Outline

Gabriella Olazabal
Chapter 13: Congress
  * Congress “a coming together”; parliament “to talk”; person becomes member of parliament by persuading party to put name in ballot; person becomes candidate by primary election in congress
  * Parliament tends to me made up of people loyal to national party leadership; congress tends to be made up of people who think of themselves as indep. Rep. in parliament, party must vote together; congress independent of the pres. Parliament=discuss major national issues; congress=local constituencies; principal work of congress is representation and action
  * Bicameral legislature: a lawmaking body made up of two chambers or parts; house wants to be big and powerful; senate is small enough that it can be run without much authority; end of the 19th cent. Senate known as Millionaires club b/c of # of wealthy party leaders/businessmen
  * Filibuster: attempt to defeat a bill in the senate by talking indefinitely, thus preventing the senate from taking action on the bill; by 1950s serving in congress became a career
  * Marginal districts: districts in which candidates elected to the house of rep. win in close election (less than 55%); safe districts: districts which incumbents win (55% or more)
  * Incumbents can deluge the voter with free mailings, can travel, meet constituents and get their names out; incumbents can use power to get programs passed to benefit their districts
  * Every election from 1968-1992, % of pop. Vote for Repub. Candidates to the house were higher than % of house seats; demo. Party more divided than Repub. b/c of presence in congress of conservative dem.; conservative coalition: alliance b/w Repub. and conservative dem.
  * Members can conduct hearings, help markup bills in meetings and offer amendments to the bills proposed by others; 3 theories of how members of congress behave: representational, organizational and attitudinal
  * Representational: members want to get reelected and vote...