US Congress Committees: Structure and Types Exam 2

Basic Structure of Committee Government

• Committees help manage the workload of Congress.
• They provide specialized expertise by concentrating responsibilities and lawmaking authority within particular policy areas.

Committee Types

• Standing committees do the bulk of the legislative work and exist from one term to the next.
• They receive and report bills to the wider chamber.
• Subcommittees' responsibilities encompass a portion of the committee's overall issue area such as the Foreign Affairs Committee which is broken into regional subcommittees.
• Select or Special Committees are temporary.
• They do not have the authority to consider or report legislative proposals to their respective chambers.
• Joint Committees are composed of members from both the House and Senate.
• They do not usually have legislative authority.
• They oversee relative minor matters (e.g., the Government Printing Office, Library of Congress).
• Conference committees reconcile differences in legislation passed by the two chambers on the same topic.
• This must occur before that legislation moves to the President for consideration, comprising of members from both parties.
• They are commonly dominated by the members of the original committees of jurisdiction in the House and Senate.
• They only exist for consideration of a single piece of legislation.
• The Committee of the Whole (COW) is a procedural device that allows the House to organize itself more easily.
• The quorum requirement is 100 members rather than a majority of the House, enabling quick bill movement.
• Amendments approved by COW moves to the whole House, but if killed in the COW, the measure is killed for good.

Committee Jurisdictions

• Committees can legislate within defined issue boundaries.
• The House Speaker and Senate majority leader handle bill referrals, which has become mostly routine due to detailed jurisdictional language and referral-based precedent.
• Bills can be referred to more than one committee either jointly, split in pieces, or sequentially.
• Committee members are eager to handle meaningful legislation that has a high likelihood of floor consideration and eventual adoption, offering credit claiming opportunities when a measure is a success.
• Multiple referrals can deteriorate committee power while leaders may use them to circumvent uncooperative committees.
• Jurisdictional changes usually promote efficiency and clarify responsibility.

Committee Assignments

• Parties assign members to committees in the House and Senate.
• The majority party in both chambers determines the number of committee slots for itself and the minority party.
• The majority party grants itself more slots on each committee to influence a committee's agenda.
• House members can serve on no more than two standing committees (with exceptions common)
• Senate members can serve on up to four
• Exclusive Committees in the House are Appropriations, Rules, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Financial Services.
• Members do not serve on any other committee.
• The Senate still uses the Johnson Rule, meaning committees are separated into tiered categories.
• Category A is Major (or exclusive) committees.
• Category B is Mid-level committees.
• Category C is Minor Committees.
• Every senator must be assigned to a major committee before any senator can be assigned to a second major committee.
• Exclusive Committees are Appropriations, Armed Services, Finance (Democrats), Foreign Relations (Republicans).
• Senators may select a seat on a mid-level committee and one minor committee.
• Party rights exist as long as the major party doesn't lose its majority during the next election.
• With vacancies from committee expansion, retirements, or members transferring from one committee to another, each party has a steering committee that considers rank-ordered requests from incoming freshmen and incumbents seeking transfers.
• Members communicate requests to party leaders, committee chairs and ranking members, and regional representatives.
• The ranking minority member is the minority party member of a committee possessing the most seniority.
• This person serves as the leader of the minority on the committee.
• Committee assignments are determined by member ideology and party loyalty, lawmakers' constituency needs and election vulnerability, and diversity.
• Diversity includes the committee's regional, racial, ethnic, gender, and generational makeup.
• The party steering committee names the members of the various committees, and the slate goes before the entire caucus for a vote.
• Ratification is subject to a majority vote by the entire chamber and is usually approved without controversy.

Committee Assignments and Attractiveness

• Money Committees are always the most popular with lawmakers.
• These include the Federal Treasury (Appropriations in both chambers) and the Control Tax Policy (Ways and Means in the House and Finance in the Senate) which have increased opportunities to provide programs, services, and financial benefits to constituents.
• Agriculture and Transportation (House) & Commerce, Science, and Transportation (Senate) are also sought after.
• The House Financial Services Committee has an expanding governing role.

The Textbook Committee System

• The core role of committees is policy formulation and committee deliberation, including proposing, updating, and blocking policy.
• Positive or proposal authority occurs when committees introduce legislation, hoping to get legislation onto the agenda and to the final passage stage.
• The data states that only 10-20 percent of bills introduced in Congress in the last two decades have become law.
• About 45 percent of laws in any term are either commemorative or of minor importance.
• Step 1 in the Textbook Committee System is referral to a subcommittee.
• Consideration is a hearing followed by a markup session.
• Hearings are purposed to generate information and opinions about or pitfall of a legislative proposal; oversee the actions of an executive branch agency or program; and, in the Senate, provide advice and consent related to treaties and presidential appointments.
• Committee and subcommittee chairs exercise a great deal of discretion in deciding what bills get hearings, when hearings occur, and how hearings are carried out.
• Chairs may prevent certain witnesses from testifying.
• Markup sessions occur after hearings and other information gathering.
• The sessions involve more formal debate and amending the legislation.
• The Chair decides the bill that will move policy matter forward to the entire chamber.
• They also mark a bill (sometimes just before markup) that contains the chair's perspective on what should be included in the legislation.
• This is more formal than hearings or floor debate.
• Members synthesize the input they receive from hearings, leadership, interest groups, and other experts.
• Opponents attempt to tack on amendments to complicate legislation or make language unacceptable to the majority of the wider chamber.
• Step 2 in the Textbook Committee System is a committee vote to report an official committee report to the wider chamber.
• The report includes background information, justification for the legislation language used, and legislative intent.
• Updating Policy means policy reauthorization which is brought to the floor with a designation of "must-pass."
• Failure to extend an existing authoring statute can shut down popular and vital programs.
• Negative or gatekeeping authority is derived from several organizational rules.
• Adherence to committee jurisdictions is one of these rules, including requirements to have the bill referred to committees once introduced; a germaneness clause (in the House) preventing unrelated measures from being attached to bills; and the option to kill bills by failing to act on bills or amendments (beyond what is required in chamber rules).
• A Special rule can limit or restrict amendments that can be offered (e.g., a closed rule (no amendments) (in House only).

House Senate Reconciliation

• Conference Committees negotiate differences between House and Senate versions of legislation.
• Committee members usually derive mostly from the original committees of jurisdiction, and have a great deal of authority over final legislation.
• They compromise under a "Take it or leave it" strategy with no amendments allowed.
• These committees have veto power, being able to undo floor decisions after the fact.

Oversight of the Executive Branch

• Congressional committees play a role in the separation of powers by overseeing executive branch agencies through public and normal hearings.
• Other methods are regularly scheduled reauthorization of agencies and programs, and special committees for high-profile investigations.
• Investigations can be focused on the president, a specific federal department or agency, and illegal or problematic activities and outside government.

Are Committees Still Relevant?

• Party agendas pervade nearly all committee activities, causing limited committee governance and representation functions and diminished role in the legislative process.
• The declining influence of conference committees has caused negotiations between chambers to wane, leading to ping-ponging.
• The New Realities of Committee Oversight has increases in committee influence in overseeing executive branch activities.

How to Study Committees

• The Theories of Congressional Committees are Distributive, Informational, and Partisan.
• Distributive Theory states that committees are the structures that allow for a meaningful constituency-representative linkage: pork-barrel policies.
• Informational Theory states that committees represent the array of preferences of the entire membership, and members are induced to invest in and share expertise within the chamber.
• Partisan Theory states that Congress is organized primarily for the benefit of the majority party, and Leaders use committees to achieve partisan goals.