The Government's Branches: Legislative Edition

This is PART TWO of the branch series. One branch each day for three days. This episode covers all things legislative branch: from the house to the senate to how a bill becomes a law. Enjoy!

Transcript

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Hello everyone. Welcome back to Red White and You, a podcast dedicated to informing the public about our American history and civics in an accessible, digestible way. Because let's be honest, we all need a little bit of a refresher course. I'm your host, Evan Hyman Mutzchnik, and today it's part two and day two of our three-day series of branches that are not related to trees. Legislative branch, welcome to the pod, and let's get into it. So, the legislative branch. She is established by Article I of the Constitution and is known as Congress. And the legislative branch is broken up into two sectors, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Now let's start with the House, aka the lower house. Um, this isn't your ordinary kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, closet, stairwell type of house, though. This house has 435 people in it, and you do not want to live here. And cute the Charlie X, I think I'm gonna die in this house. Now, each person in the House of Representatives is called a representative or congressperson, and they serve two-year terms, and there is no limit to how many terms they can serve. So you can keep getting elected to these two-year terms, girl. And you can also be really old and keep getting elected. Um, but you can't be super young because you have to be at least 25 years old to be a representative in the House. You have to be a U.S. citizen for at least seven years and a resident of the state you want to represent. Um, now, besides passing legislation, which is kind of a Congress as a whole thing, we'll which we'll get into, the House has a few unique powers. Number one, they initiate revenue or tax bills. So this means that all bills that raise revenue or raise taxes must start in the House. Um, Senate can amend me, amend these bills, but they cannot originate them. Number two is impeachment. The House has the sole power to impeach federal officials. Impeachment is similar to bringing formal charges to firing people. Um, officials who can be impeached include the president, vice president, and federal judges, and the Senate holds the trial, but the House are the people who vote on having a trial. Um, an example of this is how the House impeached presidents such as Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump. Um number three, electing the president in certain cases. If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes um or electoral college votes, the house chooses the president. And the choice must be from the top three electoral vote getters. Um, but each state gets and each state gets one vote, not each representative. Um, and this happened in the 1824 presidential election when the House selected John Quincy Adams. Boom. Um, so then there are also some leadership positions, if you want to climb the ranks, because of course the House of Representatives is just like lunch tables in high school. Um, the main leaders include the Speaker of the House, who is the most powerful member of the House and second in line for the presidency after the vice president. Cool. Um, right now that position is held by Mike Johnson. And the speaker runs house debates and votes, um, assigns bills to committees, and they also influence what legislation is considered. Um they are elected by House members. And then there is the majority leader, which leads the majority party's agenda. Surprise, surprise. Um, and that right now is Steve Scalise from Louisiana for the Republicans, and then of course there is the minority leader, which is Hakeem Jeffries, and he is a Democratic congressman from New York. And there are also committees, hashtag exciting, um, where bills are reviewed before reaching the full house for voting. Some important committees include the Ways and Means Committee, which is basically about tax policy, um the appropriations committee, which is about government spending, and the rules committee, which controls how bills are debated. And of course, there are leadership positions in these committees. Um every US House committee has a leader known as the chair from the majority party and a ranking member who is the leader or from the minority party. And then finally, there are caucuses, which are like the friend groups, and these caucuses basically unite House members around shared political goals, interests, or identities. So there's the House Democratic Caucus and House Republican caucus based on party lines. Um, caucuses based on ideology are the congressional progressive caucus, which are more progressive Democrats, and then the House Freedom Caucus, which is very conservative Republicans. And then there are identity-based caucuses like the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. So, boom, house explained. Moving on to the Senate, which is sometimes called the upper house. Um, and while there are 435 members in the House, there are only 100 in the Senate. Senators are elected for six-year terms, they must be at least 30 years old and have been a U.S. citizen for at least nine years, and like the House, must be an inhabitant of the state they represent, but this time at their time of their election. And some unique abilities of the Senate are to, number one, the trials for impeachment cases. So as I said before, after the House impeaches someone, votes to impeach someone, the Senate holds the trial. And if two-thirds of senators vote to convict the person, the official is removed from office. Um number two, they confirm presidential appointments. So the Senate must approve many appointments made by the president. We talked a little bit about this yesterday. Um, these include federal judges, cabinet members, ambassadors, justices of the Supreme Court, etc., etc. And third, they ratify treaties, so a little bit of foreign involvement, and the senate must approve treaties with other countries that have been negotiated by the president. Hashtag checks and balances, and a two-thirds vote is once again required for ratification. And as always, leadership roles. The Senate has number one, the president of the Senate, which is the vice president of the United States. They