Hi, I'm Craig and this is Crash Course Government and Politics, and today we're going to examine
the leadership structure of Congress! I know, pretty exciting stuff! Now calm down, let me explain.
[Theme Music]
Are you ready to talk about Congressional leadership? You better be.
So, the Congressional leadership are the Congresspersons with titles like Majority Leader
and Minority Whip, and they have a lot to do with political parties, so we're going to talk about
what the political parties do in Congress as well. Even if you don't follow politics, you probably
have heard of the name and titles, if not the functions, of the various leaders. I'm
going to need some help on this one, so... Let's go the Clone Zone!
In the Clone Zone today I've got House Clone and Senate Clone to help me explain Congressional
leadership. House Clone in the house! Take it away.
The leader of the House of Representatives is the Speaker of the House, and he or she
is the third most powerful person in the country. The speaker is always elected by whichever
party is in the majority. These elections take place every two years, because the whole
House is elected every two years. That's a lot of elections! At the time of the shooting
of the episode the Speaker of the House is John Boehner from Ohio, known for his tan, tears, and tacos.
Yeaah, he's oddly really good at making tacos. I had the barbecue pork at his house one time....
Yeah, I had the beef taco! He called it la lengua. Interesting choice.
Yeah. The speaker has two assistants to help run the house. The Majority Whip has the primary
task of counting votes on important pieces of legislation, and making the party members
vote along with their party. Whipping them into line, I suppose. (whipping noise)
The third in line is the House Majority Leader, who helps the majority and probably does other
stuff, but mainly he's chosen by the speaker because he's popular with particular factions
within the party. The Minority Party, that's the one with fewer members elected in a term,
duh (scoffs), also has a Minority Leader, and a Minority Whip, but no speaker. The Minority
Leader is the de facto spokesperson for the minority party in the House, which is why you often see him or
her on TV, or on your phone, or, your iPad, or your pager. I don't think you can see it on your pager.
Hey, that was some pretty good stuff you said there House Clone.
What's the deal with the Senate, Senate Clone?
Things are simpler over in the Senate because we have only 100 august members and not the
rabble of 435 to try to "manage." The leader of the Senate is the Majority Leader and he
(so far it's always been a he) is elected by the members of his party, which by definition
is the majority party, the one with 51 or more members. There's also a Minority Leader,
which, like the Minority Leader in the House, is the party's spokesperson. The Vice President
presides over the Senate sessions when he doesn't have anything better to do, even though
it's one of his few official constitutional duties. When the veep is off at a funeral,
or undermining the president with one of his gaffes, the President pro tempore presides.
The President pro tem is a largely ceremonial role that is given to the most senior member
of the majority party. Senior here means longest serving, not necessarily oldest, although
it can be the same thing. No one would want to be a Congressional leader if there was
no power involved, so it's important to know what powers these folks have, and how they
exercise them. Also, I'm not supposed to do this, but let's go to the Thought Bubble.
I love saying that!
The primary way that leaders in both the House and Senate exercise power is through committee
assignments. By assigning certain members to certain committees, the leadership can
ensure that their views will be represented on those committees. Also, leaders can reward
members with good committee assignments, usually ones that allow members to connect with their
constituents, or stay in the public eye, or punish wayward members with bad committee
assignments. Like the committee for cleaning the toilets or something. The Speaker of the
House is especially powerful in his role assigning Congressmen to committees.
Congressional leaders shape the agenda of Congress, having a huge say in which issues
get discussed and how that discussion takes place. The Speaker is very influential here,
although how debate happens in the House is actually decided by the House Rules Committee,
which makes this a rather powerful committee to be on. The Senate doesn't have a rules
committee, so there's no rules! Aw, yeah! There's rules. The body as a whole decides
how long debate will go on, and whether amendments will be allowed, but the Majority Leader,
if he can control his party, still has a lot of say in what issues will get discussed.
