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Unbiased University: Everything You Need to Know About the Legislative Branch of the United States Government
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I don't know about you, but when I'm doing my spring cleaning around the house, I will be wearing my Sherpa Sunday slippers that feel like walking on clouds. They make cleaning just a little more enjoyable, you know, and I can't recommend them enough. Head over to bombus.comunbiased and use code UNBIASED for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M b-s.comunbiased code UNBIASED at checkout welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics and to the Unbiased University Education series. If you've been tuning in for a while, first of all, thank you so much. Second of all, you know the deal here at Unbiased University. Obviously I typically cover current events in the United States, but because I am officially on maternity leave and don't have my eyes on the news as much as I usually do, we are having fun with these educational episodes. I think it is very, very important for all of us to be deeply educated on the concepts that are in the background of all of these current events that we're always talking about, right? So things like the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the three branches of government, how laws are made, how the election process works. All of these concepts are critical to understand and to kind of keep in the back of our minds so that the next time we talk about an executive order or a new law or a Supreme Court opinion, you have a good understanding of how these things work. So you can think of this series as a condensed Law School Education Imagine every time you're tuning into one of these episodes you are sitting down in a 30 to 45 minute law school class with me as your professor. And each class we cover a different topic and we talk about the various cases and laws that have shaped those topics. By the end of this series you will have obtained your imaginary degree from Unbiased University, which means that you will be fully prepared for the show when I come back from maternity leave and and I start reporting on current events again. And not to mention, you'll be more knowledgeable in many, many, many areas of the law than the vast majority of the American population. So there's always that too. If you are interested in getting an unbiased rundown of current events, I am still cranking out articles on Substack when I can, so definitely go ahead and subscribe to my substack. You can do that by clicking the link in the show notes for this episode if you it's totally free, just need your email address so today we will cover the Legislative Branch of the United States Government, also known as Congress. In the next episode we'll cover the Judicial branch. And then in the episode after that, we'll cover the Executive Branch. Now, something to keep in mind as you listen to these next few episodes is that the Founding Fathers intentionally designed this system of government with three branches. Each branch has distinct powers, but there's also mechanisms in place so that each branch can check on one another so no one branch becomes too powerful. If we put this as simply as possible, the Legislative Branch makes the laws, the Executive Branch enforces the laws, and the Judicial Branch interprets the laws. Did you know that in 2022, less than half of US adults, only 47%, could name all three branches of government? And did you know that as of 2023, only 44% of Americans knew the length of a full term of office for a US senator? And even less than that, only 40% know who chooses the President if there is a tie in the Electoral College. So it's safe to say that after listening to these next few episodes, you will be more knowledgeable than the average American when it comes to the three branches of the United States government and how they work with one another. As a quick and final note, this episode you are about to listen to was originally recorded in May 2025, so if you hear me referencing dates, some of the time frames might be slightly off, but other than that, everything in this episode is still very much accurate and relevant. And the episode begins now let's kick this episode off with a few fundamental facts of the legislature as we know it today. Article 1 of the Constitution is what established the legislative branch of government known as Congress. Today we have a bicameral legislature, which means that we have two chambers of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. It wasn't always like that, but we'll talk about, we'll talk more about that once we get to the history of Congress. The people that make up the House are called Representatives, whereas the people that make up the Senate are called Senators. Today there are 435 representatives in the House. And, and each state gets a number of representatives proportional to its population. So bigger states like California, Texas and Florida have more Representatives than smaller states like Idaho, Kansas and Montana. Now the Senate is a bit more uniform, 100 senators, two for each state, regardless of population. Along similar lines, Representatives are meant to serve just the people within their own Congressional district, whereas Senators are meant to serve the whole state. And, and did you know that Washington D.C. the District of Columbia has a non voting delegate in the House and no representation at all in the Senate. So residents of D.C. elect a non voting delegate to the House of Representatives who can participate in House committees and other House matters, but cannot vote on legislation. And in the Senate, D.C. has no representation at all. Representatives and Senators are also differ in term duration and eligibility criteria. Representatives serve two year terms in the House, Senators serve six year terms in the Senate. And another key difference between the two chambers is that elections for all Representatives take place every two years on even numbered years. Whereas Senate elections are actually staggered over even years. So only about one third of the Senate is up for reelection during any