Our chapters and lectures discuss the different powers and prerogatives of the House, the Senate, and the President. Ideally, they will work together.

I’m working on a political science discussion question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Our chapters and lectures discuss the different powers and prerogatives of the House, the Senate, and the President. Ideally, they will work together. Often, they disagree. Each has unique powers to push a policy, but, of course, each also faces internal as well as external constraints. On top of all that, partisan politics and national debates often drive Members of the House and Senate as well as White House staffs and Presidents to push certain agendas. All of these pressures and considerations may be reflected in bills and Executive Orders.

Your Job

Find a congressional bill. Briefly summarize it, and then address the following questions: What is the issue that it is addressing, and how exactly does it use or apply the power of the Congress? Which one or two concepts from our course are relevant to understanding this policy?

• You can browse current hearings, bills, and votes at Congress.gov (Links to an external site.). The Senate (Links to an external site.) and the House (Links to an external site.) also have their own sites to find current bills in their respective chambers.
• For a simpler list of higher visibility bills, see govtrack (Links to an external site.), while C-SPAN (Links to an external site.) has a list of all the bills in the current congress as well as congresses dating back to the 1980s.