CONGRESS AND THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

CONGRESS AND THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS

Slide2

Introduction

Main responsibility of Congress

pass new laws

Legislative process includes other branches to a limited extent—presidential veto power, executive orders, administrative rule making, and judicial review

Legislative process is becoming increasingly complex, with longer bills and unorthodox procedures

Legislative process has become increasingly broken due to partisan polarization

Slide3

Legislative Process

Schoolhouse Rock version: “I’m just a bill”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0

Slide4

How Bill Become Law

Slide5

What’s missing?

Most important legislation originates in the presidency, with clearance through the Office of Management and Budget

Authorizations and appropriations have different procedures

Bills often referred to multiple committees

House Rules Committee determines floor debate rules

Senate Unanimous Consent Agreements set debate rules for Senate

Filibusters in the Senate (a delay tactic)

Congressional Budget Office

puts price estimates on bills

Slide6

Two Kinds of Bills

Authorization

create and amend government programs and services through the delegation of authority to executive branch agencies

Ex. Affordable Care Act

Slide7

Appropriations

Annual congressional budget provides funding to agencies and programs

2020: $4.7 Trillion total

Follows different procedures and rules

Can kill an authorization by slashing its budget

2020 budget cuts EPA by 34%,

foodstamps

by 27%

Slide8

House Rules Committee

After committee action in the House, most legislation must go through the Rules Committee

 Sets rules

on:

length of floor

debate

types

of floor

amendments

Amendment offered on the floor during consideration of a bill

voting procedures

Slide9

House Rules Committee Continued

A key committee controlled by majority party

Acts as a gatekeeper

more restrictive rules can kill a bill or floor amendments.

Slide10

Senate Unanimous Consent Agreements

No Senate Rules Committee limiting floor debate

Unanimous consent sets limits on floor debate (does not mean the actual bill needs it)

Informal unanimous consent process involves agreement between majority and minority leaders

Each must then obtain

unanimous consent

from their party members. That means

everyone

must agree.

What if one Senator does not consent?

Slide11

Filibuster

Legislative delay tactic exercised by the minority in

the Senate

Regarded as a way to protect minority rights

Not a constitutional rule—a Senate rule

Can

filibuster:

intermediate

votes 

the motion to proceed to floor debate

the effort to amend

the vote on the Senate version of the bill

motion to go to conference with the House on the bill

Vote on final conference version of the bill

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What Cannot Be Filibustered?

Budget Reconciliation votes

Constitutionally mandated

votes

D

eclarations

of

war

C

onstitutional

amendments.

2013 Senate ended filibuster rule for confirmation of Cabinet officials and lower court judges

2017 Senate ended filibuster rule for Supreme Court confirmations, paving way for Neil Gorsuch

Slide13

Senator Cruz’s Filibuster

https://www.c-span.org/video/?315212-7/senator-cruz-reads-green-eggs-ham-senate-floor

Most filibusters now are put on “back burner” to allow other floor business to proceed

This has made filibusters easier

Question: Is the filibuster an unfair violation of democratic principles?

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Explosion in Senate Filibusters

Number of cloture votes

All important issues now demand 60-vote majority

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Explanations

Growing partisan polarization makes it hard to build bipartisan coalitions

Breakdown of unity among Republicans (Freedom Caucus vs. mainstream)—failure of repeal and replace

Slide16

Ending a Filibuster

Vote of

cloture

Procedure to end debate on an issue

20 sign a petition, 60 vote to end filibuster

Takes two days to vote

Filibuster can continue up to 30 hours after cloture motion. 

Used to delay passage of Affordable Care Act until Scott Brown won special election in January 2010 and gave Republicans 41 votes in the Senate.

Slide17

Budget Reconciliation

Bill considered to tell committees to change spending by certain amounts

Special

provision in appropriations process permits Congress to pass some changes to bills through “budget reconciliation” procedure

Senators may not filibuster budget reconciliation votes

Republicans had used this provision to pass 2001 tax cuts

Slide18

Concurrence Vote

Action by which one house agrees to a proposal or action that the other chamber has approved

Usually after a bill goes back to the House of origin

Slide19

Conference Committee

Joint committee of Congress appointed by the House of Representatives and Senate to resolve disagreements on a bill

Usually composed of senior members of the standing committees of each house that originally considered the bill

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Presidential Veto

President may sign a veto of a bill

Override

by 2/3 vote

Presidential signing statements

used to say president will not obey part of a law

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Veto Override

Two-thirds vote by both Houses of Congress to overturn a presidents veto

Slide22

Other Moves to Kill Legislation

Judicial review

—December 2018 US district court judge has ruled Obamacare unconstitutional after 2017 tax cut bill reduced to $0 tax penalty for enforcing individual mandate. Final review requires Supreme Court decision

Deny appropriations

(used to reduce Obamacare subsidies)

Fail to re-authorize

(Ethics in Government Act not reauthorized in 1998, hence Robert Mueller was not an

Independent

Counsel and could be fired)

Repeal legislation

—Republicans attempted but failed to repeal Obamacare in 2017

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Legislative Productivity

House failed to pass American Health Care Act (repeal)

Tax reform and infrastructure bills looking less likely, too.

114

th

: 329; 115

th

: 277 as of Nov. 9

Slide24

Impacts of Legislative Stalemate

Incomplete budget for FY 2019—president signed stopgap “continuing resolution” on September 28 until December—gov’t shutdown after that.

Still no actual budget for 2019

Key legislation not passed this year includes immigration reform, infrastructure bill, health care “repeal and replace,” gun control, “the wall”

President instead has turned to agency rulemaking process and executive orders, which are less democratic