Ep. 80 – Legislative Branch

There are three branches of government in America – Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. In this episode, we find out what the legislative branch does!

Episode Transcript

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Now this is the FCB Podcast Network, the Great US all for Jeremy Everything,
and they fought so way working America. Welcome back, Patriots. Last

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time we talked about the different branchesof government and what it means to have
checks and balances. Now we're goingto start talking about what each branch does
and how it can check and balancethe others. Up first, the legislative
branch. My name is Susan Hirshmanand I'm originally from Alabama. And when

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I was thinking about what am Igonna do um when I grow up,
I had my life all planned out. I was going to be a speech
pathologist, and that's what I studiedin college, what I got a master's
degree in, and but I alwaysplayed around in politics, and so I
had my first job as a speechpathologists lined up when I graduated, but

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then got an offer to come toWashington. I did that job for two
years. It was a temporary job, and I was going to move back
home to Alabama and practice as aspeech pathologist. And I got sucked into
Washington, DC, and then youknow, followed a career path here of
working for a women's organization and thenworking on the hill and in Republican leadership

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running the House Majority Whips office,and then came to my firm which is
a law lobbying firm many years agonow and now represent a bunch of clients
and help advocate for them in government. It's great. So you said you
had a job on the hill.What does that mean? That is such

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a hill and that is such DCspeak. So in Washington everyone refers to
the Capitol. And you know,if you look at Washington, DC,
there's a capitol, and not everyonein Washington who works for the for Congress
works inside the Capitol. There's reallyonly a few offices there. But on

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if you if you walk outside thecapitol on one side, it's called the
House side of the Capitol, andthat is where there are three House office
buildings where the members of Congress thecongressman work and though they're elected every two
years, and so that's called theHouse side of the Capitol. And if
you work out walk out the otherside of the capitol there are three Senate

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office buildings, which is called theSenate side. And so when people say
I'll work on the hill, youknow the Capitol is up on a little
bit of a hill. Um andthey really refer to that whole conn complex
and maybe the capital it might befor a senator or a member of Congress.
And we had two administrations when Iworked on the Hill, when I

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worked in the Whip office. Onewas a Republican one, then one was
a Democratic one, and we certainlyworked with both presidents UM much differently.
UM. We had moments that wegot along and you know, had mutual
goals and UM, and quite honestly, with a Republican president and with a

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Democratic president. We also had momentsof great frustration, UM with with the
executive branch of the government. Soyou talked about the two different sides and
you know, even physically different onthe on the hill, the House and
the Senate, so they make upCongress and the legislative branch. And that's
really what we want to dig intotoday. So just at a really basic

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level, what does a just leada branch too? Why is it its
own, you know, branch ofgovernment? So you know, our founding
fathers were so very insightful, UM. And as a UM, generally a
conservative, UM, you don't Idon't want government doing too much. And

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as you know, as I've alwaystold my daughter, um, you know,
and you know, in a beliefit's a it's a cliche and everybody's
you know, lot of people saythis. You know, a government that
can give you everything can also takeeverything away from you. And and so
I think the three branches of governmentand that checks and balance, and even

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in the legislative branch, you know, send it in the house. Um.
And again I think our founding fatherswere either you know, lucky or
brilliant or you know, had divineand vention. You know, however,
you want to look at it,um, to make sure that nothing was
too easy. Um. And thatyou know, it took It takes a

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while, and you have to buildconsensus to for the government, to the
federal government to step in and saywe're gonna we're gonna change the way policy
works. And we're going to tellyou the American people are oftentimes the world.
We're gonna tell you we brilliant peopleunder the dome. Are you going

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to tell you how it's going togo? And that in my opinion,
that should not be easy. Um, that should not be easy. And
and and the legislative branch, youknow, I'd like to say, and
your students are going to be waytoo young and they won't even know the
reference. You might. When Iwas growing up, they had this little
cartoon of like, I'm just abill on Capitol Hill. Yeah, it

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might be fun to show them ofhow it doesn't work. Yeah, um,
and and it's a it's it's greatbecause it's a little cartoon bill.
And they talk about technically how abill becomes a law, and you know,
technically someone introduces the bill and thenthe bill gets a committee hearing.
Um, well, it gets referredto a committee because on both sides of

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the House and Senate there are manydifferent committees, and it gets you know,
you look at the policy behind itand say, oh, this goes
in the appropriations, or this goesin energy, or it goes in ways
and means. And then there's ahearing and then there's a mark up where
the committee brings up the bill andpeople make amendments to it and it's marked

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up, and this happens has tohappen in the House, and it has
to happen in the Senate, andthen it goes to the floor and the
full House, and then you know, separately, the full Senate hearing,
and then it goes to what's calleda conference committee, where people you know,
Republicans and Democrats, House and Senateget together and they work out the
differences in the bill and then itand then that conference report has passed,

