AP
GOVERNMENT
UNIT 2 TEST 2ND QUARTER ESSAY TOPICS AND KEY TERMS
CHAPTER 11 –
INTEREST GROUPS CHAPTER 12 – CONGRESS
1. (AP question 2004) Different interest groups will choose different techniques to achieve their objectives based on their
resources, characteristics, and goals.
(a) Describe each of the following techniques and explain why an interest group would choose each technique.
- Litigation
- Campaign contributions
- Grassroots lobbying/mass mobilization
(a) Select one of the following groups and identify the primary technique it uses from the list in part (a).
Explain why the group you selected would employ that technique over the other two techniques.
- American Medical Association (AMA)
- Sierra Club
- National Rifle Association (NRA)
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
2. (AP question 1999) National interest groups often target national-level policymaking institutions to achieve their policy
objectives.
Select one of the following national interest groups.
-American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)
-American Medical Association (AMA)
-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
-National Association of
Manufacturers (
For the group you selected do each of the following:
a. identify one major national-level policymaking institution that this group targets
b. Describe one resource or characteristic of the group you have chosen AND explain how it influences the choice
of the target you have identified in (a).
c. Describe another resource or characteristic of the group you have chosen AND explain how it influences the choice of the target you have identified in (a).
3. (AP question 2003) Both party leadership and committees in Congress play key roles in the legislative process.
Define two of the following elements of the congressional committee system and explain how each influences the legislative
process.
A. Specialization
B. Reciprocity/logrolling
C. Party representation on committees
Identify two ways party leadership in Congress can influence the legislative process, and explain how each way influences
the process.
4. (AP question 2008) Congressional reapportionment and redistricting are conducted every ten years. When redistricting is
conducted,
politicians often engage in gerrymandering.
(a) Define congressional reapportionment and explain one reason why it is important to states
(b) Define congressional redistricting.
(c) Explain two goals of politicians when they gerrymander during redistricting.
(d) Describe two limits that the United States Supreme Court has placed on congressional redistricting.
KEY TERMS AND
CONCEPTS
Actual group: a group composed of those in the potential group who
are members
of the interest group.
Amicus
curiae briefs:
friend of the court briefs filed by interest groups to inform
the court of their position and to state how their
welfare would be affected by a
ruling.
Class action
lawsuits: a technique used by
interest groups which allows groups of
people with similar complaints to combine their
grievances into a single suit.
Collective
good: something of value which cannot
be withheld from individuals in
the potential group.
Electioneering: helping sympathetic candidates get into office.
Elite theory: argues that because only a few groups have enough
power to
influence policy, power is concentrated into a few
interlocking power centers.
Free-rider
problem: a situation where
individuals let others work to secure a
collective good and then enjoy the benefit without
contributing anything to the
group effort.
Hyperpluralist theory:
argues that too many groups are getting what they want at
the expense of the unrepresented and that this
behavior leads to incoherent public
policy.
Interest
groups: organizations where people
with similar policy goals enter the
political process to achieve those goals.
Lobbying: a communication by someone other than a citizen
acting on his or her
own behalf, directed to a governmental decision-maker
with the hope of influencing
his or her decision.
Olson's law
of large groups: suggests that the
larger the group, the more difficult
it will be to secure enough of the collective good to
encourage participation.
Pluralist
theory: argues that interest group
activities provide additional
representation and compete against each other to
influence political outcomes.
Political
Action Committees: a legal means for
groups to participate in elections
by contributing money.
Potential
group: a group composed of all people
who share some common
interest.
Public
interest lobbies: organizations that
seek a collective good which does not
only benefit their membership.
Right to
work law: a law that outlaws union
membership as a condition of
employment.
Selective
benefits: these benefits are goods
that a group can restrict to those who
are members.
Single-issue
groups: groups which have very narrow
interests, shun compromise,
and single-mindedly pursue goals.
Subgovernments: exclusive
relationships composed of interest groups leaders,
government agency personnel, and members of
congressional committees who
perform mutually beneficial services for each other at
the public's expense.
Union shop: a rule established to prevent free-riders by
requiring new employees
to join the union where one has been granted
bargaining rights.
Bicameral
legislature: a legislature which is
divided into two chambers.
Bill: a proposed law, drafted in precise, legal language.
Casework: helping constituents as individuals cut through bureaucratic
red tape to
receive their rightful benefits.
Caucus: a grouping of members of Congress sharing some
interest or characteristic.
Committee
chairs: the most important influences
on the congressional agenda; they
schedule hearings, hire staff, appoint subcommittees,
and manage committee bills.
Conference
committee: a special committee formed
when each chamber passes a
bill in different forms, composed of members of each
chamber who were appointed
by each chamber's leaders to work out a compromise bill.
Filibuster: is unlimited debate, is unique to the Senate, and can
only be ended by a
vote for cloture by 60 members.
House Rules
Committee: a committee unique to the
House, which is appointed
by the Speaker of the House, reviews most bills coming
from a House committee for
a floor vote, and which gives each bill a rule.
Incumbents: people who already hold office.
Joint
committees: special committees
composed of members from each chamber.
Legislative
oversight: the process of monitoring
the bureaucracy and its
administration of policy.
Majority
Leader: The Speaker's principal
partisan ally who is responsible for
soliciting support for the party's position on
legislation.
