House vs. Senate

Factual Questions
1

I’m always hearing about bills that are passed by the House, only to die in the Senate, or vice-versa. Why does this happen? Shouldn’t both represent the same cross-section of their constituents? For example, with the “Wall-Street-bail out,” it was almost defeated because of some House Republicans . . . but apparently the Senate had no such problem.

Here are the only reasons I can think of:

  1. One requires a simple majority, but the other requires 2/3.

  2. A demographic representing all states equally is different than one representing populations.

  3. An overall statewide constituency is different from a constituency representing smaller units, like cities.

  4. Senators, for whatever reason, are more liberal/conservative than representatives.

Anything else?

2

Only a veto override requires 2/3 vote in both houses - there are a few exceptions to that rule. In the Senate the minority can filibuster and in that case you need 60 votes to pass a bill instead of 51.

3

On your first point, both houses require a simple majority to pass legislation. However, the Senate requires a 3/5ths (not 2/3rds) vote to close down debate. On controversial matters, often this 3/5th vote must be approved before the bill can be voted on by a majority.

The 2nd and 3rd points are well taken, and although I could pick nits, aren’t too far off.

One of the major differences that most political scientists would point out is that Senators are less frequently up for reelection, therefore, in the words of Lyndon Johnson (IIRC), a six year senate term gives one two years to be a statesman, two years to be a senator, and two years to be a politician. In contrast, members of the House are continually up for reelection, and therefore are not as well insulated from the passions of the electorate.

Another point that political scientists would bring up is that the Senate is a smaller body, and each member therefore has a greater influence on the workings of the body. Under this system, members have to be somewhat more sensitive to alienating their colleagues, and party discipline isn’t as strong. That makes it more difficult for the leadership to push through party-line votes on controversial issues.

Finally, the rules of each house make a difference. The Senate gives much greater latitude to offer amendments on unrelated issues. That means that if the House passes a bill on increasing taxes, for example, it may be difficult to avoid a vote on a flag burning constitutional amendment, making it less politically palatable for the Senate leadership to bring up the bill in an absence of a bipartisan agreement on how to proceed with the bill.

It is worth noting that each of these last three items was specifically considered by the Founding Fathers in drafting the Constitution. Those different features of the bodies are there by design.

Finally, one must also consider that there are different personalities that lead each of the bodies. Just because two people are of the same political party doesn’t mean they see eye-to-eye on politics or strategy. And, since neither body can tell the other what to do, both Pelosi and Reid need to be on generally the same page in order for legislation to proceed.

4

The two houses might be controlled by different parties.

5

This is at least part of it. You can get much more extreme folks in the House than in the Senate, because there’s less averaging out of different demographics. Look at Dennis Kucinich, for instance: Someone as liberal as him can get elected and re-elected because the city of Cleveland, which is most of his district, is very liberal. But the entire state of Ohio also has some very conservative areas where he wouldn’t stand a chance, and so he wouldn’t be able to get into the Senate, where he’d need the support of the entire state.

Of course, it also works the other way, that conservative districts can elect representatives who are much too conservative to win in a statewide election.

6

Look at CAlifornia. botth of our senators are dems. But not all the members of the house from Calif are Dems.

7

Also, the seats in the House are allocated in proportion to a state’s population, whereas each state gets exactly 2 Senators. This means that legislation could be supported by a majority of Representatives representing highly populous states, but be defeated in the Senate if it’s opposed by a majority of Senators from rural states.