Committees play an important role in politics in the federal, state and local government. The role and stance a bill takes in a Committee affects its advancement of becoming law. In each General Assembly Session there is a specific goal that is set out to obtain and if the bills are pertinent to this goal and the legislator’s constituents then it will most likely be successful in Committees.
To understand the importance of committees we have to first look at the way a bill is created so that it will be effective in a committee. When a bill is first drafted it often times can be too narrow only telling the logistics of the bill not going into detail or specifics. Partisan conflict is conflict between the House and the Senate, the Executive and Legislative or in other areas. To go from this broad generalization to a complex form of legislation “scrutiny and modification in the committee (Rosenthal 363)” is required.
Constituents are an important part of how legislators determine how a bill will be created and how well it will move through a Committee. Most Committee meetings are open to the public so they can view how democracy runs and have a say in each bill that comes through the committee. “A European observer would be baffled by all of this ‘few countries require anything resembling the openness of the American process” (Wilson 130). Constituents are the most important factor determining whether a legislator will vote for or against a piece of legislation. If the legislator’s constituents are not pleased with they way they are represented they can just vote that official out of office next time his re-election comes around. Normally, legislators vote according to what the majority of there constituents want because of this scare that they might be voted out of office therefore doing away with their power.
Communication to their constituents is also a pertinent thing in politics. “He must want to play the role of the leader and educator in his constituency. The legislator who fails to recognize the importance of communication will not devote the time and resources that are necessary to the task” (Jewell 49). Bills that are being created and have to go from a general to narrow piece of legislation largely require constant communication between the constituents, interest groups and legislator. This is also important in committees because the constant input of the constituent allows for more discussion in a committee to support or oppose a piece of legislation.
Committees create positions of power allowing every member to have some form of influence and input on legislation. Committee members are influenced by the environment and the member’s constituents and concerns. The members’ goals are “Re-election, good public policy, influence in the chamber, and career ambitions beyond the chamber. They perceive committees to be differentially useful in the pursuit of these goals (Fenno 139).”
One example of power displayed through a Committee was from the Senator I interned under. Senator Givens was the chairman of the Agriculture committee and sat on the Transportation and Education committees. Senator Givens is a farmer who graduated from Western Kentucky University with an Agricultural Degree and is on the Agricultural Board for his home county as well as Producer and Board member of Green County Cattleman’s Association. Because of the Johnson Rule 1953 which “assures every freshman of a major assignment before other vacancies are filled (Fenno 151),” the leaders decided to place him as Chair of the Agricultural Committee because of his previous experience with agriculture.
As chairman of a committee you get to decide what bills will be heard in your committee, and if they will pass. A chairman can stop a bill before it even is heard. In example this year Chairman Givens decided to not hear all of the bills that were sent from the House Agriculture committee. He had a House member of his party get mad and even says a couple choice words to him. Senator Givens said that he was going to hear the Representative’s bill on a certain day but it was postponed. Senator Givens could have just retaliated and not have the committee hear it at all because he has that authority but instead he allowed it to be heard.
As in the formation of a bill there is partisan conflict in Committees and in Committees between the House and the Senate even when the majority party is the same for each of them. “Senators, in sum, want to, can, and do sustain a decision-making process that is more individualistic and gives greater influence to the individual legislator than is the case in the House. The important corollary of this institutional difference is that decision making inside the Senate is much less of a committee-dominated process than it is in the House (Fenno 146-147).” Senators are spread out over more committees than House members are so there specialization in the Senate is less. Since the Senators aren’t required to be experts on issues the committees they are assigned to focus on they can dabble in two or three areas that aren’t necessarily in there committee.
Subcommittees are an important part of the Legislative process. Many times an issue is so large for a particular committee that it has to have a subcommittee created for it. For instance, Senator Givens is on the Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund Oversight Committee a subcommittee dealing with the agricultural issue of tobacco in the state. “On the Senate side, members can get, in time, any subcommittee assignment they want (Fenno 186).” The reason this is said is because since there is less of them they have more individualist say on where they would like to be placed and the more qualified are placed on these subcommittees so they can regulate what the House of Representatives proceed to do.
During interim months subcommittees will meet and committees dealing with particular issues. These committees can not pass bills that will come into law because that task is only performed during session The committees are essential in the fact that they can sort out issues the two bodies may have or the parties may have. They also, are important for research and gaining greater understanding of issues that will most likely arise and be formed into a piece of legislation in the upcoming session. At the end of session this year Senator Kelly remarked that they will be having a lot of interim committee meetings and maybe even a special session to look at the issue of the budget.
In Frankfort the budget is on everyone’s mind and how to deal with it is forefront, one piece of legislation that was proposed was the cigarette and alcohol tax. This legislation was split between constituent concerns and financial issues for the state. In the urban areas constituents wanted a tax on cigarettes and not on alcohol and in rural areas the opinions were opposite. As I have mentioned earlier constituents play an important role in the deciding of a bill and in Frankfort when this bill finally was allowed to come to a committee hearing numerous amounts of people came out to express their views. The committee reluctantly let the bill pass through but was the most difficult piece of legislation and most controversial piece of legislation that was sent through a committee.
The other issue that was weighing on public and officials minds was reform of the CATS testing. Both of these pieces of legislation were successful in Committees. This success was very astonishing considering that the House and the Senate are run by two different political parties. The CATS legislation took years to finally get a compromise so it could even be heard in a committee. It passed through the committee with a majority vote.
The passing of the CATS reform bill could be seen by some as a decline in partisanship in the Legislature. Then others will just say that all constituents from every district were concerned with this legislation so therefore it was not the decline of partisanship but just a concern for there political face value to the people. “The point is not that candidates and officeholders should sacrifice their political interests and values for the sake of the party but rather that a range of viable strategies of campaigning and governance are available some of which tend to reinforce and others to undermine party strength” (Salmore 244). This statement makes the point that the legislators top concern is not loyalty to the party but instead loyalty to their constituents and personal interests.
As I have demonstrated in this paper Committees are important to the legislative process. Without successful committees and the committee system, passing bills would be more complex putting more strain on the individual legislator to know each 100 plus bill that would come through the lawmaking process. Committee’s allow legislators to have a say in each piece of legislation but still focus on the representative part of Government by attending to constituent needs more closely than lawmaking. It also allows legislators to take part in legislation they are more familiar with instead of trying to know a little about everything they know about specifics. Interning in Frankfort, I have seen the committee process in action and it is very effective and very essential for Democracy today.
Citations:
Fenno Jr., Richard F. Congressmen in Committees. The University of Rochester. Little, Brown and Company. Boston 1973
Jewell, Malcolm E. Representation in State Legislatures. The University Press of Kentucky 1982. Lexington, Kentucky.
Rosenthal, Alan. Engines of Democracy: Politics and Policymaking in State Legislatures. Eagleton Institute of Politics-Rutgers University. 2009.
Salmore, Stephen A. Candidates, Parties, and Campaigns: Electoral Politics in America. Congressional Quaterly, Inc. 1985. Washington D.C.
Wilson, James Q. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. Basic Books, Inc 1989.