given election. And in both the House and the Senate, lawmakers can be reelected indefinitely. There are no term limits. In fact, the longest serving lawmakers served upwards of 50 years. To be elected to the House of Representatives, you have to be at least 25 years old. You have to have been a citizen of the United States for at least seven years. And at the time of election, you have to be a resident of the state you are wishing to represent. To be elected to the Senate, you actually have to be a little bit older and have held citizenship for a little longer. The minimum age in The Senate is 30 years old and the minimum citizenship requirement is nine years. And like the House requirements, a candidate for Senate must be a resident of the state for which they are running at the time of election. So now that we have the basics down, I want to talk about the powers of Congress. First, the enumerated or express powers of the legislature. These are the powers that are explicitly set forth in the Constitution. They include enacting laws, declaring war, regulating interstate and international commerce, borrowing money for the federal government, taxing and spending, AKA appropriating funds to the government and setting taxes, and overseeing the executive branch. Congress also has implied powers, which are powers that are not explicitly set forth in the Constitution, but are necessary to carry out those enumerated powers that are in the Constitution. So an example of this would be Congress creating federal agencies necessary to execute the laws that, that it enacts. You know, creating the IRS to collect taxes, creating the Federal Reserve to manage money supply, creating the FBI to enforce federal laws, etc. Aside from creating agencies, another implied power of Congress is drafting citizens into the military. This implied power stems from Congress's enumerated power to raise and support armies. Another implied power is regulating air travel. This is because one of Congress's enumerated powers is regulating interstate commerce. And then another implied power, and this one is relevant to today's news cycle, but it's the power to regulate immigration. And that's because the Constitution grants, grants Congress the power to establish naturalization laws. So over time, Congress has taken on these implied powers to carry out its enumerated powers. Congress also has investigative powers, meaning it can conduct hearings and investigations to oversee the executive branch as well as inform legislation. An example of a hearing that was investigating the executive branch would be the Watergate hearings of 1973, when, you know, Congress investigated President Nixon and his administration's involvement in the break in at the DNC headquarters at Watergate complex. More recently, Congress investigated the events that took place on January 6, 2021, through the designated January 6 Committee. Congress can also hold hearings when considering pieces of legislation to, you know, just like investigate the law a little bit, determine whether the law should pass things of that nature. Congress also has impeachment powers. As we know, only Congress can impeach federal officials, including the President. And then in rare cases, Congress actually has electoral powers as well. The House has the power to choose the President if there is a tie in the Electoral College. The Senate similarly chooses the Vice President in the same circumstances. So as you can probably see from some of these powers, some specifically Congress's impeachment and investigative powers. The legislature has its own ways of checking on the other two branches of government and balancing them out. Let's talk more about those checks and balances. So Congress controls spending so it can withhold or cut funding for executive agencies and military operations. What this means is that the executive branch can't just spend money on anything that they want to or decline to spend money on whatever they wish. It is Congress that decides to do that. Congress also confirms presidential appointments to key positions. Cabinet members, ambassadors, and federal judges. So a president can appoint certain individuals to certain positions, but that doesn't mean those individuals will automatically assume those positions. The senate has to first confirm them. Congress also can override a president's veto. So if a president vetoes a bill that, you know, Congress passed, Congress can override that Veto with a 2/3 vote in both the house and senate. When it comes to the legislature's checks on the judicial branch, as we briefly talked about, Congress has the power to confirm federal judges, and this includes supreme court justices. And Congress can also impeach judges for misconduct. Congress has the power to create court courts. Congress similarly has the power to change the structure or jurisdiction of the lower federal courts and to some extent, limit the types of cases that these courts can hear. For example, in 1996, Congress passed the Illegal immigration reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. What this did was it restricted federal courts from reviewing many types of deportation orders. This law significantly reduced judicial oversight of, of immigration enforcement by limiting what illegal challenges immigrants could bring. However, the supreme court later stepped in and clarified that some judicial review must still be available under the Constitution, especially when it comes to constitutional claims. That's, you know, perfect example of checks and balances at work. Another related example is that Congress determines what types of questions courts can hear. So it was Congress that, that decided Federal courts can only hear cases arising under the Constitution or federal laws, cases involving citizens of different states with at least $75,000 in dispute. This is called diversity jurisdiction and certain other cases that are specified by law. Aside from creating courts and altering jurisdiction, Congress can also propose constitutional amendments, which is another check on the judicial branch. So if the supreme court interprets the Constitution in a, in, you know, a way that Congress disagrees with, Congress