Congress

Author : Robert G. Kaiser
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 466 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2014-01-28
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780307744517

Get Book

Act of Congress by Robert G. Kaiser Pdf

A Washington Post Notable Book An eye-opening account of how Congress today really works—and how it doesn’t— Act of Congress focuses on two of the major players behind the sweeping financial reform bill enacted in response to the Great Crash of 2008: colorful, wisecracking congressman Barney Frank, and careful, insightful senator Christopher Dodd, both of whom met regularly with Robert G. Kaiser during the eighteen months they worked on the bill. In this compelling narrative, Kaiser shows how staffers play a critical role, drafting the legislation and often making the crucial deals. Kaiser’s rare insider access enabled him to illuminate the often-hidden intricacies of legislative enterprise and shows us the workings of Congress in all of its complexity, a clearer picture than any we have had of how Congress works best—or sometimes doesn’t work at all.

Author : Jill Abramson,Who HQ
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2021-05-11
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9780593223727

Get Book

What Is Congress? by Jill Abramson,Who HQ Pdf

Whether Congress is in session or not, here is an enthralling overview about the branch of our government closest to average Americans. Best-selling adult author and the first woman to become executive editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson is a self-confessed political junkie. Now she has written the book she wishes she'd had as a young reader. Explaining clearly and concisely what exactly Congress does, this book is peppered with fascinating stories, including the bloody beating in the Senate of a lawmaker in pre-Civil War days, the Watergate hearings, and Senator Joe McCarthy's shameful "witch hunt" of Communists. Kids may start considering a career in Congress themselves when they learn fun facts, such as the special "candy desk" in the Senate, and the fact that all lawmakers can bring their dogs to work! With 80 fun black-and-white illustrations and an engaging 16-page photo insert, readers will be excited to read this latest additon to this #1 New York Times Best-Selling series.

Author : David R. Mayhew
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2017-05-23
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780300215700

Get Book

The Imprint of Congress by David R. Mayhew Pdf

An insightful examination of the imprint of Congress on politics and society throughout American history by a distinguished congressional scholar

Author : Steven S. Smith,Jason M. Roberts,Ryan J. Vander Wielen
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 476 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2011-08-31
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1107654351

Get Book

The American Congress by Steven S. Smith,Jason M. Roberts,Ryan J. Vander Wielen Pdf

The American Congress provides the most current treatment of congressional politics available in an undergraduate text. Informed by the authors' Capitol Hill experience and scholarship, this book presents a crisp introduction to major features of Congress: parties and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity. This text contains discussions of the importance of presidents, courts, and interest groups in congressional policy making. Recent developments are also discussed within the context of congressional political history. The seventh edition includes complete coverage of the first Congress of the Obama presidency, the 2010 midterm elections, healthcare reform, and an early perspective on the 112th Congress with a Republican majority.

Author : United States. Congress
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 1084 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 1919
Category : Law
ISBN : UCR:31210026473015

Get Book

Congressional Record by United States. Congress Pdf

Author : Timothy M. LaPira,Lee Drutman,Kevin R. Kosar
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 341 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2020-12-07
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226702575

Get Book

Congress Overwhelmed by Timothy M. LaPira,Lee Drutman,Kevin R. Kosar Pdf

Congress today is falling short. Fewer bills, worse oversight, and more dysfunction. But why? In a new volume of essays, the contributors investigate an underappreciated reason Congress is struggling: it doesn’t have the internal capacity to do what our constitutional system requires of it. Leading scholars chronicle the institutional decline of Congress and the decades-long neglect of its own internal investments in the knowledge and expertise necessary to perform as a first-rate legislature. Today’s legislators and congressional committees have fewer—and less expert and experienced—staff than the executive branch or K Street. This leaves them at the mercy of lobbyists and the administrative bureaucracy. The essays in Congress Overwhelmed assess Congress’s declining capacity and explore ways to upgrade it. Some provide broad historical scope. Others evaluate the current decay and investigate how Congress manages despite the obstacles. Collectively, they undertake the most comprehensive, sophisticated appraisal of congressional capacity to date, and they offer a new analytical frame for thinking about—and improving—our underperforming first branch of government.

