All right, so let's get started. So we're going to finish up our discussion on Congress, and then you should have your midterm after this lecture. And hopefully this lecture won't be as long as the last one.
So, again, you'll have to pardon me. I have this cold coming on here. Okay.
So we left off talking about incumbents, right? An incumbent is the current officeholder. And we pointed out last class that the incumbent has an advantage, right? Because we said Congress has very low approval ratings, miserably low.
Yet, congressmen and women are reelected at 96%, 98%. So what is the story here? Well, it turns out if you're an incumbent you have huge advantages over any potential challenger from the other party. And in fact, incumbency advantage is the most important factor in any election. So the current office holder is the incumbent, right?
So the incumbent in congressional elections wins between 96% and 98% of the time. So if you're already in Congress, you are likely to stay in Congress, right? Because the incumbent almost always wins.
So why do they have this advantage? Well... First of all, if they've been in Congress for a while, right, they have a legislative history, hopefully, right? They've accomplished some things.
So I mentioned earlier, and I have underneath incumbent... advantage on the slide here it says casework so so casework is enormously important just it's a record of not just legislation but but a record of service to the constituents So having that long history builds up loyalty over time. So very, very important. And that's why, you know, in our district, a very Republican district, the Democrat... who I know very well is a friend of mine, Tim Bishop, the Democrat prior to the current Republican, he was in office for 12 years.
Very difficult for a Democrat to do when Republicans outnumber Democrats two to one, at least, in this district. district. But Tim Bishop, as the Democrat, built up a lot of loyalty, even among Republicans, built up a lot of loyalty, and we talked about that.
Now, I have here, it says, well, incumbency advantage, let's just give our definition because it will be on the exam. The incumbency advantage is the electoral edge afforded to those already in office. And one of the more interesting elements of this is name recognition. So have you ever been driving down Nichols Road on your way to Stony Brook University, and it's during election season, so let's say it's November of any year, and you'll see millions of election signs.
Millions of them, not millions, but you'll see hundreds. So, you know... what gives here? What's the logic behind that? The logic is, it actually works.
Seeing that same name over and over and over again, psychologically, this has an effect on you, and they know this. So they try to put that name, even if you don't look at it directly, even if you're looking at it with your peripheral vision, it will... still register in your mind.
The psychology of name recognition is fairly fascinating. It basically has to do with our desire to find comfort in things familiar, right? You wonder why you heard a song for the first time and you're like, wow, that song sucks.
I'm never going to listen to that song again. Then you hear it a few more times and it grows on you. Why does the song grow on you?
Because you're actually liking it more and more as it becomes familiar, not necessarily because the harmonies or whatever components of the song that you generally will like immediately are not so apparent. It's just hearing it and repeating it over and over. will make you like it.
Well, it's the same thing with name recognition. So if it's a famous name and you hear the name over and over, right, you're going to vote for that person. You automatically want to vote for that person. If you know nothing about politics but you want to vote, you feel it's your civic duty, whatever name you choose, name you're familiar with, you're going to vote for. And that's why there's millions of signs all over the place.
Lee Zeldin, I got to say, he's our current congressman. He actually went around and collected all those signs again and reused them like every two years. I don't know if he keeps them in his garage or something, but there's like thousands of signs, and he doesn't want to just spend on new ones, so he puts old ones out with his name on it.
Very smart. I don't know of any politician who does that, other than your congressman. So, name recognition. There was a movie with Eddie Murphy who was like...
you know, a con artist, but with a heart of gold, you know, you've seen these storylines before, where he wants to get elected to Congress because he feels, hey, this is a good gig, right? So he wants to get elected to Congress. So a congressman dies, and he moves into the district where this congressman passes away, and he knows that name recognition will get him elected.
So he legally changes his name to the dead congressman, and he gets elected to Congress. Right? It's a good scam, right?
So, and then, you know, it breaks down into, like, your typical formula where, you know, this guy who's like a rogue and, you know, a con artist, he actually does the right thing, of course, but whatever that means. So, um... So name recognition is enormously important, and that also plays a role in just hearing the same name over and over.
Now, so I get so last lecture, I tell you how frustrated I am with Democrats. and it's not on policy. It's just that they seem so stupid, right? They can't run an election well, and Republicans are...
Listen, Democrats, you guys got to learn how to, like, run elections. And name recognition is so important. Lee Zeldin is the Republican, right?
Very easy name. Zeldin. And if you live in Selden, everyone in Selden, New York, is going to vote for Lee Zeldin, right? Because, you know, I'm not going to go into the weeds on that one, but you get it. So, Gene...
Do you know who the Democratic challenger was two years ago against Lee Zeldin? Her name was Anna Throne Holst. Anna Throne Holst. Is that an easy name to remember?
You know, why would she... Democrats, my God. Don't pick someone with a name like this. Or change her name to Throne or Holst, but not Anna Throne Holst. Because nobody can remember that name.
And this seems like a very pedantic thing to be talking about. But if you understand how to win elections, Democrats didn't even think twice about this, and they should. She could have done a funny Game of Thrones thing with a name like Throne, right?
She could have dressed her as Daenerys and said Targaryens in 2018 or 2016 or whatever, whatever. But the idea is Democrats just aren't good at these things. And again, I said it last class.
Do you remember the Democrat's name? Anna Throne Holst. Right?
Ridiculous. It's so stupid. So with a very difficult name like that, you're just not going to get elected. As sorry as that is to say, she actually was a very good quality candidate in a lot of ways, let's say.
So... So, but with a name like that, you're not getting elected. It's not up for debate, guys.
You have a huge strike against you if you have miserable name recognition like that. And, you know, the Democratic leadership in New York, it just doesn't take these things into consideration. They're just not smart.
I think it's because, like I said, Republicans tend to be more business-oriented. They're able to accomplish logistics very well, just general as a broad. broad, as a broad, you know, generality here. And I only know this from, from my own personal experience being intimately involved with the leadership in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. I am close friends with, with a lot of powerful Democrats and powerful Republicans.
And I can tell you the culture between the two is very different. Democrats don't work long hours. I had the Suffolk County Democratic Committee come into my class to recruit interns. And they're dressed in dirty jeans and a flannel, and the guy who promised to come, who was the campaign manager, didn't come.
He sent like a surrogate. I ask Republicans to come. Well, they actually do what they say they're going to do. to do.
They sent the campaign manager herself. She actually had her assistant. They came well prepared. They said, look, you know, we don't take registered Democrats. But the Democrats said, hey, we will take registered Republicans.
