Hi, I'm Craig and this is Crash Course Government
and Politics, and today we're going to examine
the leadership structure of Congress! I know, pretty
exciting stuff! Now calm down, let me explain.
Are you ready to talk about Congressional
leadership? You better be.
So, the Congressional leadership are the Congresspersons with titles like Majority Leader
and Minority Whip, and they have a lot to do with
political parties, so we're going to talk about
what the political parties do in Congress as well.
Even if you don't follow politics, you probably
have heard of the name and titles, if not
the functions, of the various leaders. I'm
going to need some help on this one, so...
Let's go the Clone Zone!
In the Clone Zone today I've got House Clone
and Senate Clone to help me explain Congressional
leadership. House Clone in the house! Take
it away.
The leader of the House of Representatives
is the Speaker of the House, and he or she
is the third most powerful person in the country.
The speaker is always elected by whichever
party is in the majority. These elections
take place every two years, because the whole
House is elected every two years. That's a
lot of elections! At the time of the shooting
of the episode the Speaker of the House is
John Boehner from Ohio, known for his tan,
tears, and tacos.
Yeaah, he's oddly really good at making tacos.
I had the barbecue pork at his house one time....
Yeah, I had the beef taco! He called it la
lengua.
Interesting choice.
Yeah. The speaker has two assistants to help
run the house. The Majority Whip has the primary
task of counting votes on important pieces
of legislation, and making the party members
vote along with their party. Whipping them
into line, I suppose. (whipping noise)
The third in line is the House Majority Leader,
who helps the majority and probably does other
stuff, but mainly he's chosen by the speaker
because he's popular with particular factions
within the party. The Minority Party, that's
the one with fewer members elected in a term,
duh (scoffs), also has a Minority Leader,
and a Minority Whip, but no speaker. The Minority
Leader is the de facto spokesperson for the
minority party in the House, which is why
you often see him or her on TV, or on your
phone, or, your iPad, or your pager.
I don't think you can see it on your pager.
Hey, that was some pretty good stuff you said
there House Clone. What's the deal with the
Senate, Senate Clone?
Things are simpler over in the Senate because
we have only 100 august members and not the
rabble of 435 to try to "manage." The leader
of the Senate is the Majority Leader and he
(so far it's always been a he) is elected
by the members of his party, which by definition
is the majority party, the one with 51 or
more members. There's also a Minority Leader,
which, like the Minority Leader in the House,
is the party's spokesperson. The Vice President
presides over the Senate sessions when he
doesn't have anything better to do, even though
it's one of his few official constitutional
duties. When the veep is off at a funeral,
or undermining the president with one of his
gaffes, the President pro tempore presides.
The President pro tem is a largely ceremonial
role that is given to the most senior member
of the majority party. Senior here means longest
serving, not necessarily oldest, although
it can be the same thing. No one would want
to be a Congressional leader if there was
no power involved, so it's important to know
what powers these folks have, and how they
exercise them. Also, I'm not supposed to do
this, but let's go to the Thought Bubble.
I love saying that!
The primary way that leaders in both the House
and Senate exercise power is through committee
assignments. By assigning certain members
to certain committees, the leadership can
ensure that their views will be represented
on those committees. Also, leaders can reward
members with good committee assignments, usually
ones that allow members to connect with their
constituents, or stay in the public eye, or
punish wayward members with bad committee
assignments. Like the committee for cleaning
the toilets or something. The Speaker of the
House is especially powerful in his role assigning
Congressmen to committees.
Congressional leaders shape the agenda of
Congress, having a huge say in which issues
get discussed and how that discussion takes
place. The Speaker is very influential here,
although how debate happens in the House is
actually decided by the House Rules Committee,
which makes this a rather powerful committee
to be on. The Senate doesn't have a rules
committee, so there's no rules! Aw, yeah!
There's rules. The body as a whole decides
how long debate will go on, and whether amendments
will be allowed, but the Majority Leader,
if he can control his party, still has a lot
of say in what issues will get discussed.
