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Committees in Congress. GOV E-1351. Delegation in Congress. Again, Congress is self-organized Collective action problems Legislative Activity and Oversight are costly Policymaking requires expertise Different constituencies seek representation on different issues
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Committees in Congress GOV E-1351
Delegation in Congress • Again, Congress is self-organized • Collective action problems • Legislative Activity and Oversight are costly • Policymaking requires expertise • Different constituencies seek representation on different issues • Gatekeeping – Why spend time on bad ideas?
What is a Committee? • Subset of one or both chambers with a specified task • Legislative tasks • Drafting • Coordination • Procedural Tasks (House Rules) • Oversight tasks • Logistical Tasks
Committee of the Whole • Fictional “committee” to which every member of the House belongs (there is no analogue in the Senate) • Quorum in the CoW is 100 members (following Reed’s Rules of 1888) • Rules are less formal than those for the House (and not subject to Constitutional restrictions)
The CoW is not the HoR • All business conducted in the CoW must be ratified by the full House • All amendments approved by the CoW must be revoted upon in the full House • This implies that amendments that are successful in the CoW might fail in the full House • The Speaker generally does not preside over the CoW
Standing Committees • Committees that persist from Congress to Congress • Typically legislative in nature (govern substantive business in a jurisdiction) • Jurisdictions established by precedent, Speaker (& Parliamentarian’s) judgments, (Note: Standing committees in Senate do not work so much from referrals, except Judiciary and Foreign Relations) • Memberships relatively stable over time
The Costs and Benefits of Standing • Oversight responsibilities • Budgetary role (historically) • Authorization role (in House) • Establishment of Seniority • Regularity of Jurisdiction promotes campaign contributions from organized interests, development of expertise • Majority Party overrepresented (except on Ethics Committees)
Select (or “Special”) Committees • More Narrowly Focused • Fewer membership restrictions • Generally fewer legislative prerogatives • Often investigative/topical in nature • Intelligence • Indian Affairs • Ervin Committee (Watergate) • Kefauver Committee (Organized Crime)
Joint Committees • Inter-Chamber committees • Economic - informational • Taxation - informational • Library – coordination (runs Library of Congress) • Printing (runs GPO) • Atomic Energy (1947-1979) -- legislative
Conference Committees • Joint Ad Hoc committees appointed to negotiate compromise between chambers after each passed a different version of the same bill • House members are appointed by the Speaker • In many ways, this is where the real decisions are made on controversial legislation
Conference Committees • House Passes a bill and Senate passes a similar bill (regardless of order) • One chamber requests a conference, other chamber agrees (or not) • Committee approves a report by “majority of each delegation” rule • Report sent back to chamber that requested conference • If approved, committee is dissolved • If second chamber also approves, then bill is sent to President
Power of the Conference • Conference reports are essentially unamendable (why?) • This give conference committee great power • Conference committee generally consists of members in favor of appropriate chamber’s version of the bill (but not always) • Technically, conference must stay within scope of original bills
Tangent: Resolving Disagreement • Conference committees are not Constitutionally prescribed • Without conference, chambers can send a bill “back and forth,” usually no more than 2 times (but this is simply a norm) • Usually done when disagreement is technical in nature
The History of Committees • Initially, Cabinet served as “committee chairs” (1st-3rd Congresses) • Ways and Means established in House in 4th Congress • Ways and Means now considers revenue measures, then considered all financial legislation (incl. banking) • Select Committees initially important, decline from 150 in 1813 to <25 in 1850s • Standing Committees increase to ~50 in 1920s • Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 • Established Modern System
The Early Senate • Prior to 1816, Senate had no standing committees, then suddenly formed 12 • Early Senates essentially “waited on” the House to initiate legislation • Partly due to British System (House of Commons initiates legislation) • But, also remember that Confederation Congress was unicameral