Minority
Leader: is the minority party's
counterpart to the majority party's
leadership.
Pork barrel: list of federal projects, grants, and contracts
available to cities,
businesses, colleges, and institutions.
Select
committees: appointed for a specific
purpose.
Seniority
system: a system used until the 1970s
where majority party members
who had served on their committees the longest,
regardless of party loyalty, mental
state, or competence, were automatically appointed
chair of the committee.
Speaker of
the House: is mandated by the
Constitution, is next in line after the
vice president to succeed a president who is unable to
fulfill his/her term and who
presides over the House.
Standing
committees: committees formed in each
chamber to handle bills in
different policy areas.
Whip: The majority or minority leader's principle tool for
securing support for
legislation and who lobby partisans for support.
THE ENUMERATED POWERS OF CONGRESS (SEE
CONSTITUTION)
1.
HAVE ALL LEGISLATIVE POWERS (MAKE LAWS AND OVERRIDE VETOS)
2.
MUST MEET ONCE A YEAR AND CAN DETERMINE DATE AND LENGTH
3.
EACH HOUSE JUDGES ELECTIONS, RETURNS, QUALIFICATIONS AND PUNISHMENTS OF
ITS MEMBERS
4.
ADMIT STATES TO THE
5.
PUNISH TREASON
6.
DECIDE ABILITY OF THE PRESIDENT TO DISCHARGE HIS DUTIES (25TH AMENDMENT)
7.
DETERMINE RULES AND OFFICERS OF ITS PROCEEDINGS
8.
KEEP A JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS (CONGRESSIONAL RECORD)
9.
PROPOSE AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
10.
DETERMINE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DISPUTES
11.
LEVY AND COLLECT TAXES
12.
BORROW MONEY
13.
REGULATE INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE
14.
ESTABLISH NATURALIZATION LAWS AND BANKRUPTCY LAWS
15.
COIN MONEY
16.
REGULATE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
17.
PUNISH COUNTERFEITING
18.
ESTABLISH POST OFFICES AND POST ROADS
19.
ESTABLISH PATENT AND COPYRIGHT LAWS
20.
ESTABLISH COURT SYSTEM BELOW THE SUPREME COURT
21.
PUNISH PIRACIES AND ENFORCE LAWS OF NATIONS
22.
DECLARE WAR, GRANT LETTERS OF MARQUE AND REPRISAL, RULES CONCERNING
CAPTURE
23.
RAISE AND SUPPORT ARMIES, PROVIDE AND MAINTAIN NAVY AND RULES FOR NAVAL
AND LAND FORCES
24.
PROVIDE FOR THE CALLING OF THE MILITIA TO SUPPRESS INSURRECTIONS AND
REPEL INVASIONS
25.
ORGANIZE, ARM AND
26.
JURISDICTION OVER DC
27.
CONFIRM APPOINTEES AND RATIFY TREATIES (BY SENATE)
28.
ALL REVENUE BILLS ORIGINATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
29.
TRY (HOUSE) AND CONVICT (SENATE) IMPEACHMENT CASES
30.
MAKE OR ALTER EACH STATES ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TIME, PLACE AND MANNER OF
CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS
31.
NECESSARY AND PROPER CLAUSE TO CARRY OUT THE PREVIOUSLY LISTED POWERS
Lobby Groups No Dough Strategy Stops at Executives Doors
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Tuesday, October 16, 2007; A17
The National
Association of Manufacturers, one of
Most lobbies are eager to shower politicians they like (or need) with campaign contributions, and proudly maintain political action committees to do so. They also try to keep their executives' salaries from growing conspicuously large, for reasons of good public relations and common sense.
In a newsletter called Association Bisnow, the group's president, John M. Engler, said he is glad not to have a PAC and is happy to be unable to give money away to candidates for federal office. In an article headlined "Engler Has a 'No Dough' Strategy," the former Michigan governor said, "It's nice walking into someone's office knowing that you did not spend money to defeat them."
I guess the pleasure that other lobbyists feel walking into the offices of lawmakers that they helped to put there is not as heady an experience.
In any case, Engler's no-dough strategy does not extend to the executives at his trade group.
Compensation for its top officers and key staff members rose 30 percent in 2006, according to tax records first obtained by CEO Update magazine. Engler received the biggest increase, taking home $1.2 million in compensation, a 42 percent rise from 2005.
Jay Timmons,
The industry that
John
M. Engler, president of the National Association of
Manufacturers, was paid $1.2 million last year, a 42 percent raise.
The
Lobbying Game Why the Revolving Door Won t Close
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006
By TIMOTHY J. BURGER/WASHINGTON
Before
Jeffrey Shockey worked for one of the most powerful
committees in Congress, he was a lobbyist at one of the more successful
boutique lobbying firms in
At a
time when the excesses of the Jack Abramoff scandal
have prodded Congress to at least go through the motions on lobbying reform,
the dizzying merry-go-round of staffers like Shockey
show just how hard it is to really change the way things are done on Capitol
Hill. Granted, many lobbyists chase pork and members of Congress regularly
exchange favors with webs of family and ex-aides. But Shockey's
straddling of K Street and Capitol Hill is particuarly
poignant and visible—even if, as in most cases, his lawyer and spokesman say it
is all perfectly legal.
