Are Congressional Committees 'Congress at work'?

Are Congressional committee’s ‘Congress at work’?

It is not far from the truth to say that Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work

-Woodrow Wilson, 1885

The traditional picture of Congress: One where what happens on the floor of the House & Senate is relatively unimportant – the real work is done in the committee rooms. Truth is > power has now shifted from congressional committees to the majority party leadership. Here’s why:

LEGISLATION

 1.       Standing Committees

With regards to legislation, the committee system has become increasingly irrelevant particularly if the bill is controversial or big. Obamacare (2010) was conceived in a committee but the entire legislative process and final shape of the bill was formulated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was Reid and Pelosi who were making frequent visits to President Obama in the Oval Office, the relevant committee chairmen were invisible during the entire process. This occurs because of several reforms during that took place during the 1970s:

• The seniority rule (senility rule) underwent reform and is not pretty much no longer existent with committee chairman being appointed by secret ballot
• Committee hearings were opened to the press and public via Cable TV in the form of C-SPAN, which started to broadcast committee hearings. This increased the transparency of committee chairman, got rid of corruption and secret dealings
• Sub-committees given considerably more authority and power of their own (169 exist in total)

As a result of this, the House Democrats (while in control) gave the speaker power to determine the majority party membership of the House Rules Committee à Speaker also given power to refer legislation to more than one committee. When Republicans took control of the House in 1995: put a three-term limit (6 years) on the chairmanship of the House standing committees (no one could become a John Dingell again and hold chairmanship for 16 years) = Expertise was lost. Another new practice was the substantial amendment of legislation after the bill had left the standing committee but before it arrives on the House or Senate floor.

        2.   Discharge process

Discharge process = mechanism in the House whereby members are allowed to force a standing committee (or Rules Committee) to end its consideration of a bill and bring it up to the floor of the House à No chairman wants this to happen. Traditionally this mechanism has been rarely used because it requires signatures of a majority of House members (218) to activate the process and members have been reluctant to sign it because they fear reprisals from committee chairman.

However, the last two decades witnessed a change in the use of discharge process. Between 2013-2014 there were a total of 12 and since 1997 (105^th Congress) there have been 114. Also, he number of members signining the discharge motions has greately increased, the average number of signatures was 71 (105^th Congress) during the 113^th Congress (2013-14) Congress it has risen to 160. Next, today the discharge motions are entirely partisan in nature. In 2013, the 14 discharge motions that attracted 190 signature were because virtually every Democrat House member signed them. In 2014, 195 House members (all Dem) attempted to discharge the fair Minimum Wage Bill. The increased use of the discharge process shows that comittees are no longer feared nor respected.

        3.    Conference committees

Another reason that pointed to committees being ‘Congress at work’ was the role played at the end of the legislative process by conference committees. Conference committees are ad hoc committees used to reconcile differences between the House version of a bill and the Senate version of the same bill à they write a compromise version of the bill that is accepted by both chambers.

Today this rarely happens. In 2013-2014 conference committees were used just three times compared to 50 in 1995-1996. Today the differences between House and Senate version of the bill are fixed by party leadership.

Scrutiny of the Executive

Congressional standing committees scrutinise the actions of the executive branch, and President himself. In this area, there’s less distinction between the traditional and contemporary Congress. 2014 is a good example of how congressional committees still hold their function of scrutiny over the executive. September 30^th, Julia Pierson (former US Secret Service director) appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee à questioned on recent Secret Service failures:

• Intruder, armed with a small knife, jumped the White House fence and entered the front door of the Residence
• There were also more Secret Service failures over the years:
• A couple managing to gatecrash a White House party (2009)
• Failure to realise that gun shots had been fired at the White House until after 4 days later (2011)
• 13 Secret Service agents being involved in a prostitution scandal during preparations for the Presidents visit to Colombia
• A Secret Service agent being found drunk by hotel staff in Amsterdam just before the President was due to arrive in the Netherlands (2013)

Democrat Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts went after Pierson, saying: “I have very low confidence in the Secret Service under your leadership.” To make the Secret Service look ever worse, after 3 days before the White House security breech, the President shared an elevator with a man armed with a gun at a conference in Atlanta > Secret Service only investigated him after he took unauthorised photographs of the President. Within 24 hours of the committee hearing, Pierson resigned. Washington Post reported “Support for Pierson rapidly declined on Capitol Hill just hours after the congressional hearing”. This is Congress at work.

Conclusion:

Are congressional committees ‘Congress at work’? Sometimes because congressional committees in their legislative mode no longer seem to be ‘Congress at work’. Their power has been handed down to the party leadership in both chambers. But, in their investigative and scrutiny mode they still seem like ‘Congress at work’. Committees are no longer the focus of congressional action because:

• Increased partisanship in Congress
• Increased power of the party leadership in both chambers
• Modifications to the seniority rule
• Introduction of term limits on committee chairmanships by House Republicans
• Increasing use of the discharge process in the House
• Declining use of conference committees