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Reading Essentials and Study Guide

Chapter 5 The Structure of Congress
Lesson 2 The House of Representatives

ESSENTIAL QUESTION
What is the structure and organization of Congress?

Reading HELPDESK
Academic Vocabulary
succession the action or process of inheriting a title or office
parallel corresponding to
constitute make up, form, compose

Content Vocabulary
constituent a person whom a member of Congress has been elected to represent
caucus an event held before an election where members of a political party select delegates to
send to the national party convention, where they will also vote to nominate a candidate
majority leader the Speaker’s top assistant whose job is to help plan the majority party’s
legislative program and to steer important bills through the House
whip an assistant to the party floor leader in the legislature
bill a proposed law
calendar a schedule that lists the order in which bills will be considered in Congress
concurrent jurisdiction authority shared by both federal and state courts
quorum the minimum number of members who must be present to permit a legislative body to
take official action

TAKING NOTES: Key Ideas and Details

IDENTIFYING Use the graphic organizer to identify and describe the House leadership.

Speaker of the House

majority . minority .

majority . minority .

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Reading Essentials and Study Guide

Chapter 5 The Structure of Congress
Lesson 2 The House of Representatives, continued

ESSENTIAL QUESTION
What is the structure and organization of Congress?

If the president dies or is unable to perform his or her duties, the vice president steps in. If the vice
president is unable to perform, the next person in the line of succession is the Speaker of the House,
the most powerful person in the House of Representatives.
Before a person can become Speaker, he or she must already be a member of the House of
Representatives, elected by voters to represent them. The Speaker also must be a member of the
political party that holds the most seats in Congress, called the majority, or majority party. The
Speaker is chosen behind closed doors by the other elected representatives from the majority party.
What do you think about the Speaker’s place in the line of succession? Why is the person who
holds this position a good choice or a bad choice to take over the leadership of the country? Explain
your answer.

Rules in the House

Guiding Question What rules govern lawmaking in the House?
Political differences cannot be avoided in a democracy. Political debates have always caused strong
feelings. There have been angry words and even physical blows during political disputes. Legislators
must be free to say what they believe, but they need rules to help ensure fairness and to protect the
minority. Article I, Section 51 of the Constitution says that each house may set its own rules. Thomas
Jefferson understood the importance of rules when he was vice president. He said that it was very
important to have rules so government could conduct its business in an orderly manner.
Jefferson spent much of his four years as vice president writing Congress’s first rules manual. He
wanted to avoid angry conflicts among members and encourage them to debate in a thoughtful way.
The manual said that members should not speak to each other directly. Instead, they should speak to
the presiding officer. Members could disagree strongly on the issues, but they should not dispute each
other’s goals or criticize each other’s states. Most importantly, members should behave politely in the
chamber. More than 200 years later, Jefferson’s advice still affects the way members of Congress
speak and behave in debates.

Complex Rules
Each chamber uses past rulings as a guide for how to conduct business. The House and Senate each
print their rules every two years. House rules usually describe the actions an individual representative
can take, such as limiting representatives to speaking for five minutes or less during a debate.
Copyright © McGraw-Hill Education

The complex rules in the House are supposed to keep legislation moving quickly after it reaches the
floor of the House, where bills are debated. As a result, House debates rarely last more than one day.
There is another reason that legislation moves quickly in the House. Leaders of the House have more
power than leaders in the Senate. The rules of the House allow its leaders to make key decisions about
legislative work without speaking to other House members.

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Reading Essentials and Study Guide

Chapter 5 The Structure of Congress
Lesson 2 The House of Representatives, continued

Committee Work
The committees of Congress do most of the legislative work. Committee work is more important in
the House than it is in the Senate because the House membership is very large. Members have more
influence in committees than they would on the House floor. Committee work also gives members the
time to study and improve bills.
Members represent districts, so they serve on committees that are important to their constituents.
For example, Congress member Janice Hahn serves on the House Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure. This committee includes smaller subcommittees that deal with the Coast Guard, ocean
transportation, highways, and transit. This committee is a good choice for her because her district is
near Los Angeles and Long Beach, which have major airports, seaports, and auto traffic. She uses her
work on the committee to try to increase funding for construction projects in her district and create
more jobs.