have the president pro tempore, who presides over the Senate when the vice president is absent. This position is traditionally given to the longest-serving senator in the majority party. Um, they have the majority leader, um, who is the most powerful member of the Senate because they can schedule which bills are debated, and then they also lead the majority party's agenda and coordinate party strategy, and then they have the minority leader who does similar things just for the minority party. Um, and then they have the party whips, and each party has a majority whip and a minority whip, and their main job is to count votes, make sure party members support key legislation and communicate party leadership goals. Um, and the Senate is interesting because it gives individuals more power to sway the meetings and hearings through a few techniques um while the House is more set on rules and moves more quickly. So as a senator, you can filibuster. Um there is such a thing as unanimous consent, and you can also do a hold. So, what are these words that you just said to us, Evan? Um, well, a filibuster is basically just being able to speak. Um, so a senator extends debate to delay or block a vote on a bill by just talking. Um, they keep speaking or delay proceedings uh to prevent a vote. And in order to stop a filibuster, the Senate must pass cloture, which requires 60 votes to end the filibuster, and debate is limited to 30 additional hours for legislation after this is passed. Um and then the unanimous consent is basically like a speed line cutting pass at Disneyland. If you get unanimous consent, you can agree to move forward with something like scheduling a vote. Um, and finally, a hold is an informal kind of request from a senator to their party leadership asking them not to schedule a vote to kind of hold off on a bill or a nomination. And holds are not officially written in Senate rules, but they're kind of respected just as tradition. Um, and you may be wondering if there are if there are caucuses like in the House. And my answer is yes. They're just not as important or really used because there are only 100 senators, so they're kind of the Senate's a little bit more, smaller group. Um, and that's it for the specific parts. Um, Congress as a whole uh also has a few jobs, but most importantly, they introduce, vote for, and pass legislation. So what you've all been waiting for, how a bill becomes a law, it all starts with an idea. And anyone can come up with an idea for a law. Citizens, interest groups, the president, but a member of Congress must formally introduce it as a bill. Um, and how to get these members' attention? Well, there are a few ways. You can be grassroots vibes and call your representatives, you can email them, but you can also lobby them, which is a whole other part of government that's not actually part of the government, um, where interest groups try and persuade Congress people to introduce or vote for specific laws, and this can happen through money from PACs, which are political action committees, or from corporations, or as I said, from grassroots-ness. So you've got your bill into the house or the senate. What happens next? Well, if it's in the house, the bill is placed in the hopper, which is a box for proposed bills, and if it's in the senate, the bill is introduced during floor session, which is basically just a group meeting. And the bill also gets a number that signifies where it came from. So HR for the House and S for the Senate. Then the bill is sent to a committee relevant to its topic. And so if it's about taxes, then it goes to the ways and means in the House, and then committees can hold hearings, amend the bill, and then vote to advance it, or they can kill it. And subcommittees may also review the bill in detail. Then we get to the exciting stuff: floor debate and voting. So in the house, the rules committee sets time limits and order of debate. And in the Senate, the debate is usually more open, allowing for filibusters and all of that stuff. And after these wonderful debates, the full chamber votes on the bill. So if the bill passes one chamber, it goes to the other chamber. House, if it passes in the house, it goes to the Senate. If it passes in the Senate, it goes to the House. And the second chamber has three options. They can approve it, they can amend it, amend it, or they can reject it. And if changes are made, if they amend it, then the first chamber must agree to the final version. Then if the House and Senate pass different versions, a conference committee, which is members from both chamber chambers, resolve differences, um, resolves differences. And the compromise bill returns to both chambers for a final vote. Um, finally, the bill goes to the president and the president can sign it and then it becomes a law. Um, the president can veto it, which is means that Congress can override this veto with two-thirds of a vote in both chambers, or the bill just dies. Um, the president can do nothing for 10 days, which means that if the president does do nothing, it would become a law if Congress is in session. But if the president does nothing and Congress isn't in session, the bill dies also. So yay, we did it! Congress, everyone, and congrats, everyone. Uh, day two is complete. The legislative branch is great and it's very complex, but I hope this gave a little bit more clarity. And let's dive into some of the questions I have for you. Um, A, with lobbying, are lawmakers too influenced by money and lobbying? Like, is this really what the people want, or is this the voice of people who can afford to put what they want on the on Congress floors? Um, how can we make sure that our legislature legislators are not dictated by large corporations corporations? Um, how do we emphasize core values and morals in our government? And is Congress actually representing the people anymore or just political parties and interest groups? Um, all right. That's all I have for you today. But think about it. Let's question these systems, let's use our critical thinking. It's such an important tool we have. These podcasts are meant to give you context so that you can spend expand your opinions, views, and more and use that critical thinking. I will see you when I see you, which will be tomorrow for the last part. Thank you so much for listening and have the best day. Come back for the next episode of Red White and You. Bye.