can propose a constitutional amendment to override that court ruling. This happened when Congress created the 16th Amendment after the court struck down federal income tax. In response to that ruling, Congress passed the 16th Amendment, which constitutionally mandated income tax. And then finally, Congress can pass new laws or amend old laws to clarify or change how courts have interpreted certain laws, so long as those new or amended laws are found to be constitutional by the courts, of course. So as you can see, checks and balances are very much at play between Congress and the other two branches of government. Not only does Congress have its own mechanisms to check on the judicial and executive branches. But the judicial and executive branches have their own mechanisms to check on Congress. And if it felt like I touched more so on how Congress checks on the executive and judicial and not so much on how Congress itself itself gets checked by the other two branches. It's just for the sake of redundancy. I will be covering that in, you know, parts two and part three when I talk about the executive and judicial branches. So let's take our first break here. When I come back, we will dive into some Congressional history.
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So before we took a break, we covered the fundamental basics as well as Congress's powers, both express and implied, and how Congress's power is checked by the other two branches of government. Now, though, I want to dive into a little bit of history and talk about how Congress came to be. The story of Congress begins with the failures of America's first attempt at self governance. Okay, so after declaring independence in 1776, the colonies initially operated under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation preceded the Constitution, and the Articles of Confederation created a very weak central government with a unicameral legislature, meaning only one chamber of Congress rather than the two we have today. This Congress also had limited powers. It couldn't levy taxes. It couldn't regulate commerce. It couldn't enforce laws. It could pass laws. It just couldn't enforce laws. Each state also only had one vote, regardless of size or population, and amendments at the time required unanimous consent, which made it nearly impossible to change anything. So by 1787, only 11 years after the country's Founding, it was clear that the system was not working. Economic problems were mounting. States were engaging in trade wars with each other, and the federal government could not effectively respond to crises. These failures prompted leaders to call for a constitutional convention in Philadelphia. They basically said, let's try this again and see if we can do a little better at the Constitution. One of the biggest fights was about how Congress should be structured in bigger states like Virginia supported the Virginia plan, which called for representation based on population, duh. Because this would have given them more power. Whereas smaller states like New Jersey liked the New Jersey plan, which wanted equal representation for each state. They didn't want to be outnumbered. Right. So the result was the Connecticut compromise, also known as the Great Compromise. And the solution was a bicameral or two house system. A House of Representatives which, with seats based on population, and a Senate with two senators for each state, regardless of size. This balanced the interests of large and small states, while also creating a much more effective legislature than what existed before. Interestingly, the framers put the legislative branch in the very first article of the Constitution before the judicial and executive branches, which shows you how much importance they placed on Congress at the time. In fact, it was the early presidents saw Congress as the most powerful branch because it was closest to the people and it was most representative of what the citizens wanted. Congress represented the people. Article 1 of the Constitution is where those enumerated powers come into play, which we talked about in the beginning of this episode. Right. Those are the powers that the framers explicitly put into the Constitution. Levy taxes, regulate commerce, declare war, coin money, and enact laws necessary and proper to execute its functions. Initially, members of the House of Representatives were directly elected by the people, while senators were actually chosen by state legislatures. According to the framers, this structure ensured a balance between, you know, responsiveness to the public, but also stability in governance. So with this new legislative structure set, the first Congress met in New York City on March 4, 1789. There were 59 representatives, 22 senators. This Congress had the very large job of basically building the government from scratch. Okay, so creating executive departments, setting up the federal court system, passing the Bill of Rights, all of these things that we know very well today. Now, Congress back then would be almost unrecognizable to us today. Sessions were much shorter, usually lasting only a few months of the year. Most members often had other jobs. Congress is more of a temporary gig. It wasn't a full time career. And then, as I said, senators were chosen by state legislatures, not by the people. There was also no Formal political parties at this point. But it wasn't long before people started kind of forming teams around leaders like alexander hamilton and thomas jefferson. Party politics started shaping congress significantly during this period. The federalists and democratic republicans emerged as the first party system. And then by eight, the 1820s, the second party system was forming with andrew jackson's democrats and the opposition whig party. So let's talk about some of the notable moments of change as they pertain to congress. I think that's the best way to illustrate congress's evolution over the last 249 years. So we'll start with the early days. In the early days, meaning the early 1800s, the Supreme Court affirmed congress's authority to exercise implied powers under the necessary and proper clause. And, and this was huge because this meant that