Congressional Committees

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Congressional Committees

most important - standing comms, the House Rules Comm, conference and select comms.

Committee system -> made up of different types of committee which perform legislative and investigatory functions. Most important type of comm is the standing comm which are policy specialists. Comm system is given added importance as it is only in the comm rooms that members of the exec branch can be directly questioned.

Standing committees

In both houses of Cong - permanent, policy-specialist committees.

Most standing comms are divided into sub-comms.

Typical Senate standing comm comprises around 18 members, typical House standing comm 30-40 members. Party balance in each standing comm is in the same proportion as that which exists w/in the chamber.

Beginning of 113th Cong (2013), Demz were majority party in Senate and reps in House so each Senate standing comm had a Dem majority and Rep maj for House standing comm.

House and Senate members seek assignments on comms which are closer to their district/state's interests. E.g. Max Baucus of Montana and tom Harkin of Iowa are members of the senate Agriculture Comm.

Re-elected members are routinely reappointed to their former committees unless they have asked for a new assignment.

Some are more presitge than others lmao, Judiciary, Armed Services etc (new membz would have to wait some yrs).

Standing comms have 2 functions in House and Senate and 3rd function only for Senate.

Most important - conduct the comm stage of bills in the leg process... involves holding 'hearings' on the bill at which 'witnesses' appear. These witnesses might be:

other members of Congress

members from the relevant executive deps or agencies or from White House

reps from interest groups/professional bodies

ordinary membs of public

Witnesses make prepared statements in front of the comm and are subjected to questioning from comm membs. The length of these hearings is determined by the length of the bill and the level of controversy it engenders.

Short, non-controversial bills = attract short hearings, few hrs.

Long, controversial bills - on and off for weeks/months, vote then taken by the comm on whether or not to pass the bill on to its 2nd hearing.

Both houses conduct investigations w/in the comm's policy area -> normally launched into perceived problems e.g. House Homeland Security Comm investigating (assessing dangerous threats to our nation's borders). The format's similar to legislative hearings, witnesses are summoned and qns asked.

In Senate - 3rd function -> begin confirmation of numerous presidential appointments. Senate's Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees are the two busiest in this regard.

SJ: must hold hearings on all fed judicial appointments made by the pres

FR: holds hearings on all ambassadorial appointments

Hearings are held at which supporters, possibly critics, of the nominee are heard from before the vote is taken. The vote is recommendatory and an important clue to the likely outcome of the nomination. Their recommendz are hardly overturned, because they are specialists in their policies.

Unanimous vote by comm - indicates nominee will receive easy passage on the floor of the Senate.

Close vote - indicates problems ahead.

If the majority of a committee vote 'no', the nomination will be defeated, if it even gets to the Senate floor. The standing comms have considerable power to help the parent chambers manage their huge workloads, but there are limits... they can't legislate, can't require the executive to comply with their wishes and can't implement policies once they've been approved.

House Rules Committee

One of the standing comms of the HoR, performs a diff function -> responsible for prioritising bills coming from the comm stage on to the House floor for their 2nd readings. HR has a vital role to play since there's a huge queue of bills waiting for their 2nd readings. Sets out rules of debate by stating whether any amendments can be made to the bill at this stage, for example. Most bills must go through the HRC if they are to reach final passage.

HRC unusual - membership's smaller and more towards majority party than other standing comms. 2013, HRC had just 13 members - 9 Repz and 4 Demz - chaired by Pete Sessions, Texas... one of most influential posts in COng.

Conference commitees

Required because both houses have equal power AND bills pass through both houses concurrently, not consecutively... two different versions of the same bill - House and Senate. Likely to be different versions and if after the 3rd reading the differences can't be reconciled informally, a conference comm is set up.

All CCs are ad hoc (set up to consider one bill). The members, 'conferees', are drawn from both houses and they reconcile the differences b/w the two versions. This version must then be agreed to by a vote on the floor of each house. If lack of agreement, the same CC may be reconvened... another compromise will be drawn up and sent to the floors of both houses. If that's unacceptable to one/both houses, sent back to standing comms.

CC's importance - likely to draw up what will become the final version of the bill. The power's checked by the ability of the House and Senate to refuse to sign up to their compromise version, but they're used less frequently nowadays 'cos the House and Senate leadership have found other ways to resolve differences.

Select committees

Known as 'special' or 'investigative' comms. Nearly all are ad hoc and set up when the investigation is either not falling within the policy area of one standing committee or is likely to be so time consuming that a standing comm wouldn't be able to fulfill its other functions.

2011, following the debt crisis, joint select comm on deficit reduction was set up made up of 3 membs from each party from both chambers. 12 memb comm was meant to make a single, bipartisan proposal for deficit reduction for the next 10 years w/saving of at least $1.5trillion, but D and r failed to agree on a common plan.

Committee chairs

Chairs are always drawn from the majority party in that house.

113th Cong ('13-14) all the Senate standing comms chaired by Demz and all House standing comms by Repz.

Seniority rule - chair of the standing comm will be the member of the majority party w/ the longest continuous service on that comm.

'A rule stating that the chair of a congressional standing committee will be the member of the majority party with the longest continuous service on that committee'.

Reforms in 1990s - when Repz placed a 6 year term limit on committee and sub-committee chairs. This is why in Jan 2013, 7 of the 18 House standing comms had to select new Rep chairs and these term limits were partly introduced as a concession to the early 90's term limit movement and also 'cps Repz had been critical of Dem Com chairs for years who held their posts unchallenged. Critics say the institutional memory of the committees is lost and power's ceded to unelected comm staff upon whom new and inexperienced chairs have to rely more heavily.

Important powers of standing comm chairs:

control comm's agenda and decide when they'll meet

control budget

influence the membership, meetings and hearings of sub-committees

serve as spokesperson on the comm's policy area w/in Congress, to the White House and in the media

make requests to the HRC and the party leadership for scheduling of legislation on the House floor

report legislation to the floor of their respective chamber on behalf of the full committee