Importance of Party Affiliation

Political parties are important to the way Congress works. The differences between the two parties
can be seen in the chamber. In both the House and Senate, the Republicans and Democrats sit on
opposite sides of the center aisle from each other. In each house, the majority party has the power to
choose the leaders of that house. They also have the power to control the flow of legislation and to
name the chairs of all the committees.
When an election changes the party that has a majority, the new majority party can make many
changes. In 1994 Republicans won many seats in Congress that Democrats had held for years. Newt
Gingrich became the new Speaker, and he promised in his “Contract with America” to make the
House more answerable to the American people. The Republicans’ new rules gave more power to the
Speaker, reduced the number of committees and staff members, and limited the length of time
committee chairs could serve. New rules also ended absentee voting in committees.
The Republican majority forced passage of these new rules even though the Democrats
complained. However, after the Democrats won back the majority in 2006, they kept many of these
rules. Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as Speaker, kept the increased power in the Speaker’s
office and did not strengthen the committees. Like Speakers before her, she used the powers of her
office to keep her party together and push forward its legislative agenda.

Reading Progress Check

Determining Importance How do committees and party affiliation influence lawmaking in
the House?

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Reading Essentials and Study Guide

Chapter 5 The Structure of Congress
Lesson 2 The House of Representatives, continued

House Leadership
Guiding Question Who makes up the House leadership?
Leaders of the House coordinate the work of this large body of 435 members. It is helpful to think of
the leadership’s work as meeting six kinds of goals:
• Organizing and unifying party members
• Scheduling work
• Making certain that lawmakers are present for key floor votes
• Distributing and collecting information
• Keeping the House in touch with the president
• Influencing lawmakers to support their party’s positions

The Speaker of the House

The Speaker of the House is the presiding officer and its most powerful leader. The Constitution states
that the House can choose its Speaker and other officers. A caucus, or closed meeting, of the majority
party chooses the Speaker of the House at the start of each session of Congress. The entire House
membership then approves the choice.
The Speaker has great power because he or she is the presiding officer of the House and is also
the leader of the majority party. The Speaker decides which members to call on first during House
sessions. The Speaker also chooses the members of some committees, schedules bills for action, and
sends bills to the correct House committee. Finally, the Speaker of the House follows the vice president
in the line of succession to the presidency.
Today, Speakers use both persuasion and their powers to influence other members. On an average
day, the Speaker may talk with dozens of members. The Speaker often does this to hear members’
requests for favors. Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, a Speaker of the House in the past, said that
there were many little things you could do for people. In return, the Speaker expects members of the
House to support him or her on important issues.

House Floor Leaders

The Speaker’s top assistant is the majority leader. The majority leader’s job is to help plan the party’s
legislative program, to guide important bills through the House, and to make sure the committee
chairs finish work on bills that are important to the party. The majority leader is the floor leader of his
or her party in the House. Like the Speaker, the majority party elects the majority leader. The
majority leader is not a House leader but rather a party leader.
The majority leader has help from the majority whip and deputy whips. They serve as assistant
floor leaders in the House. The majority whip’s job is to watch how majority-party members plan to
Copyright © McGraw-Hill Education

vote on bills, to persuade them to vote as the party wishes, and to ensure that party members are
present to vote.
The minority party in the House elects its own leaders, the minority leader and the minority whip.
Their duties parallel the duties of the majority party, except that they have no power over scheduling
work in the House.

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Reading Essentials and Study Guide

Chapter 5 The Structure of Congress
Lesson 2 The House of Representatives, continued

Exploring The Essential Question

Analyzing After serving as a representative for 16 years, in 2006 Congressman John Boehner,
a Republican from Ohio, was chosen as the House Majority Leader. Five years later, he
became the Speaker of the House and was reelected to that position by his caucus in 2013. It
is fairly common for the House to choose its Speaker from those who were previously majority
or minority leaders. What skills do you think House majority and minority leaders must
develop and demonstrate? Make a list and rank them. How might this work and experience
help them ascend to the job of Speaker? Do you possess any similar skills or experiences?
What could you do to develop your leadership abilities?

Reading Progress Check

Listing What are the main responsibilities of the Speaker, majority leader, and majority whip?

