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“Congress is no longer a powerful body” discuss.
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“Congress is no longer a powerful body” discuss.
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“Congress is no longer a powerful body” discuss. (45)Congress is made up of two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Congress is
described as bicameral. The Framers of the Constitution clearly intended the Congress to be the
powerful branch of the national government. It was Congress that was given the power to make
laws, tax, spend and even declare war. The President and the Supreme Court may act independently
of the Congress or even contrary to its wishes, but the Constitution gives Congress many more
powers than it does to the other branches.
Many people would argue that although it clearly states in the constitution that congress has more
powers than the other two branches it is no longer a powerful body anymore. It is argued that the
president is more powerful because after all he is technically the most powerful man on earth. He is
the boss of 2.7 million employees, commander-in-chief of the world’s largest military force and at all
times he has a briefcase containing America’s nuclear launch codes. He can negotiate treaties,
pardon criminals and appoint around 4,000 senior officials (though many require the Senate's
consent) including ambassadors, judges, generals and cabinet ministers. More importantly regarding
being more powerful than congress he has the power to veto. A crude veto is where he returns a bill
to congress unsigned along with two reasons for his objection Congress can override the presidents
veto but only with a two thirds majority vote and this is very hard to obtain from both chambers,
especially if they are both dominated by opposing parties. The president can also use a pocket veto
which is where he leaves the bill on his desk unsigned until the time for signing the bill runs out and
into recess. During Clintons 8 years of presidency he used the veto 36 times. With those 3 vetoes
congress attempted to override 13 them, it failed 11 and succeeded in just 2. So the president
undermines the legislative powers of congress because even if there has been a lot of time spent
working on the bill, without the president’s approval, it cannot be passed.
While the Legislative branch is granted the most impressive array of powers by the Constitution, it
can only exercise those powers when both the House and the Senate are in agreement. A bill cannot
become law, taxes cannot be raised, war cannot be declared, and amendments to the Constitution
cannot be proposed independently by one house. The Legislative Process and the Budget Process
require not only agreement between the Legislative and Executive Branches, but also within the
Congress itself. This significantly reduces the power of congress because it can not perform any of
these powers if congress is divided.
Another reason why congress could be seen as being a less powerful body is because of the problem
of Partisanship in congress. A partisan is a committed member of a political party who wholly
supports their own party’s policies and quite reluctant to acknowledge what their political
opponents have to say. Congress can’t do its legislative job properly if it is so divided. In the 113th
the democrats will hold the majority in the senate and the Republicans will hold a majority in the
House. Both the House and Senate have to examine a bill and they both have to agree on it to be
passed, if each chamber has an opposing party majority to the other then it is likely that they will not
both agree on the bill. If the bill is proposed by a member of the minority party in one of the
chambers then it is unlikely that it will get passed in that chamber. A poll taken in January 2011
shows that only 20% approved of the job congress was doing and 73% was disapproving believing
that congress is often beset by gridlock and that little useful work is done. However if the outcome is
gridlock then there is a conference committee which tries to make a compromise between the
house and the senate but this can take a long time, and obviously bribes are made which hardly
makes this process legitimate.
Partisanship also prevents congress from fulfilling its repetitive role effectively too and thus making
it less powerful. Partisanship in congress causes the members to not represent all of their
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