70 research outputs found
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Congressional Lawmaking: A Perspective On Secrecy and Transparency
[Excerpt] Openness is fundamental to representative government. Yet the congressional process is replete with activities and actions that are private and not observable by the public. How to distinguish reasonable legislative secrecy from impractical transparency is a topic that produces disagreement on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Why? Because lawmaking is critical to the governance of the nation. Scores of people in the attentive public want to observe and learn about congressional proceedings.
Yet secrecy is an ever-present part of much legislative policymaking; however, secrecy and transparency are not “either/or” constructs. They overlap constantly during the various policymaking stages. The objectives of this report are four-fold:
• first, to outline briefly the historical and inherent tension between secrecy and transparency in the congressional process;
• second, to review several common and recurring secrecy/transparency issues that emerged again with the 2011 formation of the Joint Select Deficit Reduction Committee;
• third, to identify various lawmaking stages typically imbued with closed door activities; and
• fourth, to close with several summary observations.
This report will not be updated
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House Voting Procedures: Forms and Requirements
This report discusses the procedural considerations suffuse voting and the methods of voting in both the House and in the Committee of the Whole
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Unanimous Consent Agreements in the Senate
This report discusses the idea of "unanimous consent" in the Senate. Without its tradition of unanimous consent, the Senate would find it harder to process its complex workload
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Congressional Oversight: An Overview
This report highlights several reasons for the expansion of the federal government; discuss a few definitions of oversight; spotlight three essential purposes of oversight; comment upon a few oversight laws and rules; review several important oversight techniques; and identify several incentives and disincentives to the conduct of congressional oversight. The report concludes with summary observations
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House Voting Procedures: Forms and Requirements
This report mainly discusses about the Forms and Requirements of House Voting Procedures. There are four ways for lawmakers to obtain a vote in the house. there are voice votes,division votes ,yea and nay votes and recorded votes
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Senate Rules for Committee Markups
This report discusses the committee rules for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which stipulates that, insofar as practicable, “proceedings of the Committee will be conducted without resort to the formalities of parliamentary procedure.
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Cloture: Its Effect on Senate Proceedings
Cloture is the only means by which the Senate can vote to limit debate on a matter, and thereby overcome a possible filibuster. Until 1949, cloture could not be invoked on nominations, and before 1980 this action was attempted only twice. From 1949 through 2002, cloture was sought on 35 nominations, and invoked on 21
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