Congressional Procedures - AP Government and Politics

The right to vote to impeach officials is reserved for the House of Representatives, but it is the Senate that has the power to try the officials that the House of Representatives votes to impeach.

The Senate procedure to end a filibuster, which requires a three-fifths vote in the Senate, is called the Cloture Rule. It originally required a two-thirds vote in the Senate, but this proved too difficult to attain, so the limit was lowered to three-fifths.

This question is relatively straightforward, although it requires knowledge of the difference between original and appellate jurisdiction. An easy way to keep the two apart is to look at the roots and/or cognates of the two words: the root of “original,” for example, means “the beginning, or source”; the root of “appellate” is “appeal,” a technical term in law to mean the application to a higher court to reverse a lower. Thus, “original” jurisdiction must mean that the case BEGAN in that court; the questions are those of fact (e.g. did Viola Davis kill her husband in “How to Get Away with Murder”). “Appellate” jurisdiction, then, must mean that one of the parties (the losing party) disagrees with the decision of the lower court, and seeks to have it reversed—thus they appeal to a higher court. Appellate courts generally deal with questions of law, rather than those of fact. In other words, appellate courts (generally) do NOT deal with “did Viola Davis kill her husband”—the lower court does. They do, however, answer questions such as “did the lower court apply the applicable law correctly,” etc.

Now, the Supreme Court is odd in the sense that it has both original AND appellate jurisdiction; that is, it can act as both a trial court AND a court of appeals (to put it yet another way, it can answer questions of fact AND questions of law). That said, the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction is fixed in the Constitution (Remember Marbury v. Madison? That is, essentially, the reason Marbury lost). So, can Congress expand or restrict the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction willy-nilly? No. That requires a constitutional amendment (remember: the only way to change the constitution is with an amendment).

The Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction, however, is subject to the whim of Congress—Congress can add to or subtract from (or even remove) the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction simply by passing a bill (provided the President signs it, of course).

The filibuster is often called “talking a bill to death,” and it is available only to senators (at the Congressional level—several states do have the filibuster). Essentially, once a senator obtains the floor (is recognized and allowed to speak), he may then speak as long as he wants, as the Senate rules provide for “unlimited debate.”

Here’s the fun part: the “debate” need not actually be about the bill at hand. Take, for example, Strom Thurmond, a senator from South Carolina who (although now deceased) still holds the record for the longest filibuster in the history of the country: 24 hours and 18 minutes. Thurmond was filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and during his time on the floor, read from the bible, the phone book, and a recipe or two.

The House of Representatives does not allow for unlimited debate (in fact, the House Rules require limited debate), thus there is no filibuster in the House. The President doesn’t filibuster because his part in the legislative process is to either sign the bill into law or veto it.

Cloture is the rule that provides for the forcible end of a filibuster, so long as of the Senate vote to end it. Given that the filibuster is only available in the Senate, all of the other answers must be incorrect.

As a somewhat interesting technical note, it is devastatingly difficult to end a filibuster; most bills pass (really either chamber) by a bare majority, so getting on board for a cloture vote is often quite hard.

This is a tough question. To begin with, students often struggle with grants-in-aid in general because of how foreign the concept is. That said, as long as you remember the two (you likely only studied two) types of grants-in-aid, you should be fine—the names give you the answer. To wit, a “block” grant sounds pretty general, right? That’s because it is.

Let’s hash this out a bit further. When the federal government gives money to states or local governments in a block grant (which, by the way, is fairly rare), the money comes with strings, but relatively few of them. In other words, the federal government sketches out a policy target, but leaves the states or local government to fill in the details—it’s like being told you’re going to receive a block of cheese with which you must make a meal. Nobody tells you exactly how (that is, in what manner) you have to use the cheese—you can dice it, shred it, slice it, etc, but as long as you use it to make a meal, you’ve fulfilled the target policy. Make sense?

Let’s bring this a little closer to home with a more relevant example. Imagine that the federal government gave $1,000,000 to Fargo, North Dakota, with the policy target of “education.” Without further instruction or insight (and there likely wouldn’t be—it is a block grant, after all), the school board in Fargo could use the money for a new playground, new school computers, new lunch trays, carpet, paint, etc (hopefully you get the picture), as long as it had to do with education.

Although one could make an argument that both ‘editing’ and ‘drafting’ are correct—or at least, not wrong—‘mark up’ is the correct answer. Mark up is actually a term of art within Congress, and it refers to the work that a committee (or subcommittee) performs on a bill; it can be anything from simple editorial comments (grammatical corrections, for example) to very substantive changes to a bill.

This is a tough question. Regardless, a categorical grant is basically the opposite of a block grant—it is highly specific and oftentimes even includes the procedures that the implementing authority must use. Again, look at the name. “Categorical” sounds a lot more specific than “block”—because it is!

To extend our Fargo, ND school analogy: with a categorical grant, the federal government likely would specify, say, a particular education target (like books), within a certain timeframe, etc. Hopefully the difference between categorical and block is slightly more apparent now.