Author : David R. Mayhew
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2004-11-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0300130015

Get Book

Congress by David R. Mayhew Pdf

"Any short list of major analyses of Congress must of necessity include David Mayhew’s Congress: The Electoral Connection." —Fred Greenstein In this second edition to a book that has achieved canonical status, David R. Mayhew argues that the principal motivation of legislators is reelection and that the pursuit of this goal affects the way they behave and the way that they make public policy. In a new foreword for this edition, R. Douglas Arnold discusses why the book revolutionized the study of Congress and how it has stood the test of time.

Author : Library of Congress
Publisher : Viking Adult
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015038111392

Get Book

Witnessing America by Library of Congress Pdf

Presents a portait of America's social and cultural history between 1600 and 1900, told through letters, diaries, memoirs, tracts, and other articles and first-hand accounts found in the collections of the Library of Congress.

Author : Trevor Corning,Reema Dodin,Kyle Nevins
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
Page : 69 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2017-07-25
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780815727347

Get Book

Inside Congress by Trevor Corning,Reema Dodin,Kyle Nevins Pdf

Required reading for anyone who wants to understand how to work within Congress. The House and Senate have unique rules and procedures to determine how legislation moves from a policy idea to law. Evolved over the last 200 years, the rules of both chambers are designed to act as the engine for that process. Each legislative body has its own leadership positions to oversee this legislative process. To the novice, whether a newly elected representative, a lawmaker's staff on her first day at work, or a constituent visiting Washington, the entire process can seem incomprehensible. What is an open rule for a House Appropriations bill and how does it affect consideration? Why are unanimous consent agreements needed in the Senate? The authors of Inside Congress, all congressional veterans, have written the definitive guide to how Congress really works. It is the accessible and necessary resource to understanding and interpreting procedural tools, arcane precedents, and the role of party politics in the making of legislation in Congress.

Author : David R. Mayhew
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2008-10-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0300093357

Get Book

America's Congress by David R. Mayhew Pdf

To understand American politics and government, we need to recognize not only that members of Congress are agents of societal interests and preferences but also that they act with a certain degree of autonomy and consequence in the country's public sphere. In this illuminating book, a distinguished political scientist examines actions performed by members of Congress throughout American history, assessing their patterns and importance and their role in the American system of separation of powers. David R. Mayhew examines standard history books on the United States and identifies more than two thousand actions by individual members of the House and Senate that are significant enough to be mentioned. Mayhew offers insights into a wide range of matters, from the nature of congressional opposition to presidents and the surprising frequency of foreign policy actions to the timing of notable activity within congressional careers (and the way that congressional term limits might affect these performances). His book sheds new light on the contributions to U.S. history made by members of Congress.

Author : Fergus M. Bordewich
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2017-02-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9781451692112

Get Book

The First Congress by Fergus M. Bordewich Pdf

"The little known story of perhaps the most productive Congress in US history, the First Federal Congress of 1789-1791. The First Congress was the most important in US history, says prizewinning author and historian Fergus Bordewich, because it established how our government would actually function. Had it failed--as many at the time feared it would--it's possible that the United States as we know it would not exist today. The Constitution was a broad set of principles. It was left to the members of the First Congress and President George Washington to create the machinery that would make the government work. Fortunately, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and others less well known today, rose to the occasion. During two years of often fierce political struggle, they passed the first ten amendments to the Constitution; they resolved bitter regional rivalries to choose the site of the new national capital; they set in place the procedure for admitting new states to the union; and much more. But the First Congress also confronted some issues that remain to this day: the conflict between states' rights and the powers of national government; the proper balance between legislative and executive power; the respective roles of the federal and state judiciaries; and funding the central government. Other issues, such as slavery, would fester for decades before being resolved. The First Congress tells the dramatic story of the two remarkable years when Washington, Madison, and their dedicated colleagues struggled to successfully create our government, an achievement that has lasted to the present day."--Publisher website.

