This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
I'm going to be working on and off on an upgrade of the Congress article, trying to address peoples concerns and overall making the article better. I encourage others to participate. The idea is to address concerns about the criticism section, add more information, better pictures. Does anybody know good books by academics about Congress, its history, which are online (and therefore easily referenced). When the upgrade is ready, people should look it over and see if its up to snuff and ready for primetime. -- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 15:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
As I suspected might happen, Andy reverted again, this time with no edit summary at all. For the first time, I've undone the reversion, mainly because I felt, like other editors, I should show some solidarity. I've also reported him to WP:AN/EW. Never done that before, and the instructions on what to do are SO complicated. Hopefully, I got it right or at least close enough for the admins not to be annoyed with me. I've done all I can do on the reversion issue now. I don't intend to undo any of his reversions in the future.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 14:15, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
This back and forth isn't productive. In my view, our job as Wikipedians is to describe Congress -- how it works, what it is, the history, its powers, its critics, its pluses and minuses, how it interacts with other branches of government -- the whole shebang. Please remember that it is a (1) powerful institution which has (2) extremely low approval ratings by the American public (25% or less). To have a Wikipedia article that doesn't even give readers a clue about why the poll numbers are so low would be, in my view, misleading. If you feel there are huge positives about the Congress in the mainstream press, please add them and show references. If you feel that some of the criticisms are too tough, please note which ones, and give references proving your case; if you give references to show differing viewpoints or countervailing views, I'll support your constructive additions. And I don't believe this is an "anti-government" diatribe but rather a pro-government section because it says, in effect, that the US is tough enough to criticize itself. Shunting negatives under the table won't help anybody. And I bet congresspersons, themselves, would agree with the criticisms here. They're well documented. But criticism of the congress is exactly what is needed. The only persons I can imagine who might have a vested interest in not having this section are congresspersons, aides, or lobbyists who like the current arrangement.-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 22:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I didn't read the section, but does anyone have reasons why this section should be in or out of the article? I'll wait for replies.-- Jojhutton ( talk) 16:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Opinion on this dispute was solicited at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress. I think inclusion of the material on Congressional population structure, pay, partisanship, role vis a vis the executive, reelection rates, etc. is all warranted. But the way it is done here is bad. First, standalone "Criticisms" sections are not a good idea. It's much better to integrate such material into a cohesive whole. So for example, describe the party structure of Congress in general, and then mention how partisan gridlock can occur. Second, most of this material shows a large amount of WP:RECENTISM. Third, the sources aren't always the best. There's a huge amount of literature in American political science on all of these subjects, and it covers large periods of Congress's history, not just the last few years. Those would be better sources than a bunch of newspaper and magazine articles from the 2000s. Wasted Time R ( talk) 16:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
If interested, check it out. The criticisms were merged, trimmed or otherwise put into the article along the lines of comments above so it's no longer a standalone section as people have expressed concerns about. I tried my best to heed suggestions above from Bbb23, Wasted Time R, Jojhutton, 28bytes, Designate, Andy120290, and others. It's close to 200 references now. The article could use a good copyedit, trimming redundant stuff, perhaps some reorganization and formating and fresh eyes. I'm going to do other things for a while. Plus the article could use more great pictures to break up the text and make it look more beautiful. -- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 00:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Um, I thought that there would be a bit more discussion (AKA: Time), to review this before this was changed. It seems that the changes have already taken place, via a cut-and-paste method I presume. There were a lot of edits and changes made, could we have a bit more time to see what they were before making a consensus decision please?-- Jojhutton ( talk) 01:45, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Per Wasted Time R's suggestion, Tomwsulcer's ambivalence, and my strong feeling that this is not the right article for this paragraph to be in, I'm removing the "Apathetic voters" section from the Criticisms. Bbb223, I know you disagree on this point, but I hope you won't revert. I'm happy to discuss it further, and even to put in a "See also" link to a different article (Voter fatigue? Democracy? maybe even a new "Voter Apathy" article?) as a measure of compromise. 28bytes ( talk) 19:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
As per discussion (above) there was consensus that criticisms should be moved within the article and there shouldn't be a standalone criticism section. There is a draft in the sandbox which meets these objections. Further it's decided to remove material about apathetic voters so this stuff should stay out of the new draft. So the sandbox version should be swapped in. If nobody else is interested in working on the new draft, I'll try to tighten the sandbox version up, remove the apathetic voters stuff, and swap it in at the end of today. If sections are too long, I'll consider spinoff articles; the basic idea is to keep this article accurate, interesting, and serve as an overview of the subject of the Congress. If people would like to get involved, now's the time.-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 12:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
