In this chapter we examined our national legislative branch—the Congress. Accordingly, we saw the colonial influences as well as Enlightenment Era notions that led to the Founding Fathers’ invocation of legislative supremacy as the guiding framework for Article I in the Constitution. In-depth discussion of the party, committee, and rules/procedures as the main features of the legislative process followed. These discussions centered on pointing out the main continuities as well as differentiations between the House and Senate in organization, processes, traditions, and deliberations relative to legislation production. Within the context of a rule-bound House versus a loosely structured Senate, we covered the types of committees that deal with authorizing and appropriating legislation, including select, permanent, joint, and conference.
From this coverage, we moved on to the primary influencers, both within the chambers themselves (including leadership of parties) and committees, as well as staff and colleagues. Additionally, constituency, interest group, bureaucratic, and even presidential external influencers were examined. Finally, the legislative process was discussed from initiation to committee deliberation with hearings, mark-up, and reporting out to rule assignment, floor debate/amendment, and ultimately presidential signing/vetoing of bills into laws. |
