Examine the difference between the committee system in the US Congress and UK
Parliament
A committee is a small group of people chosen to represent a larger organization and either
make decisions or collect information for it. They are likely to occur in Parliament and
Congress as they can add valuable information to legislation that’s in the progress of being
passed and potentially become a bill.
A big difference between the committee system in the Us and the Uk can be seen in the set-
up process and purpose of each committee. In the Uk Committees are likely to be used to
scrutinise legislation and are mostly appointed by the members of the House of Lords,
which means they are not elected. The liaison committee is an exception from the other
committee as it is a permanent one. It is a committee that is especially set up to scrutinise
the prime ministers work, or the other ones which re able to scrutinise the legislation based
on the experience they have gained, as they are experts in their field. On the other hand, in
the US the members of the committees are sort of elected, as the Party with the majority (it
could be either republican or democrats) in Congress assigns those to committees who have
been voted into Congress. Furthermore, there are different type of committees for different
purposes such as the select committee, which oversees investigating an event that
happened, such as Jhon F Kennedys assassination. This allows the specialised people in this
committee to work closer together and find higher quality explanations and reasons for
what happened. After the select committees have fulfilled their job the committee resolves.
There’s also the conference committee which is in comes into play when the house and
senate need to reconcile different versions of the same bill. The committee then helps to
find an agreement, which will then be handed back to Congress and potentially passed.
Another big difference is the power of the Committees. The Uks committees have less
power available than the American ones, as their main job is to scrutinise legislation that is
being put forward by parliament. On the other hand, the American committees have more
power as they can decide which legislation is getting debated or not trough pigeonholing in
order to make the legislative process smoother and more effective. Congressional
committees are also committees to oversight the legislation being put forward, which allows
them to judge whether the legislation is beneficial for the country or not. A big difference in
the American committees is when it comes to the budget, or military committees which are
highly regarded and more influential as they have more powers than others. They execute a
key function of congress advise them and decide what’s wright for the country compared to
select committees who are just investigating certain events and therefore have no
legislative power. Controlling the budget is mega important and allows the chairpersons to
bring home the bacon meaning they are able to bring money into their state in the hope to
get re-elected and potentially become a career politician. This means that if you compare
the powers given to the committees, you can clearly see that the American committees are
way more powerful than the Uk ones, as they are not able to stop or pass legislation, but
just scrutinise it.
Lastly a clear difference can be seen in the time the committees last. In the Uk the
committees except the liaison committee and a few other tend to last only for a shorter
period of time. The committees only last as long as the process of legislation takes until it
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