What Are The Four Types Of Congressional Committees

In congress, all of the members participate in one or more congressional committee. In fact, there are four different types of congressional committees. These include the standing committees, the select committees, the conference committees, and lastly the joint committees. The purpose of the congressional committees is to “divide and conquer” the workload that the members of congress have as a whole. The congressional committees are helpful to reduce and “split” the workload between the Senate and the House of Representatives. All of the members of the congressional committees have a common goal, which is to support, oppose, or abstain while voting for a bill. Congress established the congressional committees to minimize the workload that …show more content…
The first type of congressional committee is the standing committee. The standing committee is a “permanent committee that exists in both the House and Senate; most standing committees focus on a particular substantive area of public policy”(Kenneth and Yalof 151). Transportation, labor, foreign affairs, and federal budget are examples of the area of public policy that the standing committees focus on. In fact, the standing committee has the power of reporting legislation. Reporting legislation is “the exclusive power of standing committees to forward legislation to the full House or Senate. Neither chamber can vote on a bill unless the committee votes to approve it first”(Kenneth and Yalof 151). The standing committee is the only committee that has the power of reporting legislation. Once a bill is introduced, the bill is directly sent to a standing committee who is an expert in the topic of the …show more content…
The conference committee joins the House of Representatives and the Senate to make a final decision on a specific bill. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate work as a team to discuss, comment, and vote on a bill disagreement and come to a conclusion (Kenneth and Yalof 152). Once the bill goes to the House of Representatives and the Senate, the debate over the bill is often handed to the conference committee. The fourth type of congressional committee is the joint committee. The joint committee also joins the House of Representatives and the Senate but not to solve issues involving a bill. The joint committees are “investigative in nature and focusing on issues of general concerns”(Kenneth and Yalof 153). The joint committee is not temporary but rather permanent and focuses on deeper topics. As a matter of fact, the leadership of the congressional committee is the committee and subcommittee chairs. The chairs decide what work they need to do and when they will do the work. The chairs are all members of the majority caucus. The selection for the committee chairs is selective and are often offered based on seniority and party allegiance. Moreover, the partisan nature of the committee system is partisanship. The majority caucus is in charge of the decisions that are made towards a bill. The majority caucus is in charge of making sure that the committees have the majority of their members present