How Is The United States Congress Organized?
How is the United States Congress organized?
I just need know how it’s organized and stuff.
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very poorly!
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election.
As provided by the United States Constitution, each of the 435 members of the House of Representatives represents a district and serves a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population. The 100 Senators serve staggered six-year terms. Each state has two senators, regardless of population. Every two years, approximately one-third of the Senate is elected.
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election.
As provided by the United States Constitution, each of the 435 members of the House of Representatives represents a district and serves a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population. The 100 Senators serve staggered six-year terms. Each state has two senators, regardless of population. Every two years, approximately one-third of the Senate is elected.
Article I of the Constitution vests all legislative power in the Congress. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process (legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers); however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate is uniquely empowered to ratify treaties and to approve top presidential appointments. Revenue-raising bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which also has the sole power of impeachment, while the Senate has the sole power to try impeachment cases.
The Congress meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
The term Congress is also used to refer to a particular meeting of the national legislature, reckoned according to the terms of representatives. Therefore, a “Congress” covers two years. The current 111th Congress met on January 6, 2009.
Congress is ‘bicameral,’ meaning 2 chambers: 435 Representatives in The House of Representatives and 100 Senators in The Senate.
The original “House” had each 30,000 citizens in a State represented by 1 Representative, according to The Constitution.. That was fine when the total U.S. population was around 13 million people. If that were still the case, there would be over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND Representatives, obviously an unwieldy situation.
So the number was fixed at 435 Representatives, which means that each Rep now represents about 700,000 people. For the States with less than 700,000 residents, they are guaranteed at least one Rep anyway. But ALL States have 2 Senators, no matter how big or small the population of the state.
To keep up with the proportional representation of the citizens a State, a National Census is conducted every 10 years by the U.S. Commerce Department. The Census produces tons of demographic data about the population, including average family size, racial makeup and many other statistics.
Those statistics are used by each individual State to re-draw their Congressional district boundaries (if necessary) to reflect the latest population data to result in equitable representation. In the past, and to a lesser extent even now, sometimes districts are re-drawn to favor one political party or another in a process called ‘gerrymandering.’ It is not uncommon for lawsuits to result from the redrawing of districts.
Representatives are elected every 2 years. Senators run for re-election every 6 years, with 1/3 of them running for re-election every 2 years. For example: Senator XYZ (and 32 other Senators) was elected in 2002, so he will run for re-election in 2008. Senator ABC (and 32 other Senators) was elected in 2004, so she runs for re-election in 2010. And Senator LMN (and 33 other Senators) was elected in 2006, so he runs again in 2012.
There is much, much more to learn, so why go to your Google search-box and type in “United States Congress” and then you’ll see gazillions of websites appear, including at least 1 site from the Congress itself. You might also want to Google “U.S. Constitution” and look at what The Constitution and its Amendments say about Congress in terms of its makeup, structure and powers.
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The basics, it’s organized into two Houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. There that’s the basics.