Pierce College Permanent Committee on Intelligence Paper Check the textbook and briefly explain why is it so that the Congress works in committees (Chapter

Pierce College Permanent Committee on Intelligence Paper Check the textbook and briefly explain why is it so that the Congress works in committees (Chapter 11 section 11.4).
Visit the website of the Selected Permanent Committee on Intelligence and highlight two important aspects of such Committee.

https://intelligence.house.gov/about/ (Links to an external site.)

3. The Selected Permanent Committee on Intelligence is in charge of gathering evidence regarding President Trump’s impeachment. Check ONE of the public hearings regarding the subject matter for at least 15 minutes(indicate which one). Highlight one/ two salient points regarding the hearing selected.

https://www.congress.gov/committees/video/house-intelligence-permanent/hlig00 (Links to an external site.)

https://www.npr.org/ (Links to an external site.) (audio version)

4. Report one/two points on the reaction of the President regarding the “impeachment” hearings: Check: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/PAC-Letter-10.08.2019.pdf (Links to an external site.) Or President’s Trump’s tweets on the subject matter.

5. Draw conclusions.

2-3 PAGES

NO PLAGIARIZING!!!

BOOK PICTURES BELOW 11.4 Congress Works in Committees
The list of advantages incumbency provides is long. Competitive races are rare. Most seats are safe. The modern
Congress not only protects its members from challenge, but it insulates their careers from waves of war, economic
downturns, and anti-incumbent moods. Research produced by Andrew Gelman and Gary King shows that a typical
House incumbent received about 12 percent more votes than his or her opponent simply because he or she was
holding office, an advantage that makes members nearly invulnerable. [1] Given this level of job security, we might
expect members to become complacent. To the contrary, the 113th Congress, which President Obama complained was
one of the least productive in history, considered more than 10,000 bills and enacted 224 of them into law.
[2] Writing, reading, and debating this many bills is a massive amount of work. To become laws, bills must survive
numerous revisions, committee and floor votes in both chambers of Congress, and possibly a presidential veto.
Fashioning majorities in two houses of Congress should be difficult and time-consuming. Given the number, size, and
complexity of problems affecting the country and the differing interests represented in Congress, disagreement and
conflict seem to be inevitable.
Yet, representatives need to produce legislation to show constituents they have been doing their jobs. Because it is
challenging to claim responsibility for policies that benefit the whole country, members like to sponsor smaller pieces
of legislation to show that their efforts resulted in benefits to particular areas, groups, or individuals. Members,
however, are each responsible to constituencies with wide-ranging interests. Farmers want different things from
government than miners. Urban dwellers have different interests compared to rural residents. How do members get
the particular benefits they need to be reelected without conflicting with members who want different things for their
districts?
Congress employs about 2,000 professionals to help the committees. These are permanent employees responsible for
administering and organizing the committees’ work. Congress also has three staff agencies to provide information
and research. The Congressional Research Service is a branch of the Library of Congress and consists of about 600
lawyers, economists, and reference librarians, as well as social, natural, and physical scientists. The Government
Accountability Office is the investigative arm of Congress that performs audits on executive agencies and policy
analysis to evaluate the effects of legislation. Lastly, the Congressional Budget Office provides information on
government revenues and expenditures. It provides projections that determine how much money the government will
have and how much proposed federal programs are likely to cost.
Dividing the work among the committees is key to understanding how Congress does its work efficiently. Each
committee deals with a general policy area that is broken down into more specific policy areas. For example, the
House Committee on Agriculture deals with policies surrounding the production and trade of food and its safety,
quality, and affordability. The use and conservation of the nation’s land, water, forests, and wildlife habitats is also the
committee’s responsibility. This committee is separated into six subcommittees, one of which, the General Farm
Commodities and Risk Management Committee, specializes in laws and policies relating to major farm commodities
such as corn, rice, and sugar. It also sets policy for the government’s crop insurance and loan programs. The members
sitting on this committee specialize in farm commodities and the related loan and insurance programs. Over time,
they become experts and can easily handle what seems like an enormous and complex workload.
Within the subcommittee, the members know which bills to consider and which they can safely ignore. They conduct
