Standing Committee Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Standing committees are permanent panels with fixed subject matter jurisdictions created by the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Almost all legislative proposals introduced in Congress go to standing committees for consideration and possible processing into bills; most proposals never progress further and thus “die” in committee. Committee consideration of a bill usually follows three steps: public hearings to gather information, markups to review the proposed text and determine the final language, and reports to send approved bills to the floor for a vote.

The committee system helps legislators divide labor, address constituent concerns, and develop policy expertise. The party with control of each chamber holds a majority on its committees and selects the committee chairs. Party leaders also control the size, ratio of Republicans to Democrats, and membership of committees. Legislators seek committee assignments based on issues of greatest interest in their state or district, their personal policy goals, and their desire to gain influence.

The first standing committee, the House Committee on Ways and Means, began in the 4th Congress (1795) to review financial legislation. By the 1820s, both the House and Senate relied on standing committees to process legislative proposals. As of the 111th Congress (2009–2010) the House had twenty standing committees with eighty-four subcommittees, and the Senate divided its work between sixteen standing committees and sixty-eight subcommittees.

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