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Legislative Elections and Policy

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With each new election year and possible change of power, are we hurting our policy making process, by letting the politics of our system interfere with what has already been accomplished by the Legislature?

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Solution Summary

This is an overview of the structure of the legislature (the House only) from both the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. Two-year elections are a means to harm the policy making process by having the people oversee the House every step of the way. In other words, the Founders were convinced that period elections will harm the ability of the federal government to force bills onto people.

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With each new election year and possible change of power, are we hurting our policy making process, by letting the politics of our system interfere with what has already been accomplished by the Legislature?

This is one of the more interesting questions I've had on here. In a very real way, that's one of the weaknesses of any democratic system - theoretically, everything can be upset and undone when there's any major change in the Legislative order, such as the Republican majority elected 4 years ago.

The big concern is that committee assignments will change. Most are aware that committees are where the business of legislation gets done. Whoever is in the majority controls (or at least chairs) all committees in the entire House.

What this means is that the witnesses who can be called to testify change, and its possible that legislation not yet passed can be radically altered when a new majority takes over. When there is not party change in the Legislature, generally things stay the same.

Now, the Antifederalist Papers (52) argue that since electoral law is created by the federal government and not the states (the federal government can overrule states), the biennial elections will become meaningless. This is in response to Federalist Paper 52 that says the federal election laws will not interfere with the states and will guarantee ...

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