hearings regarding a particular bill in which they listen to and question officials from the Department of Agriculture or
other federal agencies, representatives from the various industries, other businesses, consumer groups, and private
citizens. After the hearings, the members work to markup or decide on the exact wording of the bill.
At this time, amendments to the bill are proposed; modifications are publicized, debated, and voted upon. Each
subcommittee follows a slightly different amendment process. Some take formal votes on each one while others
operate by consensus or use “conceptual markups” to establish the general areas of agreement while adding the
legislative language later.[5] The goal of the committees is to create a bill that can be agreed on by their colleagues in
the full committee and by the rest of the House, the Senate, and the president.
After all this is done, the subcommittee sends the bill to the full committee where more hearings and amendments
may occur, the bill is ratified, or the bill is returned to the subcommittee for more work. It is also possible for a bill to
be ignored by the full committee, in which case it can languish and die. If the full committee approves the bill, it sends
it to the floor of the House for a vote along with a report describing its provisions and merits, and a summary of the
results of the committee’s research and hearings. The reports are used to guide executive agencies and the federal
courts when they interpret whether the bill’s language should become law. A similar process is followed in the Senate.
Committee work helps Congress manage conflict among its members. Most of the bills that go to the floor for a vote
are the ones preferred by the specialists on the committee and its subcommittees. Unfortunately, no member can be
an expert in all matters before Congress. For individual members, the cost of policy expertise is relative ignorance of
policies in other areas. This is a common problem in complex institutions and is usually resolved by some form of
reciprocity. At your college or university, for example, the professors of business administration develop the
curriculum for their discipline, while the professors of political science develop theirs. The two groups defer to each
other’s knowledge and reciprocate by not becoming involved in areas outside their areas of expertise. Curriculum is
developed with a maximum of expertise and a minimum of conflict. In Congress, the peace is preserved in the same
manner when the non-specialists remove themselves from the focused policy debates and let the experts do their work
in the confines of their committees.
Specialization and Reciprocity in Congress
The key to understanding how Congress produces legislation lies in its organization. Relative to other institutions-say
a university or a corporation-Congress may seem small with its 535 members, but more than 30,000 people work in
Congress and its operating budget is above $3 billion. (3) Congress raises and distributes revenue and crafts the laws
and policies to govern the country using the same organizational tools as other institutions. For example, your college
or university has the job of a transferring a wide range of knowledge to thousands of students in a short time as well as
producing in-depth research in countless specific fields of study. The university does its job by dividing knowledge
into disciplines, such as business or social science, which it assigns to colleges. The colleges then subdivide the
disciplines into departments, such as political science, where individual professors specialize in areas of study such as
American politics. Congress manages its job in much the same way. It divides the work among its committees and
subcommittees, where the members specialize in producing policy in specific areas.
Figure 11.12 How a Bill Becomes a Law
A bill is introduced in
the House of Representatives.
A bill is introduced into
the Senate.
The bill is referred to a
House committee and
subcommittee.
The bill is referred to a
Senate committee
and subcommittee.
How a Bill
a
Becomes a Law
A full committee votes
on the bill.
A full committee votes
on the bill.
The House of Representatives
debates the bill and votes
on its passage.
A House-Senate conference
committee writes a
compromise bill. The
compromise bill then
goes back to both houses.
The Senate debates the
bill and votes on its passage.
The House of Representatives
and the Senate vote on the
final passage of the bill. The
approved bill is sent
to the President
11.4 Congress Works in Committees
The list of advantages incumbency provides is long. Competitive races are rare. Most seats are safe. The modern
Congress not only protects its members from challenge, but it insulates their careers from waves of war, economic
downturns, and anti-incumbent moods. Research produced by Andrew Gelman and Gary King shows that a typical
House incumbent received about 12 percent more votes than his or her opponent simply because he or she was
holding office, an advantage that makes members nearly invulnerable. [1] Given this level of job security, we might
expect members to become complacent. To the contrary, the 113th Congress, which President Obama complained was
one of the least productive in history, considered more than 10,000 bills and enacted 224 of them into law.
