Reply #17: Partial answer. [View All]

[Igel]

I assume you mean Senate. It's slightly different in the House. Not greatly for most things.

A minority member has the rights of any other member. Place holds, make motions, vote, raise points of order, asking for rulings and quorum calls. It also has a right to representation on committees. And members, regardless of minority/majority, can have stuff that never formed part of the proceedings inserted into the official records as though it was part of the proceedings.

The majority gets to decide who the chairman is. The chair sets the agenda. The chair gets to decide when there's a recess and not. Granted, these are generally part of the consent order for the day and can be overriden by vote, but the majority tends to not challenge what the majority leader says on this matter (esp. if the majority leader consults with the majority members). The chair, since s/he decides the agenda--here not meaning "goals" but the actual meeting agendas--will be able to schedule things for votes; he usually has an idea of the schedule he'd like to see things run on.

A good leader polls his party caucus and makes sure that everybody's is or at least sufficient are on board. If you're a Democrat, have 60 votes and can't find a compromise that makes your bill a bill that the Democratic caucus will support, or find repub votes, then you're probably not being a good leader or the majority whip is being a bad whip. The whip is the enforcer: s/he and the leader should find a way of issuing threats and bribes to make sure there's sufficient party unity or the leader makes sure that important legislative goals pass, but also (unfortunately) as a politician looks to make sure that the Senate proceedings as a whole serve partisan political ends and helps keep his party in power and wins elections; Senate rules allow this. (Note that party-purity requirements are purely political and partisan, and that while the Senate sort-of/kind-of allows the chair to run the Senate as his persoanl satrapy this usually ends badly without nearly absolute majority buy-in.)

The chair also appoints the chair of committees and, I believe, the members. It's a courtesy to consider seniority and senator's wishes in the matter. The majority gets a majority on every committee. When special panels and committees are formed, they routinely get majority majorities. I believe the parliamentarian is also appointed by the majority. Chair is also nominally involved in allocating space and funding; the minority tends to get worse and less space, as well as less funding. Some of both are mandatory and the chair can't control that; some isn't.

The chair and rules committee propose the Senate rules that are voted on (typically by consent) as a matter of course as one of the first bills. The chair is the main go-to guy for dealing with the House leadership. Moreover, manager's bills or amendments in the Senate are usually the Senate's chair's bill, in consultation with other committee chairs. A manager's bill is legislation drawn up by the leadership to either reconcile a series of divergent bills coming out of committee, or to simply the reconciliation process between House and Senate bills and avoid a conference committee.

The Senate majority leader also tends to have more of a bully pulpit in the media and more access to slush funds, lobbyists, and the president. Apart from having more control over Senate funds, these are all informal and pragmatic consequences. Note that you want things resolved in committee because you don't get no stinkin' cloture votes in committees. Moreover, committee chairs can deep 6 items referred to it. You want something buried, send it to a committee with a hostile chair. The minority members may whine, but committee-internal politics aren't typically front-page news. Moreover, since the committee chairs are in charge of scheduling hearings, the people invited to testify, and starting the subpoena process, being chair is a Desired Thing. As majority leader, you want chairs that match your personal or party's goals: They deep 6 what you want canned, they hold hearings on matters that advances your goals, they squelch or fast-track legislation as needed. Committees are were a lot of the really serious politicking happens, and the minority is fairly pointless there.

The committees are also where compromises and bipartisanship really take place. If you have a dysfunctional Senate, look at the committee chairs first and foremost. (NB: It's pretty much the last place people look.) When you get something coming out of committee on a straight party-line vote with the majority saying the process wasn't fair, a lot of senators will back up their colleagues on the committee. This little detail isn't a repub or dem matter. Both parties do it, for good reason. On the other hand, committee dysfunction can result from having the entire Senate split so that dems or repubs vote party-line not because of (un)fairness or disagreement with the proposed legislation, but just to make a point. Since the majority in the Senate has a majority on all committees, minority participation is, quite frankly, unnecessary--except that screwing with the minority there feeds ill-will in the Senate as a whole.

The majority of the Senate in attendance--a super majority in cases of ending debate--also decides legislation. This can include accepting amendments.

Holds are a "courtesy" given to members to show courtesy to the chair and most useful in the hands of minority members (or dissidenting members of the majoriy). They're meaningless except as a courtesy. They require two to participate for any abuse--the rank-and-file senator and the Senate chair. If Senator N.O. Way places a hold on a nomination or bill he's just saying that he intends to filibuster. Chair Ramit Through should consider that as a friendly warning. He can ignore it. If Senator Through thinks he has the votes and the time, he calls for cloture vote. Problem solved. Unless he likes being able to complain that all these holds are tying his hands. Often pointing at a hold as an excuse means (1) the chair and whip couldn't muster votes to get it past cloture or (2) the chair begrudges the time necessary for the cloture vote. In the case of (2) it really means either the chair benefits or simply doesn't think the legislation/nomination the hold's holding up matter as much as other things.

Many of the chair's privileges can be overriden. Mostly they're not.