This answer should have been readily apparent—even if you were unsure of what an unfunded mandate is. An unfunded mandate is the somewhat controversial ability of the federal government to impose restrictions or alternatively mandate action by a state or local government, but refuse to pick up the tab. Moreover, because it’s a mandate the subnational governments don’t have a choice in the matter. By way of example, imagine your mom telling you that you had to trade in your Honda Civic for a Hummer V8, but she wasn’t going to up your gas allowance—you had to swallow that bill. That’s essentially what an unfunded mandate is (this example is, obviously, beyond oversimplified).

Crossover sanctions can get a little tricky, but it’s, once again, easier if you keep the name in mind. A “crossover” sanction is a federal way of attaching a penalty for subnational (in)action in a completely different area. In other, more readily understandable words, a crossover sanction happens when Congress ties funding from one area to state action (or lack thereof) in a totally different area.

Still confusing, right? It’s about to make much more sense. Remember South Dakota v. Dole? The case where the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could withhold federal highway funds from states that refused to raise their drinking age? This is the classic example of a crossover sanction. Congress tied funding for one area, highways, to a totally different and pretty much unrelated area, the drinking age.

Cross-cutting requirements are almost universally the scourge of political science students. They’re rather difficult to wrap your mind around, and unfortunately difficult to explain. That said, we both have to take a stab at it!

Cross-cutting requirements are requirements or conditions that apply to every single entity that receives federal money. If the entity receives federal funding—for ANYTHING—that entity must abide by the cross-cutting requirement. Do you see why the name makes sense? The requirement cuts across every entity that receives money. For example, if you receive federal funding, you can’t discriminate based off of race, national origin, or ethnicity.

As simply as possible, there are 3 ways in which a bill can become a law. Hopefully you remembered two of them—presidential signature, and overridden veto from your civics class(es). At any rate, the easiest way a bill becomes a law is that it is presented to the president, and signed by him. A pocket pass is actually the second-easiest way in which a bill becomes a law (just in terms of procedure). A pocket pass occurs when Congress presents the President with a bill, he does not act on it for 10 days, and Congress stays in session during that period. If all of that occurs, the bill becomes law without the President’s signature! Finally, a veto override—the most procedurally challenging of the bunch. A veto override occurs when Congress presents the President with a bill, the President vetoes the bill, and then BOTH chambers of Congress muster up a 2/3 supermajority vote to make the bill law without the consent of the President. This is, of course, insanely difficult. Most bills pass, colloquially speaking, by the skin of their teeth (that is, with a bare majority). In order to override the President’s veto, however, BOTH chambers have to cobble together a 2/3 supermajority—a daunting task.

Bill amendments in the house must be germane to the material of the bill. That is one of the rules of the House of Representatives. Logically speaking, it makes sense—the House has 435 people in it, if everyone could introduce amendments over everything, there would be mass chaos. That said, there is not requirement for germane amendments in the Senate; Senators can introduce “riders” to bills—that is, amendments that have nothing to do with the bill at hand.

This is another tricky procedural question. While the House requires amendments to be germane to the matter at hand, the Senate does not. In other words, in the House, if you are discussing, say, a bill to save baby seals from clubbing, the House cannot entertain amendments dealing with zebras—the amendment must be relevant to the matter at hand. In the Senate, however, there is no such requirement; in other words, you can offer any amendment to any bill at any time.

On the basis of procedure alone, it is easier for a Senator to move a bill to a floor vote rather than a House member to do the same in the House. Remember: there is no Rules Committee in the Senate, so there are fewer steps necessary to move a bill to the floor for a vote. Other than the particulars, however, it makes sense logically for House Members to have a more difficult time of moving a bill to the floor; there are 435 members of the House, while there are merely 100 Senators. Imagine how chaotic it would be in the House if it were simple to move bills to the floor.

None of these answers are correct. Recall that the question asks you to select the House’s sole powers—all of these answers are among the Senate’s powers. In other words, removing the President, ratifying treaties, and office confirmation are all within the sole powers of the Senate. A more correct answer for this question would be, for example, that a revenue bill must originate within the House.

With one major exception, bills may begin in either chamber. The exception, of course, is revenue appropriations bills, which, per the Constitution, must begin in the House of Representatives (under the so-called “Origination Clause”). Don’t confuse the exclusive “powers” of the Senate with bill origination. In other words, only the Senate can confirm appointments or ratify treaties—the House has no jurisdiction over either of those things. But that is not what this question asks—this question refers exclusively to bills, which (other than the Origination Clause exception) may begin in either chamber.

Generally speaking, most committees have subcommittees which do most (if not all) of the work when it comes to editing, or making substantive changes to a bill. Provided that is in fact the case, the full committee may accept, reject, or amend the bill presented to them by the subcommittee. Generally speaking, the full committee will act with great deference to the subcommittee when considering what to do.

The rather mundanely-named report is the most important document that accompanies a bill out of committee (or subcommittee) and onto the floor. The report contains a succinct list of the committee’s (or subcommittee) findings on the bill—it is, essentially, a crib sheet on the bill. It assists Congress members who have not worked on the bill, or even heard of the bill yet, to understand the bill and what it does without actually needing to read the bill.