United States Congress revamp (proposed outline)
(break for easier editing)
I think privileges goes with "power of Congress" logically, (since the "privileges" of congresspersons are like powers they have to do things) but if others feel strongly about making it a separate section in the sandbox article, I'll do it that way. About constituent services -- I still think it belongs under the topic of "Congress and citizens" but again I'm not that wedded to either arrangement. What's important is agreeing about the outline of the sandbox article to make it easier editing. So please adjust the outline (below) before I start working on the sandbox; again, major changes to the outline are making it difficult, so before you make major changes, please choose ones you feel are most important. The spinoff articles are pretty much written but could be (1) copyedited (2) pictures added (3) re-establishing external links and categories. I'm updating the "history of the congress" article. Plus I'll work on updating the other related subsidiary articles. Then I'll start trimming the sandbox. But it will help to get the outline updated first before this happens. Please, if interested, consider updating the outline here:-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 00:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
United States Congress revamp (proposed outline)
The section on comparison with parliamentary systems refers to independence from the party. This independence is theoretically the case in both systems, and any difference practice is specific to the country - it is very difficult to back this up with specifics. Both British parliament (for example) and Congress developed before the party system had set in - and certainly long before they crystallised into their current forms. The fact that in some parliamentary systems such party conventions exist may not really be relevant, so that paragraph may need reworking. I'd appreciate a more expert opinion to respond to this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.115.143 ( talk) 17:51, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
I reworked it, tightening, more references, more pictures. It's not perfect but I think it's better than before. Basically it's a lot of the same material, with material added, but it may be in different order. I tried as best I could to accommodate suggestions made here in this talk page; for example, I limited the "Comp with Parliamentary" stuff. The beginning section got a bit long so I added an "overview" subsection between the first two paragraphs and the History section. The references are doubled approximately, up to about 200 almost. The "external links" and "categories" are temporarily disabled in the sandbox. I added subsecitons which I thought would be helpful such as "Government accountability office" and "Congressional budget office" -- basically mini paragraphs with links to the "main articles" on WP which give more detail. It's about 160K so it's less than 200K but more than 100K. To accommodate wishes, I embedded the criticisms within sections and removed the "criticisms" section heading entirely. Generally I think this is an improvement over the current version, that is, I tried to write it for a high school student seeking a fairly thorough overview of the Congress, but not that detailed. I moved the "enumerated powers" listed in the Constitution to the subarticle "Powers of the US Congress" (I thought it was too specific for the overview.) Ditto, lists of committees -- these are on subarticles. If people want to swap it in, that's one possibility. Another is to move chunks in one at a time. Whatever happens we should get consensus first so I urge people to take time -- perhaps a few days or a week -- so we're all happy with whatever happens. This is a big article with HEAVY traffic (4k readers per DAY) so we should be careful I think.-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 00:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
The addition of MANY new images to the article has caused what's known as bunching, meaning that the edit links for the individual sections and subsections don't appear where they should, but get "bunched" in other odd places. With the help of another editor, SOME of the problem has been fixed, but the article still goes haywire starting with the Enumerated powers section (and then rights itself later on). I like pictures as much as the next editor - okay, maybe not as much as Tom does - but images need to be moved and/or deleted to eliminate the bunching. See discusssion here for more info.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 15:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
"The Reagan years were marked by pro-business policies but with huge spending deficits. Clinton helped reduce the deficit but faced strong Republican opposition."
First of all, we all know that Congress is an entirely separate branch of government from the President, so doesn't referring to an era of Congress by the name of the then current president kind of give a misleading, or at least unnecessary connection? "the Reagan years" - that term being used to describe what congress was doing during Reagan's administration makes it sound like whatever they did was somehow actually his doing. Yes, the president works WITH congress, but Reagan was NOT a member of congress during this time, he was President. As this article itself admits, there was a Democrat controlled congress during Reagan's presidency. Since congress has more direct authority over the budget and therefore the deficit than the president, why does that statement even mention Reagan at all? This article is about congress, not the president. Sure, the article could refer to a time period by mentioning who was president at that time, it gives people an idea of when we are talking about. This wording is misleading though. It makes it sound like it was directly because of Reagan that there were huge spending deficits/pr-business policies. This is ridiculous since this same article admits that Congress has more control over these issues, and that Democrats were in control of congess during the 'Reagan years.' Wikipedia editors are meanwhile complaining about how congress is made to look good in this article which is clearly a sign of bias. Well, this is clearly an example of bias too. Let's look at the next sentence.
