Congress – what is it?8

D.C.Coyle

The United States Congress differs from a parliament chiefly in the fact that it does not contain the executive. The President and his Cabinet are not members of the House, as the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are in England. The Congress cannot peremptorily ask a question of the President except in an impeachment proceeding; and if it refuses to pass an Administration bill, there is no “crisis”. The President in that case does not resign; nor does he dissolve Congress and force a new election.

In the United States Government, the people are represented in one way by the Congress and in another by the President. Each has the right and the means to appeal directly to the people for support against the other, and they do. The effect is that the struggle between the Executive and Congress varies between open hostilities and armed truce, even when the President’s party is in control of Congress. Another situation, that cannot occur in a parliament, arises when the people choose a President of one party and a Congress of another, putting the executive and the legislative branches automatically in opposition to each other.

The United States Congress is therefore more irresponsible than a parliament, for the member of the President’s party can vote against an Administration proposal without voting to have the President resign. This lack of responsibility encourages demagogues in Congress to play for headlines, since the party in power does not feel that strict discipline is a matter of life and death.

One effect of the separation of powers is that the Senate is as important a body as the House. In other countries there is a tendency for the lower house, since it controls the executive, to assume all the power, letting the upper house live on as a debating society of elder statesmen.

The tradition of a two-chambered legislature is deeply rooted in American political life. The colonial governments had two chambers and so do all the States except Nebraska. But the principal reason that no one can conceive of any movement toward a one-chamber Congress is that the United States is still a Federal Union of large and small States.

The fact that all bills have to pass two different bodies does not cause delay in emergencies when the people are united in favor of following the President’s leadership. But on ordinary matters in ordinary times, legislation is slow, hearings are duplicated, and an opposition has advantages over the proposition.

The Senate and the House of Representatives differ in their composition and attitude, even though the Constitution has been amended to shift the election of senators from the State legislatures to the plain voters. The senators average a few years older than the congressmen. Congressmen often move up into the Senate, but few ex-senators have ever run for the House. The senators are more distinguished by their office because there are only 100 of them while there are 435 congressmen. A seat in the Senate has a high publicity value which can be used for good or ill purposes.

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