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Make all laws; Oversight - monitor executive; Establish lower courts

Joint powers of congress

Initiate all revenue bills (taxation through representation); Initiate impeachment (treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors)

Powers of House of Rep.

Offers ‘consent’ to Pres. appointments (majority vote) Ex. federal judges and cabinet; Tries impeached officials (⅔ vote); Approves treaties (⅔ vote)

Powers of Senate

When senator says they want to be informed about the bill before they vote, basically just trying to push off vote later and later (manipulative)

Hold in Senate

Random talking on stage to push back/end vote on bill Ex. Strom Thurman talked for over 24 hours to prevent Civil Rights legislation; Cloture vote - puts time limit on debate, thereby ending a filibuster, requires ⅗ votes from members (at least 60 members)

Filibuster in Senate

Nancy Pelosi; Most powerful in Congress - appoint people to committees, chairs rules committee (puts bills on calendar and plans debates), decide where bills will get assigned to committees

Speaker of the House

Hoyer; Help w/ legislation on floor

Majority Leader (house)

Clyburn; Heads team of 9-10 regional whips Tries to convince ppl to vote certain ways, vote counts ahead of time, take things off agenda if not enough votes

Majority whip (house)

McCarthy

Minority leader (house)

Scalise

Minority whip (house)

Harris; Very weak position, preside over meetings, read off agenda, tie breaker vote

Leahy; fills in for VP; senior senator of majority party

Pres pro tempore

Schumer; most powerful in senate, right of first recognition

Majority leader (senate)

Durbin

Majority whip (senate)

McConnell

Minority leader (Senate)

Thune

Minority whip (senate)

Committee a bill is referred to for consideration; 20 in both House and Senate; Subcommittees mark up bills (most bills get stuck here); appointments

Standing committee

Temporary committees appointed for a specific task

Ad Hoc Committee (AKA Standing)

Committees w/ members from both houses formed to coordinate investigations or special studies

Joint committees

Reconcile differences in bills passed by House and Senate; rarely used; less than 10% bills solved by them

Conference committee

Committees serve interests of individual members (ex. tobacco interests)

Side effect of committees

Proposed law

Bill

Law enacted by legislature

Statute

Bill is drafted

Bill becoming law: Step 1

Committee referral - referred to committee by Speaker, then a subcommittee by the committee chair; multiple referrals

Bill becoming law: Step 2

Rules committee - procedure that bumps a bill up in calendar, determines extent of debate, and governs voting rules on floor; either open or closed rule

Bill becoming law: Step 3

Floor voting - binary agenda; motion, amendment, substitute amendment, status quo

Bill becoming law: Step 4

Allows any amendment related to a bill to be proposed on the floor

Open rule

Prohibits amendments on floor (except by committee reporting the bill)

Closed rule

Median voter's ideal point is in equilibrium under majority rule

Median voter theorem

Alternatives considered under pairwise majority rule, alternatives are positioned on a single dimension, preferences are single peaked

MVT assumptions

Alternative closer to the median will defeat the alternative farther from the median voter under pairwise majority rule; due to this, alternatives will get drawn towards median; same assumptions as MVT but also preferences are symmetric

Corollary of MVT

The extensive manipulation of the shape of a legislative district to benefit a certain incumbent or party; Davis v Bandemer (1986) - Supreme Court held that gerrymandering would be unconstitutional if it were too strongly biased against a party's candidates (has yet to declare any districting scheme to be in violation of this vague standard); cracking, packing, and stacking are all tactics used in gerrymandering districts

Gerrymandering

Vote trading by lawmakers to ensure that each legislator's favored provisions have a higher chance of passing; often combining several provisions into one bill to secure a majority vote

Logrolling

Article II; Unitary executive - elect on executive who appoints everyone else (rather than electing multiple executive positions); constitution does not provide for cabinet; president chosen independently by the people not by congress; framers didn't hammer out most important powers of executive in much detail (left room in defining precedent in role of president)

The presidency and the constitution

"Executive power shall be vested in a President of USA" - puts president at top of executive