congress was no longer restricted to the few enumerated powers laid out in the constitution and could now exercise many, many, many more actions to carry out those enumerated powers. So this is what led to things like the creation of the national bank, the expansion of regulatory powers, the formation of the first federal agencies. Then in 1913 was another pivotal moment. There was a major institutional shift with the ratification of the 17th amendment, which provided for the direct election of u. S. Senators, meaning senators were no longer chosen by state legislatures, but rather the people. This reduced political corruption associated with legislative appointments and increased democratic responsibility. During the 1930s, Congress passed sweeping legislation to address the great depression under President FDR's New Deal. So this was an era full of expansion of federal government power, with congress starting to delegate authority to executive agencies and creating social safety net programs through laws like the Social Security act. Then in the mid 20th century, Congress played a critical role in enacting several pieces of landmark civil rights legislation. So things like the civil Rights act of 1964, which aimed to end segregation and discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national order origin. The voting Rights act of 1965 was also enacted during this time. It aimed to enforce the 15th Amendment by eliminating racial discrimination in voting. Because Even though the 15th amendment mandated that no one could be denied the right to vote based on race, Certain states, especially in the south, Started requiring things like litter, Literacy tests, Poll taxes, and other barriers to suppress black voters. Now, during the 1950s, this is when the modern imperial presidency started to take shape and it kind of took power away from congress. So during this imperial presidency time, or what imperial presidency means, I should clarify that, versus basically the president started obtaining more power at congress's expense. And there were a few reasons for this for one, after World War II and during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, we were experiencing a global standoff that requires required quick and decisive actions. Something that was better suited for the executive rather than Congress, because remember, Congress was created to deliberate. So you know, we needed something that, that could make these quick decisions without that deliberation. And that was the executive. So from President Truman onward, Presidents started using national security concerns to justify unilateral action. And this is something we're seeing today too, right? It hasn't stopped. And the invocation of the Alien Enemies act, the declaration of the emergency at the southern border to handle illegal immigration, the tariffs, et cetera. Now with the emergence of nuclear powers or nuclear weapons During World War II, the president became the ultimate authority over them. Foreign policy became more centralized to the White House, especially through the National Security Council. And then also at this time, Congress was starting to defer much of its traditional war making role to the President. For instance, President Truman committed US Troops to fight in Korea after North Korea invaded South Korea. Truman never sought a formal declaration of war for Congress. Instead he claimed authority as Commander in Chief and cited to a UN resolution as justification. So this set a precedent for Presidents bypassing formal war declarations from Congress, which as we know are expressly reserved for Congress. Congress had also at this time started to delegate authority to federal agencies within the Executive branch, which then in turn gave the President more indirect influence over things like the economy, labor, housing, health, et cetera. I don't want to get too far down the executive branch rabbit hole because we are going to talk about that more next week. But just note that the trend starting in the 50s was delegating more power away from Congress and instead to the Executive. But then Watergate happened in the early 70s and as a result, Congress started to sort of rein in the executive power and reassert its authority. It attempted to limit presidential power in multiple ways. So for one, it attempted to limit presidential military action without Congressional approvals through something called the War Powers Resolution. And the War Powers Resolution actually passed over President Nixon's veto. It required the president to one, notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying troops and two, limit unauthorized military action to 60 days. Whether presidents actually followed this war presolution or this War Powers Resolution is a whole other story. No President has actually followed it since it was enacted. But we'll get into that more in next week's episode. Congress also created during this time the Congressional Budget Office to give it more control over federal spending and make it so Congress didn't rely solely on executive estimates when it came to spending. Now they would have their own congressional estimates. At the same time, Congress prevented presidents from withholding funds that Congress had appropriated. Because what was happening at this time was President Nixon was refusing to spend money that Congress had appropriated for specific programs like environmental programs, education programs, urban development programs. This is called impoundment, by the way, when the President doesn't spend the money that Congress has appropriated. So Congress went ahead and passed a law that prohibited the President from simply just refusing to spend appropriated funds. Under the law, if the President wants to delay or cancel spending, he has to submit a formal request to Congress and Congress has to approve it. And that is still in effect today. So Congress was certainly attempting to reassert its authority during this time. But keep in mind, even though it was kind of attempting to reassert some of its authority, it had already delegated much more authority to the executive than what the executive had before. So the executive was forever