"Clinton helped reduce the deficit but faced strong Republican opposition."
check out this article: http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
or just go straight to the same source he is using: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
You can see from the government's records that yes, the deficit DID start going down during Clinton's terms in office. IF you actually look though, you see that the first year it went down was 1996. Coincidentally this is one year after who took control of congress? It's in this wikipedia article. That's right girls and boys, the Republicans. For the first time in over 20 years the Republicans gain control of congress, and within the first year the deficit starts going down. True facts. This wikipedia statement about Clinton 'helping' to reduce the deficit, but facing opposition from (R) controlled congress... has a source which takes you to a picture slide show with photos of Newt Gingrich, with very little info and nothing at all relating to Clinton somehow fixing the deficit as president, or Republicans fighting him from Congress. Heaven forbid that this wikipedia entry go into any more detail to support that statement.
It's just funny if you look at those two statements in a row, as they are written. "The Reagan years were marked by pro-business policies but with huge spending deficits. Clinton helped reduce the deficit but faced strong Republican opposition."
In the first sentence, we have blame being subtly shifted to the Republican president for what was actually done by an all democrat congress. In the second we have the credit for what was apparently done (unless someone wants to actually go into detail here and explain exactly WHAT clinton did, and HOW the republican congress fought him on it) by Republicans in congress, given to the current Democrat president. Seriously, this is a disgusting example of obvious political bias here at wikipedia. If in the same article it is said that Congress has more power over finances, budgets, etc, then why is there even a single statement referring to THEIR actions as somehow related to the current presidents, but with no supporting information to show WHAT exactly the presidents did? How can statements like this just be made with no supporting information, when they seem to go against the roles of congress as defined by the article? So I am supposed to believe that with 'strong republican opposition' which amounts to republicans controlling congress, somehow Clinton still fought and forced the entirety of congress to do things HIS way, which resulted in the deficit starting to lower, coincidentally only AFTER republicans took over? Why didn't the democrat controlled congress let Clinton have his way? Why didn't that deficit go down BEFORE the republicans took over? wikipedia = biased re-writing of history. That's why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cupweasel ( talk • contribs) 19:24, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
For at least the present, I suggest changing the paragraph to read as follows:
In the late 20th century, the media became more important in Congress's work. Analyst Michael Schudson suggested that greater publicity undermined the power of political parties and caused "more roads to open up in Congress for individual representatives to influence decisions." Norman Ornstein suggested that media prominence led to a greater emphasis on the negative and sensational side of Congress, and referred to this as the tabloidization of media coverage. Others saw pressure to squeeze a political position into a thirty-second soundbite.
That elminates the first two sentences completely, eliminates the last two sentences completely, and rewords the opening about the media, which is really a separate topic from the deficit anyway.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 23:29, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
The democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives in the elections of November 2010 but here in the picture they still have one. Knopffabrik ( talk) 22:31, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
It has now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.75.182 ( talk) 21:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Fixed -- Isthmus ( talk) 22:20, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I tried to fix the horrible comparison between the U.S. presidential model and the parliamentary system. I was reverted, so I've removed the section, which was no more sourced than was my version. The original version shows little understanding of how the parliamentary system works, creating the impression that in a parliamentary system, the legislature runs the day-to-day business of the executive. It does not. Rather, ministers are chosen from the legislature, who are then accountable to it. The text also made a false comparison between the U.S. president and presidents in parliamentary systems. It pointed to the latter as a merely a figurehead, without even mentioning that other executive officials, ministers, act in the president's (or monarch's) stead. - Rrius ( talk) 03:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Frankly, given that this is an article about a legislative body, there are only two points of interest: congressional elections do not determine the make up of the executive, and the executive doesn't run the business of the legislature. I know the editor who reverted me thinks somehow the latter point is OR or some such, but the concept that the executive must be able to "get its business" is a cornerstone of the system and is so uncontroversial that it is the sort of thing we normally don't require refs for. In any event, those two main points are already made clear by the article, so it really isn't necessary in an article about the Congress to have a discussion of how the composition of the executive differs from other countries. - Rrius ( talk) 03:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
The U.S. system of government is sometimes called a presidential system even though the three branches have roughly equal powers because the president has a stronger role than in most other democracies in the world. In the U.S. approach, congressional power is limited to making legislation. In contrast, in a parliamentary system the president is mostly a figurehead and parliament typically controls both legislative and executive functions. Ministers are chosen from elected representatives including the prime minister and cabinet and have considerable power to manage things. In contrast, Congress conducts business while not managing the day-to-day functioning of government. While in structure the Speaker of the House resembles a prime minister, in substance and practice he or she only moderates the functioning of Congress, while the wholly separate executive branch runs the government. In a parliamentary system, legislation is drafted by the acting government and sent to parliament for debate and ratification.
