Congressional Leadership: Crash Course Government and Politics #8

This week Craig Benzine explores the leadership structure of congress. We’ll break out the clone machine to examine the responsibilities of the speaker of the house, the majority and minority leaders, and the majority and minority whips in both the Senate and the House. As the leadership heavily influences assignments to committees and acts as the primary point of contact with the media, they wield significant power in influencing public dialog.

Chapters:
Introduction: Leadership Structure of Congress 00:00
Leadership in Congress 0:22
Speaker of the House 0:50
Majority & Minority Whips & Leaders 1:20
Senate leadership 2:05
How congressional leaders exercise power 3:03
Who controls the congressional agenda? 3:28
Access to press 4:13
Fundraising 4:43
Why political parties matter in Congress 5:26
Understanding congressional leadership 6:54
Credits 7:39

Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?

[andrewbryson]

everytime this man punches an eagle, our citizens get slightly smarter

[Crick]

I used to have faith in the US Government,

Then I took AP US Gov in high school...

[whichever-godyou-prefer]

"Pro is the opposite of Con. Therefore CONgress is the Opposite of PROgress."... i used to laugh at that now it seems it couldnt  be more true

[johathan]

Who else's teacher is loading millions of these videos with questions, just because they cant teach you

[rowei]

I have actually really been liking Craig for crash course

[lewiskaminski]

Huge Crash Course fan. I'm actually a policy advisor for a Member in the House, and these are great. If people actually paid attention to more of these sorts of details - understood how things work - maybe they would get up off their duffs and vote instead of kvetching all the time about how everybody's a liar and nothing ever gets done.

Spoiler Alert: nothing gets done because you don't vote. Yes. You. YOU. The person reading this comment. There's a 66.1% chance that you're the person I'm cheesed at. Go vote. Right now. I don't care it's the middle of March. Go vote for something. Do it now.

[meganx]

I feel like I'm the only one here actually watching this so I can pass ap gov

[noneofyourbeezwax]

I watched this crash course mostly just so I could understand what's going on in house of cards better. It helps!

[cfdj]

"How congress works" it doesn't, like at all, if congress was on fire congress would not pass "pour water on congress"

[NiLowther]

Anybody else watching this outside the United States just to get a better understanding of House of Cards

[connerrodriquez]

Huge fan of a crash course. These videos are perfect for people who are slower learners.

[michaelmaklan]

Is it just me or is he speaking really fast?

[WalshTV]

They should make a Crash Course World Gov't and politics

[yr]

Wow, learned a lot here. Party leaders have a lot more power than I realized.

[Woodenfan]

As a person who lives in upstate New York, I can't help but feel offended by this video :P

[onlybrandan]

Two things: 1. Very nice and subtle House of Cards reference 2. Yes, people do live in upstate New York. And I am one of them.

[Sonshien]

Bro, I used to LIVE in upstate New York.





But yeah, I got lonely and left.


woula been nice to have a couple of clones.

[henkwaterlander]

That House of Cards reference at 4:05 :)

[totesmcgoats]

Speaking as a native Upstate New Yorker, it is so much different from NYC and Long Island, it might as well be a different state altogether. And yes, there are a lot of us up here.

[mtneves]

I need a crash course for all my law classes. People should know what the law is anyway.