It's the
revolving door that helps perpetuate the cozy world of lobbying for such favors
as earmarks—the suddenly controversial system by which the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees dish out tens of billions of dollars in pork from the
$843 billion a year in discretionary spending they doled out for this year.
President Bush and new House Majority Leader John Boehner are now calling for
reform of the clubby earmark game. But Appropriations Committee members and the
many other pork enthusiasts in Congress have long staved off such change—partly
because constituents have seldom got mad at their own representatives for
bringing home the bacon.
Shockey's career is a case study in how the game works. When he
left Capitol Hill for the lobbying world in 1999—after spending more than eight
years working for Rep. Jerry Lewis, a Republican from
Shockey even got a contract from the city of
In 2004
alone, long after he was covered by the one-year, loophole-ridden lobbying ban
for former congressional staffers, Shockey made $1.5
million, according to his House financial disclosure form. He helped win at
least $150 million in pork for an array of clients at the lobbying firm of
Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, according to Taxpayers for
Common Sense. As with most successful lobbyists, it no doubt helped that he was
tight with committee members and staff. As part of his new career, Shockey and his firm also helped his old boss raise
hundreds of thousands of dollars to help the GOP keep its majority, according
to the San Diego Union-Tribune, which first reported on some of Shockey's history late last year. And so, when House
Republicans rewarded Lewis, 71, with the Appropriations chairmanship 13 months
ago, Shockey was among the handful of trusted former
aides whom the affable, silver-haired congressman pressed back into service.
The
$160,000 committee post meant an almost 90% pay cut, but Shockey's
lobbying firm helped cushion the blow. Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez—where
Lewis�s
close friend Bill Lowery, a former California congressman, is a partner—gave Shockey a $600,000 going-away buyout, according to Shockey�s
financial disclosure
form. He was to receive his buyout in three $200,000 payments scheduled for
February, May and August 2005—even as he was in his committee post. The firm
would also keep Shockey in the family by hiring his
wife, Alexandra—another former Lewis aide—as a consulting lobbyist.
Lobbying
by spouses is legal if it stays within certain boundaries—staffers are
generally not supposed to get their spouses special access—but can be
controversial. Lewis spokesman John Scofield referred
TIME to attorney William Oldaker, who said he helped Shockey and his wife keep the arrangement legal. Oldaker drafted a letter in which Lewis last May told the
House ethics committee Shockey "will not involve
himself in any matter in which his spouse is representing a client." The
letter did not bar Shockey from work related to his
own former clients, but Scofield says Shockey nonetheless informally recuses
himself from such activity. Scofield said Alexandra Shockey, also a former Lewis aide, is still free to lobby
Lewis himself, and other committee members—and her last name is certainly well
known around the panel. The ethics committee, paralyzed last year by a partisan
deadlock, never formally blessed the arrangement, Scofield
says.
As Lewis
took up the gavel in January 2005, Appropriations issued a press release
heralding the return of former aides, including Shockey.
The release—which disappeared from the committee web site after TIME made
inquiries in recent weeks, a move that spokesman Scofield
attributed to the tech department—says that "Shockey
spent the last six years as a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based firm,
Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton & Shockey." It said Shockey
would "assist... with the Committee�s
day-today [sic] operations including maintaining a close working relationship between the
Committee, the elected leadership, the Budget Committee, and various
authorizing committees."
No
evidence has emerged to suggest that the Shockeys or
Lewis have violated the law. Though a Republican, Shockey
the lobbyist checked his loyalties enough to seek favor with key Democrats to
the tune of $6,750 in campaign contributions. Much of it went to high-profile
Appropriations Democrats—such as $1,000 each to House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi; House panel members Patrick Kennedy and John Murtha, who would later lambast President Bush over the
Lewis
declined an interview, but gave TIME a statement in which he called Shockey a "fabulously talented individual [with a]
long record of principled service." Lewis added that "Jeff and his
wife Alex have gone out of their way to make sure they are strictly adhering to
both the spirit and the letter of the law." Lewis spokesman Scofield said Shockey and his
wife also would not comment. Lowery did not return a phone call.
With the
help of another former Lewis aide who took over some Shockey
accounts at his lobbying firm, many of Shockey's more
than 50 former clients have continued to land tens of millions of dollars in
earmarks, courtesy of the panel Shockey now helps
Lewis run. Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, which has extensively
researched the Lewis-Shockey web, says, for example,
that the police department in
Copeland,
Lowery�s
lobbying activity has already attracted unwanted attention. The Justice Department charges that an
executive of ADCS, a defense contractor client, provided some of the $2.4
million in illegal gifts to Appropriations Committee member Duke Cunningham,
who late last year resigned and pleaded guilty to taking bribes. Scofield, backed by disclosure filings, says Shockey did not lobby for ADCS. In fact, Scofield and Shockey�s
attorney, Oldaker, insist Shockey plays no
role in earmark decisions.
In
recent weeks, Oldaker—also an earmark specialist who
was recently dropped as treasurer for the political action committees of
several senior Democratic senators, including Minority Leader Harry Reid, after
articles drew attention to his lobbying activity—said Shockey
has recused himself from any matter involving any of
Copeland, Lowery�s 100
or so clients, though they haven�t put it in writing. "We
probably, if we'd fast-forwarded to the current time, would have done
that" a year ago, Oldaker said, referring to the
ethics climate fostered by the Abramoff scandal. What
remains to be seen is whether the new attention on the world of lobbying and
earmarks leads to lasting reform or just a new p.r.
strategy.