And that you invite so much trouble if you have registered members of the other party working on your campaign. Because they're spies. Look, this happens.
They spy on you and they report back to the party that they're loyal to. You're just dumb if you allow members of your other party to work on your campaign. It's like suicide. So Republicans don't do that.
And they. They tell you up front, if you're a Democrat, you're better off working for a Democrat. Basically, politely saying, we don't want you, which is the right thing to do. So, you know, Democrats would win a lot more elections if they were just better at campaigns.
But they're not. They suck. And I don't mean that they're bad. I mean they really suck.
They can't, you know, it's so frustrating. It frustrates me. The Republicans. Republican National Committee, they have, it's called the Campaign Management College.
You can Google it. They have a whole training program to train people in campaigns, in national campaigns. Right?
Democrats have nothing like it. And I always encourage my Democrat students, listen, oh, there's Republicans or conservatives. There's a whole, they have a whole, hold on. So what am I looking for? Leadership Institute.
So the Leadership Institute is an organization that trains conservatives from anywhere. Their job is to train conservatives. Look at this. They have online training, introduction to blogging, future candidate workshop, youth leadership school. So basically, they're training conservatives to fight liberals everywhere.
Democrats have nothing like this. They have nothing like this. Right? Future candidate workshop.
You know? They actually will pay for you to go if you're indigent, by the way. So, I mean, it's unbelievable. Democrats don't have anything like this.
I've been trying to get college Democrats to start an organization that will train young liberals, right? Because Democrats have nothing like this. So part of the reason so, you know, I'm off the rails here again, but, you know.
But this is a very important thing to understand. Democrats are not good at campaigning. Clearly. So that's that.
So if you are a young Democrat and you want to help the Democrat Party, you should look into the Leadership Institute. And again, I do have some college Democrats who do who are interested in forming an organization. organization to train young liberals into the future, something they want to basically create a leadership institute for liberals.
If you're interested in that, get in touch with me and I'll get you in touch with College Democrats. But, you know, that's a big undertaking. It really is.
But, I mean, if you're a good Democrat and you want to spend the rest of your life doing that, you should be doing that. Republicans are so good at this, and Democrats suck at it, because there's no training on the Democrat side. I don't know why that is. I just don't know. But anyway, oh, and also the Republican National Committee, they have a campaign finance school, too.
So you'll learn to fundraise, and the Leadership Institute teaches you how to fundraise, too. So it's... Republicans are just so much more organized than Democrats at every level in terms of campaigns.
And for you Democrats, I'm just saying this is a problem, and hopefully you Democrats will try and work on it. And listen, even you Republicans, you don't want the Democratic Party to be so destroyed, right? You want the Democratic Party to be strong, to challenge you, because competition in politics is something that you should be in favor of, of course.
All right, so name recognition, very important. Lack of quality challengers. So there are a lot of bad challengers. Because a quality challenger knows that it's hard to beat an incumbent, right?
Because they have all these advantages. So a quality challenger is going to be strategic, and they're going to wait for a good opportunity and run for an open seat, right? Where there's no incumbent, like someone's retiring, right? And so a lot of challengers that run against powerful incumbents are what we call sacrificial lambs, right?
The party knows they won't win. But they hope. they'll win.
They hope the opponent does something stupid and the challenger catches on and becomes popular. But usually a sacrificial lamb will not get party backing, will not get nearly the money they need to win. That money goes to the seats that are competitive, to the swing districts, to the swing states, to the marginal districts. Okay. Now there's another advantage here, and I also should say, I failed to say about name recognition, that that goes hand in hand with better ability to fundraise, right?
If you're a famous congressman, right? and everyone's heard of you, right? That name recognition translates to you being able to raise more money. Our current congressman is very high profile. He's on the news all the time.
He's on national news all the time. Our previous congressman... Congressman, the Democrat, he kept his head low.
Sometimes that's a good strategy, by the way. Just, you know, don't be in the public too much. Well, what does this mean then if you're able to raise more money?
Well, it means that you're hiring and paying professionals, campaign professionals, instead of relying on volunteers that have no idea what they're doing, right? So you hire pros to make negative ads and run radio and TV commercials and you get all All sorts of stuff from, you know, money buys you a lot, right? And an incumbent also has something called franking privileges.
And this is essentially a mailing privilege. An incumbent congressman can do mass mailings to his entire district, essentially bragging about what he or she is doing in Congress. Now, this cannot be campaign material. But it essentially serves the same purpose, right?
You know, you don't see those... The congressman can send out newsletters bragging about what they're doing, but a lot of times you don't see them until like mid-October of an election year. That's when they do all the mailings, right? And this is a huge advantage to be able to use taxpayer dollars to quote-unquote inform the people of what you're doing in your district, right?
A challenger has to pay for that postage. on mass mailings. Huge, huge advantage.
So these are all sorts of incumbency advantages. Name recognition, lack of quality challengers, casework, better ability to fundraise, and franking privileges. But on the exam, I'm just going to ask you what is incumbency advantage, right?
Incumbency is the greatest predictor of who will win an election. Okay, so... So we've talked about congressional districts within states, but what about, how does congressional politics affect national politics, right? So how does national politics affect congressional elections and vice versa, right?
So sometimes national politics matters a lot, and sometimes it doesn't, right? So in 2008... Barack Obama was very popular.
He gave, his speech announcing for president was unbelievable. It was amazing. It was amazing. His speech at the Democratic National Committee, I think it was two years prior, amazing. So in 2008, Barack Obama and the Democrats were extremely popular nationally.
Right? So in 2008, a Democrat's chances to win a House seat, that increases during those times when the president... of your party is very popular.
Again, this is called the coattail effect, as we're going to get to. But we normally think about this idea of a coattail effect. with the president.
So if the president is very popular, the president pulls members of his own party into office with him. And it's said that the candidate... is riding the president's coattails. So did you ever see like the Monopoly guy?
He has like a tuxedo and his coat has like those long tails that are like on the ground. And it's like the president's walking along with his coattails dragging on the ground and members of the Democratic Party, they jump onto the coattails and they ride them into the White House or they ride them into government with the president. So the coattail effect is, and let's just read off the slide here, the added votes received.
by congressional candidates of a winning presidential party. So normally we think about it when it comes to presidents. The president pulls in members of his own party into office if he or someday very soon probably she is very popular. So coattails are the president's ability to get members of his own party elected. So if you like Barack Obama, you're more likely to vote for his party.