changed. In the early 90s is when partisanship began to rise in Congress and Congress became increasingly more polarized. Bipartisan cooperation, which had characterized much of Congress during the mid 20th century, started to erode a bit, and the legislative process became more adversarial. Importantly, though, this intensification of partisanship, it didn't happen overnight, right? It was the result of a lot of long building trends that converged around the same time. So let's talk about some of those trends. For one, the party started to become more ideologically pure. What do I mean by that? Well, for Most of the 1900s, both parties, Republicans and Democrats, had, you know, moderate and conservative wings of each party, especially the Democrats. Democrats had the northern liberals and then the Southern conservatives. Starting in the 60s, though, when, when a lot of the civil rights legislation was passing Congress, Southern conservatives began shifting to the Republican Party. And, and by the 90s, that realignment was pretty much complete. And you were left with two very defined parties, Republicans and Democrats. Democrats leaned more consistently liberal. Republicans became more uniformly conservative. Sure, you still have some people today from each party that are more moderate or more conservative than others within their own party. But for the most part, the parties became more ideologically pure than they had been before. And this, of course, meant less compromising. Here's another thing that happened during the 90s. So after the 1990s census, congressional districts were redrawn with more advanced political data and, and, and advanced software, really. And this allowed them to give their own party an advantage. This is called gerrymandering, by the way. So imagine you're drawing a map of neighborhoods to decide who gets to vote for which representative. When drawing those lines, you intentionally group voters so that your party wins as many districts as possible, even if you don't have the most total vot overall. It's just a strategy. And drawing the lines, that is gerrymandering. And that's what happened after the 1990 census. Now, when this happens, when districts are drawn in such a way to be, quote, unquote, safe seats, the general election is no longer competitive because the real competition happens in the primary elections, where only the most loyal party members usually vote. Now, to win the primary, candidates have to appeal to the party's base, which often means taking more extreme positions. So what happened after the 1990 census and the redrawing of congressional districts? Candidates were now trying to please the loudest voices in their own party rather than trying to win over the middle. And this meant that fewer moderates got elected. Compromise became dangerous. In other words, if Republicans or Democrats worked across the aisle, they risked being beat in the primaries by someone more partisan. And of course, the result was that Congress became more divided, and with few people in the middle, it's harder to pass legislation. Gridlock becomes the norm. But guess what else was really growing in the 90s? Cable news networks like CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, partisan radio shows, they all amplified political messaging to no one's surprise, right? But in the 90s is when this really started to take shape. So the by the year 2000, political parties had become more ideologically distinct. Electoral incentives punished compromise, essentially, and the media environment fueled division. Congress, which was once driven by regional interests and interpersonal relationships, now reflected a more nationalized and tribal political culture. That same sort of tribalism we see today. Now, on September 11, 2001, we all know what happened. Almost immediately, Congress once again handed significant authority to the executive branch in the name of national security. So Congress attempted to withdraw that authority in the 70s, but it was handed back following 9 11. The big, the biggest example of this was the use of the Authorization for Use of military force, or AUMF. It passed just days after the 911 attacks, and it basically gave the President the ability to use military force against anyone involved in the attacks. Interestingly, the same power has been used by every president since, and oftentimes for military actions in countries that had nothing to do with 9 11. In 2022, a second AUMF was passed for the Iraq war. And again, this. This was a big shift in the balance of power. Despite letting go of some of its exclusive wartime powers. Though Congress at this time continued doing its job when it came to investigations and oversight. You might remember the, the Benghazi hearings during the Obama years. Those went on for years and turned into this major political firestorm. Fast forward. And Congress impeached Trump twice. Once in 2019 over Ukraine, and again in 2021 after January 6th. After that, the January Six Committee held a series of televised hearings to dig into what happened and who was behind the effort of the. The effort to overturn the 2020 election results. So Congress has really taken advantage of this investigative authority in recent decades compared to the early days of Congress. And this is likely due to that uptick in partisanship that we talked about a few minutes ago. But something else has quietly transformed how Congress works over the last two decades, and that is technology. More specifically, social media. Social media gave lawmakers a direct line to their supporters, which in theory sounds great. More access, more transparency and. But in practice, what it, what it's done is nowadays social media is more often used for building personal brands and therefore less time spent actually passing legislation. In recent years, Congress has also leaned more and more on procedural shortcuts like budget reconciliation, which is a fancy way of saying let's pass certain bills with just a simple majority in the Senate so we don't have to deal with the filibuster. That's how Trump's tax cuts in 2017 passed. Same with big chunks of Biden's American rescue plan in 2021. Basically, the filibuster is. And