Examine the roles of standing committees in the US Congress. (10 MARKS) AQA

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate work through Congress Committees. These committees allow much of the more detailed work of Congress to be undertaken.

The first and most important function of a standing committee is to conduct the committee stage bills in the legislative process. They scrutinise legislation. This involves holding “hearings” with “witnesses” being called and evidence being taken. Witnesses may be: other congress members or ordinary members of the public. The legislation can be altered a lot at the committee stage of legislation. This is the stage where most legislation fails. After the hearings, conclusions are made and a vote is taken by the committee on whether or not to pass the bill on to its second reading which is the next stage in the legislative process. The fact that this stage is before the first discussion of the law makes the standing committee very significant.

The second common function is scrutiny. Each executive department can face scrutiny from specific committees in both houses. The standing committees have congressional oversight of the executive branch. They conduct investigations within the committee’s policy area. They attempt to answer questions like: “Why did this happen? And Is new legislation required? Examples of these committees are the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the House Budget Committee which is chaired by Congressman Paul Ryan.
Both of these roles enabled the committee members to have considerable expertise in specific policy areas.

The third function is confirming presidential appointments. This only applies to the Senate. This provides committees in the Senate with particular power in relation to the executive branch. It is up to the Senate to make the final decision. The 2 committees that are