Congress at War

Congress at War PDF Author: Charles A. Stevenson
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1612343856
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Get Book Here

Book Description
Congress at War reviews the historical record of the U.S. Congress in authorizing, funding, overseeing, and terminating major military operations. Refuting arguments that Congress cannot and should not set limits or conditions on the use of U.S. armed forces, this book catalogs the many times when previous Congresses have enacted restrictions--often with the acceptance and compliance of wartime presidents. While Congress has formally declared war only five times in U.S. history, it has authorized the use of force fifteen other times. In recent decades, however, lawmakers have weakened their Constitutional claims by failing on several occasions to enact measures either supporting or opposing military operations ordered by the president. Concise, dramatically written, and illustrated with several summary tables, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in America's wars--past or present.

Congress at War

Congress at War PDF Author: Charles A. Stevenson
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1612343856
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Get Book Here

Book Description
Congress at War reviews the historical record of the U.S. Congress in authorizing, funding, overseeing, and terminating major military operations. Refuting arguments that Congress cannot and should not set limits or conditions on the use of U.S. armed forces, this book catalogs the many times when previous Congresses have enacted restrictions--often with the acceptance and compliance of wartime presidents. While Congress has formally declared war only five times in U.S. history, it has authorized the use of force fifteen other times. In recent decades, however, lawmakers have weakened their Constitutional claims by failing on several occasions to enact measures either supporting or opposing military operations ordered by the president. Concise, dramatically written, and illustrated with several summary tables, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in America's wars--past or present.

Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President

Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President PDF Author: Louis Fisher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
A classic on the separation of powers, this book dissects the crucial constitutional disputes between the executive and legislative branches from the Constitutional Convention to the present day. New material includes military tribunals and NSA eavesdropping, disputes over executive orders, state secrets privilege, and post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Insecure Majorities

Insecure Majorities PDF Author: Frances E. Lee
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640918X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book Here

Book Description
“[A] tour de force. Building upon her argument in Beyond Ideology, she adds an important wrinkle into the current divide between the parties in Congress.” —Perspectives on Politics As Democrats and Republicans continue to vie for political advantage, Congress remains paralyzed by partisan conflict. That the last two decades have seen some of the least productive Congresses in recent history is usually explained by the growing ideological gulf between the parties, but this explanation misses another fundamental factor influencing the dynamic. In contrast to politics through most of the twentieth century, the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties compete for control of Congress at relative parity, and this has dramatically changed the parties’ incentives and strategies in ways that have driven the contentious partisanship characteristic of contemporary American politics. With Insecure Majorities, Frances E. Lee offers a controversial new perspective on the rise of congressional party conflict, showing how the shift in competitive circumstances has had a profound impact on how Democrats and Republicans interact. Beginning in the 1980s, most elections since have offered the prospect of a change of party control. Lee shows, through an impressive range of interviews and analysis, how competition for control of the government drives members of both parties to participate in actions that promote their own party’s image and undercut that of the opposition, including the perpetual hunt for issues that can score political points by putting the opposing party on the wrong side of public opinion. More often than not, this strategy stands in the way of productive bipartisan cooperation—and it is also unlikely to change as long as control of the government remains within reach for both parties.

Congress and U.S. Veterans

Congress and U.S. Veterans PDF Author: Lindsey Cormack
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
Providing a compelling look at veterans' policy, this book describes why the Republican party is considered the party for veterans despite the fact that Congressional Democrats are responsible for a greater number of policy initiatives. The United States is home to 21 million veterans, and Veterans' Affairs is the second-largest federal department, with a budget exceeding $119 billion. Many veterans, however, remain under-served. Republicans are seen as veterans' champions, and they send the majority of Congressional constituent communications on veterans' issues, yet they are lead sponsors on only 37 percent of bills considered by the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. What accounts for this discrepancy? Drawing on thousands of e-newsletters sent from Congress to constituents, Congress and U.S. Veterans: From the GI Bill to the VA Crisis argues that the distribution of veterans across districts and the Republican Party is based on government spending, which pulls Republican legislators in opposite directions. This eye-opening book offers a history of veterans' programs, highlights legislative leaders and the most pressing policy areas for reform, identifies the issues most often discussed by members of Congress from each party, points out which Congresspeople have acted on veterans' issues and which have not, and offers an analysis of veteran population distribution and legislative policy preferences.

