Revision & Exam Practice for the “legacy” A Level qualifications including:

• Edexcel (Unit 3C – Representative Processes in the USA, Unit 4C – Governing the USA)
• AQA (Unit 3A – The Politics of the USA, Unit 4A – The Government of the USA)
• OCR (F855 – US Government & Politics)

REVISE THE US CONGRESS

How to use these questions for revision and exam practice:

1. For short-answer questions, write a 3 paragraph response using the PEEACH paragraph structure (P=point, E=evidence, E=explain, A=argument, C=counter argument, H=how does this answer the question?)
2. Once you have completed your question, read the indicative content and the mark scheme.
3. Complete the “Make It Better” (MIB) Task:
   1. Highlight the parts of the indicative content your were able to fully explain and exemplify in green.
   2. Highlight the parts of the indicative content you partially explained and/or exemplified in yellow.
   3. Highlight the parts of the indicative content which you did not include in red.
4. Using the mark scheme, award yourself a level and a mark – compare this to your target grade – are you on track to achieve this in the examination?
5. There is also a space for you to add additional notes and/or examples that don’t appear in the indicative content, or add better explanations, or include additional, points from the indicative content.

To what extent does the Speaker of the House remain a powerful figure? (15)

Indicative Content

The Speaker is not a non-partisan role and promotes the legislative agenda of the majority party. S/he has a number of significant formal powers, including the power to:

 act as presiding officer in the chamber

 interpret and enforce the rules of the House

 refer bills to standing committees of his choosing

 appoint select committee and conference committee chairs

 appoint majority party members of the House Rules Committee

The power of the Speaker within the House has fluctuated over time; since the 80s, and the ideological polarisation of the two parties, it has grown and when the House is controlled by the non-presidential party, the Speaker effectively becomes the leader of the opposition. When the Speaker and the president are of the same party, e.g. Dennis Hastert during George W. Bush’s presidency, s/he may have a lower profile, but still have an important role in promoting the president’s agenda.

Newt Gingrich who became Speaker in 1995 on a platform hostile to President Clinton, is credited with concentrating power in the office through such means as:

 appointing committee chairs and ignoring seniority

 weakening committee chairs by imposing a three term limit on them

 bypassing committees entirely by establishing leadership task forces to process legislation.

The process of centralisation of power continued under Nancy Pelosi. The current speaker, John Boehner, has had more difficulty than his predecessors in controlling his own party, particularly those elements sympathetic to the Tea Party, and on several occasions has had to abandon the ‘Hastert rule’ of only bringing to the floor bills supported by a majority of Republicans. This was the case with the vote to end the government shutdown in October 2013.