government, 1884 “The fate of bills committed is generally not uncertain. As a rule, a bill committed is a bill doomed. When it goes from the clerk’s desk to a committee-room it crosses a parliamentary bridge of sighs to dim dungeons of silence whence it will never return. The means and time of its death are unknown, but its friends never see it again.”

24. V. Deliberation and Decision Making in the Senate and the House • Senate and Deliberation/ Debate • The Filibuster and the rights of the Minority • House and Decision making • The House Rules Committee and the power of the Majority • Rules Committee: Umpire? or Gatekeeper? • “The Arm of the Speaker” • open, closed, structured rules • “The rules of this House are not for the purpose of protecting the rights of the minority, but to promote the orderly conduct of the business of the House.” Speaker Thomas Bracket Reed, c.1890 • IF teach Senate FILIBUSTER, • You MUST Teach HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE

25. Who was “Roberts”? [And why doesn’t Congress use his Rules?] What are the two principles of Roberts Rules of Order? Gen. Henry M. Roberts (1837-1923) Roberts Rules of Order, (1876, 1915) [Congress, Roberts, and “The Ninety Minute Rule”]

27. The Rules Committee Howard W. Smith, chair Democrat, Virginia 1961

30. VI. How an Idea Really Becomes Law • Case Study I: • Naming rooms in the Capitol Visitors Center • Bill? Amendment? • Through Appropriations process? • or • authorizing committee?

31. Case Study II: • How the really Important • Bills become Law • Appropriations vs. Revenue • (Spending vs. Taxation) • “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.” • House Ways and Means Committee and • Senate Finance Committee • “Tax expenditures”; “Pay-go” Rules; deficit spending • Appropriations Process • “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”

32. VIII. Conclusions • “Broken Branch”? • or • Founder’s Intent? • "A properly designed state, the Fathers believed, would check interest with interest, class with class, faction with faction, • and one branch of government with another in • a harmonious system of mutual frustration". • Hofstadter, Amer Pol Trad, p11.

35. “In some respects, Congress has never satisfied the American people and will never be able to do so, for Congress is the people. But precisely for that reason, the legislative branch, as it was in colonial and revolutionary days, is still the people’s voice and the people’s hope, destined to frustration and conflict in synthesizing all the people’s needs and aspirations. ‘Congress,’ declared Republican Senator (then Representative) William Cohen of Maine in 1975, ‘is designed to be slow and inefficient because it represents the total diversity in this country. Yet people are accustomed to instant gratification, and when they don’t get it, they have instant disappointment and instant cynicism. I don’t know if we will ever be able to measure up to public expectations.’” The House of Representatives is one of the central branches of the Federal Government, the only branch where the Majority Rules; where it can be truly said, following, Alexander Hamilton, that “Here, Sir, the People Govern.”