The LRA of 1946 • Reduced standing committees (from 33->15 for House) and 48->19 for Senate) • Codified jurisdictions, expended committee and congressional support systems • Former committees mostly became subcommittees within new committees, establishing more hierarchy within system
The LRA of 1970 • Established formal requirements for committees: • Required formal rules for each committee • Opened hearings to public • Seniority starts to play smaller role in chair determination
The Republican Revolution of 1995 (In Committee Structure) • Subcommittee Government made legislative activity more fractured • “Targetable” by specialized interests • The GOP consolidated subcommittees (115->84), reorganized jurisdictions • Cut staff by 1/3rd • Banned proxy voting in committees • Term limits on committee chairs (later partially removed) • 3/5ths majority vote required for tax increases
Subcommittee Bill of Rights • The Democratic Caucus passed several reforms in the early 1970s that increased the power of subcommittees • Restriction on # of subcommittees that a member could chair • Subcommittees granted power over staffs • Subcommittee chairs selected by Democratic committee members • Referrals to subcommittee based on rules • Required most committees to have subcommittees • Era of subcommittee government (1970s-90s)
Subcommittees, Policy and Access • Subcommittees first appeared in the mid-1880s • Origin: appropriations decentralization • First occurred in House, then followed soon thereafter in Senate (1890s) • Prior to 1880s, committees delegated investigative tasks to members
Membership on Committees • Formally: membership is determined by the chamber as a whole • From 1789 until 1910, Speaker appointed committees in the House • 1910: Revolt Against Speaker Cannon • Republicans: Committee on Committees (originally favoring members from Republican states) • Democrats: Ways & Means Committee made appointments until 1970s, now have a Committee On Committees
Senate: Committees elected by ballot until 1845 • Party caucuses nominate lists for membership now • Johnson Rule: Good assignments could had to be “spread around” (no member could have a second good assignment until each member of his or her party had one as well)
Membership and Reelection • House committees typically control purse strings to varying degrees (not as much now as in the past) • Control of regulatory authority resides largely in appropriate standing committees • Oversight, annual reports, subpoena powers • Groups seek visibility in hearings • Appropriations and Ways & Means especially important for “earmarks,” tax provisions, etc. • Narrow Committees imply targeted donations for members (e.g., D.C., Post Office, Merchant Marine & Fisheries)
Seniority • In the 1910s, control of committee chairs slipped out of party hands (revolt against Cannon) and became based on seniority – terms served on committee • Relaxed somewhat in 1974 (secret ballot in Caucus confirming chairs) – starting in 1950s, southern Democrats had concentrated power due to incumbency advantage and 1-party status in South
Assignment in Reality • The process of assignment: members in each party request assignments at the beginning of each Congress • Property rights: once on, you can stay • Strategic calculation: seniority * prestige • Restrictions on positions held play a large role in the calculation (# chairs, etc) • Note that the Senate has more chairs per member, assignment is less contested
The GOP and the 107th Congress • In the 104th – 106th Congresses, Republicans changed House rules to mandate a 3-term limit for committee chairs • In 107th Congress, Speaker Hastert ruled that the rule applied to particular positions, meaning that chairs could be “rotated” (also, the Rules committee was granted an exception!)
Raw Committee Politics, Part I • Revolt against Speaker Cannon largely precipitated by “abuse” of Speaker’s power to appoint chairs. • Appointed a new member of the Appropriations Committee as chair in 1905 • Cannon used the power to punish members. • Denied the request of Rep. George W. Norris (R, NE), to be named to a delegation to attend the funeral of a Member who had beena personal friend of Norris • Norris was a “progressive” – Cannon wasn’t. • Revolt precipitated seniority system, decline of Speaker, rise of Rules Committee, dominance of Southern Democrats from 1930s->1960s
Raw Committee Politics, Part II 106th Congress: “A member of a standing committee may not serve as chairman of the same standing committee, or of the same subcommittee of a standing committee, during more than three consecutive Congresses…”
Raw Committee Politics, Part II 108th Congress: “Except in the case of the Committee on Rules, a member of a standing committee may not serve as chairman of the same standing committee, or of the same subcommittee of a standing committee, during more than three consecutive Congresses …”