By
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Saturday, September 9, 2006; 7:54 PM
The Jack Abramoff scandal
has incited predictable outrage among
Such theatrics notwithstanding, don't imagine for a
moment that anything will really change. Lobbying has grown massively in just
the past few years, becoming a multibillion-dollar industry, and it will
continue to expand long after Abramoff is imprisoned
and released. Lobby-law firms, trade associations, interest groups and labor
unions -- known collectively as
Every 10 years or so, reformers have sought to rein in
these paid persuaders, but the influence of lobbyists has only expanded. Today,
twice as many registered lobbyists -- about 30,000 -- ply their trade than did
so just six years ago. And overall spending on federal lobbying has nearly
doubled, to $200.2 million per month in 2005 from $116.3 million per month in
1999. By all accounts, business is booming.
One reason behind this growth is the lobbying
industry's simple-yet-dazzling economics. For a relatively small investment in
a lobbying campaign, corporations can receive a gargantuan return. The Carmen
Group Inc., a mid-size firm, has calculated that for every $1 million its
clients spend on its services, it delivers, on average, $100 million in
government benefits. A yield that immense, common in federal lobbying, is
unheard of anyplace else.
At the same time, the size of government has
ballooned, and lawmakers have become ever more willing to share the wealth.
Federal spending grew by 49 percent from 2000 to 2006, to $2.66 trillion. And
an increasing share of that amount was handed out in narrowly focused projects
called earmarks, for which an entire sub-industry of lobbyists has emerged.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the number of earmarks in
appropriations bills alone more than tripled to 15,887 in 2005 from 4,155 in
1994 -- and most of them were shepherded by lobbyists.
Earmarking is not hard work. Lobbyist Jeffrey S. Shockey earned about $2 million from four dozen clients in
2004 and he needed only one associate, people familiar with his operation said.
All a lobbyist must do is fill out some forms and write up a short proposal for
the money; find a lawmaker (preferably on either the House or Senate
appropriations committee) to sponsor the earmark; and make a few follow-up
calls during the year to the lawmaker's staffers, nudging them to move the
proposal along. In return, lobbyists try to keep their lawmakers happy. Shockey kept in particularly close touch; he is now a top
aide to his frequent patron, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.),
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Some companies previously shunned such back-scratching
as distasteful -- and paid a heavy price. Microsoft Corp. didn't hire a
full-fledged staff of lobbyists or donate heavily to political causes until
after the Justice Department sued it for antitrust behavior in 1998. Dozens of
corporations learned from Microsoft's mistake and opened their own D.C.
offices. In just the past couple of years, Google, Valero Energy Corp., Herbalife International, Walgreens
and GoDaddy.com have opened for business in the District. Wal-Mart has also
beefed up its presence as Democrats have attacked its business practices. And
the hedge fund industry, worried about attracting extra regulation, has tripled
the amount it spends on federal lobbyists since 2003, so far to sterling
effect.
Government has become so complex that only experts --
say, ex-congressional staff members turned lobbyists -- can decipher and
navigate it. Anyone who wants to penetrate the system has little choice but to
hire lobbying firms. And for good reason:
In turn, lawmakers have come to rely on lobbyists to
provide much of their campaign cash, most of the information and voter support
that propel their legislative initiatives, and many of the off-hour perks that
keep them well-traveled and well-fed. These benefits are so valuable that
Congress -- even faced with an ornery, anti-Washington electorate -- is poised
to pass, as soon as this week, a sliver of an already weak lobby-reform bill,
and discard anything that would limit its contact with lobbyists. Almost no one
on Capital Hill wants to discourage the sugar daddies on K.
Lobby groups have become players in virtually
everything government does; often, they are the key players. During the first
six months of 2005, for example, the AARP (and its $20 million advertising and
lobbying blitz) was instrumental in shooting down Bush's plan to add private
accounts to Social Security. And this year, a Republican bill that would have
combined a minimum-wage increase with a cut in the estate tax was stopped dead
by a coalition of labor unions led by UNITE HERE, which publicized a provision
in the bill that could have reduced wages for some workers who rely on tips. At
least five senators cited the provision as a major reason they voted no.
One bill that did pass this summer updated the
nation's pension and trade laws; like every other piece of legislation, it was
shaped by lobbying. Representatives for Delta and Northwest airlines won
special pension protections to ease their financial woes. And at least 73 imported
products -- such as nail clippers and vicuña hair -- received targeted tariff
relief, virtually all because of pressure from
Despite the latest scandals, lobbying has become a
respectable, appealing profession. A couple of decades ago, it was considered
too unsavory to attract former Congress members. But now, lobbyists have become
so influential -- and so rich -- that more and more lawmakers and their aides
consider the profession a second career. A recent study by the liberal group
Public Citizen reported that nearly half of all lawmakers who return to the
private sector join the lobbying ranks. Former top congressional officials can
easily earn $300,000 a year or more as lobbyists -- or about double their
government salaries.
Many former lawmakers are proud to be lobbyists and
consider themselves part of a vital establishment -- one sometimes known as the
Fifth Estate, after the three branches of government and the media. This level
of comfort has no doubt made contacts between lobbyists and lawmakers
increasingly sympathetic. Why would congressional aides and lawmakers want to
anger the lobbyists who approach them when they aspire to become lobbyists
themselves?
Former congressman Bill Paxon
(R-N.Y.) remembers fondly when he was looking for work as a lobbyist in 1998
and interviewed at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. "It was such a pleasure," he said. He
sat down with senior partner Robert S. Strauss, who told him, "Bill, we're
not in this for the short term. We want to hire people who will offer quality
advice to quality clients for a long period of time." And, Paxon said, "that's proven true." He has been a
senior adviser at the firm since 1999. He is also part of a lobbying family; Paxon's wife, former congresswoman Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.), is chairman of a firm named the
Washington Group.
As Paxon discovered, lobby
companies and associations are built to last. Akin Gump and most other
"Lobbyist-bashing may provide some convenient
sound bites this fall, but it doesn't have much of a connection to the way
Such connections are hard, if not impossible, to
break. "For the more than 30 years I've been around here, people have
always complained about lobbyists," said Wright H. Andrews Jr. of the
lobbying firm Butera & Andrews. "But they
don't understand. My own mother didn't understand. She cried when I told her
what I was going to do." But he explained, "After people have been
here a while, they find out that the lobbying community is an essential part of
the legislative process."
Joel Jankowsky knows this
firsthand. He left the staff of House Speaker Carl B. Albert in 1977 and became
the first official lobbyist at Akin Gump. Now, nearly 30 years later, Jankowsky oversees 45 full-time lobbyists and a dozen other
professionals who plead before government regularly. He and his colleagues
serve 161 clients and generate nearly $30 million in annual revenue. His
once-rare transition from top congressional aide to private lobbyist has become
common, and his firm's practice continues to bloom.
After the midterm elections, Jankowsky
predicts, the lobbying industry will get even busier and grow larger -- no
matter which party prevails. History says he's right.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum covers
lobbying and politics for The
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
An
Educational Trip
In 2000, an Indian tribe and a
gambling services company sent $50,000 in checks to a
August 5, 2007
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and ROBERT PEAR
Eight months after Democrats vowed to shine light on the dark art
of “earmarking” money for pet projects, many lawmakers say the new visibility
has only intensified the competition for projects by letting each member see
exactly how many everyone else is receiving.
So far this year, House lawmakers have put together spending bills
that include almost 6,500 earmarks for almost $11 billion in local projects,
only half of which the Bush administration supported.
The earmark frenzy hit fever pitch in recent days, even as the
Senate passed new rules that allow more public scrutiny of them.
Far from causing embarrassment, the new transparency has raised
the value of earmarks as a measure of members’ clout. Indeed, lawmakers have
often competed to have their names attached to individual earmarks and rushed
to put out press releases claiming credit for the money they bring home.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has obtained about
$63 million worth of projects, most of them in or near her district in
To be sure, the Democratic totals are less than half the record
set by Republicans when they
controlled Congress in 2005, but they are far higher than the levels just 10
years ago.
Among the thousands of earmarks tucked into House or Senate
spending bills: $2.6 million for a new grape genetics research center at Cornell University;
$738,000 to study cancer-fighting chemicals in raspberries at Ohio State University; a
contract for Texas A&M University
to study the “root causes” of post-traumatic stress disorder; and $3.6 million
to design a Coast Guard Operations Systems Center in Kearneysville,
W.Va.
Aside from the risk of spending money on projects only because
they make political sense, critics warn that earmarks fritter away significant
parts of Congressional time and make it harder for government agencies to focus
on long-term goals. They have also become a tool for bargaining in Congress,
offered to persuade lawmakers to vote against their own judgment on other
issues.
When Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, recently
ridiculed a provision on the House floor to spend $100,000 on a prison museum
near
“The local residents are proud of their heritage, and rightly so,”
Ms. Boyda told Mr. Flake during a debate on the House
floor. The House voted 317 to 112 to keep her earmark.
Mr. Flake met similar defeat trying to block $50,000 for the
National Mule and Packers Museum in Bishop, Calif.; $150,000 for the Burpee Museum of natural history in Rockford, Ill.;
$250,000 for the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary
Center in Prosser, Wash.; and $750,000 for the Alliance for NanoHealth
in Houston.
“Everybody hates earmarks, but everybody loves earmarks,” said
Representative José E. Serrano, a New York Democrat and chairman of the House
Appropriations subcommittee on financial services.
“What’s happened is that the system is more open to the public, to
the press and indeed to other members,” Mr. Serrano said. “Of course, when it
becomes open to other members, everybody looks around and says, ‘Oh, I could
have gotten that for myself.’ ”
It was not supposed to turn out this way. Last year, Democrats
denounced the explosive growth of earmarks as a central part of what they
called the “culture of corruption” under the Republican-led Congress. They
skewered the infamous $200 million “bridge to nowhere” that Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska,
had tried to finance. Just this week, federal investigators searched Mr.
Stevens’s house in
Last year’s outcry against earmarks was fueled in part by scandals
surrounding Jack Abramoff,
the disgraced former lobbyist. The concerns were heightened by the conviction
of Representative Randy Cunningham on charges
of taking millions of dollars in cash and gifts in exchange for inserting
earmarks for a military contractor.
Ms. Pelosi never called for eliminating earmarks. Instead, she and
other Democratic leaders sought to make the process open to more public
scrutiny.
By any measure, the volume of earmarks in spending bills has
exploded in the past decade, from about 3,000 in 1996 to almost 16,000 in 2005.
“Earmarks aren’t inherently evil,” said Steve Ellis, vice
president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit research group that
monitors them closely. “But they have grown to such an extent that there hasn’t
really been any oversight.”
But even critics acknowledge that the Democrats have made the
system less secretive and slightly less of a free-for-all.
Under rules the House adopted this year, all earmarks in a bill are
supposed to be collected onto a single list in the report that accompanies the
bill. Lawmakers must also file a “certification” that attaches their name to a
proposed project, discloses the organization that will receive the money and
declares that neither the lawmakers nor their spouses has a financial stake in
it.
In practice, the disclosures can be difficult to read and
incomplete. In addition, the certifications only declare that lawmakers and
their spouses have no financial conflict; they are silent about financial ties
that other relatives may have.
Some Republicans have scorned the changes as inadequate. “We’re
lying to the American people when we say we’re fixing earmarks when we’re not,”
said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, during debate this week on the
Senate floor.
But Democrats respond that the changes are a big improvement.
“This is just sour milk,” Senator Dianne Feinstein of
As in the past, a big percentage of earmarks this year went to the
House leadership, including Speaker Pelosi, according to calculations by The
New York Times and based on records assembled by Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Continuing another longtime practice of Republicans and Democrats
alike, a disproportionate share of projects went to the so-called cardinals who
chair each of the appropriation subcommittees.
Many lawmakers say the increased openness has put the cardinals,
like Mr. Murtha, in an awkward position. Because everyone can see who is
receiving what, rank-and-file members are clamoring for their districts to
obtain a bigger share of the goodies. Similarly, constituents in home districts
are becoming bolder as the earmarking process becomes less mysterious.
“Democracy is a contact sport, and I’m not going to be shy about
asking for money for my community,” said Ms. Boyda of
All of it is causing heartburn for Representative David R. Obey of
Even some enthusiastic supporters of earmarks have been taken
aback by the flood of requests from lawmakers.
Mr. Serrano, the subcommittee chairman, said he was stumped on how
to decide among requests from more than 100 lawmakers.
Instead of trying to weigh one project against another, he said,
he identified all the projects that appeared suitable and then split the money
so that each lawmaker received $231,000 in earmarks from his subcommittee.
“It was the fairest approach I could take,” Mr. Serrano said. “The
jury is still out on whether this is the right approach. I’m not saying I will
do it again next year.”
Culture Shock on Capitol Hill: House to Work 5 Days a Week
By Lyndsey
Wednesday, December 6, 2006; A01
Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January.
The horror.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.
"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th."
The reporters groaned. "I know, it's awful, isn't it?" Hoyer empathized.
For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon -- and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn't in recess.
Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.
With the new calendar, the Democrats are trying to project a businesslike image when they take control of Congress in January. House and Senate Democratic leaders have announced an ambitious agenda for their first 100 hours and say they are adamant about scoring legislative victories they can trumpet in the 2008 campaigns.
Hoyer and other Democratic leaders say they are trying to repair the image of Congress, which was so anemic this year it could not meet a basic duty: to approve spending bills that fund government. By the time the gavel comes down on the 109th Congress on Friday, members will have worked a total of 103 days. That's seven days fewer than the infamous "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948.
Hoyer said members can bid farewell to extended holidays, the kind that awarded them six weekdays to relax around Memorial Day, when most Americans get a single day off. He didn't mention the month-long August recess, the two-week April recess or the weeks off in February, March and July.
He said members need to spend more time in the Capitol to pass laws and oversee federal agencies. "We are going to meet sufficient times, so the committees can do their jobs on behalf of the American people," he said.
For lawmakers within a reasonable commute of
"Keeping us up here eats away at families," said Rep. Jack
Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on
Thursdays and returns to
Time away from
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), who had intended to retire this year, only to be persuaded to run again, wondered whether the new schedule was more than symbolic. "If we're doing something truly productive, that's one thing," he said. "If it's smoke-and-mirrors hoopla, that's another."
Senate leaders have not set their schedule, but the upper chamber generally works a longer week than the House, though important votes or hearings are usually not scheduled on Mondays or Fridays.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), one of the architects of the lighter workweek, put the best Republican face on Hoyer's new schedule.
"They've got a lot more freshmen then we do," he said of the Democrats. "That schedule will make it incredibly difficult for those freshmen to establish themselves in their districts. So we're all for it."
The new schedule poses a headache for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who runs her 7-year-old daughter's Brownie troop meetings on Monday afternoons in Weston, Fla. "I'll have to talk to the other mothers and see if we can move it to the weekend," she said.
Setting a calendar that satisfies 435 members is impossible, said the current majority leader, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who will become minority leader in January. "Between the travel issues, the members' work schedules, the family and district issues, it was a Rubik's cube," he said.
But most Democrats, some still giddy from their election victories, seemed game.
"It's long overdue," said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), who lives in Napa Valley and will have to leave his home at 3 a.m. on Sundays to catch a flight to Washington in time for work Mondays. "I didn't come here to turn around and go back home."
Staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.
|
.