Your positive feelings for Barack Obama translate to the entire democracy. party. Now, there can also be reverse coattails, right? If you don't like a candidate, well, you might just automatically not like their party, right? So a lot of people don't like Donald Trump.
Well, that translates to the Republican party. party, his party, right? So, you know, if a lot of people don't like, I'm not picking on Republicans, as you know, I don't like to pick on Republicans or anybody, or Democrats, but I have been picking on Democrats because you never hear that argument, I'm sure, or rarely do. So these reverse coattails, if you don't like President Trump, well, you're not going to vote for him, but you're going to vote for the other party, or you might just not vote, right? A lot of Republicans that I know, personally...
they're not enthusiastic about voting for their party. Why? Because they don't like Trump. So that can actually translate to reverse coattails.
So, okay, let's talk about this for a second. Excuse me. The party itself...
Excuse me. If you're a member of a party, of a political party, you have a responsibility to that party. But again, you also have a responsibility to your district, right? So in party-centered politics, when we are in an era where the parties are very...
powerful, Congress focuses on the party responsibility, right? So the party, once it's elected, it wants to fulfill its campaign promises, right? So the member is focused on the priorities of the party. the party and the party platform, right? So now contrast this with the idea of representation, right?
The focus of the candidate is not centered on the political party. It's focusing on your district, right? You know, screw the party, screw the national party agenda and their interests. I'm going to focus on what will benefit the people of my district and or get me elected, right?
Which is not necessarily both the same thing. So, you know, it's basically I don't care about the team. I care more about getting elected in my district, right?
And often this leads to pork barrel legislation. So pork barrel legislation is the idea that you're bringing it's called bringing home the bacon. This is a term in politics that is used constantly. It's overused.
I hate even saying it because I've heard it 8 billion times. But bringing home the bacon to your district means taking money from the national government for pet projects within your own district that benefit... fit who? Only the constituents within your district. And it might not even be that many constituents in your district, right?
And, you know, we've talked a bit about this already, right? Federal money for district projects. And these are problematic.
Because it's spending a lot of money, but it doesn't help the nation as a whole. So, just to give you an example, the world's largest cast iron statue is in Birmingham, Alabama. A few years ago, it needed to be refurbished.
So the congressman from Birmingham, he got legislation and millions of dollars to refurbish this statue. And this is representation. It's candidate-centered legislation, classic pork barreling.
It's getting money. Who does this benefit to refurbish this crappy statue? Right? Well, only the people in Birmingham and only the people in the areas immediately surrounding where this statue is.
But it doesn't help anyone else. But it does help those members get re-elected. Right?
And so this is candidate-centered politics. Now, Pork Project's... They can be also very, it doesn't have to be like, you know, a statue or something like that. You know, it can be something significant like building a bridge that definitely needs to be rebuilt. But oftentimes we rebuild bridges and repave roads that...
do not need repaving. We do it to stimulate jobs. And if you know anything about economics, this is not a good idea.
It's a waste of money. So that's why it can be bad. And this is why, part of the reason, it's not the only reason.
But it's part of the reason why we have a $21 trillion deficit. The problems regarding our deficit are far deeper, as we talked about earlier. So port projects get congressmen elected.
And so candidate-centered politics leads to something called log rolling. And this is when so even though the Democratic Party and the Republican parties on the whole, they may be calling for fiscal responsibility, right? Because they all say we have to be fiscally responsible, right? But they all still spend like drunken Marxists, as I repeat all the time.
Log rolling is essentially one congressman saying to another of either party, it doesn't matter, look, you support my pet project, my statue in Alabama, and I'll support your pet project of money to repave roads that don't need repaving. Right? So log rolling basically means it's horse trading, as we said before when we talked about gerrymandering.
It's trading votes. It's saying, I scratch your back, you'll scratch mine. I'll support your pet project if you promise to support mine.
And so this is working together to pass each other's district agendas. And this, of course, doesn't necessarily produce the best outcomes for everyone. But it helps the individuals who are involved in the log rolling.
So John. John McCain and Russ Feingold, so Republican John McCain and Democrat Russ Feingold, they have famously fought against this. They feel that this does not inspire the best outcomes for the greater good of all the people.
Because this is a collective action problem. This is a classic collective action problem. How do you get people to sacrifice their self-interest for the greater good?
Why don't we just say, you know, nobody paid attention to John McCain. Senator McCain and Senator Feingold when they wanted to get rid of the pork, right? Because they think they won't get elected or reelected unless they have pork.
So pork barreling only helps usually one district, maybe two, but certainly not the nation as a whole. And if you think of tariffs on Chinese steel, for example, to help five or six congressional districts in U.S. steel production districts. districts, well, those tariffs on Chinese steel, what, drive up the price of steel over the entire country.
And that makes everyone suffer to help protect these, you know, 16,000 steel workers in Pennsylvania. Right? And everyone suffers through higher prices of vehicles and construction and everything else. So people don't really understand the ramifications of this, of things like tariffs on Chinese steel.
You think you're supporting members of you think you're supporting jobs in Pennsylvania when actually you're hurting the entire American economy and you're hurting all of your constituents. Ultimately. So there's a lot of literature on this.
I'm not going to beat this to death here. So I want to talk now about the structure of both chambers of Congress. So the Speaker of the House is the top post.
It is the most powerful position in Congress, and it is the most powerful position in the House of Representatives. Right? So the Speaker of the House is the top post.
the House is the leader of and elected by the majority party in the House of Representatives. And this person serves as the presiding officer, right, of the House. So the Speaker of the House basically runs the House for the majority party.
Now, in the Senate, the presiding officer is really the vice president. But it's not the most the vice president is president of the Senate. Right? So whenever you hear senators address the chair in the Senate, they say, Mr. President, because they're the president of the Senate.
The vice president is the president of the Senate. And the vice president, this is a very underappreciated power. The executive...
has a very, very powerful legislative power in the Senate, and that is the vice president can cast the tie-breaking vote if needed in the Senate. And just recently, you know, Vice President Pence has actually done that. So, but vice presidents are never in the Senate, right? So, so... So the Senate appoints what's called a president pro tempore.
And it's basically officially electing someone within the Senate. Usually it's someone very distinguished, right? Like currently the president pro tempore is Orrin Hatch.
Senator Orrin Hatch is the longest serving current U.S. senator. He's going to be retiring soon. But he's the president pro tempore. But usually even the president pro tempore does not act as the presiding officer. They usually give it to they usually have have someone act as the president pro tempore, and that's sort of a crappy job, and it's fairly unimportant.
