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The United States Congress

Established by the Constitution, the U.S Congress is bicameral — composed of the Senate, with two senators from each state, and the House of Representatives, whose representation is proportional to each state’s population. 

Hie main duty of the Congress is to make laws and its m^or powers include levying federal taxes, regulating commerce with foreign countries and among states, declaring war, raising and supporting armies, monitoring the activities of executive branch agencies, and more importantly, deciding what government programs will receive funds.

The House is the lower chamber of Congress. It has 435 voting members, elccted from sinde-member districts within each state, which are approximately equal in population. (The average congressional district has a population of about 570,000; the House also includes non-vodng delegates from Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Island, and American Samoa.) It has an equal status with the Senate on most matters, but is granted the exclusive powers to initiate tax bills, to impeach federal officials and to elcct the president if no candidate receives a majority in the Electoral College.

Representatives, also known as Congressmen or Congresswomen, serve two-year terms, and they face election in every even-numbered year. According to the Constitution, a member of the House must be at least twenty-five years of age and a U.S. citizen for seven years before his or her clecdon. In addition, representatives must live in the state that they represent.

The House was designed to be more responsive to the popular needs. Representatives often refer to their chamber as 44the people's House' Each representative has a staff of twenty or more people, and is provided with offices both in V/ashington and in the home district. House members devote much of their time to constituent services. Representatives from the fifty states bring local concerns to national debates, and they work to make sure that their constituents will have a voice in national and international affairs and the particular needs of their constituents are addressed in national legislation. Its members therefore constantly strive to assure that the constituents^ interests are fairly considered within the federal system.

The leadership of the House is formally hierarchical. The most powerful person in the House is known as the Speaker who is traditionally the leader of the majority party. He or she interprets House rules and refers bills to committees where most of the legislative activities are performed. Depending upon the philosophy of the various Speakers, they have acted as impartial presiding officers or as strong partisan leaders. Other leaders of the House include the majority and minority floor leaders (majority-party leaders and minority-party leaders in both the House and Senate), party whips and committees.

The Senate
The Senate is the upper chamber of Congress. It consists of 100 members, with two senators elected from each state, regardless of the size of the population, guaranteeing equal representation, which was designed to protect the rights of the smaller states. Althou^i both chambers of Congress share essentially the same powers, the Constitution reserves for the Senate certain special powers. These powers include the exclusive right to try cases of impeachment of federal ofllcials, confirm presidential appointments of the federal judges, cabinet members, and other high executive officials,ratify treaties, and elect a vice president if no candidate receives a majority from the Electoral College.

Senators serve six-year terms. Unlike the House of Representatives, in which all members should stand for reelecdon every two years, only one-third of the senators are elected every two years. The Constitution requires that a senator should be at least thirty years of age,a U.S. citizen for a minimum of nine years, and reside in the state that he or she represents.

The Senate was designed to be a smaller, more deliberate body. Indeed,compared with the House, the Senate is more prestigious and has more media coverage and higher public visibility. Each senator frequently has a staff of fifty or more people, and is provided with offices both in Washington and the home state. While senators devote much of their attention to their states, they tend to respond more directly to issues of national, rather than local concern.

The leadership of the Senate is less hierarchical. Thou多1 there also are floor leaders and party whips in the Senate, each senator exercises more influence on leadership, committees, and floor votes. The vice president of the United States serves as presiding officer of the Senate but has no vote unless the senators are equally divided on a question.

The Election of the Congress
Members of Congress arc independent politicians. They initiate their own candidacies, raise most of their campaign funds from individual contributors, put together personal campaign organizations, and get themselves elected with relatively little help from their party.

It should be noted that the election of the Congress cannot determine who will be elected president, and the presidential election cannot determine who will be elected to Congress, cither. Cor^ressional elections are thought to be decided by the popularity of individual candidates and local district issues. It is quite possible to have the leader of one political party win the presidency while the other major political party wins most of the seats in Congress. It is also important to remember that the elections of the members of the House and the Senate are separate from each other. Thus, the Democrats may control one house, while the Republicans may control the other.

