While Congress is indeed responsible for overseeing both its own and the Executive branch’s administration of policy, there is no one designated slew of oversight committees. Rather, oversight duties are parceled out amongst a great many committees and subcommittees, which hold hearings to monitor their assigned situations. Each committee and subcommittee must conduct its oversight in addition to maintaining its other tasks; no single or even several strings of committees are thus dedicated solely to oversight operations. Standing committees deal with bills across a wide range of policy areas, while select committees can be convened on either a temporary or permanent basis to handle very specific issues. Joint committees are made up of members from both the House and Senate. Conference committees come into being when the Senate and the House pass differing forms of the same bill; conference committees are tasked with reconciling these differences and putting together a merged version of the bill in question.

Pork barrels are valued political tools in Congress – by awarding a federal contract to a company in their state/district, a Congress member benefits threefold: the member earns a potentially valuable corporate ally, the member’s state/district is given an economic boon, and at reelection time, the representative has a clear success story to showcase in hopes of winning voters’ loyalty. Casework is simply work done by Congressional representatives on behalf of individual constituents; much like pork barrels, casework earns representatives goodwill and clout among the voting public. Descriptive representation is gained by highlighting the relevant personal traits which a representative shares in common with their constituents (for example, religion, race, or gender). Substantive representation, on the contrary, involves appealing directly to the interests most cherished by the voting public, such as relieving poverty or promoting education.

Regardless of whether a bill originates in the House of Representatives or in the Senate, in either case it must first be introduced in the chamber of origin. Next, again in either chamber, the bill is sent to a subcommittee and then onward to a committee. After this stage, in the House, the bill is then forwarded to a Rules Committee, which sets up parameters around the bill’s allowable methods of debate before then passing it on to the full House. The bill continues on to the Conference Committee, which reconciles any difference it might have with its counterpart in the Senate and which then issues a final compromise version of the bill to be considered by the full House once again. A similar process unfolds in the Senate, where after being considered by both a subcommittee and a committee, the bill is referred to Senate Leadership, which plans out an appropriate time for the full Senate to debate the bill. Once a full Senate debate has taken place, the bill is given over to the Conference Committee and then returns to stand before the full Senate again. The rigors of each of these systems ensure that the majority of bills die a laborious death somewhere in the midst of this cycle.

While government expenditures have indeed increased in recent times, it is also true that, due to widespread public concerns occasioned by this development, the national budget has grown ever narrower in terms of its generosity. More and more government departments are faced with funding cutbacks and are urged to spend what money they do receive more responsibly and transparently, with dire consequences for failure. Congressional leadership in both chambers strives to ensure that government monies are spent in the wisest way possible, often moving to de-fund some pork barrels and other programs deemed of dubious necessity. As zealous to guard their chances of reelection as ever, greater numbers of Senators and representatives have thus become engaged in oversight activities in hopes of both preserving pork funds for their constituents and so they can point to their role in curbing government spending come reelection time.

Any member of the House can introduce a bill. Note that though this seems like anyone can introduce a bill, that is simply not the case. Only members of the House can introduce bills—the President, for example, cannot introduce a bill. That said, the President can easily write a bill (or have staffers do so) and give it to a member of the House to introduce (or “sponsor”).

House members may introduce bills for various reasons—oftentimes it’s political grandstanding (e.g. introducing a bill that has no possibility of getting out of committee, much less being passed, in order to make a statement to one’s constituency). Whatever the reason, any member of the House may introduce a bill in the House. 

Out of the answer choices presented, two of them are most likely to hold hearings: committees and subcommittees. Because a committee (or subcommittee—for simplicity’s sake, assume that, for this question, there is no difference between the two) is much smaller than the full chamber, it makes more sense for a committee to hold hearings. Moreover, committees are specialized, whereas the chamber is generalized. In slightly more concrete terms, a House Member (or Senator) from Iowa may know a great deal about growing corn, but nothing about National Defense, whereas a House Member from Kentucky may know a lot about firearms and nothing about FCC regulations. Committees allow members of Congress to specialize in a particular niche, hence their importance in legislation.

This should have been a relatively easy question. A hearing is a meeting of any time of Congressional committee (or subcommittee) which is usually public (or public record), and is used to evaluate proposed legislation, conduct investigations (provided Congress has the jurisdiction), or to oversee the government’s implementation of law. The only possible pitfall in this question was the two almost-correct answers beginning with “a meeting of a Senate committee . . .” and “a meeting of a House committee . . .” These are incorrect because they are incomplete—either chamber of Congress is free to conduct a hearing.

Bill proponents are not without metaphorical arrows in their quiver, in the event that a bill gets pigeonholed (stuck/buried in committee). That said, it is VERY difficult for bill proponents to forcefully move a bill out of committee and onto the floor for full consideration in the event that it is stuck in committee. In order to do so, any member of the House may file a “discharge petition,” at which point the petition has  days to gather  signatures (currently, a majority of the House). If the petition succeeds in gathering signatures, the bill is automatically removed from the committee and placed before the full House.

This is an interesting question. The sad truth of the matter is that committees are a choke-point for bills—the first of many. Bills face a very tough uphill battle in the fight to become law, and this is the first instance where opponents of the bill can work to kill it. Technically speaking, a bill is “pigeonholed” when it is buried in committee (it happens so often there’s a word for it!). 

This should have been a very simple question. Although many presidents seem to act differently, the only government branch that can declare war is Congress (Art I, Sec. 8, Clause 11). That said, the President is commander-in-chief, a term with which you are hopefully familiar, thus the President is vested with the authority to lead the troops (that is, tell them where to go and what to do).