The Constitution provides that the vice-president of the United States, shall be the president of the Senate. The vice-president cannot participate in debates. As a presiding officer he has to rule impartially. He cannot operate as the instrument of his political party. The vice-president is not a member of the body he presides over. Thus he can vote only to break a tie.

The Senate elects a president pro-tempore to preside when the vice-president is absent. Besides, he is also in charge of dealing with the day-to-day business. He is the choice of the majority party in the Senate. Though this position is honorary, it can be extremely influential, as for example that of Senator Arthur H. Vandenburg during the Eightieth Congress. The actual work of presiding however, is carried out by a number of Senators.

In each house, there is present an assistant majority leader and an assistant minority leader, which are commonly called whips. The party whips are vital cogs in the party machinery. They look after the membership of their party, advise them of weekly programs and try to have all of them present when important measures are to be voted upon. The whips aid both the efficacy of the majority in securing its desired legislation as well as the minority, in making its opposition felt.

3.2e The Work of Congressional Committees

All modern legislative bodies generally make use of a committee system so that a division of labor is made use of in dealing with numerous and difficult proposals for legislation. The committees do much of the intensive work on legislation. The two houses were too unwieldy to work efficiently at the initial task of drafting and criticizing bills. Thus Congress found it necessary to divide itself into committees operating in specialized fields. These committees do the preliminary work involved in getting bills ready for being considered finally by the respective houses. The committees may also sidetrack bills so that time will not be taken in considering them on the floor.

There are four kinds of committees in every house: standing, select, conference and joint committees.

Standing Committees are regular and permanent committees of the House and Senate. They are responsible for determining whether a particular legislation needs to be presented to the entire House or the Senate for consideration. In 1995, there were 19 standing committees in the House, and 16 in the Senate. A member is assigned to a committee according to seniority and his personal choice. Normally once he is elected to a committee, he can remain on it as long as he wishes, and continues to be a member of Congress. In both houses, there are committees on agriculture, appropriations, the armed services, banking and currency, civil service, the District of Columbia, government operations, public works, rules, labor, taxation, foreign relations, the judiciary, interstate and foreign commerce, and space science. Generally each senator is assigned to two committees and each representative to one of them. Many of these committees make use of sub-committees, some of which are permanent.

Select or Special Committees are also established by the Congress to conduct a temporary investigation over special issues. Owing to their temporary nature, these need to be re-instituted with every new Congress elected. It is not their duty to propose legislation, but only to produce reports of their investigations. In some cases, when a particular issue is of great significance, the select committee may even be turned into a Standing one (thus making it permanent).

Among such Special committees with specialized functions, are also certain investigating committees such as that on Un-American Activities set up by the House. If vigorous action is required, a special committee may be at an advantage. The drive for establishing a special committee may come from an aggressive legislator who wants investigation to be carried out on a particular subject. On the other hand, a legislator who seeks the prestige of heading such a vigorous investigating committee may also activate it. Harry Truman rose to be vice-president and later President, by his investigation of the conduct of World War II, as well as by his valuable service to the country.

Conference committees have to smooth out the difference in the bills passed by both the houses of Congress. The members of the conference committees are the members of the House and the Senate who have worked on the bill in their respective standing committees. After a few days, they finalize the wording of the legislation, and the bill is sent for vote in the House and the Senate. Sometimes conference committees go beyond compromising differences in bills and include new material or eliminate items included in a bill passed by each house. Most bills that reach the conference committee stage are usually harmonized into agreement.

Joint Committees

Generally, matters requiring legislation, or merely investigation or supervision, have to be dealt with by separate committees for each House. However there are often complaints from witnesses for having to make tedious repeated appearances before two or more committees. By organizing Joint Committees, some duplication may be avoided. One example is the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, which did the background work in preparation for the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. It is important to remember, however that Joint Committees do not propose legislation. The leadership of such committees is rotated between members of Senate and House. Joint Committees on Printing, on the Library, on Internal Revenue Taxation, on Atomic Energy, on Foreign Economic Cooperation, on reduction of Nonessential Federal Expenditures, have been appointed in the past. However each House prefers to consider bills independently where legislation is concerned.

Committee work is often divided among sub committees. There are smaller groups that deal with issues closely and even draft bills. After the formation of a sub committee, there is the selection of a chair, based on seniority and the setting up of a permanent staff. The number of sub committees had risen to 84 in the House and 69 in the Senate in 1995. Legislation has become decentralized and fragmented owing to the number of sub committees that complicate discussion on the bills.

Index

3.0 Introduction
3.1 Powers of Congress
3.2 The Organization of Congress
3.3 How a Bill becomes a Law

Chapter 4