The U.S. system of government is sometimes called a presidential system, meaning executive power is exercised by the president and is separate from the legislature. In a parliamentary system, the president or monarch also holds executive power, but it is exercised by ministers {the "government") drawn from the legislature. This makes the president or monarch a figurehead. Because ministers must have the confidence of the legislature, they are usually able to get their legislation passed and control whether other legislators' bills pass. In fact, in a parliamentary system, most legislation is drafted by the government and sent to parliament for debate and ratification.
Because of the nature of the system, party discipline is strong, meaning the government can generally count on its members to support its legislative program. By contrast, the president's party does not necessarily have a working majority in either house, and even with a majority in both cannot be assured that legislature supported by the executive will be considered, let alone passed. This means the president must compromise more than a prime minister would to get desired legislation passed.
My sense is the article about United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is important. I added a section to United States Congress but it was deleted on the basis of WP:RECENTISM by another contributor but I think there should be some mention of this committee in the Congress article, maybe 1 or 2 lines at least.-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 13:57, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Such an obvious and simple question, yet the answer is not to be found in this article!!!
Apparently there are currently 193 Democrats and 242 Republicans in the House of Reps, and 51 Dems, 2 Independents, and 47 Repubs in the Senate, but you'd never know it from reading this article.
May I suggest including this info in the article, as well as in the infobox that currently shows a couple of pretty semicircular arrangements of blue and red dots, but no actual numbers? (Sorry, I don't feel like counting hundreds and hundreds of dots to find out the answer.) Captain Quirk ( talk) 10:26, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
For all the commentary about what effect the attack ads have, how about something about why they keep being used? Like, they work? They bring out the fanatics (the base) & keep away the undecideds, which makes it easier to win... TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 02:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Croatian writer Giancarlo Kravar: U.S. Congressman, Democrat, Barney Frank (72) married to longtime partner, businessman Jim Ready (42) and thus became the first member of Congress who made same-sex marriage, Boston Daily Globe. Among the guests were Sen. John Kerry, former candidate for the White House and President of the Democrats in the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. 78.2.103.67 ( talk) 19:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Doesn't anyone find this section odd? Before yesterday, it had an introductory sentence and three points. The intro sentence refers to Richard Fenno and has no source in support of the sentence. Two of the first three points have no source. The third point has a source of a book that is apparently about Fenno; perhaps it supports the first two points and the introductory sentence, dunno. More important, though, I don't really see any value to the section. As for the last recently added point, I reverted it yesterday, and it was re-added a bit ago. I'm not going to battle over it, although it has an WP:OR agenda-like character to it, particularly because the rest of the section is kind of messy (in my view). I doubt, though, that the fourth point is supported by Fenno (or by anything else).-- Bbb23 ( talk) 00:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Under the Structure on the right hand side of the page, the Senate Democrats and Independents are listed as the "Majority" and Republicans are listed as the "Minority". No such listing exists for the House of Representatives.
Either simply list the numbers of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents or specify majority/minority parties along with the numbers, but do it for both houses.
