This blog serves my Congress course (Claremont McKenna College Government 101) for the spring of 2025.
ABOUT THIS BLOG
I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:
To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class; To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions. To post relevant news items or videos.
There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges.
For next week, read Lawrence, all (it is a short, easy-to-read book)and bring it to class.
On Tuesday, we shall do role selection. If you cannot make it to class, ask someone to represent you.
For your papers, do NOT worry about first and second readings. Focus on key status steps (committee action, rules, floor votes) and patterns of support and opposition.
Fill out the 3x5 cards. List all the committees that you would like to simulate. You may list one, some, or all. We will simulate the top two finishers.
Judiciary
Finance
Foreign Relations
Armed Services
Energy and Natural Resources
Environment & Public Works
Variations of Lawmaking
Vote-a-Rama (amendments mostly symbolic and nonbinding)
The Senate’s standing committees play an essential part in the legislative process, as they select the small percentage of the bills introduced each Congress that, in their judgment, deserve the attention of the Senate as a whole, and as they recommend amendments to these bills based on their expert knowledge and experience. Most bills are routinely referred to the committee with appropriate jurisdiction as soon as they are introduced. However, paragraph 4 of Rule XIV permits a Senator to bypass a committee referral and have the bill placed directly on the Calendar of Business, with exactly the same formal status the bill would have if it had been considered and reported by a Senate committee.
Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the bill by title for the first time.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1035) to extend authority relating to roving surveillance, access to business records, and individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and for other purposes.
Mr. MCCONNELL. I now ask for a second reading and, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection having been heard, the bill will be read for the second time on the next legislative day.2
The inside game and the outside game: in LBJ's time in the Senate, the outside game scarcely counted. Gingrich and C-SPAN start to change things. Newt v. O'Neill 1984 (start clip at 9:30)
The conference/caucus holds separate elections for leader/speaker,whip, and other posts. The people holding these jobs are often intraparty rivals. They work together, but warily.
He tried to teach his young assistants to read men—“Watch their hands, watch their eyes,” he told them. “Read eyes. No matter what a man is saying to you, it’s not as important as what you can read in his eyes”—and to read between the lines: more interested in men’s weaknesses than in their strengths because it was weakness that could be exploited, he tried to teach his assistants how to learn a man’s weakness. “The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he’s not telling you,” he said. “The most important thing he has to say is what he’s trying not to say.”
1. Pick any bill from the 118th Congress. Explain its fate. Instead of giving a mere chronology, tell why the measure moved or stalled. What had happened to previous versions? Which groups or blocs backed and fought it? Did the administration take a position? Which strategies and tactics did its friends and foes use? Even if it failed or stalled, did it prompt the passage of a similar measure in a different form? Look at parliamentary strategies, major amendments, and roll calls. Again, you should explain the outcome, not just describe the process. Some possible topics:
2. Pick pending legislation that has not yet passed either house. Write a memo to its prime sponsor detailing a plausible strategy for securing its passage at least in one chamber. (One example might be a proposed constitutional amendment.) In your answer, consider all phases of the legislative process and take account of the influence of interest groups and the administration. And of course, remember the tight partisan balance in each chamber.
Get background from a source such as CQ Magazine where you may find the partisan breakdown of roll-call votes.
Essays should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than five pages long. I will not read past the fifth page.
Submit papers as Word documents, not pdfs or Google docs.
Cite your sources with endnotes in standard Turabian format. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism and will result in severe consequences.
Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you -- especially errors that I have noted on previous papers. Return essays (again, as Word documents, not pdfs) to the Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Friday, March 7. I reserve the right to dock papers will one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.
McCarthy’s pulverizing failure as a legislative leader stems from two truths: One, he cared little about policy; two, his word was no good. He’d say anything to anyone. If you’ve read enough political biographies, you know that “he was always as good as his word” is a common form of high praise that can be delivered across partisan lines. McCarthy was as useless and malleable as his word.
Lesson: pols understand that they mislead voters, but it is taboo to lie to fellow pols.
"Pelosi had gutted Big John Dingell like a halibut she found floating around San Francisco Bay, then calmly sat back and had a cup of coffee afterward. His entrails were left on display for everyone in the House of Representatives to see- and to remember."
The Mark Meadows story: "Yeah, I said, I'd forgive him. But I knew he was carrying a backpack full of knives-and sooner or later, he'd try to cut me again with them. Which, of course, he did.
How did Boehner lead the fight against the House Bank? (He had help.)
How did Bachmann turn the tables?
Barber Conable, a moderate Republican from upstate New York, retired in 1984, and wrote a column reflecting on life in the House. Instead of looking at the upstarts with horror, he instead saw something very natural:
Old as I am, I recall being a "young turk" at one point and participating noisily in a successful effort to change House rules which the then Establishment found adequate. I learned a lot about the institution from the effort, vented my frustrations, and gradually became part of the Establishment myself. Youth presses age, provides a good deal of the dynamic and the dialogue, and eventually ages. Partisans may not like the tranquility of my view of these recent histrionics, but I find reassurance in the cycle of renewal.
In all bodies, those who will lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the taste, talent, and disposition, of those whom they wish to conduct: therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will prevent the men of talent disseminated through it from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects!
Remember for the assignment: Do not rely only on member websites: search for interviews
The Almanac of American Politics 2022 does not have the latest data on House districts. The lines may have changed and members might now represent districts with different numbers.
