Congressional Leadership

Congressional Leadership Civics Mr. Blough

Leadership in Congress • How are we able to keep 435 representatives and 100 senators in order? • Quite Simply, leadership is the glue that holds Congress together!

Leadership Responsibilities • Promoting legislative agenda of the party • Get bills passed that you like • Try and stop bills that you don’t like • Making committee assignments (deciding who goes in which committee) • Making sure that each party is aligned on certain issues

Leadership Positions • Speaker of the House • President of the Senate • Majority/Minority Floor Leaders • Majority/Minority Whips • Republican/Democratic Conference Chairs • Committee chairpersons

Speaker of the House • Most powerful person in the House of Reps. • Elected by members of House • Each party nominates a candidate, majority wins • Third in to presidency after the VP • What he does • Controls the legislative calendar • Controls who goes into committees • Decides who gets to speak and how long • Leader and national spokesperson of the majority party

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) passing the gavel to current Speaker John Boehner (R)

House Minority Leader • Elected by members of the minority party to serve as their spokesperson • Criticizes the program of the majority party • Basically the opponent of the Speaker of the House • Seeks to block majority bills from passing

President of the Senate • Vice-President is the President of the Senate, but he’s seldom with the Senate • The VP votes in the case of a tie, has little power • When VP isn’t in the Senate, the President Pro-Tempore (“President for a time”) is in charge of the senate • Elected by other senators • Usually the majority party member with the longest record of continuous service

President Pro Tempore = Longest Serving Senator Strom Thurmond -101 Robert Byrd - 94 Republican (SC) Democrat (WV)

Minority vs. Majority Leaders • Majority leader = person who is in charge of the party who is currently has more seats in each house • Minority leader = leader of the party with the fewer seats • House (Republicans) -- Senate (Democrats) • Identify the parties of the majority and minority leaders in each house

Majority & Minority Whips • Elected by party members • Assist the floor leaders to keep track of party members and lobby them for votes • Designed to make sure people within the party are voting along party lines (“whip them into place”)

Standing Committees • Committees are where the bulk of legislative work is done (house and senate) • Committees mark-up bills, hold hearings, conduct investigations, and perform oversight • Committees concentrate on areas such as: • Budget • Military • Healthcare • Education • Etc.

Subcommittees • Smaller, more specialized committees that focus on very specific issues • Committee within a Committee • Education Subcommittee on elementary education • Military Subcommittee on weapons

Select Committees • Temporary committees designed to address a specific issue at hand: • Global Warming • Steroids in baseball

Joint Committees • Committees that consist of members of both the House and the Senate • Like joint committees, conference committees are designed to have both members of the House and Senate meet together to “iron-out” any differences in a proposed bill

Committee Assignments • House & Senate rules provide that they elect the members of committees at the beginning of each Congress (post 1970) • Seniority is the normal basis for ranking among committee members • The longer a member is in the committee, the more likely to become chair or ranking minority member

Be able to explain all of the following in your notes: • Majority/Minority leaders in House/Senate • Party Whip • Speaker of the House • President pro tempore

Individually, identify the following: • 1 Standing Committees • 2 Subcommittees • 3 Select Committees • 4 Joint Committees • 5 Conference Committees

Congressional Leadership