Michael A. Goodfellow ( talk) 18:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Considering the length and breadth of an article on a 200+ year old legislative body, it seems inappropriate to place opinion polling from the past three years in the heading. To me, this seems biased towards the present. Crohall ( talk) 17:49, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
The Onion on possible causes and/or effects. EllenCT ( talk) 23:16, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
5% approval, [3] down from 9% a few days ago. EllenCT ( talk) 13:02, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
http://www.c-span.org/video/?321030-1/discussion-wikipedia-government-transparency
Notable? Or just a list of things to be wary of? Hcobb ( talk) 16:21, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
I'm going to be working on and off on an upgrade of the Congress article, trying to address peoples concerns and overall making the article better. I encourage others to participate. The idea is to address concerns about the criticism section, add more information, better pictures. Does anybody know good books by academics about Congress, its history, which are online (and therefore easily referenced). When the upgrade is ready, people should look it over and see if its up to snuff and ready for primetime. -- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 15:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
As I suspected might happen, Andy reverted again, this time with no edit summary at all. For the first time, I've undone the reversion, mainly because I felt, like other editors, I should show some solidarity. I've also reported him to WP:AN/EW. Never done that before, and the instructions on what to do are SO complicated. Hopefully, I got it right or at least close enough for the admins not to be annoyed with me. I've done all I can do on the reversion issue now. I don't intend to undo any of his reversions in the future.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 14:15, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
This back and forth isn't productive. In my view, our job as Wikipedians is to describe Congress -- how it works, what it is, the history, its powers, its critics, its pluses and minuses, how it interacts with other branches of government -- the whole shebang. Please remember that it is a (1) powerful institution which has (2) extremely low approval ratings by the American public (25% or less). To have a Wikipedia article that doesn't even give readers a clue about why the poll numbers are so low would be, in my view, misleading. If you feel there are huge positives about the Congress in the mainstream press, please add them and show references. If you feel that some of the criticisms are too tough, please note which ones, and give references proving your case; if you give references to show differing viewpoints or countervailing views, I'll support your constructive additions. And I don't believe this is an "anti-government" diatribe but rather a pro-government section because it says, in effect, that the US is tough enough to criticize itself. Shunting negatives under the table won't help anybody. And I bet congresspersons, themselves, would agree with the criticisms here. They're well documented. But criticism of the congress is exactly what is needed. The only persons I can imagine who might have a vested interest in not having this section are congresspersons, aides, or lobbyists who like the current arrangement.-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 22:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I didn't read the section, but does anyone have reasons why this section should be in or out of the article? I'll wait for replies.-- Jojhutton ( talk) 16:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Opinion on this dispute was solicited at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress. I think inclusion of the material on Congressional population structure, pay, partisanship, role vis a vis the executive, reelection rates, etc. is all warranted. But the way it is done here is bad. First, standalone "Criticisms" sections are not a good idea. It's much better to integrate such material into a cohesive whole. So for example, describe the party structure of Congress in general, and then mention how partisan gridlock can occur. Second, most of this material shows a large amount of WP:RECENTISM. Third, the sources aren't always the best. There's a huge amount of literature in American political science on all of these subjects, and it covers large periods of Congress's history, not just the last few years. Those would be better sources than a bunch of newspaper and magazine articles from the 2000s. Wasted Time R ( talk) 16:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
If interested, check it out. The criticisms were merged, trimmed or otherwise put into the article along the lines of comments above so it's no longer a standalone section as people have expressed concerns about. I tried my best to heed suggestions above from Bbb23, Wasted Time R, Jojhutton, 28bytes, Designate, Andy120290, and others. It's close to 200 references now. The article could use a good copyedit, trimming redundant stuff, perhaps some reorganization and formating and fresh eyes. I'm going to do other things for a while. Plus the article could use more great pictures to break up the text and make it look more beautiful. -- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 00:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Um, I thought that there would be a bit more discussion (AKA: Time), to review this before this was changed. It seems that the changes have already taken place, via a cut-and-paste method I presume. There were a lot of edits and changes made, could we have a bit more time to see what they were before making a consensus decision please?-- Jojhutton ( talk) 01:45, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Per Wasted Time R's suggestion, Tomwsulcer's ambivalence, and my strong feeling that this is not the right article for this paragraph to be in, I'm removing the "Apathetic voters" section from the Criticisms. Bbb223, I know you disagree on this point, but I hope you won't revert. I'm happy to discuss it further, and even to put in a "See also" link to a different article (Voter fatigue? Democracy? maybe even a new "Voter Apathy" article?) as a measure of compromise. 28bytes ( talk) 19:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