Agenda setting is often a negative power, which means that it is exercised by keeping
items off the agenda rather than putting them on. It's much easier to keep something from
being debated at all than to manage the debate once it's started, and it's also rather difficult
for the media to discuss an issue that's never brought up, no matter how much the public
might ask, "But why don't you talk about this thing that matters a lot to me?" Thanks, Thought Bubble.
Speaking of the media, Congressional leaders can also wield power because they have greater
access to the press and especially TV. That's the thing people used to watch. Instead of YouTube.
This is largely a matter of efficiency. Media outlets have only so many reporters, and they
aren't going to waste resources on the first-term Congressman from some district in upstate
New York. No one even goes to upstate New York. Is there anyone in upstate New York?
Has anyone ever gone to upstate New York?
When the Speaker calls a press conference reporters show up, and the Majority Leader can usually
get on the Sunday talk shows if he wants. Media access is a pretty handy way to set an agenda for the public.
Finally, Congressional leaders exercise a lot of power through their ability to raise
money and to funnel it into their colleague's campaign. I want colleagues like that. Each
House of Congress has a special campaign committee and whoever chairs it has the ability to shift
campaign funds to the race that needs it most, or to the Congressperson he or she most wants
to influence. The official leadership has little trouble raising money since donors
want to give to proven winners who have a lot of power, and get the most bang for their
buck. Since the leaders usually win their races easily, this is more true in the House
than the Senate. They frequently have extra campaign money to give. Often the donations
are given to political action committees, or PACs, which we'll talk about in another episode.
We're going to spend a lot of time talking about political parties, and probably having
parties of our own in later episodes, especially their role in elections, but they are really
important once Congress is in office too. One way that parties matter is incredibly
obvious if you stop to think about it. It's contained in the phrase "majority rules."
This is especially true in the House, where the majority party chooses the Speaker, but
it's also the case in the Senate. This is why ultimately political parties organize
and raise so much money to win elections: if one of the parties controls both houses and the presidency,
as the Democrats did in 2008 through 2009, that party is much more likely to actually get things done.
The party that's the majority in each house is also the majority on all of that house's
committees, or at least the important ones, and, as we saw in the last episode, committees
are where most of the legislative work in Congress gets done. Gets did. As you probably
figured out, the majority party chooses the committee chairs, too, so it's really got
a lock on that sweet legislative agenda. Parties also can make Congress more efficient by providing
a framework for cooperation. The party provides a common set of values, so a Republican from
Florida and one from Wyoming will have something in common, even if their constituents don't.
These common values can be the basis of legislation. Sometimes.
But sometimes -- [punches eagle] -- that happens.
Political parties also provide discipline in the process. When a party is more unified
it's easier for the leader to set an agenda and get the membership to stick to it. Right? Unified.
Lack of party unity can make it difficult for the leadership. In 2011 a large group
of very conservative newbie Congressmen associated with the Tea Party Movement made it difficult
for Speaker Boehner to put forward an agenda.
The Tea Party caucus felt Boehner compromised too much with the Democrats, even though his
agenda was, by some standards, pretty conservative. As a result, Congress wasn't able to get much
done, except make itself unpopular.
So, if you combine all this with the stuff we learned about Congressional committees,
you should have a pretty good understanding of how Congress actually works. Yay! Understanding!
As this course progresses and you fall in love with politics, and myself, be on the
lookout for how the leadership sets the agenda and pay attention to what issues might be
floating around that aren't getting discussed in Congress.
Understanding who the Congressional leaders are, and knowing their motivations, can give
you a sense of why things do and don't get done by the government. And, if you're lucky,
you live in a district represented by a member of leadership. In that case, the person you
vote for will be in the news all the time, which is kind of satisfying, I guess.
Yeah, I voted for that guy! Yeah! And now he's on the TV! Yeah!
Thanks for watching. We'll see you next week. What do you think, can we be unified?
Can we get things done? We can't.
Crash Course Government and Politics is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios. Support
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at voqal.org. Crash Course was made by all of these nice people.
Thanks for watching.
Someday, maybe the eagle and I will get along.
Not today. Not today.