Topic_4_Lesson_5_Notes_Completed

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Name:_________________________________ Period:_____ Date:___________ Topic 4 Lesson 5 Notes: Congress Convenes  Opening Day in the House o The clerk of the House in the preceding term presides at the beginning of the first day’s session. o The clerk calls the chamber to order and checks the roll of representatives elect. Those members-to-be then choose a Speaker, who will be their permanent presiding officer. o By custom, the Speaker is a long-standing member of the majority party, and election on the floor is only a formality. o The Speaker then takes the oath of office. By tradition, the oath is administered by the Dean of the House, the member-elect with the longest record of service in the House. o With that accomplished, the Speaker swears in the rest of the members, as a body o Next, the House elects its clerk, parliamentarian, sergeant at arms, chief administrative officer, and chaplain. o Then, the House adopts the rules that will govern its proceedings through the term. o The rules of the House have been developing for over 200 years, and they are contained in a volume of about 400 pages. o Finally, members of the 20 permanent committees of the House are appointed by a floor vote.  Opening day in the Senate o Its first-day session is nearly always fairly short and routine, even when the elections have brought a change in the majority party. o Newly elected and reelected members must be sworn in, vacancies in Senate organization and on committees must be filled, and a few other details attended to.  State of the union o Within a few weeks—in late January or early February—the President delivers the annual State of the Union message to a joint session of Congress. o In the address, the President reports on the state of the nation as he or she sees it, in both domestic and foreign policy terms. o President lays out the broad shape of the policies the administration expects to follow and the course the chief executive has charted for the nation. o The message regularly includes a number of specific legislative recommendations, along with a plea that Congress will enact them Presiding Officers  Speaker of the house

Name:_________________________________ Period:_____ Date:___________ o Speaker of the House: the presiding officer of the House of Representatives, chosen by and from the majority party in the House o The Speaker is expected to preside in a fair and judicious manner and regularly does. o The Speaker is also expected to aid the fortunes of the majority party and its legislative goals, and regularly does that, too. o Nearly all of the Speaker’s powers revolve around two duties: to preside and to keep order. o The Speaker can be overridden by a vote of the House, but that almost never happens. o The Speaker also names the members of all select and conference committees and must sign all bills and resolutions passed by the House. o The Speaker does not often vote, and the House rules say only that the Speaker must vote to break a tie. o The Speaker of the House follows the Vice President in the line of succession to the presidency.  The President of the Senate o President of the senate: the presiding officer of a senate; in Congress, the Vice President of the United States; in a State's legislature, either the lieutenant governor or a senator o (1) unlike the House, the Senate does not choose its own presiding officer o (2) unlike the Speaker of the House, the Senate’s presiding officer is not in fact a member of that body. o Vice President plays a much less powerful role in the Senate o The president of the Senate does have the usual powers of a presiding officer: to recognize members, put questions to a vote, and so on. o However, the Vice President cannot take the floor to speak or debate and may vote only to break a tie. o President Pro Tempore: the member of the United States Senate, or of the upper house of a State's legislature, chosen to preside in the absence of the president of the Senate  Elected by the senate  Comes after Speaker of the house in presidential succession Party Officers  The party Caucus o Party Caucus: a closed meeting of a party's house or senate members; also called a party conference o A caucus deals mostly with matters related to party organization, such as the selection of the party’s floor leaders and questions of committee membership. o The policy committee is composed of the party’s top leadership. It acts as an executive committee for the party caucus.

Name:_________________________________ Period:_____ Date:___________  The Floor Leaders o Floor Leaders: members of the House and Senate picked by their parties to carry out party decisions and steer legislative action to meet party goals o The floor leaders are legislative strategists. o Assisted by paid staff, they try to carry out the decisions of their parties’ caucuses and steer floor action to their parties’ benefit. o Each of them is also the chief spokesman for his party in his chamber. o The floor leader of the party that holds the majority of seats in each house of Congress is known as the majority leader. o The floor leader of the party that holds the minority of seats in each house is the minority leader. o The two floor leaders in each house are assisted by party whips.  The majority whip and the minority whip are, in effect, assistant floor leaders.  The whips check with party members and tell the floor leader which members, and how many votes, can be counted on in any particular matter. Committee Chair  Committee Chair: member who heads a standing committee in a legislative body  The chairman of each of these permanent committees is chosen from the majority party by the majority party caucus.  the chairman usually manages the debate and tries to steer it to final passage.  The Seniority Rule o unwritten rule in both houses of Congress reserving the top posts in each chamber, particularly committee chairmanships, for members with the longest records of service o The rule is applied most strictly to the choice of committee chairmen. o The head of each committee is almost always the longest-serving majority party member of that committee.  Criticism of the Seniority Rule o They insist that the seniority system ignores ability, rewards mere length of service, and works to discourage younger members. o critics claim, the chairman of a committee is often out of touch with current public opinion. o Defenders of the seniority rule argue that it ensures that a powerful and experienced member will head each committee. o They also say that the rule encourages members to stay on a particular committee and so, over time, gain a wide-ranging knowledge of matters that fall within that committee’s jurisdiction. Standing Committees

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Name:_________________________________ Period:_____ Date:___________  In 1789, the House and Senate each adopted the practice of naming a special committee to consider each bill as it was introduced.  Standing Committee: permanent committee in a legislative body to which bills in a specified subject area are referred; see select committee  Members of both houses regularly respect the decisions and follow the recommendations they make.  The leading committees in the House are the Rules, Ways and Means, Appropriations, Armed Services, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, and Agriculture committees.  In the Senate, senators usually compete for places on the Foreign Relations; Appropriations; Finance; Judiciary; Armed Services; and Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committees.  there are four standing committees that are not organized as subject-matter bodies: in the House, o the Rules Committee o the Committee on House Administration o Committee on Standards of Official Conduct o in the Senate, the Committee on Rules and Administration.  Subcommitees o Subcommittee: division of existing committee that is formed to address specific issues o There are now more than 150 subcommittees in the two houses  House Rules Committee o The House Committee on Rules is the Speaker’s “right arm.” It controls the flow of bills to the floor and sets the conditions for their consideration there. o Before most of these bills can reach the floor of the House, they must also clear the Rules Committee. Select Committees  Select committee: legislative committee created for a limited time and for some specific purpose; also known as a special committee  The Speaker of the House or the president of the Senate appoints the members of these special committees  However, select committees are sometimes formed to investigate a current issue  At times, select committees have been spectacularly important.  This happened, for example, with the Senate’s Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, popularly known as the Senate Watergate Committee.  Another notable instance came in 1987, with the work of two panels: the Senate’s Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, and the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran.  These twin committees, often referred to jointly as the Iran-Contra Committee, probed the Reagan administration’s conduct of two highly secret projects abroad: the sale of arms to Iran and efforts to give military aid to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Name:_________________________________ Period:_____ Date:___________  Most congressional investigations are not nearly so visible, nor so historic. Joint and Conference Committees  Joint Committee: legislative committee composed of members of both houses  Most are permanent groups that serve on a regular basis.  Because the standing committees of the two houses often duplicate one another’s work, many have long urged that Congress make much greater use of the joint committee device.  Before a bill may be sent to the President, each house must pass it in identical form.  Sometimes, the two houses pass differing versions, and the first house will not agree to the changes the other has made.  When this happens, a conference committee—a temporary, joint body—is created to iron out the differences in the bill.