As per discussion (above) there was consensus that criticisms should be moved within the article and there shouldn't be a standalone criticism section. There is a draft in the sandbox which meets these objections. Further it's decided to remove material about apathetic voters so this stuff should stay out of the new draft. So the sandbox version should be swapped in. If nobody else is interested in working on the new draft, I'll try to tighten the sandbox version up, remove the apathetic voters stuff, and swap it in at the end of today. If sections are too long, I'll consider spinoff articles; the basic idea is to keep this article accurate, interesting, and serve as an overview of the subject of the Congress. If people would like to get involved, now's the time.-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 12:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
United States Congress revamp (proposed outline)
(break for easier editing)
I think privileges goes with "power of Congress" logically, (since the "privileges" of congresspersons are like powers they have to do things) but if others feel strongly about making it a separate section in the sandbox article, I'll do it that way. About constituent services -- I still think it belongs under the topic of "Congress and citizens" but again I'm not that wedded to either arrangement. What's important is agreeing about the outline of the sandbox article to make it easier editing. So please adjust the outline (below) before I start working on the sandbox; again, major changes to the outline are making it difficult, so before you make major changes, please choose ones you feel are most important. The spinoff articles are pretty much written but could be (1) copyedited (2) pictures added (3) re-establishing external links and categories. I'm updating the "history of the congress" article. Plus I'll work on updating the other related subsidiary articles. Then I'll start trimming the sandbox. But it will help to get the outline updated first before this happens. Please, if interested, consider updating the outline here:-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 00:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
United States Congress revamp (proposed outline)
The section on comparison with parliamentary systems refers to independence from the party. This independence is theoretically the case in both systems, and any difference practice is specific to the country - it is very difficult to back this up with specifics. Both British parliament (for example) and Congress developed before the party system had set in - and certainly long before they crystallised into their current forms. The fact that in some parliamentary systems such party conventions exist may not really be relevant, so that paragraph may need reworking. I'd appreciate a more expert opinion to respond to this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.115.143 ( talk) 17:51, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
I reworked it, tightening, more references, more pictures. It's not perfect but I think it's better than before. Basically it's a lot of the same material, with material added, but it may be in different order. I tried as best I could to accommodate suggestions made here in this talk page; for example, I limited the "Comp with Parliamentary" stuff. The beginning section got a bit long so I added an "overview" subsection between the first two paragraphs and the History section. The references are doubled approximately, up to about 200 almost. The "external links" and "categories" are temporarily disabled in the sandbox. I added subsecitons which I thought would be helpful such as "Government accountability office" and "Congressional budget office" -- basically mini paragraphs with links to the "main articles" on WP which give more detail. It's about 160K so it's less than 200K but more than 100K. To accommodate wishes, I embedded the criticisms within sections and removed the "criticisms" section heading entirely. Generally I think this is an improvement over the current version, that is, I tried to write it for a high school student seeking a fairly thorough overview of the Congress, but not that detailed. I moved the "enumerated powers" listed in the Constitution to the subarticle "Powers of the US Congress" (I thought it was too specific for the overview.) Ditto, lists of committees -- these are on subarticles. If people want to swap it in, that's one possibility. Another is to move chunks in one at a time. Whatever happens we should get consensus first so I urge people to take time -- perhaps a few days or a week -- so we're all happy with whatever happens. This is a big article with HEAVY traffic (4k readers per DAY) so we should be careful I think.-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 00:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
The addition of MANY new images to the article has caused what's known as bunching, meaning that the edit links for the individual sections and subsections don't appear where they should, but get "bunched" in other odd places. With the help of another editor, SOME of the problem has been fixed, but the article still goes haywire starting with the Enumerated powers section (and then rights itself later on). I like pictures as much as the next editor - okay, maybe not as much as Tom does - but images need to be moved and/or deleted to eliminate the bunching. See discusssion here for more info.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 15:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
"The Reagan years were marked by pro-business policies but with huge spending deficits. Clinton helped reduce the deficit but faced strong Republican opposition."
First of all, we all know that Congress is an entirely separate branch of government from the President, so doesn't referring to an era of Congress by the name of the then current president kind of give a misleading, or at least unnecessary connection? "the Reagan years" - that term being used to describe what congress was doing during Reagan's administration makes it sound like whatever they did was somehow actually his doing. Yes, the president works WITH congress, but Reagan was NOT a member of congress during this time, he was President. As this article itself admits, there was a Democrat controlled congress during Reagan's presidency. Since congress has more direct authority over the budget and therefore the deficit than the president, why does that statement even mention Reagan at all? This article is about congress, not the president. Sure, the article could refer to a time period by mentioning who was president at that time, it gives people an idea of when we are talking about. This wording is misleading though. It makes it sound like it was directly because of Reagan that there were huge spending deficits/pr-business policies. This is ridiculous since this same article admits that Congress has more control over these issues, and that Democrats were in control of congess during the 'Reagan years.' Wikipedia editors are meanwhile complaining about how congress is made to look good in this article which is clearly a sign of bias. Well, this is clearly an example of bias too. Let's look at the next sentence.
