Long Serving Members, Party Leadership and Committees in U.S Congress Essay

Long Serving Members, Party Leadership and Committees in U.S Congress - Essay Example An institution should never work for a particular segment of people alone. It should work for the wellbeing of all the people. This paper analyses American Congress as an institution with its long-serving members, party leadership and committees. First, and foremost, Congress is sometimes called the "People's Branch," because it is so close to the electoral process and, hence, the voters. Whereas the entire Executive Branch has two elected officials, president and vice president (and they run together as a team), the population of Congress results from 535 separate elections. Members can rarely rest from fund raising or campaigning. Every two years, about 470 of those seats are up for reelection--all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate (Weingarten). Before analysing Congress as an institution, it is necessary to know what an institution is. Institution is often become a controversial word. It has no standardized definition. Different people define the term institution in different way s. According to James Pedlar (2011), â€Å"An institution is a changeable, but permanent, product of purposive social role behaviour which subjects the individual to obligations, gives him formal authority and possesses legal sanctions† (Pedlar). If this definition is true, one can safely say that American Congress is definitely an institution at least in principle. It should be noted that none of the Congress members are permanent and each of them are elected for a specific period only. At the same time, one should not be forgotten that American congress is a permanent entity even though its members are changing periodically. All the congressmen have some kind of obligations towards the country and also towards the people the constituencies they represent. Moreover, each congressman has some kind of power given to them by the American constitution. In short, American Congress satisfies all the requirements of an institution. At the same time, it should be noted that some of the members of American congress have already crossed 50 years service as Congressman. For example, Robert Byrd, who died at the age of 92 recently, had served American Congress for around 52 years. Same way more than 25 members of the current Congress have crossed more than 35 years of service in Congress. These statistics clearly suggest that even though a prescribed term was there for the Congressmen, many of them were able to continue in Congress for very long periods. This is because of the fact that American constitution allows a person to compete elections to Congress as many times he likes. Even though presidential term is fixed to two terms maximum, such restrictions are not there for the congressmen. That is why many people argue that American Congress is not at all an institution since many of its members remain the same for a longer period. As everybody knows, conservatives and Democrats are two of the major political parties in American Congress. The leadership of these parties in the Congress will be elected by the party conferences. One of the will be the majority party leader whereas the other would be the minority party leader. At present, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are working as the floor leaders in

Anzia yezierska struggle for independence in the new world and her Research Paper

Anzia yezierska struggle for independence in the new world and her strategy on being successful - Research Paper Example She struggles to rise out of the poverty of the New York City ghetto, to have cleanliness and space for herself. She also struggles with the desire for secular education, while continuing to respect her father's strict religion. Most importantly, Sara is struggling to be able to make her own choices. She desires independence and free-will and she is willing to work hard to achieve it. The novel's ending is controversial, though Sara does get the happily-ever-after ending the American dream promises to all immigrants. The youngest of nine children in a devoutly Jewish family, Anzia Yezierska was born in the Russian-Polish village Plinsk, near Warsaw, between 1880 and 1885. The exact date of her birth is unknown and Yezierska, herself, was constantly lying about her age to further convolute the biography. Her family immigrated to the United States in the early 1890's, joining an older brother who had moved several years earlier. Yezierska was given the name Harriet Mayer by her new gov ernment, though she went by Hattie at first and then reassumed Anzia in her late twenties. Her family moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a largely Jewish ghetto, where Yezierska would later find inspiration in the crowded, bustling Hester Street for her writing. The crowded tenement her family lived in, as well as all the unfortunate idiosyncrasies of living in such close proximity to your family members and your neighbors is reproduced in Bread Givers as well as her other novels. Yezierska's writing, as well as her struggle for independence, personal space, cleanliness, education and financial security come from this period of her life (Horowitz). Yezierska's father, Baruch, also reproduced in Bread Givers, was a talmudic scholar and valued the study of sacred books over any work that would financially support his family. The task of bread-winning fell on Yezierska's mother and subsequently, their nine children as soon as they were able. Extreme poverty, coupled with the fa ct that their religion does not respect the educational aspirations of women, caused Yezierska to attend elementary school for only two years. She finally moved into the Clara De Hirsch Home for Working Girls, determined to gain her independence. Choosing education as the route away from her parents and their old world beliefs, Yezierska forged a high school diploma and was admitted to Columbia University's Teachers College and given a scholarship. Yezierska was said to have wanted to become a â€Å"domestic science teacher to help better her people,† though she only taught elementary school for five years before turning to fiction as a career. Her determination to acquire an education and carve her own way in her new country is evident in every phase of her life. By placing her desire for education above everything else she was able to earn a living for herself and earn a good reputation in her community. (Horowitz). In the novel, Bread Givers, Sara Smolinsky struggles with many of the same issues as Yezierska. The tenement the Smolinsky family lives in on Hester Street is incredibly crowded and cleanliness is something often strived for, though never fully achieved. They're so poor that when Mother comes home to find ten-year-old Sara peeling potatoes for dinner, with all the weight of the families hardships upon her young shoulders, she reprimands her wastefulness. â€Å"