1. Congressional Committees
Chapter 5.4
Congressional Committees
Government Mr. Biggs

2. Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)
Purpose of Committees
Both the House and Senate depend upon committees to effectively consider the thousands of bills that are proposed each session.
The committee system serves several important purposes:
It allows Congress to divide their work
Lawmakers can become specialists on issues
Committees can weed through all bills
It allows for public hearings to keep people informed
Al Franken
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)
Bill Gates

3. Kinds of Committees Standing Committees Subcommittees
Congress has four kinds of committees:
Standing Committees
Select Committees
Joint Committees
Conference Committees
Standing Committees
Standing committees are permanent groups that oversee bills that deal with certain kinds of issues.
They continue from one Congress to the next.
The majority party in each house controls the standing committees and selects the chairperson.
Senate committee on the budget
Subcommittees
Most standing committees have several subcommittees.
Each subcommittee specializes in a subcategory
of its standing committee.
They usually continue from one Congress to the next.
MLB subcommittee of House Energy and Commerce

4. Select Committees Joint Committees
Select committees are temporary committees that study one specific issue and report their findings.
They are usually set up to last no more than one term of Congress.
Joint Committees
Joint committees are made up of members from both the House and the Senate and may be either temporary or permanent.
They usually act as study groups with responsibility for reporting their findings back to the House and Senate.

5. Conference Committees
No bill can be sent from Congress to the president until both houses have passed it in identical form.
A conference committee is a temporary committee set up when the House and Senate have passed different versions of the same bill.
Its job is to resolve the differences between the two versions of the bill.
When the conference committee’s report (bill) reaches the floor of each house, it may not be amended.
It must be accepted or rejected as a whole.

6. Choosing Committee Members
A congressmen’s assignment to a committee can:
Increase their chance of reelection
Allow them to influence national lawmaking
Exert influence over other members of Congress
Key House committees are:
Rules – Considerations and order of business
Ways and Means – Chief tax writing
Judiciary – Law, courts and judges
Appropriations – Allocates federal funds
Key Senate committees are:
Foreign Relations – Leads foreign policy
Finance – Bonds, customs and money

7. Assignment to Committees
The political parties assign members to standing committees.
Members may request a committee assignment.
The Committee Chairperson’s Role
The chairpersons of standing committees are some of the most powerful members of Congress because they:
Determine when committees will be held
Decide when hearings will be conducted
Establish budgets and hire staff
Manage floor debates
The Seniority System
The seniority system gives the member of the political party with the longest uninterrupted service on a particular committee the leadership of that committee.
Criticisms of this system have resulted in a limit on how long a Chairperson can hold the position.

8. The End