"Clinton helped reduce the deficit but faced strong Republican opposition."
check out this article: http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
or just go straight to the same source he is using: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
You can see from the government's records that yes, the deficit DID start going down during Clinton's terms in office. IF you actually look though, you see that the first year it went down was 1996. Coincidentally this is one year after who took control of congress? It's in this wikipedia article. That's right girls and boys, the Republicans. For the first time in over 20 years the Republicans gain control of congress, and within the first year the deficit starts going down. True facts. This wikipedia statement about Clinton 'helping' to reduce the deficit, but facing opposition from (R) controlled congress... has a source which takes you to a picture slide show with photos of Newt Gingrich, with very little info and nothing at all relating to Clinton somehow fixing the deficit as president, or Republicans fighting him from Congress. Heaven forbid that this wikipedia entry go into any more detail to support that statement.
It's just funny if you look at those two statements in a row, as they are written. "The Reagan years were marked by pro-business policies but with huge spending deficits. Clinton helped reduce the deficit but faced strong Republican opposition."
In the first sentence, we have blame being subtly shifted to the Republican president for what was actually done by an all democrat congress. In the second we have the credit for what was apparently done (unless someone wants to actually go into detail here and explain exactly WHAT clinton did, and HOW the republican congress fought him on it) by Republicans in congress, given to the current Democrat president. Seriously, this is a disgusting example of obvious political bias here at wikipedia. If in the same article it is said that Congress has more power over finances, budgets, etc, then why is there even a single statement referring to THEIR actions as somehow related to the current presidents, but with no supporting information to show WHAT exactly the presidents did? How can statements like this just be made with no supporting information, when they seem to go against the roles of congress as defined by the article? So I am supposed to believe that with 'strong republican opposition' which amounts to republicans controlling congress, somehow Clinton still fought and forced the entirety of congress to do things HIS way, which resulted in the deficit starting to lower, coincidentally only AFTER republicans took over? Why didn't the democrat controlled congress let Clinton have his way? Why didn't that deficit go down BEFORE the republicans took over? wikipedia = biased re-writing of history. That's why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cupweasel ( talk • contribs) 19:24, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
For at least the present, I suggest changing the paragraph to read as follows:
In the late 20th century, the media became more important in Congress's work. Analyst Michael Schudson suggested that greater publicity undermined the power of political parties and caused "more roads to open up in Congress for individual representatives to influence decisions." Norman Ornstein suggested that media prominence led to a greater emphasis on the negative and sensational side of Congress, and referred to this as the tabloidization of media coverage. Others saw pressure to squeeze a political position into a thirty-second soundbite.
That elminates the first two sentences completely, eliminates the last two sentences completely, and rewords the opening about the media, which is really a separate topic from the deficit anyway.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 23:29, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
The democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives in the elections of November 2010 but here in the picture they still have one. Knopffabrik ( talk) 22:31, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
It has now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.75.182 ( talk) 21:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Fixed -- Isthmus ( talk) 22:20, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I tried to fix the horrible comparison between the U.S. presidential model and the parliamentary system. I was reverted, so I've removed the section, which was no more sourced than was my version. The original version shows little understanding of how the parliamentary system works, creating the impression that in a parliamentary system, the legislature runs the day-to-day business of the executive. It does not. Rather, ministers are chosen from the legislature, who are then accountable to it. The text also made a false comparison between the U.S. president and presidents in parliamentary systems. It pointed to the latter as a merely a figurehead, without even mentioning that other executive officials, ministers, act in the president's (or monarch's) stead. - Rrius ( talk) 03:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Frankly, given that this is an article about a legislative body, there are only two points of interest: congressional elections do not determine the make up of the executive, and the executive doesn't run the business of the legislature. I know the editor who reverted me thinks somehow the latter point is OR or some such, but the concept that the executive must be able to "get its business" is a cornerstone of the system and is so uncontroversial that it is the sort of thing we normally don't require refs for. In any event, those two main points are already made clear by the article, so it really isn't necessary in an article about the Congress to have a discussion of how the composition of the executive differs from other countries. - Rrius ( talk) 03:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
The U.S. system of government is sometimes called a presidential system even though the three branches have roughly equal powers because the president has a stronger role than in most other democracies in the world. In the U.S. approach, congressional power is limited to making legislation. In contrast, in a parliamentary system the president is mostly a figurehead and parliament typically controls both legislative and executive functions. Ministers are chosen from elected representatives including the prime minister and cabinet and have considerable power to manage things. In contrast, Congress conducts business while not managing the day-to-day functioning of government. While in structure the Speaker of the House resembles a prime minister, in substance and practice he or she only moderates the functioning of Congress, while the wholly separate executive branch runs the government. In a parliamentary system, legislation is drafted by the acting government and sent to parliament for debate and ratification.
