The Legislative Branch, or Congress, is the largest with 535 members to date and has the job of doing anything “necessary and proper”
The Legislative Branch, or Congress, is the largest with 535 members to date and has the job of doing anything “necessary and proper” to keep the country running smoothly. Learn the basics about the House and the Senate as well as the different jobs they do (1:15). We also discuss the role of leadership in both the House and Senate (3:30) and the peculiar tradition of the filibuster (6:00). Finally, there is a discussion of gerrymandering and the two Supreme Court cases that deal with the issue. (7:00)
Today’s question of the day (8:25) Who holds the record for the longest individual filibuster?
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Hi and welcome to the APsolute Recap: US Gov Edition. Today’s episode will recap Congress
Lets Zoom out:
Unit 2 - Interactions Among the Branches of Government
Topic 2.1-2.3
Big idea - Constitutionalism
Today we start unit 2 and the details about the set-up, function, and interactions between the branches of government. The Legislative Branch, or Congress, is the largest with 535 members to date and has the job of doing anything “necessary and proper” to keep the country running smoothly. We will look at the basic setup, leadership and committees, debate style, and finally the issue of gerrymandering. Still, no matter how different they are, in order for a bill to become a law, it must navigate its way through both of the chambers of Congress and it is often a rocky ride.
Lets Zoom in:
Ok, let’s start with the basics. Congress is made up of two chambers: the lower chamber aka the House of Representatives and the upper chamber or the Senate. We have two chambers because of the Connecticut compromise which allows states to be represented based on population in the House and equally in the Senate.
There are 435 members of the House who are reelected every two years with no term limits. These seats are based on population, so states with few people living there, like Wyoming, have one representative in the House and large states like California have 53. The number of total delegates, and delegates per state, changes every ten years with the census, so next year this number could be different.
The Senate currently has 100 members and is fixed at 2 representatives per state. This number will stay 100 regardless of the census unless Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia become states, when it could increase to 102 or 104 if they both receive statehood. Senators serve 6 year terms with ⅓ of the Senate up for reelection every 2 years with the House. For example, the senators running for reelection this November were last elected in 2014 and in 2022, those elected in 2016 will be up. This method of turning over only part of the Senate allows for a certain level of stability within Congress. Neither the House nor the Senate has term limits. You can continue to serve as long as you are re-elected.
While both chambers represent their states, members of the House serve a much more concentrated group of constituents than Senators who have to represent the diversity of their entire states. Both are given the power to originate legislation, but the House MUST initiate revenue bills and the impeachment process while the Senate is given the power to ratify treaties and try the person being impeached by the House. The bulk of this legislative work is done in specialized committees and subcommittees that produce reports. Being on some of these committees are highly coveted positions, and members of Congress look to exert their influence over matters that are important to them and their constituents. There are a number of important elements of committees, their roles, and staff that we don’t have time to get into now, but will cover in a future episode.
Each chamber of Congress has leadership, but it is more important and organized in the House than it is in the Senate. The head honcho in the House is the Speaker of the House, who is voted on by the majority after every election, though the incumbent, or the person who has the job as speaker typically keeps it unless the other party takes control. The current speaker of the House is Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker of the House determines the agenda, the length of debate, calls on people to speak and appoints other representatives to the coveted committee positions. Oh and the Speaker is also in line to be president after the VP, nbd.
The Senate has leadership, but it tends to be less organized and have less power than leadership in the House. The President of the Senate is actually the Vice President, Mike Pence. Can you guess why the Senate needs the VP? If you remembered that there are an even number of senators and a vote could end in a tie you are correct. The job of the VP in the Senate is largely symbolic, except for breaking a tie, which although uncommon, has happened, and Mike Pence has done it 13 times, which is unusually high. After the VP, the Senate has a majority leader, which is a senior member of the majority party. The Senate majority leader is currently Mitch McConnell. Both the House and Senate also have minority leadership to represent the other political party.
Since the entire House of Representatives is re-elected every two years, the shortened terms require more organization which we just mentioned, but also affect the style of debate. The House has limits on debates and amendments. If all 435 members demanded to speak on every issue, nothing would get accomplished. The Senate on the other hand, has unlimited time on debate, since the term is longer. This idea of unlimited debate created a unique feature of the Senate known as the filibuster. The filibuster is an opportunity for minority opinion to be heard and to influence the policy making process. During a filibuster, an opponent of the bill will use the rule about unlimited debate to hold the floor until the other side agrees to make concessions. This means that a person (or team of senators) will just keep talking and talking and talking. The only way to get the filibuster to stop is to agree to make changes to the proposal or get a vote of cloture, or ending. This requires 60 votes, and often the majority party doesn’t have the 60 votes necessary to stop the filibuster. The filibuster has become a big talking point in recent years, with each of the Democratic nominees for president being asked if they supported getting rid of it.
Finally, the make-up and policymaking ability of Congress can also be affected at the House level by gerrymandering whereby the borders of districts are drawn unfairly to give an advantage to one party over another. This can happen at the local and state levels, and often is challenged in court. In the past few years, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin all had districts accused of being gerrymandered and took them to the courts to decide. For the AP test there are two Supreme Court cases relevant to gerrymandering, though recently the Court kicked many of these cases back to the states to decide. In Baker v. Carr, a man from Tennessee argued that his vote was worth less when he moved from the country to the city because of the manner in which districts were drawn. The court ruled the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment was applicable in this case, which opened the door for courts to look at redistricting and established the “one man, one vote” precedent. The other case, Shaw v. Reno, we will look at in a future episode.
To recap……
Congress is a large legislative body made up of two chambers which were specifically designed in the manner of their election and debate style to represent different groups and interests. It has many specialized committees and staffers to help with the work. Sometimes representation at the state and local level can be skewed by gerrymandering, which is drawing districts in a way to favor one political party over the other.
Coming up next on the APsolute RecAP US Government Edition: The Presidency
Today’s Question of the day is about filibustering
Question: Who holds the record for the longest individual filibuster?