How do laws really get made?
Congressional elections are held every two years on the first Tuesday in November. Incumbents and challengers vie for all the seats in the House. In the Senate, one-third of the seats are up for election every two years. Most elections bring new faces to Congress. On occasion, an election creates a new majority party in the House, Senate, or both. In January, federal lawmakers, old and new, travel to Washington, D.C., to convene, or organize, the next Congress.
Before the new Congress holds its first formal meeting, lawmakers from each chamber meet with fellow party members in what is known as either a party caucus or a party conference. Four meetings are held in all, one each for the majority and minority parties of the House and of the Senate. Party members meet often during each two-year session of Congress. But the opening meeting is the most important.
At the first party caucus or conference, members begin to organize the new Congress. Their primary task is to elect their congressional leaders: the speaker of the House, majority and minority leaders, and whips. Over the next two years, these party leaders will work to achieve consensus, or agreement, on legislation, a task that will often tax their powers of persuasion.
Another vital task at this first meeting is the formation of party committees. Unlike congressional committees, these groups serve only their political party. Through their party committees, Democrats and Republicans research broad policy questions. They consider strategies for the upcoming session and determine party positions on legislation. They also nominate party members to serve on standing committees.
Leaders of both parties in the House and Senate work out the number of seats the two parties will have on each standing committee. As a rule, seats are assigned to Republicans and Democrats roughly in proportion to their numbers in the chamber as a whole. The majority party leaders, however, make all the final decisions. In this way, they ensure that their party maintains control of each committee.
Nearly all House members sit on at least one standing committee. Many sit on two or even three. In the smaller Senate, members must take on more committee responsibilities. Most of the 100 senators sit on three to five of the Senate’s 20 committees.
A handful of these standing committees are the most sought-after by members, either because the committees control the federal purse strings or because they deal with crucial issues of public policy. The coveted assignments include the Appropriations, Budget, and Commerce committees of both chambers, as well as the Rules Committee and Ways and Means Committee in the House and the Finance Committee in the Senate.
Before a new Congress meets, newly elected members request committee seats. At the same time, returning incumbents may ask to be moved to a more prestigious committee. The party caucus or conference, as well as the full House or Senate, must approve the committee assignments.
Historically, party leaders in Congress used their power to assign committee seats as a tool to ensure party loyalty. Members who received a requested assignment understood that they “owed” party leaders a favor. The leaders would expect to collect those favors in the future as votes on key issues. Party leaders today are less controlling, but they still use committee assignments to reward members of Congress who cooperate and to punish those who do not.
For new members, assignment of committee seats can be an especially trying experience. Like incumbents, they hope to join a committee that will allow them to serve their district’s needs, while also making them look good in the eyes of voters back home. A representative from a district with an air or naval base, for example, might seek a seat on the House Armed Services Committee. Rarely, however, do lawmakers start their career with such a desirable committee assignment.
In general, new members accept whatever committee assignments they receive and try to improve their position in the future. Carl Albert, who first won election to the House of Representatives in 1946, took this attitude. Though assigned to the minor Committee on the Post Office and Civil Service, Albert was determined to start his congressional career on the right foot. He marched into the office of Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn to thank him for the assignment. Rayburn’s secretary mistook the youthful Albert for a teenage congressional page. She informed Albert that the congressman did not have time to talk to pages.
Albert’s dream of moving up in Congress eventually came true. In the 1970s, he served with distinction as speaker of the House. But back on January 3,1947, he was thrilled just to be sitting in the House chamber for the first time. “With befitting solemnity,” he remembered years later, “the clerk of the House began calling the alphabetical roll of members. The first called, Thomas Abernathy of Mississippi, did not respond. The second was Carl Albert of Oklahoma. ‘Here,’ I answered. It was the sweetest word in the English language.”
The first day of any new Congress opens with a series of ceremonies. Once a quorum (a simple majority) is established, the House votes for speaker. Members vote along party lines, so the majority nominee always wins. Next the dean of the House, or the member with the most years of service, administers the oath of office to the speaker. The speaker then swears in all the members of the House at once.
Similar rituals take place in the Senate. There, the vice president swears in the members of the Senate, a few at a time. The Senate majority leader, however, receives no special swearing in.
All members in the House and the Senate take the same congressional oath of office. This oath has been used by Congress since 1868: