The Lawmaking Process

American Politics
© Marc A. Triebwasser

Congress is discussed in the First Article of the Constitution. It has, therefore, often been called the "first branch" of government. As the Founders saw it, Congress was supposed to be the major branch of our national government. It was to represent the people and the states, to enact legislation, and to decide upon the public policies of the United States. The central role that Congress was envisioned to play in the federal government was reflective of the conditions which had existed previously under the Articles of Confederation, as well as in the early colonial history of the original states. This was especially true with regard to the preference at the time for legislative over executive authority, something we have noted in our discussion of historical developments.

As the national government became involved in an increasing number of activities in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the balance of power began to shift markedly within our national government. Congress, by itself, was unable to handle many of the technical details involved in the day-to-day regulation of newly emerging national business activities. It was even more difficult for Congress to maintain control over the many new operations which the federal government became directly involved in from the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s onward. For this reason, as the federal government came to deal with an increasing number of national regulatory and administrative activities, Congress assumed the practice of creating executive agencies to handle these regulatory and administrative tasks. And much of the specific responsibility and authority in the various functional areas was delegated to these newly created executive agencies.

During the twentieth century, the federal bureaucracy located within the Executive Branch has thus become extremely important, and the Executive Branch itself has assumed a position of greater relative power in the functioning of our national government. Many writers on American government today, therefore, tend to discuss the Presidency and the Executive Branch before going on to deal with Congress. From the point of view of how our government functions today, such an arrangement seems reasonable. However, in order to emphasize the developmental aspects of current governmental operations, we will turn to an older tradition and deal with Congress before going on to discuss the Presidency and the Bureaucracy.

In one sense, however, the question of which branch of government we discuss first may not be that important. The fact is that governmental operations today necessitate the involvement of all the branches of our federal government, as well as much action by state and local authorities. When we try to focus on any particular governmental process or any specific functional activity--such as education, health care, military affairs, diplomacy, trade, and so forth--we find that we must discuss many different branches and levels of our government at the same time. For this reason, in our presentations in this section we will constantly be referring to the operation of many branches of government. Thus, although this presentation is primarily devoted to a discussion of Congress, we will oftentimes be referring to the powers and influence of the Presidency and Bureaucracy as well. The actual day-to-day interaction between the Executive and Legislative branches is simply too important a factor to be ignored in an attempt to separate artificially governmental activities because of a desire to organize our discussion along the lines of theoretically separate branches of government.

One of the primary reasons the drafters of our national Constitution considered Congress first was that they viewed this institution as the representative branch of our federal government. As originally conceived, the House of Representatives, which makes up one of the two chambers of Congress, was to represent the people directly, while the Senate, which constitutes the other chamber, was to represent the states.

The members of the House of Representatives are elected directly by the people for two year terms. As originally projected, a congressional district was to consist of a specific number of people. The only exception to this provision was that each state would have at least one representative in the House. This meant that states with extremely small populations would still be guaranteed some representation in this chamber.

As the population of the United States increased, the size of the House of Representatives grew similarly. After a while, such an expansion in the size of the House of Representatives became dysfunctional. From the point of view of any organization, discussions by a body of some 100 people may allow for reasonable discussion. However, as that body increases in size to 400 and to 500 people, the ability to hold workable discussions becomes much more limited. For this reason, when the House of Representatives reached the size of 435 members early in this century, it was decided not to allow the House to increase any further in membership. Since the population of the United States continues to increase, the only way this could be accomplished was by allowing the number of people in each congressional district to increase accordingly. Thus, today instead of representing some 50,000 or so people, each Congressperson now represents a district of some one half million. Obviously then, from a numerical point of view alone, the representation of the individual citizen is far more limited in Congress today than it was at the beginning of this nation's history.

As for the Senate, according to the Constitution each state sends two members to this chamber. This provision in the Constitution regarding state representation in the Senate was deemed so important to those designing that document that it is the only provision in the entire Constitution which cannot be amended. Originally, the two Senators from any specific state were chosen by the state legislature. However, with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators from the various states came to be chosen by direct popular election within each state.

Senators are chosen for six year terms. However, these terms are staggered in such a way that every two years one third of the Senate is up for reelection. Since there are now 50 states in the Union, the Senate is currently made up of 100 members. Obviously, for each new state which may be admitted to the Union, the Senate will increase in size by two.

Although Congress is viewed as the most representative branch of government, there are those who would question how representative Congress really is. As we have just noted, in order to keep the size of the House of Representatives within reasonable bounds, it became necessary to increase the number of people represented in each congressional district. In addition to this numerical consideration, changes in the social and economic conditions in this country have also led to great differences in some of the qualitative aspects of representation today as compared with those that existed at the founding of this nation. We will be dealing with these changes more fully when we discuss the political implications of congressional developments toward the end of this presentation.
 
 

Representation

The Lawmaking Process