congress vocab

• incumbents


  those individuals who already hold office; in congressional elections, incumbents usually win
• casework


  activities of members of Congress that help constituents as individuals, particularly by cutting through bureaucratic red tape to get people what they think they have a right to get
• pork barrel


  federal projects, grants, and contracts available to state and local governments, businesses, colleges, and other institutions in a congressional district
• bicameral legislature


  a legislature divided into two houses; the U.S. Congress and all state legislatures except Nebraska's are bicameral
• Speaker of the House


  an office mandated by the Constitution; the Speaker is chosen in practice by the majority party, has both formal and informal powers, and is second in line (after the vice president) to succeed to the presidency should that office become vacant
• majority leader


  the principle partisan ally of the Speaker of the House or the majority party's manager in the Senate; the majority leader in each house is responsible for scheduling bills, influencing committee assignments, and rounding up votes on behalf of the party's legislative positions
• whips


  party leaders who work with the majority leader or minority leader to count votes beforehand and lean on waverers whose votes are crucial to the passage of a bill favored by the party
• minority leader


  the principal leader of the minority party in the House of Representatives or in the Senate
• standing committees


  permanent committees in each house of Congress that handle bills in different policy areas
• conference committees


  congressional committees formed when the Senate and the House pass a particular bill in different forms; party leadership appoints members from each house to iron out the differences and bring back a single bill
• committee chairs


  the most important influencers of their committees' agendas, committee chairs play the dominant role in scheduling hearings, hiring staff, appointing subcommittees, and managing committee bills when they are brought before full house
• seniority system

  a simple rule for picking committee chairs in effect until the 1970s; the member who had served on the committee the longest and whose party controlled the chamber became chair, regardless of party loyalty, mental state, or competence
• caucus (congressional)


  a group of members of Congress sharing some interest or characteristic; many are composed of members from both houses and both parties
• bill


  a proposed law, drafted in legal language; anyone can draft a bill, but only a member of the House of Representatives or the Senate can formally submit a bill for consideration
• legislative oversight


  Congress's monitoring of the executive branch bureaucracy and its administration of policy, performed mainly through committee hearings
• filibuster


  a strategy unique to the Senate whereby opponents of a piece of legislation use their right to unlimited debate to prevent the Senate from ever voting on a bill; sixty members present and voting can halt a filibuster on legislation