We'll discover that, in some instances, the branch does wield a lot of power. Every now and then since the mid-1990s, Congress has refused to pass the laws necessary to fund the government--almost the whole thing! These shutdowns have meant unpaid federal employees and contractors, closed parks and monuments, and difficulties for people who rely on the federal government for an enormous variety of goods, services, protections, and so on. When Congress refuses to exercise it power of appropriation--the power to spend money--it can cause real trouble.

We'll discover that Congress has not always exercised the powers we might expect it to--and sometimes Congress takes actions that we might not have been able to imagine if we were, say, writing the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. As usual, the Constitution is just one of the stops we'll make as we consider the governing institution that makes law in the U.S. national government, Congress.

The partisanship that Madison sometimes complained about persists to this day, and although it differs in the details, its basic shape has remained stable: two major parties, with occasional spoiling by minor party activity. We can't study Congress without thinking about the political parties as Congressional caucuses, as groups of lawmakers who have to stick together with some consistency and discipline if they want to accomplish much in Congress.

Finally, we'll study the lawmaking process itself, but we won't go too far into the weeds on that. One of the things that frustrates so many of us about Congress is its seeming inability to do much of what's needed, and yet, we've been provided with an institution that is, in many ways, supposed to function very slowly and deliberately. It might be a little much to say that lawmaking is like sausage making, but lawmaking can be... ugly and unseemly, at times.

Before we get to the foundations and fundamental powers of Congress, let's consider all the goals of our unit...