CHAPTER 12 CONGRESS 112 th - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

CHAPTER 12

CONGRESSSlide2

112

th Congress – Ended Jan 3, 2013113th Congress – Current(ends January 3, 2015)Slide3

The House of Representatives

In the House of Representatives there are 232 Republicans,

199 Democrats

,

and

4

vacant seats.

There are 5 delegates representing the

District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa

, and the

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

. A resident commissioner represents

Puerto Rico

. They possess the same powers as other members of the House, except that they may not vote when the House is meeting as the House of Representatives.

Representatives represent about 710,000 people each and serve 2 year terms.Slide4

The annual salary of each Representative is

$174,000. The Speaker of the House earns more: $223,500

$193,400

for their party leaders (the same as Senate leaders).

A cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) increase takes effect annually unless Congress votes to not accept it.

Congress sets members' salaries; however, the

27

th

Amendment

to the United States Constitution prohibits a change in salary (but not COLA) from taking effect until after the next election of the whole House. Representatives are eligible for retirement benefits after serving for five years. Outside pay is limited to 15% of congressional pay.Slide5

The Senate

The Senate has 53 Democrats, 45 Republicans, and 2 Independents, who caucus with the Democrats

A senator represents between 1 and 37 million people, depending on their state’s population.

Senators serve staggered 6 year terms.Slide6

AGE

The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 112th Congress was 56.7 years; and of Senators, 62.2 years. U.S. = 36.8 yearsSlide7
Slide8

EDUCATION

The vast majority of Members (92% of House Members and 99% of Senators) at the beginning of the 112th Congress held

bachelor’s

degrees

.

26

Members of the House and 1 Senator have

no degree

beyond a high school diploma

.

Law

degrees

are held by 167 Members of the House (

38

%

)

and 55 Senators (

55

%

).Slide9

BACKGROUND/EMPLOYMENT

Law is the dominantly declared profession of Senators, followed by public service/politics, then business; For Representatives,

business

is

first, followed

by public service/politics, then law.Slide10

RELIGION

57% of the Members (248 in the House, 56 in the Senate) are Protestants. U.S. = 51.3%

29%

percent

of the Members (132 in the House, 24 in the Senate) are Catholic.

U.S. = 23.9%

7%

of the Members

(27 in the House, 12 in the Senate) are Jewish.

U.S. = 1.7%

Other

religious affiliations

represented in

the 112th Congress include Greek Orthodox, Quaker, Unitarian Universalist, and The Church

of Jesus

Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon). There are also three Buddhists and two Muslims,

all serving

in the House

.Slide11

GENDER

91 women (16.8% of the total membership) serve in the 112th Congress. 74, including 3 Delegates, serve in the House and 17 in the Senate.

U.S. = 50.7%

113

th

: 98 women; 78 House, 20 Senate.Slide12

RACE: AFRICAN-AMERICAN/BLACK

There are 44 African American Members (8.1% of the total membership, and a record number) in the 112th Congress; all 44 serve in the House, including two Delegates.

U.S. = 12.6%

113

th

: 43 African AmericansSlide13

In 2013 Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina took the senatorial oath, the first African American senator since Reconstruction to represent a southern state.

When the governor of Massachusetts appointed William "Mo" Cowan on February 1, 2013, to fill a Senate vacancy, this marked the first time in history that two African American senators served simultaneously

.

Senator Cowan served just a short appointed term, but in October of 2013 Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey won a Senate seat in a special election and joined Senator Scott in the 113th Congress. Slide14

TIM SCOTT, SC

(R)

CORY BOOKER, NJ

(D)Slide15

RACE: LATINO/HISPANIC

There are 31 Hispanic or Latino Members in the 112th Congress, 5.7% of the total membership. (Same for 113th).29

serve in the

House

and

2 in

the Senate.

U.S. = 16.3%

[12 Asian American/Pacific Islander]Slide16

VETERANS

118 Members (21.8% of the total membership)U.S. = 7.2%Slide17

SUMMARY …Slide18

CONGRESS IS …Slide19
Slide20

WHILE THE U.S. IS …Slide21

REPRESENTATION

Does Congress/our representatives need to be DESCRIPTIVE in order to be SUBSTANTIVE?Slide22

The House of Representatives

a. The House is more institutionalized than the Senate meaning it is more hierarchicalb. Party loyalty to leadership and party-line voting are more common in the House (since there are more members – leaders do more leading)c.

