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 long-answer or essay questions, plan a 4 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.
3. Using the essay criteria, colour code each criteria to show how successful you were at including this in your essay (red, amber or green)
4. 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.

 ‘Congress is significantly less effective when different parties control its two chambers.’ Discuss. (45)

Indicative Content

Factors that suggest Congress is significantly less effective when different parties control its two chambers include:

• passage of legislation and budgets depends on cooperation between the chambers and the recent history of Congress suggests divided control leads to very little legislation being passed (the ‘do-nothing’ Congress), protracted budget disputes and even government shutdowns
• single party control of Congress has seen very productive sessions in terms of legislation produced, both in the recent past, e.g. the 2009-11 Congress passed the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank, and the less recent past, e.g. the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act by the Democratic-controlled Congress of the mid-60s
• even when Congress is under the single control of a different party to the president a lot can be achieved, e.g. the 1995-97 Republican Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act 1996.

Factors that suggest control by different parties of its two chambers may not mean Congress is significantly less effective include:

• even when there is single party control of Congress, passage of legislation may be long and difficult, and presidential proposals may be unsuccessful, e.g. the Clinton health reforms and the Bush social security reforms
• there may be other factors, such as the recent phenomenon of rigid partisanship or the president’s failure to engage with the opposition party, which render Congress ineffective
• Congress may be representing the views of the nation effectively if voters have chosen the two chambers to be controlled by different parties and gridlock ensues
• scrutiny may be carried out more effectively when there is at least one chamber controlled by the party opposed to the president.