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and then the President signs it.And that's how the cartoon that taught me
about the legislative branch taught me thatgovernment works. And that's how I learned
in high school that government works,you know, technically, that's how it
happens. Now I found I don'tthink I ever remember a real live example

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of a piece of legislation that becamelaw following that path. There's usually bits
and pieces of that path. Itgets introduced, it gets a hearing,
it might even and just because somethingpasses the floor doesn't mean that it's going
to go anywhere. What generally happensis the legislation generally gets a hearing,

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it generally gets a committee markup,It may or may not pass either body.
And what generally happens there is thatthere are a couple of really big
bills that are must pass, billsthat Congress has to pass to like fund
the government, you know, thingslike that, like the government will not
have any money if you don't passthis bill. And and you know,

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like, I'm sure none of yourstudents do this, but Congress waits to
the very last minute to pass thesebills, usually like right before a holiday,
and so right before there's a majordeadline, some big bill passes and
then there's a negotiation to figure outwhat goes in that big bill. And

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that's really how most legislation gets acrossthe finish line these days. And yeah,
absolutely, so that is the overalljob of the legislative branch. So
to legislate means to create the lawsand pass the bills that become our laws.
Yea, how how does that allowthem to be a check and a

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balance against the executive branch and thejudicial branch? So so the way so
number one, and again I thinkthis is this is something that's a cause
of concern. We'll start with ajudicial branch. I remember when I worked
on the hill and even now sometimesyou know, sometimes I want to say

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to the guys and gals and therobes, if you want to make law,
if you want to legislate, whydon't you trade in that robe and
go get yourself elected so you canlegislate. And you know what we've seen
in the past is they're not supposedto do that. We've seen in the
past where the judiciary I think stepsoutside of their bounds and sometimes will make

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laws based on any kind of presidentsthat don't exist. And so their job
is to interpret the law. So, you know, the legislative branch,
as you say, um, theirjob is to make the policy pass the
legislation. The job of the executivebranch is to then decide are they gonna

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sign that legislation into law or arethey going to veto that legislation. Their
job is you know, they certainlyhave a role to collaborate with legislators,
but their job is not to writethe policy. Their job is to sign
it or veto it. Um.And they also they have you know,
um, they have many agencies thatcan set forth regulations that should be based

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on the law um. And thenthe judicial branch their job is to interpret
does the law really mean that?Do the legislators really mean to do that,
or do they mean something else?And so when regulations are legislation UM
is challenged, their their job isto decide, um, does that is

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that? What that really means?Okay, So when the law is passed,
the judicial branch can can check itby saying, no, that's not
that's not what the law means,that's not you know constitutional maybe constitutional right,
And then and the executive branch cancheck it with a veto and say
no, we're not going to dothat. Yes, that is that is
such a good way of saying it, and that's ride yes, okay,

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okay. And then how can thelegislative branch then turn around and check the
other two If the executive branch getsa little bit out of control or if
the judicial branch, you know,starts to overstep, can the legislative branch
do anything about that? So thereare things that the legislative branch can do.
Um, they're not they're not youknow, massive amount they don't have

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massive amounts of tools. And remember, you know, anything that the legislative
branch does, you've got to passit in both the House and the Senate.
And we didn't talk about a Senatebecause of the filibuster um, which
means that you know, any senatorcan basically slow down a lot a vote

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in the Senate. It really,for all practical purposes, it usually takes
sixty votes in the Senate to passanything. So in order for them to
act, they've got to pass itin the House the Senate, and again
get it signed into law. Butthere are you know, they can I've
seen them threatened to defund agencies.So if there's a rogue agency, they

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can say, mister secretary, you'reacting in a rogue manner, I'm gonna
defund you. You can do that, but you're not going to have any
staff and you're not gonna you know, so you know, that is one
way that they can do that.Certainly, people haven't talked about impeaching judges.

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I don't think that that is atime an issue whose time has come.
M certainly it was, you know, certainly it was implated. Impeaching
the president seems to be UM veryum, very stylish these days. UM.
You know, when the House impeachedum a president that was literally,

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um, literally not going to bepresident anymore. UM. And then the
House, the legislative branch can doa lot of oversight um, which means
they can call in they can callin executive branch UM officials UM and question
um why they've done things, howthey've done things, and expose and expose

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um um and and and expose insanction officials that act in a manner that
is not appropriate. Okay, Soit sounds like they all need to really
compromise and work together ideally to tomake things work, which is something that
we've been talking about, you know, ever since all the way back when