[2] Writing, reading, and debating this many bills is a massive amount of work. To become laws, bills must survive
numerous revisions, committee and floor votes in both chambers of Congress, and possibly a presidential veto.
Fashioning majorities in two houses of Congress should be difficult and time-consuming. Given the number, size, and
complexity of problems affecting the country and the differing interests represented in Congress, disagreement and
conflict seem to be inevitable.
Yet, representatives need to produce legislation to show constituents they have been doing their jobs. Because it is
challenging to claim responsibility for policies that benefit the whole country, members like to sponsor smaller pieces
of legislation to show that their efforts resulted in benefits to particular areas, groups, or individuals. Members,
however, are each responsible to constituencies with wide-ranging interests. Farmers want different things from
government than miners. Urban dwellers have different interests compared to rural residents. How do members get
the particular benefits they need to be reelected without conflicting with members who want different things for their
districts?
Specialization and Reciprocity in Congress
The key to understanding how Congress produces legislation lies in its organization. Relative to other institutions-say
a university or a corporation-Congress may seem small with its 535 members, but more than 30,000 people work in
Congress and its operating budget is above $3 billion. (3) Congress raises and distributes revenue and crafts the laws
and policies to govern the country using the same organizational tools as other institutions. For example, your college
or university has the job of a transferring a wide range of knowledge to thousands of students in a short time as well as
producing in-depth research in countless specific fields of study. The university does its job by dividing knowledge
into disciplines, such as business or social science, which it assigns to colleges. The colleges then subdivide the
disciplines into departments, such as political science, where individual professors specialize in areas of study such as
American politics. Congress manages its job in much the same way. It divides the work among its committees and
subcommittees, where the members specialize in producing policy in specific areas.
Figure 11.12 How a Bill Becomes a Law
A bill is introduced in
the House of Representatives.
A bill is introduced into
the Senate.
The bill is referred to a
House committee and
subcommittee.
The bill is referred to a
Senate committee
and subcommittee.
How a Bill
a
Becomes a Law
A full committee votes
on the bill.
A full committee votes
on the bill.
The House of Representatives
debates the bill and votes
on its passage.
A House-Senate conference
committee writes a
compromise bill. The
compromise bill then
goes back to both houses.
The Senate debates the
bill and votes on its passage.
The House of Representatives
and the Senate vote on the
final passage of the bill. The
approved bill is sent
to the President
The president can either veto the bill
or sign it into law.
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Show long description
The division of labor in Congress is varied and complex. There are twenty standing committees in the House of
Representatives and sixteen in the Senate. These permanent committees process the bulk of the work. The appropriate
committee must first approve any item before it can be considered for a vote. Measures that do not make it beyond
this stage “die” in committee. Congress subdivides the standing committees into subcommittees where they do
most of the day-to-day work. In all, there are 104 subcommittees in the House and 70 in the senate. [4] Congress also
creates select or special committees for such work as overseeing or investigating a matter of concern to
individual members, groups, or issues that overlap the areas of two or more committees. Joint committees
contain members from both the House and the Senate. Some of these deal with a special issue; others have routine
investigative or oversight duties. Lastly, conference committees are formed to resolve differences in similar bills
passed by the House and the Senate so that they send one bill to the president for his signature.
Table 11.1 Standing Committees of the U.S. Congress
House
Senate
Agriculture
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Appropriations
Appropriations
Armed Services
Armed Services
Budget
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Education and the Workforce Budget
Energy and Commerce
Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Ethics
Energy and Natural Resources
Financial Services
Environment and Public Works
Foreign Affairs
Finance
Homeland Security
Foreign Relations
House Administration
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Judiciary
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Natural Resources
Judiciary
Oversight and Government Reform Rules and Administration
Rules
Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Science, Space, and Technology Veterans’ Affairs
Small Business
Transportation and Infrastructure
Ways and Means
“Committees of the U.S. Congress.” Congress.gov. Accessed June 17, 2016. https://www.congress.gov/committees.

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