Vesting clause

"Pres shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed" - warning that pres should implement laws passed by congress

Take Care Clause

"pres shall be commander in chief of army and navy of US, and of militia of the several states" - gives pres power to make and carry out war (congress has power to declare war and to raise and equip militia

Commander in Chief Clause

Commander in Chief of armed forces; Chief of state - ceremonial and symbolic head of country; Chief Executive - responsible for leading government and nominating high ranking officials with the consent of senate; Chief legislature - expected to propose and work for the passage of a legislative agenda that benefits the country; Chief diplomat - negotiates treaties, foreign agreements, and executive agreements

Duties of president

Established cabinet; slowly expanded power of fed gov over states; established prominence of chief executive in area of foreign and military affairs; precedent of stepping down after 2 terms (not yet codified)

George Washington (1789-1797)

Strengthened notion that pres didn't have to wait for congressional dictates in military matters and foreign relations

Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)

Extended political parties to electorate and held nation together during sectional crisis

Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)

Used commander and chief powers to establish what is often referred to as a "constitutional dictatorship"; writ of habeas corpus

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

Formulated stewardship theory of presidency where the pres must serve american people whether congress liked it or not

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)

Adopted whig theory of presidency where the pres must be totally subservient to congress

William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

Expanded resources of executive branch; created executive offices of the pres; persuaded congress to pass new deal legislation; established practice of sending legislative programs to congress for approval

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)

Negotiated by pres w/ 2/3 consent of senate

Treaties

Negotiated by pres w/ majority consent in both houses

Foreign agreements

Quasi legal agreements b/w pres and other heads of state; not binding on future administrations

Executive agreements

Domestic orders which manage the operations of the fed gov; not binding on future administrations

Executive orders

First step in election process; Election in which voters pick party delegates to national convention; either open or closed or blanket

Primary election

Registered voter may vote in any party primary regardless of their own party affiliation (Ex. GA, CO, VA)

Open primary election

Voters may only vote in party's primary only if they are registered members of that party, independents cannot participate (Ex. FL, NY, NM)

Closed primary election

Combination of closed and open

Blanket primary election

Meeting in which party activists pick party delegates to send to national convention (Iowa)

Caucus

Dem - proportional representation in open primary ( 57 in proportion to votes in each district, 19 in proportion to votes in state, 27 super delegates who speak their mind); Rep - winner takes all open primary (42 delegates allocated by 14 districts, if candidate wins majority of district they get all 3 delegates, if they win plurality they get two and person w/ next most votes gets 1, candidate who wins most in state gets 10 additional, lastly 10 at large 3 party and 21 bonus)

GA primaries

2nd step in process of elections; in the past, delegates actually deliberated and voted on their party's nominee; today, candidate who receives most votes in primaries and caucuses wins nomination (free delegates support front runner, pres chooses VP); present party platform

National Conventions

Party's positions on key issues and policies

Party platform

3rd step in election process; party nominees re-campaign until general election (1st Tuesday, Nov.); only one candidate for each party

General Elections

Last step in election process; each state assigned # of electors based on number of senators and congresspeople they have (GA has 14 representatives, so we have 16 electors); if candidate wins majority of electors at national level, candidate wins; if they don't win majority then three candidates w most electoral votes are voted upon by House (in state delegations)

Electoral college

Assumptions - single dimensions of alternatives, voters prefer candidate closer to ideal point, candidates can exceed two and move across spectrum to maximize their chance of election, vote using plurality rule not majority (candidate w/ most votes wins)

Downs' Model of Elections

Argued candidates adopt ideologies to simplify their messages to voters; since candidates want to appear responsible and reliable, they won't jump to eachother

Downs' Ideology

15 department heads appointed by president

The cabinet

Helps pres oversee bureaucracy and give him advice; Office of management and budget (OMB) - creates pres budget; National security council (NSC) - advises pres on military and foreign policies; Council of economic advisors (CEA) - consists of economic experts

The Executive Office of the Presidency

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