You have an official president pro tempore, but when he doesn't act as the presiding officer, then a very junior senator with very little experience will actually get that position. It's not a power position, but they get to run the Senate, and it gives them. it gives them experience in legislative procedure.
So it is actually helpful, but it is kind of a crappy job. So the real power in the Senate is the Senate majority leader. So the Senate majority leader is the leader of and elected by the majority party.
So that's the top post. So I'm just going to repeat this because our next slide is going to be confusing. And I'm going to go back to the beginning. And I'm sorry it's so confusing.
I'm going to go through it, but I'm not going to test you on a lot of it because it's a little messy. But just know this. The top post in the House of Representatives is the Speaker of the House, and it's the most powerful post.
But the top position in the Senate is the Senate Majority Leader. That's the top position. So how the leadership structure or hierarchy works like this.
So we just said the Speaker of the House is the top post in the House, right? And of course, the Speaker of the House is this, is, is the, is, he's running the majority party. So we're going to talk about the majority party really quick.
The Speaker of the House is the presiding officer, but again, there's always someone who acts in lieu of the Speaker of the House when the Speaker is not there, because the Speaker has bigger things to do than just sit and run debate. Well, the same thing with the President pro tempore. Orrin Hatch is a very distinguished senator. He is elected by the Senate as the president pro tempore, but he very rarely just sits at the gavel and runs debates.
So they get a junior senator to basically do that. So the top post is this but the president pro tempore or whoever is the acting president pro tempore acts as the presiding officer. I know this is so confusing. Just bear with me here. You're not going to have to know all this, but I do want you to understand it.
Now, this is why it gets confusing. PowerPost in the Senate is the majority leader, right? That's the leader of the majority party.
So right now so the majority leader in the Senate runs is the PowerPost in the Senate. But there's also a majority leader in the House of Representatives, but that person is the number two position in the House of Representatives. I know, it's so confusing.
So the majority leader is the top post in the Senate. The majority leader is the number two post in the Senate. Now, both majority leaders have an important job, and that is to run their respective campaign committee chairs. Part of the job of the majority leader in both houses is to help candidates of their own party get into office.
So that's their job. They run this at the national level, right? Now, in the Senate, there's also the assistant majority leader, which is sort of self-explanatory. And there's also a sort of assistant majority leader in the House, and that person is called the whip.
So... So the majority whip puts pressure, party pressure, on some representatives, right? Because they want the members of their party to vote the party way, right? So whips pressure other members of the party to vote the party way, and usually they'll first try to help the member, right?
Say, look, we'll help you with certain projects within your district, right? Right. but if the member is very uncooperative, they can and often do threaten that member, right?
So, but you try not to, right? So where does the term whip come from? So there's a whip also in the UK Parliament, in the British House of Commons. It comes from the English sport, quote-unquote. I don't think it's a sport.
My own opinion here. Uh... is the sport of fox hunting.
So fox hunting in England, it's now outlawed because it's cruel, but you have the bloodhounds, right, are released. The hounds are released, and they track down the fox, and they corner the fox, and then, you know, the people ride, the people who are engaging in this sport, they ride on their horses, they follow the bloodhounds to the fox, and then they shoot and kill the fox, right? This is not a sport as far as I'm concerned. It's very cruel, actually.
Thank you. Not fun for the fox. So there is always this guy who is in charge of the hounds.
So, and, you know, you know dogs, right? Who here has a dog? Well, you know that dogs, when dogs are outside, right, and they're sniffing around, and they're like, oh, yeah, oh, you know, they're all excited, and then, you know, they smell squirrel shit, and they start...
licking the squirrel shit and you have to say, hey, get out of there. Don't do that. Come on, let's go. So dogs get distracted, right?
So there's a guy who always, during fox hunting, manages the dogs. And his job is to whip the dogs in line, stop them from getting interested in squirrel shit and have them chase down the fox, right? So that's the idea of the majority whip. Keep the dogs in line is the idea. That's a phrase that's often used.
Okay. So there's also a caucus chair. Now, what does caucus chair mean?
So there's... I might as well just tell you. Democrats like...
Excuse me. The word caucus and conference mean the same thing. Caucus and conference are words that mean meeting, right?
So when the leadership of the party gets together... The person who runs the leadership meetings is called the caucus chair for Democrats and is called the conference chair for Republicans. Republicans like the word conference.
Democrats like the word caucus. They're the same. same thing.
So there is House Republican Conference, and there's the House Democratic Caucus, but they are both the same thing. The origin of why they use these different words, I have not researched yet. I'm dying to find out, so I will eventually figure that out. I just have, like, I always forget about it. Every time I lecture, I remind myself of it, and then, of course, after the lecture's over, I forget.
So that's pretty much the structure of the leadership in both houses, right? And, of course, there's also, for the minority party, there's a similar structure as well. Okay, so...
I want to talk now about how a bill becomes a law. So really quickly... Oh, awesome. That's great. Okay, so give me a second here.
All right, I am going to show you a... Where is it? Bill?
There we go, how bills become laws. No, that's not it. Oh boy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, guys.
Hold on, hold on. Let me see here. Where the heck is it?
Oh, good lord. Usually I can find it really quick here. Mr. Smith? Smith?
Is it under Mr. Smith? Yay! Okay, Mr. Smith. All right. Yes, sir.
We're going right ahead with it. All right. So, how a bill becomes law, it's...
So this is a scene, very low resolution. I'm so sorry about this. I downloaded all these clips, like, back in the day.
So, you know, like years ago, before there was, like, high def on YouTube. So, but... But this is a clip from a movie which I like to show in class. It's called Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It's a funny movie.
It starts funny, but it ends very serious. In 1939, it was released. It was actually delayed for a year because this movie was the first movie to portray the American government as corrupt.
Very fascinating. So So I'll explain. I'll set up the clip here.
Senator Jefferson Smith is appointed senator because a senator dies, right? And the governor appoints him. And to make a long story short, they hire him. They appoint him because they think he's a stooge, right?
He runs the Boy Scouts, but for copyright reasons, they call it the Boy Rangers in the movie. He runs the Boy Scouts nationally, and he's like, you know, has... he's like a really good guy he's an idealist and he knows nothing about politics and he starts uncovering some corruption and he's going to try and do something about it and then um the senator of his state who helped get him appointed he says oh don't even worry about all that stuff hey don't you didn't you want to do something good while you're here right because they because they because he's he's trying to they're he's starting to get out of their control so they they say they try to set him up by um making him build a boys camp. He always wanted to build a boys camp.
