Chapters 11 & 12 Exam Review

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constitunents

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a person who lives in an electoral district andi representwd by an elected offical

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fomal & informal rrequirements to serve in the house and senate

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formal requirmenyd houdr memmbers must be at least 25 yeard old, ans senate members musy be at least 30 years old. Both must be a resident of the state n whicth live-House members must be at least 7 yrs in the state and senators have to spend at least 9 years in the state.
informal requirment- most members of congress have long history's in serving locak or state pollitics. Many also hve background in working in thlegal profession, business people and education are also common

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apporrtionMENT (what is it and whn it happens)

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house seats are apportioned amoung each tate according to its population. Every 10 yrs the US cenus burea conducts a census to count the nations populayion. The results calculate how many ouse seats should be distibuted amoung the states. If a state's population increased will gain votes and if it decreases in population will lose votes this applies to the onw person one vote in legislatures in local gov't . an average of 650,000 people where supported by one memeber of the house. This doesnt apply to the senate where each state gets the same amount of votes

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delegates v trustees

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delegates are those who believe that they should do exactly as he people in their homw district want them to . THey're esttenially speaking with their vote, ex: inexperniced newcomers do this in hopes of relection and on acts clearly linked to home district needs this is done.
Trusttees see themselves as having more indepensence and they feel thepeople in the districts will trust them to do the right thing and that they cant always please every person in their district. ex; these are usually experniced memebers or when a controvisal issue is dropped

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powers of incumbumbency

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since 1945, 90% of house members and 80% of senators running for relecetion have won. They a incumbery advantage. Such as name recongixation from seeing canidates on the news, office resouces (franking priviledges) that alllow incumbents to use their office for staff, stionary, mailing privelldges and travel allowances to keep in touch with voters. campaign funds with the incumbents in the 2004 election of senators raised $616 million for the house and senate verus their challengers who raised only $150 million. Also track records (POrk barrel spending) when legislators who secure large amounts of "pork" from the feeral gov't for their home ditricts are admired for bringing home the bacon . from federally funded projects like roads or bridges to defense contacts they won for their districts elected officals have these proofs that challengers typically lack such bragging rights

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speaker of the house

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the most powerful member of the house, they're nominated by the party majority and voted in by the enitre house. They schdule the worj of the house, assign bills to comitee
ex: cuttrny speaker in JOhn Boehener

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majority and minority leaders

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they plan stragegy for their parties, mangage the floor debate, tr to keep their paries unified. Majority leader in Eric Cantor (R-vA) and nancy pelosi (D-CA), minority leaders.

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whips

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they assit the party leaders by listening to the members trying to keep party members united and voting the "right way"

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standing committees

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permant comittees tha handle most legilative businesses. Each standing cpmittes has another key duty gather information through hearings and investigations. Comitte hearings are one way for cngress to monitor polices and gov't agencies.
Ex: Ongoing comittes that deal with particular issues. The majority party usually deals with particular issues majority paries usually have more seats on these comitees each standing comitee has 6 to 8 subcommittees. The House and the Senate are standing committes

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subcommittes

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most standing commitees have serveral smaller comittes. These comitees do most of the work of reviewing proposed legislation.
Ex; the majority of bills introduced to congress each yesr die in comitee

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select (special) comittees

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temporary comittees that study one sepecific issue, they usually last no longer than 2 years and deal with the serious problems that are overlooked

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joint comimitee

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a committe that has people from both the house and senate on it they study issues and report it back to their chambers
ex: library of congress has a record of all the twitter post (and so much more)

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confernce committe

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temporary kind of joint comimitee. when people from the house of reps and the senate t together to work out the differences between their two versions of a bill. then it goes back ro each chamber for a vote before going to the president

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nessecary and proper clause

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elastic clause congress can use this to do thingnot specifically enumerated in the constitution. Ex; adapting constitution to modern times

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the checking powers of congress

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1. oversight- congress can call in members of the executive branch to ensure that the laws are being carried out properly
2. confirmation- congress mut confirm key appoinments to the supreme court, federal court,etc...
3.Impeachment- in the ectent if a heinous wrongdoing the house can can vote to impeach a government offical (president), and the the senate can and actually holds the final trial to decide if they should be thrown ot of office.
4.ratificayion- the senate must ratify all treaties te president neogiates with other counties or nations
5. Override- congress can ovveride a presidental veto with a 2/3 majority vote
6. Amendment- congress has the power to iniaite a constittutional amendment

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appropriations

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funds allocated by a legislature for a stated purpose as part of a budget or spending a bill. ex: govt needs money to fund federal projects and congress has the power of purse to apporiote this money

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16th amendment

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passed in 1914 income tax amendment allowed congress to tax the earnings and income of induividuals. at first only the very rich were taxed but this evually spread to almost all wage earnerd

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term limits

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state legilatoe have term limits butcongress does not. thistrend started by delaware in 1776 has been followed by other states, adovates says a turnover in legislatue is benifical but critics argue that such limits are undemocractic and we lose experince that can be devasting to a legislature when senior members are termed out

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the IRS

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internal revenue service collects tax revenues and is responsible for making tsure people pay their fair share. income taxes are money you pay the govt based on what you make,]. payroll taxes tax businees and are how much they make determines what they pay

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seniority rule

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a traditon that a congressional committees members senority-the numbers of years of unbroken service on the comittee detrmines what that members position on the committe

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3 steos in subcommittess

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1. Heaings -people come to testify about the bill
2. Markup sessions- members of the comittee comment on the bills
3. Report- this is when the subcommittee votes on whether or not to return the bill to full committee if they do, full committee can mark ir up before voting to send it to the fukk house or senate

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power of rules committee

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befor e abill comes out of committee it goes through the house floor it must be clear the rules committes. the committee can protize which bill get considered first, thy also detemine which bills will be argus under closed or open rule. the rules committee works vry closely with the speaker of the use, many suggest the speaker of the house utlmaitly controls the committee

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closed v open rule and what each symbolizes

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closed rule limitd the floor debate and amensments made to a bill. it makes ir easier tor tingd to pass through congreaa without damging debates or changes. supporter favor this. open rule allows lots of floor debate and can be amended. this allows for the crippling and killing of a bill favored by the opponent

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power of recongiiition

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in both house and the senate the speaker and majority leader have the power of recongnition. that is nobody speaks on the floor until acknoglrd . thid id very important to congress members so its effort to stay on good terms with these legislators process runs smoothly

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differnces in floor debate house and senateq

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in the house floor debate on most bills is limited to 1 hour and 30 minutes for each party. speaking time in the house for each members is very limited
in the senate rthere are fewer members and as a result thry usually have unlimited debate

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filibuster

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this is the utlamite weapon a senator has, where they can speak at unlimiyed lengths to slow a bill down and force other sides to drop/maKE CHANGES TO A BILL. TO stop a fillibuster there must be a vote closure which requires a 3/5 supermajority.