Is Congress Broken?

Is Congress Broken? PDF Author: Gary J. Schmitt
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815730373
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Get Book Here

Book Description
" Making Congress Work, Again, Within the Constitutional System Congress for many years has ranked low in public esteem—joining journalists, bankers, and union leaders at the bottom of polls. And in recent years there's been good reason for the public disregard, with the rise of hyper-partisanship and the increasing inability of Congress to carry out its required duties, such as passing spending bills on time and conducting responsible oversight of the executive branch. Congress seems so dysfunctional that many observers have all but thrown up their hands in despair, suggesting that an apparently broken U.S. political system might need to be replaced. Now, some of the country's foremost experts on Congress are reminding us that tough hyper-partisan conflict always has been a hallmark of the constitutional system. Going back to the nation's early decades, Congress has experienced periods of division and turmoil. But even in those periods Congress has been able to engage in serious deliberation, prevent ill-considered proposals from becoming law—and, over time, help develop a deeper, more lasting national consensus. The ten chapters in this volume focus on how Congress in the twenty-first century can once again fulfill its proper functions of representation, deliberation, legislation, and oversight. The authors offer a series of practical reforms that would maintain, rather than replace, the constitutional separation of powers that has served the nation well for more than 200 years. "

A Social Theory of Congress

A Social Theory of Congress PDF Author: Brian Alexander
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793601283
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Get Book Here

Book Description
What is the role that norms play in the U.S. Congress? At a time of unprecedented partisanship and high-profile breaches of legislative norms in the modern Congress, the relationship between norms and the functioning of the institution is a growing and pressing concern. Despite the importance of the topic, recent scholarship has not focused on congressional norms. Meanwhile, previous research leaves open many relevant questions about the role of norms in the Congress of the twenty-first century. A Social Theory of Congress brings norms back in to the study of Congress by defining what are legislative norms, identifying which norms currently exist in the U.S. Congress, and examining the effects that congressional norms have. This book provides a new research approach to study congressional norms through a comprehensive review of previous scholarship and a combination of interviews, survey research, and analysis of member behavior. What’s more, an innovative theoretical framework — a social theory of Congress — provides new perspectives in the study of legislatures and political behavior. The findings are striking. Norms of cooperation are surprisingly alive and well in an otherwise partisan Congress. But norms of conflict are on the rise. In addition, norms of a changing culture are affecting how members understand their role as lawmakers and in their interactions among one another. Together, these findings suggest that norms play an important role in the functioning of the legislature and as norms evolve so too does the performance of Congress in American democracy.

The Broken Branch

The Broken Branch PDF Author: Thomas E. Mann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195368711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Two nationally renowned congressional scholars review the evolution of Congress from the early days of the republic to 2006, arguing that extreme partisanship and a disregard for institutional procedures are responsible for the institution's current state of dysfunction.

Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy

Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy PDF Author: Ralph G. Carter
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538151243
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
Leading scholars in the study of congress and US foreign policy address congress’s vital role in determining how and why the US chooses it's international policy agendas. They address key aspects of congressional activism, assertiveness, and acquiescence in an era of divided government and polarized politics.

Congress at War

Congress at War PDF Author: Fergus M. Bordewich
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 045149444X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493

Get Book Here

Book Description
The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War-placing a dynamic House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict.

Inside Congress

Inside Congress PDF Author: Trevor Corning
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815727348
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 76

Get Book Here

Book Description
Required reading for anyone who wants to understand how to work within Congress. The House and Senate have unique rules and procedures to determine how legislation moves from a policy idea to law. Evolved over the last 200 years, the rules of both chambers are designed to act as the engine for that process. Each legislative body has its own leadership positions to oversee this legislative process. To the novice, whether a newly elected representative, a lawmaker's staff on her first day at work, or a constituent visiting Washington, the entire process can seem incomprehensible. What is an open rule for a House Appropriations bill and how does it affect consideration? Why are unanimous consent agreements needed in the Senate? The authors of Inside Congress, all congressional veterans, have written the definitive guide to how Congress really works. It is the accessible and necessary resource to understanding and interpreting procedural tools, arcane precedents, and the role of party politics in the making of legislation in Congress.