And he wants to do that while he's a senator, because he's not going to be a senator for long. He's just here to be a stooge. And they don't want him uncovering the corruption.
By the way, by the end of the movie, he does uncover the corruption, and it is spectacular. The movie ends in an amazing filibuster, and the speech is, it's unbelievable. You really should watch this movie. And you can watch it free on YouTube, I think. All right, so in this clip...
Senator Smith is all on fire to write a bill and set up the boys' camp. His chief of staff, by the way, she's a cynic. She hates politics.
She hates them all. She actually creates a lot of chaos. She would be immediately fired for the things that she does in this movie.
But not to spoil it, as you might imagine, the cynic and the idealist, of course, what happens, they hook up at the end and, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I just ruined the ending for you. But so this is...
So he wants to write this bill, and his cynical chief of staff basically explains, okay, you have no idea what you're up against. So let's watch the clip. Here we go.
No, no, you're gonna help me. If I were triplets, I'd... Well, now, Ms. Saunders, Senator Payne said that you're gonna help me.
Now, what do we have to have? What books do we have to have? Mr. Senator, will you mind if I give you a rough idea of what you're up against?
No, no, no, go ahead. Well, our senator has a bill in mind, like you a camp, right? Right. Fine. Now, what does he do?
He has to sit down first and write it up. The why, when, where, how, and everything else. Now, that takes time.
Well, but this one is so simple. Oh, I see. This one sounds simple.
Yeah, and with your help, why don't you... Oh, I'm helping, yeah. Simple, and I'm helping, so we knock it off in record-breaking times.
Let's say three, four days. Oh, a day. A day?
Yes, just tonight. Tonight, I don't want Steve to be complaining, Senator, but in all civilized countries, there's an institution called dinner. Oh, I'm sort of hungry myself.
Well, uh, couldn't we sort of have some stuff brought in on trays, you know, like big executives? Oh, sure. Well, dinner comes in on trays.
We're big executives. We're light into this. And we finish the bill before morning? Yeah. It's dawn.
Your bill is ready. You take it over there and introduce it. How?
You get to your feet in the Senate, take a long breath and start spouting, but not too loud because a couple of the Senators might want to sleep. Then a curly-headed page boy takes it up to the desk where a long-faced clerk reads it, refers it to the right committee. Committee, huh? Committee.
Why? Look, committees, small groups of senators have to sit the bill down, look into it, study it, and report to the whole Senate. You can't take a bill nobody ever heard about and discuss it among 96 men.
Where would you get? Yeah, I see that. Good. Now, where are we?
Some committee's got it. Yeah. Now, days are going by, Senator. Days, weeks. Finally, they think it's quite a bill.
It goes over to the House of Representatives for debate and a vote. But it has to wait its turn on the calendar. Calendar, huh?
Yeah. That's the order of business. Your bill has to stand way back there in line, unless the steering committee thinks it's important. What's that?
What? The steering committee. Do you really think we're getting anywhere? Oh, yes, Ms. Saunders. Now, tell me, what's the steering committee?
Committee of the majority party leaders. They decide when a bill is important enough to be moved up toward the head of the list. Well, this is.
Pardon me. This is. Where are we now? We're over in the House. Oh yeah, House.
More amendments, more changes, and the bill goes back to the Senate. The Senate doesn't like what the House did to the bill, they make more changes. The House doesn't like those changes.
Stymie. So? So they appoint men from each house to go into a huddle called a conference, and they battle it out.
Finally, if your bill is still alive after all this did to the section, it comes to a vote. Yes, sir. The big day finally arrives. And Congress adjourns. Catching on, Senator?
Uh-huh. Shall we start on it right away or order dinner first? Pardon?
I said, shall we get started on it right now or... Oh, sure, yeah. Why not? Okay.
So, you get the idea. She is such a cynic in this movie, but she turns... into a believer by the end.
So how does a bill become a law? What you were just given is a very sort of elementary example, and I'm still going to give you a very elementary example. a mental example of how a bill becomes a law, right? So a bill is introduced by either a senator or a house member, right?
Not the president. The president cannot introduce bills. The president can suggest a bill, which means a president can propose a bill.
That's the term that's used. But a president still, if he proposes legislation, he still has to get either a a senator or a House member to introduce it on the floor of their respective chamber, right? So the president cannot introduce a bill, right? So a member of either house. Now let's start in the House first, right?
So let's say a bill. So one thing that you find is that politicians Politicians love to react to things in the news, right? Because it makes it look like they're getting something done. You know, whether or not that something that they get done actually is useful or not is not, you know, that's less relevant than it looks like they're getting something done, right? So I guess who's the cynic now?
So, let's say in the news there's a huge amount of... Let's say there's people who are poisoned by milk. They get food poisoning from bacteria in milk.
Right? So... A member of the House of Representatives proposes a new bill which will so when milk goes to the store, the farmers have to cook it to cook out all the impurities, right?
So let's say that a congressman proposes to homogenize, it's called homogenization, you cook the milk for a certain period of time. Let's say that a member of Congress introduces legislation to cook milk for, I don't know, 60 seconds longer than is the current regulation, right? And this bill is proposed, it actually won't work quite like this, but just play along because I'm just trying to be illustrative here.
So let's say a bill is introduced to require homogenized milk to be cooked for 60 seconds longer than is currently the case, right? And this will cook out all the impurities and stop people from being poisoned, right? And then you'll get reelected because it looks like you're doing something. So the bill is introduced on the floor of the House. A House member does this.
It's introduced on the floor of the House officially. It's read into the Congressional Record, and then it's assigned to a committee. Now, this is what?
This is an agriculture bill, right? So this will go to the Agriculture Committee, right? But it's a very specific agriculture bill. It's a bill on dairy, right?
So it would actually go, so if the bill, when the bill is introduced, right, it will be sent to the committee, the full agriculture committee, and the agriculture committee could look at it at this point and say, well, this thing is crap, right? This thing is garbage. This is ridiculous.
Sixty seconds to cook, you know, to homogenize milk longer, that means nothing. And by the way, you know, this bill is crap, and they just throw it out. And the bill can die the moment it's introduced and the moment it's sent to the Agriculture Committee, right? But let's say that the Agriculture Committee votes to send it to the Dairy Committee, the Dairy Subcommittee, right? Because that's more—now, there's no such thing as a Dairy Subcommittee.