Agenda setting is often a negative power,
which means that it is exercised by keeping
items off the agenda rather than putting them
on. It's much easier to keep something from
being debated at all than to manage the debate
once it's started, and it's also rather difficult
for the media to discuss an issue that's never
brought up, no matter how much the public
might ask, "But why don't you talk about this thing that
matters a lot to me?" Thanks, Thought Bubble.
Speaking of the media, Congressional leaders
can also wield power because they have greater
access to the press and especially TV. That's the
thing people used to watch. Instead of YouTube.
This is largely a matter of efficiency. Media
outlets have only so many reporters, and they
aren't going to waste resources on the first-term
Congressman from some district in upstate
New York. No one even goes to upstate New
York. Is there anyone in upstate New York?
Has anyone ever gone to upstate New York?
When the Speaker calls a press conference
reporters show up, and the Majority Leader
can usually get on the Sunday talk shows if
he wants. Media access is a pretty handy way
to set an agenda for the public.
Finally, Congressional leaders exercise a
lot of power through their ability to raise
money and to funnel it into their colleague's
campaign. I want colleagues like that. Each
House of Congress has a special campaign committee
and whoever chairs it has the ability to shift
campaign funds to the race that needs it most,
or to the Congressperson he or she most wants
to influence. The official leadership has
little trouble raising money since donors
want to give to proven winners who have a
lot of power, and get the most bang for their
buck. Since the leaders usually win their
races easily, this is more true in the House
than the Senate. They frequently have extra
campaign money to give. Often the donations
are given to political action committees, or PACs,
which we'll talk about in another episode.
We're going to spend a lot of time talking
about political parties, and probably having
parties of our own in later episodes, especially
their role in elections, but they are really
important once Congress is in office too.
One way that parties matter is incredibly
obvious if you stop to think about it. It's
contained in the phrase "majority rules."
This is especially true in the House, where
the majority party chooses the Speaker, but
it's also the case in the Senate. This is
why ultimately political parties organize
and raise so much money to win elections:
if one of the parties controls both houses
and the presidency, as the Democrats did in
2008 through 2009, that party is much more
likely to actually get things done.
The party that's the majority in each house
is also the majority on all of that house's
committees, or at least the important ones,
and, as we saw in the last episode, committees
are where most of the legislative work in
Congress gets done. Gets did. As you probably
figured out, the majority party chooses the
committee chairs, too, so it's really got
a lock on that sweet legislative agenda. Parties
also can make Congress more efficient by providing
a framework for cooperation. The party provides
a common set of values, so a Republican from
Florida and one from Wyoming will have something
in common, even if their constituents don't.
These common values can be the basis of
legislation sometimes. But sometimes
that happens.
Political parties also provide discipline
in the process. When a party is more unified
it's easier for the leader to set an agenda
and get the membership to stick to it.
Right? Unified.
Lack of party unity can make it difficult
for the leadership. In 2011 a large group
of very conservative newbie Congressmen associated
with the Tea Party Movement made it difficult
for Speaker Boehner to put forward an agenda.
The Tea Party caucus felt Boehner compromised
too much with the Democrats, even though his
agenda was, by some standards, pretty conservative.
As a result, Congress wasn't able to get much
done, except make itself unpopular.
So, if you combine all this with the stuff
we learned about Congressional committees,
you should have a pretty good understanding
of how Congress actually works. Yay! Understanding!
As this course progresses and you fall in
love with politics, and myself, be on the
lookout for how the leadership sets the agenda
and pay attention to what issues might be
floating around that aren't getting discussed
in Congress.
Understanding who the Congressional leaders
are, and knowing their motivations, can give
you a sense of why things do and don't get
done by the government. And, if you're lucky,
you live in a district represented by a member
of leadership. In that case, the person you
vote for will be in the news all the time,
which is kind of satisfying, I guess.
Yeah, I voted for that guy! Yeah! And now
he's on the TV! Yeah!
Thanks for watching. We'll see you next week.
What do you think, can we be unified? Can
we get things done?
We can't.
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Thanks for watching.
Someday, maybe the eagle and I will get along.
Not today. Not today.
This page was last edited on 3 March 2022, at 12:08