The U.S. system of government is sometimes called a presidential system, meaning executive power is exercised by the president and is separate from the legislature. In a parliamentary system, the president or monarch also holds executive power, but it is exercised by ministers {the "government") drawn from the legislature. This makes the president or monarch a figurehead. Because ministers must have the confidence of the legislature, they are usually able to get their legislation passed and control whether other legislators' bills pass. In fact, in a parliamentary system, most legislation is drafted by the government and sent to parliament for debate and ratification.
Because of the nature of the system, party discipline is strong, meaning the government can generally count on its members to support its legislative program. By contrast, the president's party does not necessarily have a working majority in either house, and even with a majority in both cannot be assured that legislature supported by the executive will be considered, let alone passed. This means the president must compromise more than a prime minister would to get desired legislation passed.
My sense is the article about United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is important. I added a section to United States Congress but it was deleted on the basis of WP:RECENTISM by another contributor but I think there should be some mention of this committee in the Congress article, maybe 1 or 2 lines at least.-- Tomwsulcer ( talk) 13:57, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Such an obvious and simple question, yet the answer is not to be found in this article!!!
Apparently there are currently 193 Democrats and 242 Republicans in the House of Reps, and 51 Dems, 2 Independents, and 47 Repubs in the Senate, but you'd never know it from reading this article.
May I suggest including this info in the article, as well as in the infobox that currently shows a couple of pretty semicircular arrangements of blue and red dots, but no actual numbers? (Sorry, I don't feel like counting hundreds and hundreds of dots to find out the answer.) Captain Quirk ( talk) 10:26, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
For all the commentary about what effect the attack ads have, how about something about why they keep being used? Like, they work? They bring out the fanatics (the base) & keep away the undecideds, which makes it easier to win... TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 02:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Croatian writer Giancarlo Kravar: U.S. Congressman, Democrat, Barney Frank (72) married to longtime partner, businessman Jim Ready (42) and thus became the first member of Congress who made same-sex marriage, Boston Daily Globe. Among the guests were Sen. John Kerry, former candidate for the White House and President of the Democrats in the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. 78.2.103.67 ( talk) 19:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Doesn't anyone find this section odd? Before yesterday, it had an introductory sentence and three points. The intro sentence refers to Richard Fenno and has no source in support of the sentence. Two of the first three points have no source. The third point has a source of a book that is apparently about Fenno; perhaps it supports the first two points and the introductory sentence, dunno. More important, though, I don't really see any value to the section. As for the last recently added point, I reverted it yesterday, and it was re-added a bit ago. I'm not going to battle over it, although it has an WP:OR agenda-like character to it, particularly because the rest of the section is kind of messy (in my view). I doubt, though, that the fourth point is supported by Fenno (or by anything else).-- Bbb23 ( talk) 00:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Under the Structure on the right hand side of the page, the Senate Democrats and Independents are listed as the "Majority" and Republicans are listed as the "Minority". No such listing exists for the House of Representatives.
Either simply list the numbers of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents or specify majority/minority parties along with the numbers, but do it for both houses.
Michael A. Goodfellow ( talk) 18:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Considering the length and breadth of an article on a 200+ year old legislative body, it seems inappropriate to place opinion polling from the past three years in the heading. To me, this seems biased towards the present. Crohall ( talk) 17:49, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
The Onion on possible causes and/or effects. EllenCT ( talk) 23:16, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
5% approval, [3] down from 9% a few days ago. EllenCT ( talk) 13:02, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
http://www.c-span.org/video/?321030-1/discussion-wikipedia-government-transparency
Notable? Or just a list of things to be wary of? Hcobb ( talk) 16:21, 18 August 2014 (UTC)