Law-making Procedure
The principal duty of Congress is to make federal laws. However, the law-making procedure, which a bill must go through to bccome a law, is very complicated. No law can be passed unless both the House of Representatives and the Senate pass identical laws. Confusing it may be,its procedure can be summarized as follows.

1. A bill is introduced either in the House or in the Senate and assigned to a committee,which refers it to the appropriate subcommittee.
2. Subcommittee of the House or the Senate holds hearings and “marks up” the bill (revises a bill line by line by editing each phrase and word). If the bill is approved, it goes to the Rill committee.
3. Full committee of the House or the Senate considers the bill. If the bill is approved, it is “reported” to the full House or Senate and placed on the House or Senate calendar.
4. Rules Committee of the House issues a rule to govern debate on the floor and sends it to the full House, or the majority and minority leaders of the Senate negotiate “unanimous consent” agreements scheduling full Senate debate and vote on the bill.
5. Full House or Senate debates the bill and may amend it. It the bill passes and it is in a form difTerent from the Senate or the House version, it must go to a confercnce committee.
6. Conference committee of senators and representatives meets to reconcile differences between bills. When agreement is reached, a compromise bill is sent back to both the House and the Senate.
7. President signs or vetoes the bill. Congress can override a veto by a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate.

As shown above, a bill must overcome many obstacles in order to be enacted into law. In reality, few bills introduced travel the whole procedure; less than 10 percent of bills introduced are passed by Congress and sent to the president for approval or veto. Most bills die in committees and subcommittees, usually from inaction rather than being voted down.

Committees in Congress
As we have seen from the law-making procedure, committees and subcommittees play an important role in legislation. The face of the matter is that while Congress as an institution influences policy-making, much of the real work is done in committees due to the hi^i volume and complexity of the work. Different committees can study and handle legislation in different categories. Each committee is assigned its own staff to assist with its legislative, investigative, and research funcdons. Furthermore, mosl committees divide their work into subcommittees that study certain issues in depth. The committee system actually provides for a division of labor in Congress, assigning responsibility for work and allowing members to develop some expertise. The House committees have forty to sixty or more members and Senate committees fifteen to twenty-five members each. The proportions of Democrats and Republicans on each committee reflect the proportions of Democrats and Republicans in the Congress as a whole. And one representative or senator may belong to several committees or subcommittees.

Basically, there arc four kinds of congressional committees: standing, spccial, or select, joint, and conference.

Standing committees refer to permanent committees that specialize in a particular area of legislation. Both the House and the Senate currently have twenty such committees. They deal with special issues such as agriculture, finance, education, foreign relations and so on. The primary function of standing committees is screening and drafting bills. Proposed bills are first referred to committees, but they arc rarely submitted to a vote by the lull membership of the House or Senate without prior consideration and approval by a standing committee. Moreover, standing committees draft legislation themselves. They may amend, rewrite proposed bills, or write their own bills.

Special or select committees are temporary committees appointed for specific purposes,generally to conduct special investigations or studies and to report back to the chambcr chat established them. Examples of such committees include the Senate Committee on Watergate, the Select Committee on Ethics and the Special Committee on Aging.

Joint committees include members from both houses of Congress who conduct investigations or special studies. Such committees are usually permanent. Examples of joint committees are Joint Committee on Taxation, Joint Committee on the Library, and Joint Economic Committee.

Conference committees are a special kind of temporary joint committee that reconcile differences in bills passed by the House and Senate. The Constitution requires that both houses of Congress pass a bill in identical form. However, many bills pass each house with different wording and provisions. When serious differences arise,bills arc assigned to conference committees to reach agreement on a single version for resubmission to both houses. Conference committees can be very powerful. In resolving differences, they make many final policy decisions.

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