Essay
Evaluate the view that Congress fails to perform its functions effectively (30)
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Evaluates whether Congress performs its functions effectively
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MariaEvaluate the view that Congress fails to perform its functions effectively (30)
Congress has 3 main functions including legislation, representation, and oversight of the
executive. Oversight is only effective when both chambers of Congress aren't controlled by the
President’s party- or when there is a divided government. However, legislation is only effective
when there is a united government. Due to this, it is impossible for Congress to effectively
perform two of its main functions at the same time. In terms of representing constituents on
issues that affect a majority of them, Congress is representative, but in terms of the
resemblance model, it is not as it over-represents older, white christian males. Overall,
Congress doesn’t fulfil its functions as it can only perform oversight effectively in a divided
government whereas it can only perform legislation effectively in a united government, and it is
very unrepresentative of the US population.
Congress’ main function is legislation. It has a lengthy process in which the two houses, the
Senate and the House of Representatives, have equal power in legislation and must come to an
agreement before the bill is sent to the President for signing. It can be said to be effective as
Congress passes hundreds of laws every 2 years- between 2017 and 2019, over 400 laws were
passed. The most significant law was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, where corporate tax was cut
significantly by over 10%. This was only made possible as the Republicans had a majority in
both houses, as no Democrats voted in favour of this bill. However, if the Republicans did not
have power over both houses- a divided government- passing this bill would have been
impossible. This is due to a lack of compromise and hyperpartisanship between the two parties,
which leads to gridlock. This happened to Obama between 2011 and 2016, where he couldn’t
get much legislation passed as the Republicans won the majority in the House of
Representatives, meaning Congress couldn’t perform their function of legislation effectively. In
addition, over 10,000 bills are introduced by Congress every 2 years. This makes the process
very crowded, which can mean that very few make it into law. Senate action can easily be
frustrated by a filibuster, or the threat of it. In 2013, Ted Cruz filibustered for over 21 hours on
the Affordable Care Act, giving a single senator the power to effectively veto a bill. Overall,
having a divided government makes Congress’ main function of legislation near impossible,
meaning that it can’t perform legislation effectively, as one house can’t simply override the other
like they can in the UK and this leads to gridlock.
Congress can be said to be representative as having frequent elections makes them more
accountable to voters- especially for the House of Representatives who have to campaign in
local areas every 2 years. They also have a ‘locality rule’, meaning they must reside in the state
that they represent, and many were born, raised and educated there, meaning that they have a
deeper understanding of the issues that their constituents face, and how they can represent
them. Congressmen keep in touch with their constituents through the phone or e-mail and they
make regular visits home (depending on how far it is from Washington DC). The resemblance of
the population is getting better slowly. There used to be zero women, African-Americans and
Hispanics in the senate in 1980, whereas the November 2020 election saw 26 women in the
Senate. However, this is still significantly lower than the population- Congress is made up of
only around 25% women when the population has 50%. Some states are especially
disproportionate- Wyoming only has around 11% female legislatures. Congress is very
unrepresentative in terms of the resemblance model. This is the extent to which congress
resembles the gender, race, age, occupation and religion of the population. Bill Clinton said the
government should ‘look like America’ as different groups can see issues differently. There are
currently only 3 black senators, and between 2005 and 2008 Obama was the only black
senator, showing that Congress hasn’t made enough progress. It is still over-representative of
older, white, christian males. Overall, although Congress can be representative of their
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