Compare And Contrast The Two Houses Of Congress

The book How Congress Works, by Lee H. Hamilton, tells us a brief summary of the interworking’s of congress. The book begins to convey the role of congress in chapter one, the author begins with congresses important roles in our democracy. Which are passing budgets, manage conflicts that arise, debate issues facing the country and most importantly to act within the system of checks and balances. In our government neither congress nor president is supreme, most of the authority is with the citizens. The United States government is balanced into three branches of government: Congress, POTUS, SCOTUS, the House of Representatives and the Senate: also between the Federal Government and the States. The States are broken down into different regions with different issues facing them and different interests eventually boiling down to the bill of rights. Congress has the power of lawmaking, along with what the President’s agenda is, recommending bills to congress, and the power of the President to veto bills. Congress contains the power of the purse in which Congress controls the power of taxation and spending. Congress legislations and policies control some aspects of our lives like taxation or when they regulate us. Our Government

One of the Articles of the Constitution is about the Legislative Branch, or the congress. It tells them what they can and can’t do to people. It shows how it will be broken up into 2 houses of government, and what lawmaking abilities they can use. It gives them a certain amount of power, which helps our country. The framers wrote this detailed description for the legislative branch so that always knew

In the Federalist 51 of the Federalist Papers James Madison writes “In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates...the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided.” It is necessary for the legislative branch to have the most power because they reflect the will of the people since we directly elect members of Congress and the laws the legislative branch creates inevitably affects the people. The members of the legislative branch are the closest link to the people; they represent specific interest groups and must be responsive to those interest groups or risk losing re-election. The framers of the constitution such as James Madison believed that since Congress is closest to the people they would have a democratic legitimacy that neither the Executive or Judicial branches would possess.

“In the Senate, the states are represented equally, two Senators per state. In the House, the states are represented proportionally, based on population. This plan for representation is known as the "Great Compromise" and was a sticking point at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The tension stemmed from the fact that states are not created equal in size or population. In effect, the Senate represents the states and the House represents the people.”

A bicameral legislature is simply a legislature with two houses. The historical reason that the united states has this type of congress is that the British had this type of congress and they seemed to work so well so we decided to use this type of legislature. The practical reason was to settle the dispute between the New Jersey plan and the Virginia plan. The theoretical reason was so that one could check on the other. In the house of representatives there are 435 people. They serve a 6 year term. To qualify for the house of representatives you must be at least twenty-five years old, you have to be a citizen for the last 7 years, and own a house in the state you wish to represent. There are 100 members in the senate. They serve for 6 years. To be a senator you have to be at least 35 years old, you have to be a citizen for the past 9

Between the Senate and the House of Representatives, they try to balance their governments by establishing how many representatives and senators would be elected into each state. The amount of representatives that the state would elect would be based off of population, “Representatives … shall be apportioned … according to … (population).... The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand” (Constitution of the USA). The Senate would consist of two senators serving for a six-year term, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state, chosen by the legislatures thereof for six years” (Constitution of the USA). If the Senate or the House of Representatives were composed of different amounts of people, one would have more power than the other.

As mentioned before, the U.S. Congress is made up of two chambers-the House and the Senate- that is provided by the constitution as a bicameral legislature. They each cater to different constituencies. The House is known to be more responsive to the people and the Senate is responsive to the elite. They both are elected directly by the people. Four hundred thirty-five of the members of the U.S. Congress are apart of the House and one hundred of the members are apart of the Senate (Lowi, 136). Can you imagine having to make compromises and decisions on thing with five hundred thirty-five people? I can imagine with that many people apart of the U.S. Congress that they dealt with a lot of conflict when having to make decisions.

The number of representatives in the house is based on a state's populous, each state gets a minimum 1 representative and 1 more for the allotted amount of people in the state. This came from the virginia plan, to make it fair to big states to gain more representation in congress, the New Jersey plan favored small states and is featured in the senate where each state gets 2 representatives. Small states wanted an equal say and a voice in congress so two senators were elected in each state (Doc D). No senator can serve in both senate and house at the same time in order to keep them separate and no Congress member can be a judge or president while still serving as the elected official (Doc B). When the senate or house wants to pass a bill it must pass both the Senate and the House and then will be sent to the president to check, and it will be either signed or vetoed, so that congress cannot pass laws that are in favor of their power (Doc

Member service longevity is not a trend that can be easily compared among states due to conflicting constitutional laws and the ability to move into higher elective offices. When comparing state governments to Congress, the states have a higher turnover rate because there are two sources of turnover that the Congress does not have to deal with. One is that certain state chambers are described as springboard states, where the representatives have a better chance of gaining a higher elected office than other states do. When the legislator has a chance to rise in the government there tends to be a higher turnover rate. These legislators "also tend to be more responsive to constituents on policy preferences than are legislators in other sorts of chambers" (Maestas 2000). Term limits also play a large role in the turnover rates in state governments compared to that of Congress' rates. States that have term limits seem to have higher rates due to the fact that "legislators in term-limited legislatures are less obliged to focus on their

The Legislative Branch is one out of the three branches of the government. All the branches of the federal government play a super important part in Government. However, the Legislative Branch is the strongest branch. All of the Legislative Branches privileges and powers are well-defined in the U.S Constitution. All of the Legislative Branches rights and powers are defined in the U.S Constitution. The U.S Constitution wanted to divide powers within the three branches of the federal government. The Legislative Branch is the strongest branch because they make laws, declare war, and override presidential veto, and

THESIS: The Legislative Branch consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate which forms the United States Congress; the Constitution grants Congress the single authority to pass legislation and declare war, the right to approve or reject Presidential appointments, and significant investigative powers.

When writing the current Constitution, the founders were very inclined to create a system in which the people have representation in their government. Framers respond to this by creating a bicameral legislature, one that consists of a House of Representatives and Senate. The representation in the two houses was decided by the “Great Compromise”, effectively creating a House with representatives given to states in proportion to population. The Senate stands to grant states two representatives each, regardless of population or landmass. Some of the main powers of the legislature include: passing laws, originating spending bills (House), impeaching officials (Senate), and approving treaties (Senate). “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”(Constitution Center) Some people argue that the legislative branch is the most powerful of the three, able to create legislation and impeach the president. This also brings up how the legislative branch can regulate other branches. One way the legislative branch does this is by impeaching judges and presidents. In addition to this, the legislative branch can vote to give more power to the presidential branch. These powers are very important and useful, but the legislative branch can also be checked as

In the United States government, the legislative branch is a very complex system. Congress was made into a bicameral, or two-house system. The framers of the constitution did this because they believed that it was in the best interest of this new nation. These two separate houses would help aid the democratic process and make the system less corrupt and fair for all the states.

The delegates compromised, deciding that seats in the House of Representatives would be distributed according to population and that seats in the Senate would be distributed equally among the states. The small states could rely on the Senate to defend their interests if the House passed legislation that threatened their rights. The framers of the Constitution specified that House members would be elected by popular vote every two years, so members of the House would be constantly in touch with the citizens that they represent. In contrast, the framers decided to shield the Senate from popular pressures by giving senators six-year terms.

The Legislative Branch consists of Congress, which is made up of two parts; The House of Representatives and the Senate. These two parts of Congress was a result of the 1789 Compromise between the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan was about states wanted more representation in Congress because they were bigger states. From that plan the New Jersey Plan was brought forth. The New Jersey Plan basically said was smaller and bigger states should have equal power in Congress, so the bigger states don’t overpower the smaller states. In 1789 the solution came, with Great Compromise that took parts of both plans and used it. As part of the Virginia plan the House of Representatives was created, that gave representation in