Buying Power
From 1998 to mid-2004, lobbyists
spent $13 billion trying to influence members of Congress and federal
officials. The top spenders:
SOURCE: Center for Public Integrity |
The
Fili-bluster
Has the Senate Marathon Seen Its Day?
By
John Yang
Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page B01
In the climax of Frank Capra's 1939 paean to
democracy, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," Sen. Jefferson Smith holds
the Senate floor for nearly 24 hours, reading the Senate Manual and the
Declaration of Independence through the night -- one lone, decent man using a
filibuster to stand up for the little guy against the power of his home state's
avaricious political machine and its business cronies.
If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
were to direct a remake today of Capra's movie, there'd be a little rewrite.
Instead of the earnest Jimmy Stewart, he might cast a sinister-looking Willem
Dafoe or an unctuous Susan Sarandon as Sen. Smith -- an obstructionist liberal
abusing his or her right to unlimited debate to block a good, decent,
God-fearing conservative judicial nominee (Tom Hanks or Harrison Ford? Have
your people call my people).
For more than two centuries, lawmakers of all stripes
have used filibusters to stop legislation or a nomination when they do not have
the votes to defeat it outright. A senator, or a group of senators, holds the
floor and "debates" the issue, making clear that he will not yield
the floor to allow a yes-or-no vote until hell freezes over.
While it takes 51 votes to approve legislation or
confirm a nomination, Senate rules require 60 votes to bust a filibuster by
limiting debate. So a filibuster allows 41 senators to take the entire process
hostage (the word actually comes from a Dutch term for pirates who held ships
for ransom) in hopes of forcing the majority to drop or modify a measure or
withdraw a nomination. It allows a determined minority to thwart the will of
the majority.
So far, Senate Democrats have used filibusters to
block 10 of President Bush's 229 judicial nominations. And the stakes are getting
higher as Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist's thyroid cancer seems
to bring his retirement closer. Now, Frist wants to
limit the use of the technique, saying the Democrats' filibusters against the
president's judicial nominees are "a formula for tyranny by the
minority." (Never mind that such political philosophers as John Stuart
Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville said that a "tyranny of the majority"
was one of democracy's greatest potential pitfalls.)
Filibusters, like the fictional one in "Mr.
Smith," used to be grand spectacles. Capra and Stewart likely took
inspiration from
At one point, Long, noticing that some of his
colleagues were dozing at their desks, asked Vice President John Nance Garner,
who was presiding, to instruct them to pay attention. "That would be
unusual cruelty under the Constitution," Garner replied.
At 4 a.m., after 15 hours and 30 minutes, Long yielded
the floor -- forced to answer nature's irresistible call.
That performance is not the record, not by a long
shot. That distinction goes to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond of
Armed with reading material, malted milk tablets and
throat lozenges, Thurmond was recognized at 8:54 p.m. on Aug. 28. "Mr.
President," he said, "I rise to speak against the so-called voting
rights bill, H.R. 6127." In the following hours, he read aloud the voting
statutes of every state, as well as the Declaration of Independence, the Bill
of Rights and
After 12 hours, Sen. Paul Douglas of
Several hours later, the Senate physician urged
Thurmond to stop -- a medical directive sought by the senator's concerned aides
-- and he finally yielded the floor at 9:112 p.m. on Aug. 29 with the
superfluous closing statement: "I expect to vote against the bill."
He had beaten the previous record, set by Sen. Wayne Morse of
Since then, some senators' speeches have only seemed
that long to reporters sitting in the press gallery.
In giving the minority a weapon to defend its rights, filibusters
(which are allowed only in the Senate) have a practical effect on legislation
in Congress. Because it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, there's a premium
on consensus-building. Senators need to write bills that will win broad
support. And a president tends to pick judicial nominees moderate enough to
advance his policy goals without polarizing lawmakers. Neither party has had a
filibuster-proof majority in the Senate since 1980, one reason why there tends
to be more bipartisanship there than in the House, where only a simple majority
is needed to conduct business.
Given the congressional workload, there are almost
always more bills ready for Senate floor action than there is time to consider
them. Especially during the end-of-session crunch, this means that leaders are
much less likely to call up contentious bills that face a filibuster threat.
Unless those measures absolutely need to be passed, they usually have to wait
for another year.
It's often said that the tradition of unlimited debate
in the Senate -- "the world's greatest deliberative body," as its
members modestly call it -- has its roots in the founding fathers' design for
the House of Representatives to be the forge of democracy and the Senate, to
use Benjamin Franklin's oft-quoted aphorism, to be the saucer that cools the
hot coffee.
But in the early days of Congress, House members also
had the filibuster in their bag of legislative tricks. As the body grew in size
to match the growing nation, though, House rules were changed to limit debate.
The absolute right to talk (and talk and talk . . .
and talk) continued in the Senate until 1917. President Woodrow Wilson,
frustrated by filibusters that blocked key initiatives, used World War I, and
the urgent question of whether the
Until 1949, though, Rule 22 applied only to
legislation -- filibusters against nominations could not be cut off. Between
that year and 2003, according to Senate records, a filibuster successfully
blocked a judicial nomination only once: In 1968, with the presidential
election drawing near, conservative senators filibustered President Lyndon B.
Johnson's nomination of Supreme Court Associate Justice Abe Fortas
to be chief justice. After an attempt to invoke cloture was defeated, Johnson
withdrew the nomination.
