How to legislators learn to legislate?

January 5, 2007 8:36 AM

How do new legislators learn all the congressional rules of order?

I know a lot of people in Congress had prior legislative experience, but some of them are coming from the private sector. Do they take classes? Do they have aides brief them? Is it something the parties show them how to do? Are they just handed a book of the rules and they study them? Did they learn from political science courses in college? Do they just kind of stumble along and pick things up as they go along? Anybody out there who works on capital hill have some inside experience to share?

posted by empath to law & government (14 comments total)

I'm asking mostly about the "Mr Speaker, I rise in support of etc, and I'd like to reserve the balance of my time.. and I've got a parliamentary inquiry" -- that kind of thing. It seems like a lot of protocol that needs to be learned in the time between getting elected and being sworn in.
posted by empath at 8:38 AM on January 5, 2007

There is a week-long "class" at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government for incoming freshmen Representatives. I guess that in addition to learning the basic rules of order, they meet and greet a lot of people. I used to live across the street and it was something that happened every 2 years that was slightly disruptive.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:41 AM on January 5, 2007

wow, that was fast.

Thanks :)

Still interested in more details, though, if anybody has personal experience.
posted by empath at 8:42 AM on January 5, 2007

Also, this is supposedly not as much the case anymore, but from what I've learned, freshmen in congress used to not be expected to really do much except sit and watch, and in fact it was frowned upon to do otherwise. I'm not sure how much they're expected/encouraged to do/not do anymore, but certainly that used to be one way they learned the ropes in the past.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 8:47 AM on January 5, 2007

Also, I've got a follow up for ikkyu2 if you're still watching: Is more or less mandatory for all freshmen? Is it the official government sponsored class? Is it just a service harvard offers that has become the standard? I would think if it were mandatory or government sponsored, it would be held in DC, but I suppose it would also make sense to have it at arguably the best school of government in the country.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 8:51 AM on January 5, 2007

gauchodaspampas's (thankful for cut and paste :) method is my experience in academia. I know my first year on faculty I was wary of saying anything for fear it was out of order. I think the class that ikkyu2 mentioned would be great fo us, too.
posted by monkeymadness at 8:57 AM on January 5, 2007

Here's a guide that is distributed to new Canadian parliamentarians as part of their orientation.

Perhaps the most interesting story I have about the orientation process is the session the party holds for spouses, where they're told "80% of your husbands will end up cheating on you, so start getting emotionally prepared for that." My member is actually one of the 20%, but his wife still cast a very cold eye on young female hires for a while.
posted by ewiar at 9:04 AM on January 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Gaucho: I don't know the answers to your questions! Here is a Harvard Crimson article covering the 2002 orientation.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:11 AM on January 5, 2007

Some information on the program, for which it seems Harvard picks up the tab.
posted by Partial Law at 9:19 AM on January 5, 2007

The Congressional Research Service also has all sorts of training for new Members, from floor procedures to legislation drafting.
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:49 AM on January 5, 2007

For a vague sense of what the Kennedy School Congressional orientation program is like, the Colbert Report taped a segment there.
posted by andrewraff at 12:48 PM on January 5, 2007

I mention this only since the term hasn't yet been dropped, but parliamentary procedure is often based off of Robert's Rules of Order.
posted by Alt F4 at 1:38 PM on January 5, 2007

One of the first thing a Reprentative- or Senator-elect does, if he or she lacks heavy Hill experience, is hire someone who has such Hill experience as his or her #1 or #2 staffer, and leans on that person heavily for at least the first year or so in DC. The fine points are too important to be left to a class; they require constant reminders to avoid some embarassing lapses.
posted by MattD at 4:46 PM on January 5, 2007

These are all correct.

In addition:

*It's relatively common for new-ish members to take a turn presiding over their chamber as a means of learning by doing.

*There are endless opportunities for informal learning from co-partisans, caucus meetings, other members from your state, and so on.

*Not everybody becomes an expert on procedure.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:18 PM on January 5, 2007