It's actually called the Nutrition Committee within the Agriculture— the Agriculture Standing Committee, but just play along because I'm trying to get you the idea behind this. The full committee sends it to the Nutrition Committee, or let's say Dairy Committee, and the Dairy Committee, the Dairy Subcommittee, right, the Subcommittee is the Dairy Committee underneath, you know, within the Standing Committee of the Agriculture Committee. I'm doing a really bad job of explaining this. I'm so sorry. So the bill is introduced.
It goes to the Agriculture Standing Committee. and then the Agriculture Standing Committee sends it to its Dairy Subcommittee, right? And then the Dairy Subcommittee might look at it and say, well, this bill is garbage, and throw it out, in which case the bill will die.
But let's say they think it's a good idea, and they decide that they're going to investigate this problem. And so what do they do? The subcommittee now will hold committee hearings. They will get industry experts within the committee, members of the subcommittee themselves. are probably members of Congress with dairy farms within their districts, right?
And so those people who are already quite expert in this field will call in experts from universities, from research institutions, they will call in farmers themselves, right? And they'll have them testify at committee hearings, and then the committee, the subcommittee, We'll file a report on all the findings, and during the hearings, right, you might have some farmers say, look, you know, this is going to create a tremendous burden on us and much more electric, and this is going to create more expense, right? But then you'll have nutrition experts and some, you know, research experts from universities, they'll also testify and say, hey, look, you know, cooking the milk for an extended period of time will actually increase the cost of the milk. eliminate more bacteria, but cooking it for 60 more seconds will actually boil out more nutrients. I know nothing about this, by the way.
I'm just making this up as I go along. But let's say the university experts who do the research, they say, well, if we cook it for this much longer, we're going to boil out all the nutrients. So instead of 60 seconds, we should change this to 30 seconds, right? The bill will then be changed in committee. It will be altered.
The committee files a report, and then it can be altered in the subcommittee to 30 seconds. Right? So the original bill said that farmers have to cook milk for 60 seconds, but they now change it since their report said that there's a tradeoff here between boiling off the nutrients versus eliminating all the bacteria that causes food poisoning. So the Derry subcommittee votes to send it back to the full committee.
Now, they might say this is all bullcrap, right? And this is going to do nothing whatsoever, and the bill will die. But let's say that the subcommittee votes says yes.
They vote it back up to the full committee after the committee hearings and the report is filed, right? And they, you know, again, they've directed it to the people who are expert in this field within the committee. It's called marking up the bill.
They've changed it from 60 seconds to 30 seconds now. And then they vote on it in the subcommittee to send it back to the full committee. Now the full committee could get it and say, well, you know what? These changes are garbage. We're going to do some other changes and they'll mark it up as well.
But they could vote not to send it to the floor. They could just say, you know what, this bill is garbage, and just throw it out. But let's say, in which case the bill would die, but let's say they do vote to send it down to the floor. So if it passes, so it goes from being introduced to the full committee, to the subcommittee, to the committee hearings, and then it gets voted after the committee hearing report from the subcommittee back to the full committee, and then the full committee votes on sending it to the floor or not.
And if they vote no, the bill dies. But let's say they vote yes, and then it goes to the floor. Well, it goes to the floor of the House of Representatives. Rules, as we said, rules are debated, and they're decided on by the Rules Committee.
And it's debated by the entire House of Representatives. And they will make changes to it as well, right? They will mark up the bill. And each amendment to the bill has to be voted on separately, right?
up or down, and so after all the amendments, they will have a final vote. They'll vote on it as amended, and at that point, the House might say, well, you know what, this bill is stupid, and they might vote no, in which case the bill dies. But let's say they mark it up, and they vote on it as amended, right?
And they vote yes. What happens then? It is then sent to the other chamber, and one through five start. over again in the other chamber.
And if they vote yes in both houses, right, as we said earlier, these two bills are not in identical form, right? The two bills have to be made identical, right? So then it is, so you go through all of this in the House, you go through all of this in the Senate, but there are two versions of the bill. The Senate version of the bill, they don't make the exact same changes they may not like with the House. changes were, right?
And so some people in the House might not like what the amended changes were in the Senate, right? So what do they do? They go to, they hold a conference committee to make the bills the same, to take two, to take the House bill and the Senate bill and reconcile them, right? And hopefully, now if they can't work out a compromise and work out one version of the bill, the bill will die.
But! let's say they are able to work out the compromises, right? They do come up with one version of the bill.
This final version of the bill, single version of the bill, now has to go back to the House of Representatives and the Senate again. It goes back to both chambers for a vote up and down, up or down, with no markups. And of course, if they vote it down, if it's rejected, it dies.
If it's rejected in either house, the bill dies. But ... Let's say it's voted up, meaning that they vote yes, and that means that the final version of the bill can now be sent to the president. And when the president gets this bill, the president can decide, well, this bill is crap, I'm going to veto it, in which case it would go back to both houses, and both houses must pass it by a two-thirds vote this time, not by a simple majority.
Then they can override the president, right? But if they can't, the bill dies. But let's say that the president likes the bill and he signs it into law and the bill will become law in accordance with how the implementation of the law is outlined in the bill itself.
So, and this is a simplified version, guys. The bill can die at any step in this process. There are even many more ways a bill can die here that we haven't even scratched the surface.
Over 90% of all legislation introduced in the House of Representatives or the Senate dies. I think it's over 95%, right? Compare that to the unitary system. So our federal system, 95% of the bills die. In the unitary British system, 90% of the laws pass.
Amazing, right? So, this is a flowchart in your book of everything I just said, essentially. So, you can print these out and, you know, keep it on your toilet tank when you need good reading.
Okay. So, I want to talk about something important. And it's called models of representation. And this might not have occurred to you before, but let's talk about this. Models, there are different philosophies on how you should be a representative for your constituency, right, for your district.
And the two major models of representation are the delegate model, sometimes called the representative model, or the trustee model. And this is very interesting. So the delegate version, the delegate model says, look, I'm just a voice piece for my district, right? This is a democracy, right?
So my job is to implement the will of the people, right? So if my job is to just be a voice piece for my district and represent the will of the people in my district, well, even if I disagree with what the people's will is, I will vote what the people want, not necessarily what I want or what I think is right. And this is very democratic, right? Which is why Democrats tend to like this version, right? It's more democratic.
Decisions are made in the delegate model of representation. Decisions are made based on the will of the constituents. The member considers himself or herself to just be a voice piece for the district. You try to take as many polls as you can and figure out what the will of the people is. You try to have town halls, as many as you can, and you want to find out what your constituents want.