we'll go over this more in a few minutes, but it's a special rule in the Senate, only in the Senate, not in the House. It requires 60 Senate votes to send a bill to a vote on the Senate floor. Obviously, in today's partisan environment, getting 60 votes on anything in the Senate is tough. So Congress uses a workaround called budget reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority in the Senate. But here's the catch. Budget reconciliation can only be used for bills related to taxes, spending, and the federal budget, and not for things like immigration, voting rights, gun laws, etc. So it's a shortcut that can be used on money related issues, but, you know, that's it. Just, just for those issues. It's still a big deal, though, despite its, its limited nature. In fact, we'll be seeing it later this year when Congress votes on appropriations bills for the upcoming fiscal year. So where does that leave us? Today, Congress still has enormous power on paper. It controls the budget, it makes the laws, it can check the president and the courts. But in practice, it's often stuck, divided, sometimes ineffective. Big issues like immigration reform, health care, climate change, they've been gridlocked on these issues for years. And when Congress doesn't act, presidents start to step in and try to handle things through executive orders or agency rules, which are often temporary and controversial, as we're seeing right now. And that's also a big trend we've been seeing in the last 20ish years. Right. But we'll talk about, we'll talk more about executive actions and, and that kind of stuff in next week's episode when we talk about the executive branch. It's hard not to get all of these things, you know, mixed in with each other because the three branches are so intertwined with each other. But we're going to stick to Congress for today. So let's take our second and final break here. When we come back, we will talk about the actual lawmaking process as well as how you can get in touch with your representatives, senators and more.
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So we've covered the fundamentals of Congress. We've covered congressional powers, its history, and its evolution. Now I want to talk about how Congress does its number one job, which is to pass bills. How does a bill become a law? I'm sure many of you have heard the classic I'm just a bill song by Schoolhouse Rock, but just in case, let's walk through it. Understanding how a bill becomes a law is actually incredibly important for a few reasons, but I'll give you just one. So sometimes we see a news headline about a specific action in Congress. Let's just say the House passes a not bipartisan. Let's say the House passes a very polite partisan bill. What happens is these outlets fear monger and they make the audience really worry about that bill passing the House, which could very well end up becoming a law. But most bills don't become laws. Okay, so the headline that we see is usually something along the lines of, you know, the House passes a bill that will change everything. Well, what they don't tell their audience is that the same bill might very well be dead on arrival in the Senate because of something called the filibuster. Or maybe a bill was submitted to a committee, right? First step in the process. But the bill actually has no chance of passing the committee and making it any further in the lawmaking process. Well, the headline will usually say something like Lawmakers introduce controversial law that will take away X, Y and Z rights, whatever it is. One real world example recently is a lawmaker introduced a piece of legislation that would ban abortion at the federal level. The news made sure to report on the fact that the legislation was drafted and introduced. But what the news didn't tell their audience is that the bill has been sitting dead in in a committee for months. So understanding how the process works will allow you to ease your own mind in the future and not fall into these fear mongering traps. Because you'll actually understand how all of this works and why most proposed legislation actually fails. Okay, so every bill starts with an idea, right? That idea can come from anywhere. It can come from members of Congress, the President, interest groups, lobbyists, even everyday citizens. If a lawmaker likes the idea enough, they will sponsor it and they will write it up as a bill. And just a quick fun fact for you, if the idea starts in the House, it gets an HR number. If it starts in the Senate, it gets an S number. That's why we see some legislation titled HR855 or S244. The title all depends on which chamber it originates in. Once the bill is drafted, it's officially introduced into the the chamber that the sponsor belongs to either the House or the Senate. The bill is then assigned a number and referred to the relevant committee. And, and this is where most bills go to die. Congress has dozens of committees, each focused on a specific topic like health care, education, national security, et cetera. The House has 22 committees, the Senate has 20 committees, and then there are four joint committees which have both Senators and Representatives. So I'll give you a few examples. The House has the House Committee on Agriculture, the Ways and Means Committee, the Committee on Energy, or it's actually the Committee on Energy and Commerce, but you get the gist. The Senate has the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Judiciary Committee, etc. So once a bill is sent to the relevant committee, the committee that is related to the issue in the bill, the committee reviews the bill, it holds hearings, it invites expert testimony. It may in some cases suggest changes to the bill. At this point, the committee has three options. They can approve the bill, reject the bill, or do absolutely nothing and it just dies. If the committee votes by simple majority to advance the bill, that is when it heads to the full House or Senate chamber for a vote. If not, it's dead. For purposes of this conversation, let's assume the bill survives. It'll now move to the floor of either the House or Senate for debate. Whichever chamber, which chamber it heads to, you