Party Voting in Congress
Party voting promotes democracy and at the same time allows determine a member’s vote. Helping make sure that each of the party members follows the existing policies, party voting is an important element of the Congress clockwork.
A Powerful Speaker of the House
Representing each his/her corresponding state, every Speaker of the House in the Congress helps approve a specific bill in question. Since the Speaker of the House makes a decisive choice in the bill approval, it goes without saying that the role of the Speaker is crucial.
A Highly Specialized Committee Structure
When considering the specifics of the Committee, one must admit that it has a very elaborate structure. The given feature of the Committee guarantees that the responsibilities should be delegated in an appropriate fashion.
Committee Reforms That Have Taken Power Away from Chairs
It is important that, when rusting the government with a number of responsibilities and freedom, the nation should know for sure that the people at the helm should be trusted. However, because of the lack of control over the governmental issues, offering the government too much freedom is unreasonable.
Although in 70s, several reforms allowing flexibility in government’s actions were provided, most of them were cancelled. The given measure seems rather legitimate, seeing how power abuse remains the issue in the U.S.; however, for better performance, state officials should be provided with more flexibility.
Open Committee Meetings
Open committee meetings were supposed to display openness and clarity in the US political sphere to each and every citizen of the state. However, it is necessary to admit that open meetings are likely to lead to conflicts among the citizen, which can be considered the key reason for open meetings to finally cease. It should be mentioned, though, that, with better organization of discussion process, open meetings might be rather helpful for the present-day political processes of the state.
Caucuses
Another peculiar element of the Congress procedures, a Caucus can be defined as a meeting of the supporters of a specific political movement. It should also be kept in mind that the discussion of the nominees for the Presidential position by a specific party is called caucuses.
Large Staffs, Including Those of Congressional Members, Committees, and Staff Agencies
As it has been stressed above, the delegation of responsibilities is a crucial process in the Congress. The given process is, however, quite complicated due to the great number of staff, which the Congress is represented by. While the staff helps introduce plurality and make sure that the legislation process takes place at a faster rate, information might become distorted in the process of its delivery. Therefore, it can be assumed that the Congress could use a more efficient knowledge management system.
Powerful Support for the President in Congress
Needless to say, the Congress provides support for the President, which is important for the coordination of the process of passing a bill.
The Filibuster
While the role of a filibuster might be considered somewhat controversial; allowing to prolong the debate so that the bill should not be voted for and become legitimate, the argument of a filibuster, nevertheless, helps keep the procedure of passing the bill as objective as possible.
The Closed Rule
Limiting debates and not allowing for amendments, the closed rule works perfectly well when the need to restrict the number of amendments to the bill arises.
Conclusion
Judging by the above-mentioned analysis of the current and the past elements of the Congress, one must admit that at present, the latter is facing considerable issues because of the lack of citizens’ involvement, which hinder the legislation process considerably.
It would be wrong to assume, however, that merely getting rid of these elements will solve the problem; on the contrary, the absence of the standards procedures might result in a regress of the American governmental system and the following decay of the US political, economical and financial state. That being said, it is clear that the measures specified above must be applied to improve the work of the US Congress.