And you try to get it for them. Now, philosophically, this is very different than the trustee model. The trustee model of representation says, look, I have been entrusted.
with this position. Right? And my job is to understand economics.
My job is to understand foreign policy. My job is to make these decisions because I have been entrusted with this office to represent the people of my district, but I've been entrusted with this office to do what I know to be the right thing. And so this is so that everyone else can become firemen and writers and, you know, used car salesmen, whatever you want to be in life, right?
And I will spend my time studying foreign policy and going to committees and investigating these things and making these decisions on behalf of my constituents. But the trustee model says, I do what I know is right, not necessarily what the people think is right. And this is not condescension. It's an understanding that the average person does not. no economic policy.
Right? So it's an acknowledgment of that. And so decisions are made by someone who adopts the trustee model. They're made by the member themselves because he or she knows better than the constituents.
Because we're too busy to know everything, right? So some of you are studying to be doctors, some of you are studying to be engineers, or biochemists, right? And so do you have time to study economic policy?
No. So the trustee model says, I vote my conscience. I research it, I make the decision.
If the people don't like it, they can vote me out of office. The delegate representative, the delegate model says, look, this is a democracy. And right or wrong, the people run this government.
Right or wrong. The delegate says, because we live in a democracy, you have to accept what the people want, even if you don't like it. And the trustee says, well, this is imprudent. This is dangerous, because we know that the people often want the wrong thing. thing.
The people want imprudent policies, right? You know, people who adopt the trustee model, they tend to be Republican. And what do you hear Republicans often say?
Well, you don't hear Republicans often say. You hear scholars who advocate the trustee model. They say what?
Well, you know, look at the average person with their credit card. Are they prudent with their credit cards? Are you prudent with your credit cards?
Probably not, especially at your age. So, now both are valid, right? Both are... important ways of looking at representation, which leads us to what's called the politico model. The politico model is where a member is a delegate or a trustee depending on the issue, and most congressmen and women are both, right?
So, for example, on foreign policy, You know, they'll say, look, we cannot allow North Korea to have nuclear weapons. So I don't give a crap what my constituents think. This is dangerous for the country, and it would be dangerous to allow this, no matter what my constituents think.
So someone who is like a delegate representative might go trustee when it comes to foreign policy on an issue like that, right? You might say support for Israel. You might not be a big hawk on foreign policy, but you might support Israel as a state and say, well, we have to be a hawk when it comes to Israel. I know a lot of my friends who are Democrats... and Republicans do, but Democrats in particular, they tend to be a little more socially liberal, but a lot of my friends who are Democrats and are socially liberal and are liberal and are very, are a little more protectionist.
and are a little more reluctant to use U.S. power to further American interests in foreign policy, but they're very hawkish when it comes to Israel. Interesting, right? So you find a lot of people. I'll give you a good example of this. Chris Christie, who is the outgoing and very unpopular Republican governor of New Jersey.
Well, he was against gay marriage. marriage, right? Because he's a traditionalist Republican in many ways.
And he said, look, you know, I don't think that this is good. I don't think that gay marriage is good. But it's not up to me to decide this.
And the overwhelming polls indicate that New Jerseyans want this. So he was going to hold a referendum to actually see if New Jerseyans wanted to implement gay marriage. So he was going to hold a referendum. him on this and just have the people decide, even though he vetoed the law that would have made same-sex marriage legal in New Jersey. So you see, he was malleable enough to actually say, well, I don't believe in it and I vetoed it, but let's have the people decide.
And so he was delegate and trustee at the same time. Now, of course, we know the U.S. v. Windsor case and then the Obergefell v. Hodges case in 2015. made same-sex marriage a human right. You have the human right to marry whoever you want. So any laws that outlaw gay marriage or same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. So that put an end to that.
But what I'm trying to say is, you do see leaders who are both. who are both depending on the issue. Okay, I'm sorry to cough into your ear.
Okay. And, is this the last slide? Yes.
Okay, so let's talk really quickly about how members make decisions. So, party and ideology are very important, right? Democrats are most likely to be the most important.
to vote on the Democrat side of the issue, right? Ideologically, if you're a liberal or conservative or a libertarian, libertarians tend to be Republican, but not always because Libertarians tend to be very liberal on social issues, right? So people conflate libertarians and liberals.
They are not the same thing. So if you're a libertarian, you'll probably be a Republican even though you probably don't like most Republicans if you're a libertarian. And you'll side with Democrats a little more often, but that's a long story. I won't get into that. But generally speaking...
speaking, parties are very ideological today. They're very sorted, is what it's called. In other words, there's very few, I don't know of any, well, I know of a few.
There's a few conservative Democrats and a few liberal Republicans. I wouldn't even call them liberal, maybe moderate is the better word. But in the past, you would have overlap all the time.
You would have a lot of conservative Democrats and a lot of liberal Republicans. You would have conservative Democrats that were more conservative than liberal Republicans. liberal Republicans, you know, for various reasons. You know, why would a conservative be a Democrat?
Well, you might agree with Democrats on a certain issue and prioritize that issue and think that, hey, Democrats are really right on this issue, and I think that's important, right? So a lot of conservatives are pro-life. I'm sorry, are pro-choice, right?
Because they think that the government should not be involved in that decision. Right? And so you'll but they're conservative on everything else, but they say, look, I want to be part of the party that says that this particular issue is the most important. And you know what?
A woman's right to choose. I'm going to even though I'm a conservative on everything else, I'm going to be a Democrat. And you might fight Democrats.
on every other issue except for a woman's right to choose, right? So interesting. But generally speaking, if you're pro-life, it's very hard to be a Democrat these days. If you're pro-choice, you could still be a Republican. It's a little easier to be.
a pro-choice Republican than to be a pro-life Democrat, only because philosophically you do have Republicans who are pro-choice because the government shouldn't be involved in that. But generally speaking, party and ideology play a massive role in how you're going to vote on issues. And of course, your constituents, you want to know what your constituents want, right? And especially if it's not a crucial issue of national security.
or something, right? And even if you disagree with it, you might be a delegate, you might have the delegate model of representation on a particular issue that your people really, really want, your constituents really, really want, even though you might be against it, right? Colleagues and caucuses, very interesting. So there are many, many different groups within Congress, right? There's many...
different caucuses. You'll have fellow committee members, for example, right? So maybe on the space committee, you know, maybe you as a representative, you have to vote on a bill that has to do with NASA doing more science missions and leaving manned spaceflight to the growing private industry, right?