Author : Frances E. Lee
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2016-08-23
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226409184

Get Book

Insecure Majorities by Frances E. Lee Pdf

“[A] tour de force. Building upon her argument in Beyond Ideology, she adds an important wrinkle into the current divide between the parties in Congress.” —Perspectives on Politics As Democrats and Republicans continue to vie for political advantage, Congress remains paralyzed by partisan conflict. That the last two decades have seen some of the least productive Congresses in recent history is usually explained by the growing ideological gulf between the parties, but this explanation misses another fundamental factor influencing the dynamic. In contrast to politics through most of the twentieth century, the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties compete for control of Congress at relative parity, and this has dramatically changed the parties’ incentives and strategies in ways that have driven the contentious partisanship characteristic of contemporary American politics. With Insecure Majorities, Frances E. Lee offers a controversial new perspective on the rise of congressional party conflict, showing how the shift in competitive circumstances has had a profound impact on how Democrats and Republicans interact. Beginning in the 1980s, most elections since have offered the prospect of a change of party control. Lee shows, through an impressive range of interviews and analysis, how competition for control of the government drives members of both parties to participate in actions that promote their own party’s image and undercut that of the opposition, including the perpetual hunt for issues that can score political points by putting the opposing party on the wrong side of public opinion. More often than not, this strategy stands in the way of productive bipartisan cooperation—and it is also unlikely to change as long as control of the government remains within reach for both parties.

Author : Benjamin Ginsberg,Kathryn Wagner Hill
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 377 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2019-08-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780300249613

Get Book

Congress by Benjamin Ginsberg,Kathryn Wagner Hill Pdf

An introduction to the U.S. Congress, from seasoned political historians and teachers In this accessible overview of the United States Congress’s past and present, Ginsberg and Hill introduce students to the country’s most democratic institution. This text surveys Congressional elections, the internal structure of Congress, the legislative process, Congress and the President, and Congress and the courts. Congress: The First Branch offers a fresh approach to the First Branch grounded in a historical, positive frame.

Author : William F. Connelly,John J. Pitney (Jr.),Gary James Schmitt
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 267 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780815730361

Get Book

Is Congress Broken? by William F. Connelly,John J. Pitney (Jr.),Gary James Schmitt Pdf

Making Congress Work, Again, Within the Constitutional System Congress for many years has ranked low in public esteem--joining journalists, bankers, and union leaders at the bottom of polls. And in recent years there's been good reason for the public disregard, with the rise of hyper-partisanship and the increasing inability of Congress to carry out its required duties, such as passing spending bills on time and conducting responsible oversight of the executive branch. Congress seems so dysfunctional that many observers have all but thrown up their hands in despair, suggesting that an apparently broken U.S. political system might need to be replaced. Now, some of the country's foremost experts on Congress are reminding us that tough hyper-partisan conflict always has been a hallmark of the constitutional system. Going back to the nation's early decades, Congress has experienced periods of division and turmoil. But even in those periods Congress has been able to engage in serious deliberation, prevent ill-considered proposals from becoming law--and, over time, help develop a deeper, more lasting national consensus. The ten chapters in this volume focus on how Congress in the twenty-first century can once again fulfill its proper functions of representation, deliberation, legislation, and oversight. The authors offer a series of practical reforms that would maintain, rather than replace, the constitutional separation of powers that has served the nation well for more than 200 years.

Author : Michael Golden
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Legislation
ISBN : 0984991980

Get Book

Unlock Congress by Michael Golden Pdf

The American people are disgusted with the U.S. Congress. In 2014, public approval of the first branch of government reached a forty-year low. Congress is producing legislation at a historically anemic rate, while many of the nations immediate problems fester. Those are the facts. The fiction? The notion that we cant do anything about it. The U.S. Constitution assigned obligations to our legislative branchcalling on our elected representatives to promote the general welfare. Congress is in breach of contract. In Unlock Congress, veteran journalist and former political strategist Michael Golden examines the ways in which congressional failure generates a harmful PRODUCT. Rather than affixing blame to individual politicians, Golden diagnoses the causes behind the breakdown. He then identifies the PROBLEMobsolete rules that lead to major defects within the system. Finally, Unlock Congress lays out a PLATFORM of solutions designed to reinvigorate both the process and its players.