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America declared independence. There are peoplewho weren't ready and they had to compromise
and compromise with what would be inthe constitution, you know, for everyone's
good. But one thing I wouldlove to ask you about is within Congress
we've mentioned a little bit, thereare the two different chambers. So what
do they do, how are theychosen? What do they do? And
how do they work together? TheHouse and the Senate. Yes, so

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the two chambers in the House,how do they work together? So sometimes
they work together well and sometimes theydon't work together well. And you know,
you're going to see a situation nextyear where you're going to have a
House that's narrowly controlled by the Republicansand a Senate that's narrowly controlled by the

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Democrats. And and you know,when I worked on the Hill, I
mean we had it both. Whenwhen I was on the Hill, we
had it. I worked under bothcircumstances where you know, we controlled my
party controlled the House for part ofthe time. Part of the time we
controlled the Senate, but we didn'thave the sixty votes, and part of

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the time we didn't control the Senate. And so a lot of times there's
positioning of like, Okay, ifyou know, if the Senate were my
party, here are all the billsthat we're going to send over to the
Senate and they're going to kill them. Um, these would these would become
law if the makeup of the Senatewere different. And so there are lots

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of votes that just make political statementsand hope to make policy later, because
you know you can't make policy.But ultimately, ultimately there are measures where
you do have to come into acompromise, and the White House and the
House and the Senate, no matterhow what party they all are, have

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to sit in a room and makea deal, own policies and negotiate it
at um and line by line,figure out what is Okay, you get
this, I don't like it.I can live with it, and I
get this. It's not exactly whatI want, but it's the best compromise

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we can do. That's great.So why are there the two different chambers.
Why would our why did our foundersset it up that way? So
you probably have the technical explanation moreit was. The House is the people's
house. They're they're elected every twoyears. Um, they're supposed to be,
you know, they look after theinterest very close to home. Um.

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You know many you know, severaldifferent congressional districts. Um, so
much smaller constituency, whereas the Senatehas two senators, um, you know,
for the whole state. And itdoesn't matter if you're a big state
like California or a little state likeNorth Dakota, you still have two senators.
And again I think this is moreof the checks and balances. The

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senators are only elected every six years, and so they're you know, one
would argue that they are not asclose to their constituents and they have a
lot more constituents, whereas the membersof the House are elected every two years
and they have many, many fewerconstituents. And so again I think that's
more of the checks and balances ofdifferent kinds of representation. Yeah, it

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really is incredible how our phoning fathersthought of everything. They thought of me.
I'm sure not every single thing.But gosh, they sure thought of
an awful lot and did everything theycould to make sure it would work for
as many people as possible. Ithink it's pretty incredible to look at.
It is really incredible and unique.And we're listen our system, you know,

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who's not frustrated with our government?Like we're all we're all terribly frustrated
all the time with our with ourgovernment. However, there is no better
system, you know, And againI think that's part of I think that's
also part of the design UM isin that, you know, frustration breeds

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compromise and frustration um and prevents thingsfrom happening too quickly so that you know,
we don't make the government doesn't makeyou know, too many big,
big mistakes because you know, ifyou look at what's happened, you know,
post during the pandemic and post pandemic, the amount of spending UM and

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debt that we've hooped upon, youknow, next generations, you know,
that's sort of what we've tried toavoid um doing too much of that.
Yeah, but even with all thechecks and balances, it doesn't you know,
it doesn't it doesn't stop that,yeah, but it slows it down.
Absolutely absolutely. So as we wrapup this episode, what is kind

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of the key thing that you wantthe kids to remember about what the legislative
branch does. I think that thekey thing to remember is it's a messy
process. Um. It's a verymessy process, and and it is often

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driven by um. The legislation isoften driven by issues that are raised at
the local level that um that constituentsget in an uproar about, and Congress
feels like they need to to umsolve it. And so I guess you

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know it's it's in some ways easyto to influence that process, UM,
but it is it's very messy.Yeah. Yeah, So we need to
be very thoughtful about who we votefor and the kind of the kinds of
things we ask them to handle forus, because those are those are both
very big decisions and uh, likeyou said, they can they can definitely

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have an impact on our lives.Yep. You need to be careful when
you're voting exactly or in or thinkabout in the future running yourself. Yes,
yes, absolutely, that's a greatthing to think about and when they
grow up. YEA, all right, Susan, thank you so much for
joining us today. This was awonderful overview. Thank you so much for

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joining us for this episode of theGrowing Patriot podcast and learning all about the
legislative branch. Coming up, we'llbe talking about the judicial and executive branches
too in the time. You canfind Growing Patriots and the Growing Patriot Books
at Growing patriots dot com, andwe are also on social media on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram at Growing Patriots. Until next time, the gret

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Us Old Jeremy stand everything and theyfuck so Wayward America land Over. This
has been a presentation of the FCBpodcast Network, where real talk lifts.
Visit us online at FCB podcasts dotcom.