The Existence Of Congress, The First Branch Of Government

Congress, the first branch of government, is a body of regime that exists in the Legislative Branch. It is responsible for creating the laws that the judicial branch will interpret, and the Executive branch implement. Without the existence of congress, there would be no organized manner in which laws were created, formulating an uncivilized nation. Congress, divided into the Senate and the House of Representatives, appoints 2 representatives from each state, with a total of 100 senators, while the House of Representatives contains 435 members. In order to accomplish tasks in Congress, the work is done in committees, where bills are introduced, hearings are held, and initial votes on proposed laws are taken. The existence of committees, the
four types consisting of the standing, select, conference, and joint, allows Congress to make inquiries regarding an area of public policy, hear responses of the interested and participating parties, and in result, expand on the expertise of its members. Membership on a key committee not only gives the ability to be placed at a political advantage, it also allows the representatives’ opinions to be heard and eventually fabricated into law. Typically, there is an overwhelming amount of incumbency in Congress, evident from both parties. The congressmen attempt to be reelected at the end of every term in order to ensure their position in office and influence over the nation. However our nation begins to lose its unitary morals as it shares the power with more than one authoritarian figure. The decentralization of the American Congress demonstrates the lack of efficiency and morality in the actions of the congressmen as they attempt to rejuvenate the nation and free it from all the chaos. With all of this said, in result of the committee system, prioritizing local interest instead of national interest, the existence of party wars as well as incumbency, this powerful body of government, congress, is decentralizing, thus detaining the power from one medium of authority. Being an essential force in the legislative branch, Congress had to ensure the proper procedures to be enacted in the formation of new bills and laws, thus the birth of the committee system. All four committees help in organizing the most imperative duties of Congress - considering, formulating, and legalizing laws to govern the nation. However, this committee system is an American dream that never fully reached its potential. Not only is the committee system excessively hectic with a surplus of committees and then subcommittees to follow, the lack of unity apparent between the figures of authority causes a more decentralized congress. Despite the initial intentions of having a congressional system with many committees aspire to ensure proper attention for each desired bill, the imprudent existence of all of the committees makes more inefficiency and contributions to the decentralization of congress. Woodrow Wilson acknowledged the issue in that he noticed
“Besides the great Committee of Ways and Means and the equally great Committees on Appropriations, there are Standing Committees on Banking and Currency, on Claims, on Commerce, on the Public Lands, on Post – Offices and Post – Roads … and on a score of other branches of legislative concern; but careful and differential as is the topical division of the subjects of legislation which is represented in the titles of these Committees, it is not always evident to which Committee each particular bill should go … But it is easy, and therefore common, to let the session pass without making any report at all upon bills deemed objectionable or unimportant, and to substitute for reports upon them a few bills of the Committee’s own drafting; so that thousands of bills expire with the expiration of each Congress, not having been rejected, but having been simply neglected” (Wilson, 322-323).
The mere existence of these plethora of committees distracts the congressmen from accomplishing what’s important and instead, they preoccupy themselves on issues that pertain to what committee the bill belongs in.
based on Wilson’s commentary, we take note of the fact that the congressmen priorities attempting to make things easier, when in reality they are diluting the source of authority and spreading responsibility so widely that Congress as a whole decentralizes and nothing gets done. The multiplicity of leaders creates a complex House, one too complex to regulate the uninformed, yet passionate, people who deeply crave the passing of their bill in addition to acknowledging that people are acting upon the publics’ reactions to injustice. There is so much to get done, but because of the lack of leadership and the decentralization of Congress, the bills that may make a difference to the nation due to its passing are not being acknowledged because of the inability for professional men and women to come together and problem solve instead of fighting over overlapping jurisdictions and debating on what the proper disposition of any bill is that lies between two distinct committee jurisdictions. Thus it becomes evident that too many standing committees are distracting the efficiency of notable tasks from being accomplished. Aside from Wilson, Edmund Burke also touches on the topic of committees and how it contributes to the decentralization of Congress. Unity is key to efficiency, however as seen by Wilson’s, the lack of efficiency is a major contributor of the decentralization of Congress. Another factor that contributes to the lack of a unitary system is the idea that there is no unity between the congressmen, and this calls for a lack of organization and production. The existence of so many committees and representatives within the decentralized system shows
that
“When there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity to unit circumspection with vigor is absolutely necessary, but it is extremely difficult [because] we are now members … of a rich commercial nation, the interests of which are various, multiform, and intricate” (Burke, 338).
Whether the congressmen are concerned with the never ending reelection campaigns, the wellbeing of the nation, or raising funds, one thing is certain, there is never a complete essence of unity between the congressmen to all come together and get things done. They are all so diverse in goals and beliefs that decentralization is inevitable for anyone who adopts such a system. So many people take part in how decisions are made in Congress that even the idea of a centralized body is nonexistent. The diversity available in committees of congress disunites all of the representatives away from each other and forces tem to challenge the concept of unity. The division between ideologies in such an overpopulated body accounts for the existence of decentralization in Congress. It supports the notion that through a committee system, whether it be overpopulated with a plethora of standing committees or fail to encounter unity, no power comes from one single person or group, instead many perspectives are implemented in the decision making process.