Or the opposite, right? By the way, this is one of Barack Obama's great accomplishments. accomplishments. Wow. Barack Obama has, he is, no one even talks about his, so I'm going to be doing a course on space policy eventually, so you might want to, you know, look for that in the future.
But space policy, Barack Obama is a hero in space policy. He has completely changed the aerospace industry by turning manned space flight over to the private sector. Now, is this a good idea or not?
I don't know. But I may ask my colleagues on the Space Committee, hey, how do I vote on this? You know about space policy.
I really don't have a clue. What are the pros and cons here? So you'll talk to your colleagues about it. And like I said, your colleagues and some of their staffers are well experienced. They'll send a staffer to another congressman's office and say, you know, look, I have a staffer who actually worked for NASA.
And, you know, I'll send them over and brief you really quick on it. on this issue. Yes, please, thank you. Things like that.
And by the way, Democrats and Republicans generally are very collegial this way when it comes to these things, especially nonpartisan issues. Interest groups, lobbyists, and political action committees. So these organizations can persuade members on certain issues.
These groups generally are all about particular issues, and they explain the benefits and the cons, hopefully, if they're good, of voting a certain way. But they'll say, why are they right on a certain issue, and why is the other side wrong? So corporations or unions, they seek to contribute to federal candidates, but what they have to do is they have to rely on political action committees to do that.
So they can... They can donate to PACs and then PACs will donate to certain candidates. But they spend money independently of campaigns without forming a political action committee themselves.
So this is ballyhooed a lot, right? People talk about this all the time. Oh, the special interest groups, right?
Well, for every business group, there's also a union, right? For every Koch brothers, if you've heard about them, who are concerned. activist and spend billions, for every one of them, there's George Soros, who is a liberal, who spends billions against conservatives, right? So should you be as worried about this as is advertised?
The answer is really no. But politicians can make a lot of hay about this, right? So if I'm pro-gun...
Right? Let's say I'm pro-Second Amendment, right? And by the way, everyone is pro-Second Amendment. It's basically, the question is, how much regulation should there be?
Right? That's what the debate is about. No one wants to take, you know, as Barack Obama said, No one wants to take that human right to protect yourself, your family, or your property. No one wants to take that away from anyone. But how do we regulate it, right?
Well, the NRA has a fairly extreme position on this because they don't want to give an inch. Does the NRA give a congressman money because they vote on those issues? Or does the congressman vote on those issues because they get the money?
Well, that's a very important question, right? And often, it goes both ways, right? The NRA doesn't even try to recruit certain Democrats because they're so outspoken already. So why should they... Does the NRA have any influence on those people?
know, right? So we really have to sort of keep measured. Just by saying money in politics is bad, I don't know, is it? Why is it bad?
What are the mechanisms by which it's bad? Well, these interest groups can pay off politicians. Yeah, but the interest groups that you don't like, that's what you're complaining about.
You're not complaining about the interest groups that you do like, right? Which also contribute to congressmen. And so the people's voices are heard through this, through the donating. If you're so on fire about an issue that you want to give money to a candidate who supports that issue, that's your right.
And you may be, I used to be a member of Sierra Club and Human Rights Watch and all the other... NGOs that lobby and try to get change policy for the greater good in the world. Right?
And so you're allowed to. I would give my money to them and they would help support these causes around. That's what you're supposed to do.
But people who say money is bad in politics are only talking about the interest groups that are fighting them, but they themselves are getting interest group money themselves. So, you know, I have to laugh at people who say, who talk about not getting interest group money. Please, don't make me laugh. Both parties are dry-humping corporations for money. Trust me on this.
You know, and... groups and lobbyists and have their PACs. So no one has any moral authority on this whatsoever.
Okay. And last but not least, staff and support agencies. So I was a staffer on Capitol Hill. It was the best.
few years of my life. And staffers, what do staff members do? They do research, committee staffers and personal staff.
They do research. They help members make decisions. Good staffers will be fair and give the pros and cons.
One of the weird things is, as a congressional staffer, I would find that the congressmen were fairly moderate. It's the staffers that are all crazies. The staffers are all extreme.
extremists, um, on both sides. Um, so my, my, uh, the brownstone that I was in was the partying place on Capitol Hill. And we would have, uh, tons of Republicans and Democrats show up and it would always like break down into arguments, right? You know, can, can we all just have a drink and get along and not even, you know, no, because they're all staffers and they're all extremists. So, um, but a good staffer will, will, uh, give the pros and cons of all the arguments.
Um, and And staffers are very, very important. Staffers run the offices for the congressmen. And so, for example, what you could be is a legislative assistant, and a legislative assistant handles certain issues that are fairly closely related, like, for example, defense policy and space policy and armed services and veterans affairs. A lot of them are fairly correlated around the Defense Department and around the... those kind of agencies.
And then you'll have health care and education handled by a different legislative assistant. LAs, they're called. And the office is usually run by an AA, administrative assistant.
That person usually gets a lot of money. The LAs get a lot less money. Then there are LCs, which are legislative correspondents.
And that's like a stepping stone to being an LA. What a legislative correspondent does, he or she does not brief the... congressmen or do too much research. Their job is just to keep answering constituents' mail, and there's a lot of it. In fact, that's the biggest headache for every congressional office that's not a committee office, but the personal staff, is answering constituents' mail.
And so there's an army within your office to handle that, and it's one of the biggest problems, one of the biggest tasks. And then you'll have staff assistants, which are basically, you are getting paid, but you're basically helping out with everything, everything that's needed. And it's good to start as a staff assistant.
You're not given too much responsibility. Like, you will be trained to write constituent letters on your own, but early on in your staff assistant career, you're going to have a lot of time to do that. lot of supervision because you don't want what you write on behalf of the congressman to be embarrassing in any in any stretch so so by the way so when you write to your congressman you think he sends you the letter back he doesn't it's a staff member and there's a machine that signs his signature.
So it kind of sucks. I'm actually not sure how it's done these days. I haven't been a staffer in Congress in a very long time, so I don't know if that machine is still used.
It's probably all just printed out now. Okay, so... And then there are the interns in the office as well. All of these people help to support... And also, by the way, it's not just the staff.
it's the committees that you're head of and their staff and it's the interaction you have with executive agencies who also help you as well so that's also another way alright so So that ends the lecture on Congress. I want you guys to study hard for the next midterm, and I will see you when we talk about the presidency and the executive branch. Study hard, guys.