House Rules Committee

: unique committee in the House that reviews most bills coming from a House committee before they go to the full House

1. Each bill is given a “rule” which schedules the bill on the calendar, allots time for debate, and sometimes even specifies what kind of amendments may be offered (speaker appoints members)

d. House can impeach officials and all revenue bills must start thereSlide23

The Senate

a. Since the Senate is smaller it is less disciplined and less centralizedb. Committees and the party leadership are important in determining the Senate legislative agenda1. the party leaders do for scheduling what the Rules Committee does in the House

c.

Filibuster

: a strategy unique to the Senate whereby opponents of a piece of legislation try to talk it to death, based on the tradition of unlimited debate

1.

Cloture

: today 60 members can vote to stop a filibusterSlide24

The Committees and Subcommittees

1. Most of the real work of Congress goes on in committeesa. Committees dominate policy-makingb. Committees regularly hold hearings to investigate problems and possible wrong-doing and to oversee the executive branch

c. They control the congressional agenda and guide legislation from its introduction to its send-off for the president’s signatureSlide25

2. Committees can be grouped into four types

a. Standing committees: separate permanent subject-matter committees in each house of Congress that handle bills in different policy areasSubcommittees: smaller units of a committee created out of the committee membership

In the 107

th

Congress the typical member of the House served on two standing committees and four subcommittees

In the Senate the typical member served on three committees and seven subcommitteesSlide26

b.

Joint committees: Congressional committee on a few subject-matter areas with membership drawn from both housesSlide27

c.

Conference committees: congressional committees formed to work out differences when the Senate and the House pass a particular bill in different forms1. party leadership appoints members from each house2. the result must be a single billSlide28

d.

Select committees: congressional committees appointed for a specific purpose1. an example would be the committee to deal with the Watergate investigationSlide29

Legislative oversight

: Congress’s monitoring of the bureaucracy and its administration of policy, performed mainly through hearings1. This is one of the checks that the legislative branch has over the executive branch2. Members of a committee constantly monitor a has a law that they passed is being implemented – this allows Congress to exert pressure on executive agencies, or even to cut their budgets in order to secure compliance with congressional wishes

3. Congressional oversight sometimes captures the public’s attention, such as the 1973 Watergate scandal and the 1987 Iran-Contra Affair

4. Congress keeps tabs on more routine activities of the executive branch through its committee staff members, who have specialized expertise in fields and agencies that their committees oversee and maintain an extensive network of formal and informal contacts with the bureaucracySlide30

INCUMBENTS

Current officeholdersSlide31
Slide32

Put another way …

A recent Gallup poll found that 11% of people found polygamy "morally acceptable." Additionally,

30%

of Americans expressed approval of

pornography

.Slide33

Why?

1. AdvertisingService to constituentsFranking PrivilegeSlide34

2. Credit Claiming

Service to constituentsCasework: individual servicePork Barrel: $ for public projectsSlide35

3. Position Taking

Stances on issuesPublic ImageSlide36

4. Weak Opponents

Not well-known/qualifiedLack experienceLack organizationLack $Herbert Alexander refers to

"the doctrine of sufficiency"

to describe the idea that it is more important to have "enough" money than to have "more" money — enough to compete effectively but not necessarily more money than the opponent.

Winners having more $ may be more

correlative

than

causative

.Slide37

5. Gerrymandering

a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan or incumbent-protected districtsSlide38

The word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts state senate election districts under the then-governor Elbridge Gerry.

In 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts to benefit his Democratic-Republican Party. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a salamander.Slide39
Slide40
Slide41

Baker v. Carr (1962)

redistricting (attempts to change the way voting districts are delineated) issues present justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide redistricting cases. The defendants unsuccessfully argued that redistricting of legislative districts is a "political question", and hence not a question that may be resolved by federal courtsSlide42

The Court formulated the famous

"one person, one vote" standard for legislative redistricting, holding that each individual had to be weighted equally in legislative apportionment.

Equalizing

the population of districts and

attempting

to create compact, contiguous

districts.

Trying

to keep political units and communities within a single district, and avoiding the drawing of boundaries for purposes of partisan advantage or incumbent protectionSlide43

Prison-based Gerrymandering

Occurs in places like New York when prisoners are counted as residents of a particular district, increasing the district's population with non-voters when assigning political apportionment.

Although

many prisoners come from (and return to) urban communities, they are counted as "residents" of the rural districts that contain large prisons, thereby artificially inflating the political representation in districts with prisons at the expense of voters in all other districts without prisons

.