For decades, filibusters were rare and rarely failed,
reserved for the biggest national issues, notably Southerners bent on defeating
civil rights legislation in the 1950s and early 1960s. That began to change in
the 1970s, when then-Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, a Montana Democrat, and
Majority Whip Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat, started the practice of
having more than one bill pending on the floor at once, which is still the way
the Senate operates today.
Before, with only one bill under consideration at a
time, a filibuster would stop all business dead in its tracks. Now, with two
measures moving at once, the leadership can simply set aside the controversial
bill and continue to work on the other. That sidetracked bill may languish in
legislative limbo, but it does not tie the Senate up in knots and other
business goes forward.
Because the consequences are much less severe now,
filibusters are used much more frequently -- and against routine bills. Former
Republican senator Alfonse D'Amato of
But they aren't your father's -- or grandfather's --
filibusters. No more senators on their feet, holding the floor, refusing to
yield while hoarsely reading recipes into the record around the clock. No more
cots in the cloakrooms and bleary-eyed senators in bathrobes on the Senate
floor. Now, it can just be an avalanche of amendments offered -- or even just
the threat of a filibuster -- that can hold up a final vote on a bill and,
eventually, kill it.
Byrd, who knows a thing or two about filibusters,
having participated in them to block civil rights legislation in the 1960s, has
called this new version a "casual, gentlemanly, good-guy filibuster. . . .
Everybody goes home and gets a good night's sleep and everybody protects
everybody else." It was just such a filibuster that Senate Republicans
used to scuttle elements of President Bill Clinton's economic stimulus package
in 1993.
Majority Leader Frist is
threatening to use an obscure parliamentary maneuver -- dubbed by some
"the nuclear option" -- to change Senate rules and forbid filibusters
against judicial nominees.
Former Republican representative Jack Kemp of
Break out the cots.
And hold the orange juice.
Futility Is the Norm Among
Bills Introduced in Congress
Lawmakers Face Long Odds, but 'What's It Hurt to Try?'
By
Glenn Maffei
States News Service
Friday, November 26, 2004; Page A37
At the dawn of 2005, legislation by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) to cede the nation's capital back to
If these and the thousands of other ideas proposed
each year by members of Congress went the distance, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
would stop the federal government from interfering with the right of states to
allow the medicinal use of marijuana. And Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio)
would establish a Department of Peace.
Calendars would recognize National Transparency Day,
National Weatherization Day, National Asbestos Awareness Day and, importantly
for equine lovers and Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.),
National Day of the Horse.
They are destined for the same fate: They will expire
at midnight Dec. 31.
Then, perhaps within weeks, some will have new hope --
at least temporarily -- as they are reintroduced in the 109th Congress.
When you are one of 435 members of the House, it is
important for the folks back home to see the spirited push of your annual
legislative agenda, which means the introduction, to great fanfare, of all
sorts of bills and resolutions. About 96 percent of them end up in the
congressional recycling bin.
"What's it hurt to try? It's a matter of writing
and having the bill printed," Regula said.
"Members like to represent their areas. They like to put their ideas out
there. They want to be identified as having promoted things that they feel are
good for those that they represent."
Since Jan. 1, 2003, 10,472 bills and resolutions were
introduced -- 6,842 in the House and 3,630 in the Senate. By Nov. 1, only 122
Senate bills and 292 House bills, or 4 percent, had become law.
By the numbers, though, congressional activity in this
session was far from record-setting. Congresses of the 1960s and 1970s
routinely saw the introduction of 15,000 to 20,000 bills and resolutions. The
91st Congress (1969 to 1970) recorded the all-time high, with the introduction
of 21,544 bills and resolutions, according to the Library of Congress, which
began tracking such activity in 1947.
Beginning in 1977 and in most years since, Regula has introduced legislation to retain the name of
"Almost all bills are going no place," said
Stephen Hess, senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
"So then the question is, why introduce them? Do you think that lightning
will really strike? You do it for the modest publicity you get for it; you do
it because you believe in it, one hopes. You do it perhaps because you promised
your constituency that you would."
Regula's push to give most of the District back to
First introduced in 1990 and reintroduced six times,
the Regula bill has sat in committee.
"I don't think it's going to move now," Regula said. "I think the time may come when it
will."
In the previous two-year session, Rep. Robert E.
Andrews (D-N.J.) set the record for introducing the most bills and resolutions
-- 117. Not one of those bills or resolutiions has made it beyond the committee
level. In 14 years, his unsuccessful campaign opponent pointed out, Andrews has
never introduced a bill that became public law. While that fact means his bills
have failed, it has not necessarily doomed his ideas.
"Our strategy is not to call a press conference
and try to get 200 co-sponsors," Andrews said. "They get introduced
and we find larger vehicles to attach them onto. . . . We don't introduce stuff
unless we think we're going to do it."
He points out that one of his bills, dubbed Maggie's
Law, would have provided incentives for states to create traffic safety
programs to reduce fatigue-related collisions. Prompted by the case of a tired
driver who struck and killed a 20-year-old woman in
By itself, the proposal was indefinitely stalled.
Andrews, spotting this year's bill to fund highway construction, found a way to
attach his measure to it. When Congress takes up highway construction next year,
Andrews expects Maggie's Law to remain part of it. It will become someone
else's law, but it will become law.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company