Congressional politics The parameters of congressional power –Party discipline and party unity – Influences on congressional voting behaviour – The structure of Congress – Congressional leadership – The Speaker – The majority and minority floor leaders – Party committees – The House Rules Committee – The filibuster in the Senate – The congressional committee system – Conference committees – The presidential veto power – Congressional control of finance – Other control functions – Congress and policy making

The Congress of the United States is, without doubt, the most powerful representative assembly in the world today. This is not merely to reiterate the fact of the power and wealth of the United States: it is also a recognition of the fact that, as a legislature, Congress continues to exercise a degree of independent decision-making power far greater than that retained by the other legislatures of the Western democracies. It is true that, like all legislative bodies in the complex world of the twentieth century, its power declined relative to that of the so-called ‘executive branch’ of government. Increasingly, it is the President and his administration who initiate policy and provide leadership in legislative affairs, but Congress makes effective decisions upon domestic and foreign policy, upon the role of government in society, and the way in which government activities will be financed. The President can initiate policy, and he can urge it upon Congress with all the resources at his command, but he cannot determine what legislation shall pass, when it will be passed, or in exactly what form it will pass. Once legislation has been introduced into the British House of Commons by the government it is virtually certain that it will be passed. However, one can only predict what might happen to legislation in Congress, and such predictions, however well-informed, may well turn out to be wrong.