Congress Chapter 6: Parties Exam 2

• Chapter 6 covers parties in Congress.

Objectives

• How parties arrange Congress' structures and organization for all members and subgroups.
• Informal party duties, such as creating a unified agenda and negotiating with an opposing president.
• Theories behind parties' structuring of institutional arrangements.
• The polarization of the two major parties.
• Recent changes in parties.

Parties and Organization of Congress

• Electing Chamber Leaders is a crucial formal duty where chamber leadership selection is key.
• Only the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate are mentioned in the Constitution.
• Organizing the House and Senate hinges on:
  • Deciding who speaks on the floor.
  • Structuring the legislative agenda.
  • Controlling information dissemination.
• The Speaker election occurs on the first day of each two-year congressional term.
• It is the first order of legislative business which is the speaker nominee is selected by the majority caucus after November elections.
• The Speaker is elected after quorum establishment through a roll call vote.
• The entire chamber elects the House leadership position, and the vote is open.
• Other Party Leaders' elections are determined in party caucuses traditionally post November elections.
• In the House, the majority leader and whip operate directly under the Speaker, representing the majority's voice.
• In the Senate, roles include the U.S. Vice President as President of the Senate, with limited authority except for tie-breaking votes.
• The president pro tempore presides without much authority, and the majority leader holds the most power.

Writing and Adopting Chamber Rules

• The majority party in each chamber revises the rules each congressional term in the House.
• Senate chamber rules do not require readoption at the start of each Congress.
• Senators can filibuster, requiring a supermajority to change rules.
• The Senate is less susceptible to external forces influencing rule changes.
• Parties frequently change chamber rules to gain advantages.

Writing and Adopting Rules

• Organizing Committees (Chapter 5 Refresher):
  • The majority party determines the overall size and proportion of seats for the minority party.
  • It also decides which members serve on committees.
  • Committee assignments and chairs are awarded to loyal members, crucial for fulfilling the party agenda.
  • Control over committee seats is used to discipline rogue lawmakers.

Parties and Congressional Operations

• Parties function through:
  • Chamber business.
  • Bill scheduling.
  • Vote coordination.
  • Electoral support.

Bill Scheduling

• It involves floor consideration of legislation that passed through committee.
• In the House:
  • The Speaker sets debate dates.
  • The Rules Committee determines debate rules, time allocation, and amendment types.
• In the Senate as power largely resides with the majority party but is more complicated.
• The majority leader constructs unanimous consent agreements, negotiated with the minority leader.
• The agreements are like special rules in the House, dictating debate terms.

Whipping Votes

• It involves informing members and persuading them to vote in a certain way to ensure sufficient numbers of party members are present.
• The chief whip has assistants to conduct polls or vote counts before key legislation is considered.
• They also provide information on timing and details of pending activities, tabulate vote information for busy lawmakers, and encourage loyalty to party positions.

Hill Committees

• Hill committees are responsible for electing and reelecting party members with roles split by chamber in:
  • House.
    • Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
    • National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
• Senate.
  • Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).
  • National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).
• They recruit candidates, court donors, distribute funds.
• Also raise funds for TV ads in key competitive races, withdraw resources from hopeless campaigns, and collect dues based on the lawmaker's seniority.

The Congressional Agenda

• When the president's party controls Congress, the president sets the legislative agenda with input from party leaders.
• The minority party presents a bold legislative agenda to:
  • Counter the party in power.
  • Attract voters.
  • Unify partisan lawmakers.
• Major party leaders negotiate with the President on key legislation, due to the president's veto power.
• Support from the president is needed or a two-thirds vote in both chambers required to override a veto.
• Overcoming Collective-Action Problems involves building coalitions through examples, like the Affordable Care Act.
• Developing a Party Brand:
  • It encompasses policies, values, promise fulfillment, organization, and governance.
• Enforcing Party Discipline.
  • "Carrots" such as good committee assignments or bring a bill important to a member's constituency.
  • "Sticks" like withholding assignments or withholding pursue bills important to a member's consistency.
  • Enforcing party discipline may involve bending or breaking rules.

When Parties Wield Influence

• Two main political science theories of party influence:
  • Conditional party government theory (CPG).
  • Party cartel theory.
• Conditional Party Government (CPG) involves research by political scientists John Aldrich and David Rohde, suggests party power depends on certain conditions.
• The majority party exerts power in Congress when it is unified ideologically and has a wide ideological gap with the minority.
• Under these conditions, members give leadership more authority to overcome coordination issues.
  • The goal to get a bill on the agenda and enacted into law.
• Party Cartel Theory by Gary Cox and Mathew McCubbins:
  • Assumes the majority party controls the agenda regardless of its size.
  • Party leaders act as a procedural team for the majority's benefit.
  • Negative agenda control means protecting the party brand by blocking bills opposed by majority members.
• Under the Hastert Rule, legislation lacking majority support is not voted on.
  • This "rule" began by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in 2003 as grounded in the principle of not expediting legislation against the wishes of the majority.
  • It creates a disincentive for bipartisan compromise when members have to reach across the aisle and try to compromise.
• A critic of the theories, political science Keith Krehbiel uses Preference Theory:
  • Says it is difficult to locate the source of polarized voting, and lawmakers make choices based on ideology rather than party.
• Roll call votes are based on ideological preferences.
• Sorting themselves along ideological lines:
  • Conservatives (Republican label).
  • Liberals (Democrat label).