know, depends on where it was originally Introduced. At this point, when the bill is on the floor, lawmakers can propose amendments. They can argue for and against it, and then once those debates happen, they will vote on it. If it passes, it moves to the other chamber. If it doesn't, it's dead. But again, let's assume it passes and moves to the other chamber. The bill starts the process all over again. It's assigned to a committee in the second chamber. It's reviewed, it's debated, maybe even amended. It's brought to the floor and it's voted on. But here's the catch. If the second chamber makes any amendments to the bill, the two chambers now have two different versions and and this requires reconciliation. If the House and Senate pass different versions of the same bill, it'll go to a conference committee made up of members from both the House and Senate. And their job is to negotiate a final identical version. Once they agree, both chambers have to again vote on the reconciled version. And if that final version passes both chambers, that is when it's sent to the President's desk for signature. From here, three things can happen. The President can sign it and it becomes law. Done. The President can veto it, which means he rejects it. And from there, Congress can attempt to override the Veto with a 2/3 vote in both the House and Senate. But that's rare. If they successfully override the veto, the bill becomes law without the President's signature. But if they can't get the requisite vote, the bill dies. Finally, the third option for the President is to just ignore it. Now, if the President takes no action for 10 days, once the bill gets to his desk and, and Congress is in session during this 10 day period, the bill automatically becomes law even without the President's signature. However, if Congress is not in session during that 10 day period that the President chooses to ignore it, it's called a pocket veto and the bill dies. The last thing we have to talk about is the filibuster. This is a huge part of the legislation process. At its core, the filibuster is a Senate rule, a procedural tactic that allows any Senator to delay or block a vote on a bill to simply by refusing to end debate on it in the Senate. Debate can be endless, and I mean endless. Unless 60 senators vote to cut off the debate. The 60 vote threshold is called cloture. And it makes, it's what makes the filibuster so powerful. So here's how it plays out in practice. A bill reaches the Senate from the House if at least one Senator doesn't Like the bill, they can basically say, I'm not done talking about it, and the debate will continue indefinitely. The Senator doesn't actually have to continue talking about it. They just basically say, I still want to debate this. And the debate remains open even if no debate is actually taking place. Okay? So if a Senator does this, the bill will not ever get voted on. It will quite literally stall a vote in the Senate forever. The Senate cannot escape this indefinite debate unless 60 out of the 100 senators vote to invoke cloture. Invoking cloture is basically saying, let's end the debate and get to a vote. If at least 60 senators vote to invoke cloture, the Senate will vote on the bill. But if the Senate doesn't have at least 60 senators willing to invoke cloture and send the bill to a vote, the bill is essentially frozen in time and it never gets voted on. So in practice, let's say there's a controversial bill, okay, like a federal abortion ban or something. It passes the House because, I don't know, let's say Republicans control the House. The House only needs a simple majority. So it passes the House and it heads to the Senate. Current margins in the Senate are 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, two independents. Let's assume both of the independents side with the Republicans for purpose of invoking cloture and ending debate on the federal abortion ban to send it to a vote in the Senate. They still need five Democrats on board to reach that 60 vote threshold and end debate. Now, if we assume that no Democrat supports a federal abortion ban, no Democrats are going to vote to invoke cloture to send the bill to a vote instead of they're going to let it stall. So that's why the filibuster in the Senate has such an impact on partisan legislation. Now, there are two exceptions to the filibuster. Budget reconciliation and judicial and executive appointments. We talked about budget reconciliation a bit earlier. It's a special process that allows bills relating to either taxes, spending, or the debt limit to pass the Senate with a simple majority. No filibuster allowed. The second exception is for appointments. Rule changes were made in the Senate in 2013 and 2017 that allows most presidential nominees, like Supreme Court justices and presidential cabinet picks, to only need 51 votes to be confirmed. No filibuster allowed there either. So, as you can maybe tell, the filibuster is a pretty controversial thing. Supporters argue that it forces bipartisanship, encourages consensus, and prevents wild swings in law. Every Time a new party takes control. But critics say it's used more often now as a weapon to gridlock the system and that it's undemocratic, that it allows a minority to block the will of the people. While the Senate has tried and failed multiple times to do away with the filibuster, it has chipped away at it over the years. So in 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes needed to end a filibuster, down from 60. Now it's at 6. Now it's at 60. Before it was at 67. In 2013, as we just talked about, Democrats were able to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch nominees and lower federal court judges and not yet Supreme Court justices. Though basically at the time, what was happening is Republicans were using the filibuster to block nearly all of Obama's nominees, and that's what triggered the rule change by the Democrats. Then, More recently, in 2017, Republicans extended that 2013 rule to Supreme Court nominees. What was happening there? Democrats had filibustered Justice Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court. And in response, Republicans changed the rule to confirm Gorsuch