Lawmaking in the House

Guiding Question How does the House conduct business?
On a typical day, the House of Representatives might look out of order. Representatives are talking in
small groups, reading newspapers, or constantly walking in and out of the chamber. Most
representatives are not even on the floor. They may be in committee meetings, talking with voters, or
in their offices. However, representatives reach the floor quickly when it is time for debate or a vote on
proposed bills.
Usually, the House starts its floor sessions at noon or earlier. Buzzers ring in members’ offices in the
House office buildings, in committee rooms, and in the Capitol to call representatives to the chamber.
The House is normally in session from Monday through Friday. Mondays are for routine work. Not
much is done on Friday because many representatives leave to go to their home districts over the
weekend. Most of the House’s important work is done from Tuesday through Thursday.

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Reading Essentials and Study Guide

Chapter 5 The Structure of Congress
Lesson 2 The House of Representatives, continued

How House Bills Move Through Committees to a Vote

All laws start as bills. A proposed law is called a bill until both houses of Congress pass it and the
president signs it. A representative who wants to introduce a bill in the House puts the bill into the
hopper. The hopper is a wooden box near the front of the chamber that is easy for everyone to reach.
After a bill is introduced, the Speaker of the House sends it to the proper committee. Committee
members study, discuss, and review the bill. Of the thousands of bills that are introduced during each
term of Congress, only about 10 to 20 percent ever go to the full House for a vote. Bills that get through
committee are put on one of the House calendars. Calendars list bills that are up for consideration.

The House Rules Committee

The Rules Committee is very important because it is like a traffic officer. This committee helps direct
the flow of major legislation. It is one of the oldest and most powerful House committees. The chair of
this committee has great influence over legislative activity and how bills move through Congress. After
a committee has considered and approved a major bill, the bill usually goes to the Rules Committee.
The Rules Committee can move bills ahead quickly, hold them back, or stop them. As a result, the
power of the Rules Committee has often been the subject of political battles.
From 1858 to 1910, the Speaker of the House chaired this committee and ruled over the flow of
legislation. In 1911 the House revolted against the controlling leadership of Speaker Joseph G. Cannon
and removed him from the Rules Committee.
Party battles over the Speaker’s power also have happened in recent times. In 1975 Democratic
majorities in the House once again put the Rules Committee under the control of the Speaker.
The Democratic Caucus gave the Speaker the power to choose all majority members of the Rules
Committee, with the approval of the caucus. The Republican Caucus continued to do this when they
gained majority control of the House in 1995. They chose nine members and gave the Democrats the
other four places on the committee. While the members of the Rules Committee are usually senior
representatives, in 2011 Republicans broke with tradition by selecting four freshmen representatives
to serve on the committee.

Function of the Rules Committee

Major bills reach the floor of the House by a rule, or special order, from the Rules Committee. When
major bills come out of committee, they are put on the calendar in the order they are received.
Calendars have a great many bills on them. All of the bills cannot be handled in calendar order,
because many would never reach the floor before the session ended. To solve this problem, the
chairperson of the committee that sent the bill to the Rules Committee can ask for it to move ahead
of other bills. The Rules Committee can also say how long the bill can be debated and revised.
The Rules Committee also settles disputes among other House committees. For example, the Armed
Copyright © McGraw-Hill Education

Services Committee may consider a bill that deals with an issue that is also covered by the Veterans’
Affairs Committee. Sometimes parts of a bill are sent to two or more committees. This is called
concurrent jurisdiction.
Finally, the Rules Committee often holds or stops bills that House members and leaders do not want
to come to a vote on the floor. This can help members avoid taking an unpopular position on a bill
when it reaches the floor.

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Reading Essentials and Study Guide

Chapter 5 The Structure of Congress
Lesson 2 The House of Representatives, continued

A Quorum for Business

A quorum is the minimum number of members needed for official legislative action. For a regular
session, a quorum requires a majority of 218 members. When the House meets to debate and change
legislation, it often sits as a Committee of the Whole. In that case, 100 members constitutes a
quorum. This helps speed consideration of important bills, but the Committee of the Whole cannot
pass a bill. Instead, it sends the bill back to the full House with any changes it makes. The House then
passes or rejects the bill.

Reading Progress Check

Determining Importance What is the function of the House Rules Committee?