with just 51 votes, a simple majority. So over time, the filibuster has changed, but when it comes to legislation, legislation, the cloture rule still, you know, it still stands. And that's why even when one party controls the House, Senate, and the White House, they often still can't pass major laws without bipartisan support or some serious procedural maneuvering. Now, I want to end this episode. We still have to get to fun facts, but this is the last segment. I want the final segment to. I want. I want to talk about how members of Congress connect with constituents and how you can get in touch with them, because a lot of people forget that Congress is supposed to work for us. They are supposed to be our representatives. That's the way the framer structured our government. What that means is part of their job is to stay in touch with us. So how do they do that? First, town halls. Lawmakers will host both in person and virtual town halls, where you and I are allowed to show up and ask questions. Lawmakers will also sometimes engage with the public via newsletters and social media, although most of the time it's not, you know, the lawmakers actually running these things. But they do still serve as avenues that allow us to stay informed as to what they're working on and what's going on. And then finally, and probably most importantly, district offices. So every member of the House has an office in their home state in their district, and every senator has offices throughout their state. You can walk in, call or email to get in touch with them. And yes, calling and emailing actually works. Maybe not in the Hollywood way, where, you know, one call flips a vote, but offices keep tallies. They log constituent concerns. And if enough people reach out about an issue, it can certainly influence a member's priorities or at the very least, get it on their radar. So if you care about an issue, don't. Don't sit on it. You know, reach out, be clear, be respectful. Obviously, let your elected officials know how you feel they represent you, but only if you speak up. So here's what you can do. Go to congress.govcongress.gov on the right side of the website, there's a little panel that says contact your member. In that box, you can either just put in your zip code or your whole address for accuracy purposes. It'll give you the names of your representative as well as both of your senators. It'll also give you the party they're affiliated with and their address and phone number for their D.C. office. But if you click on the contact button next to each person, it'll take you directly to their official websites, where you can get more information about the offices within your state and how to contact them. Okay, let's end with some fun facts. This is always my favorite part of these educational episodes, starting with the first one. Did you know that since 1965, the Senate has maintained a candy desk on the Republican side of the chamber, which is traditionally assigned to a senator who keeps it stocked with candy from their home state? The tradition began with Senator George Murphy of California and has been maintained ever since. Second one. In the early 19th century, dueling was so common among congressmen that the House chamber was specifically designed with opposing party sections far apart to prevent spontaneous duels. After Representative Jonathan Cilley was killed in a duel with another Congressman in 1838, Congress passed a law making it illegal to issue or accept a dueling challenge in Washington, D.C. number three. When indoor plumbing was installed in the capital in the mid 19th century, special marble bathtubs were added for congressmen. This is mainly because the boarding houses where they stayed, because, remember, these were temporary gigs at the time, didn't have bathtubs. And these marble bathtubs became so popular that senators established a bathing schedule, and some were known to sleep in them during overnight sessions. Number four. The record for the longest individual filibuster belongs to Senator Strom Thurmond, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in 1957 to oppose the Civil Rights Act. He prepared for the marathon speech by taking steam baths to dehydrate himself so he wouldn't need to go to the bathroom. And he had his aides place buckets in the cloak room in case of emergency. Now this is not to be confused with Senator Cory Booker's speech on the Senate floor just last month, which lasted 25 hours and five minutes. Booker's speech broke the record for the longest floor speech, but his speech wasn't a filibuster. So Strom Thurmond still holds that filibuster record. But Booker now holds the record for the longest floor speech on the Senate floor. In 1902, Congress had a small zoo on the Capitol grounds that included zebras. When the zebras escaped one day, Capitol police were sent scrambling through the streets of Washington D.C. to capture them. And this incident contributed to the eventual decision to establish the National Zoo instead of keeping animals at the Capitol. Number six. The House of Representatives operated its own post office until 1995 when it was shut down following a major scandal. Dozens of Representatives were found to have been writing bad checks through the House bank and using the post office for various improper purposes, leading to several criminal convictions and contributing to the Republican Revolution of 1994. And finally, number seven. In one of the most infamous episodes of Congressional violence, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina brutally beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane on the senate floor in 1856. The attack came after Sumner delivered an anti slavery speech criticizing Brooks's relative. Sumner took three years to recover from his injuries while Brooks became a hero in the south, receiving dozens of replacement canes from admirers. And that is what I have for you. I really hope you enjoyed today's class at Unbiased University and part one of this three part miniseries on the three branches of the federal government. I hope to see you in the next class where we will cover the judicial branch.
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