Congress

The Senate is one of the two parts of Congress. The other part is the House of Representatives. Congress is the part of the federal government that writes the laws, and another name for it is the national legislature. The Senate and the House both meet in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

There are one hundred United States senators. The number is easy to figure out. Every state elects two senators, and there are fifty states. A state with a few hundred thousand people has the same two senators as a state with tens of millions.

This equal share was a deal made when the Constitution was written. Small states were afraid that large states would outvote them on everything. That agreement is called the Great Compromise, or the Connecticut Compromise. It gave every state an equal voice in the Senate. Seats in the House of Representatives follow population instead.

A senator is elected for a term of six years. There is no limit on how many terms a senator may serve. Senate elections are staggered, which means they do not all happen in the same year. About one third of the Senate is elected every two years, so the whole Senate is never replaced at once.

A senator represents all the people of the state, not one small part of it. The voters of the state elect their senators directly. That has been the rule since the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913; before that, the state legislatures chose the senators.

The Senate has some jobs the House does not have. It votes on whether to approve the people the President appoints, such as Cabinet members, ambassadors, and federal judges. It also approves treaties with other countries. If the House impeaches a federal official, which means formally accusing that person of serious wrongdoing, the Senate holds the trial. The Vice President of the United States serves as president of the Senate and votes only to break a tie.

Two groups of people have no senators. Residents of Washington, D.C., and residents of United States territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam do not have United States senators. If you live in one of those places and are asked to name one of your state's senators, the correct answer is that you have none.

The House of Representatives is the other half of Congress. It has four hundred thirty-five voting members. Seats are divided by population, so a state with more people sends more representatives than a state with fewer people.

Every state has at least one representative, however small it is. The seats are counted again after the census, which is the count of the population taken every ten years. States then redraw the district lines inside their own borders.

Each representative is elected by the people of one congressional district and speaks for that district. A senator speaks for a whole state. That is the clearest difference between the two chambers, and chamber here means one of the two parts of Congress. The voters of the district, not of the whole state, choose the representative.

A term in the House is two years, so every seat is up for election every two years. The short term is deliberate. It keeps members close to public opinion, and it lets voters change the House quickly when they are unhappy. That is why representatives serve shorter terms than senators.

The leader of the House is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, chosen by the members. The Speaker is also second in line to become President. Because the Speaker changes from time to time, look up the current name at uscis.gov/citizenship/testupdates before your interview.

The House has powers of its own. Bills about taxes must start in the House. Only the House can impeach a federal official, which means formally accusing that person of serious wrongdoing; the Senate then holds the trial.

Washington, D.C., and the territories send delegates to the House. A delegate can speak and work in committees but cannot vote when the full House passes a bill, and delegates are not counted in the four hundred thirty-five. The delegate from Puerto Rico is called the Resident Commissioner. If you live in one of these places, you may name your delegate, or say that your territory has no voting representative.

Congress makes federal laws, and both of its parts take part: the Senate and the House of Representatives. A proposed law is called a bill. It stays a bill until both chambers have passed it and the President has accepted it or Congress has overridden a refusal.

A member of Congress introduces the bill in the Senate or in the House. Bills about taxes must start in the House. The bill then goes to a committee, a small group of members who study it, hold hearings, and change the wording. Most bills stop here and never become law.

If the committee approves the bill, the whole chamber debates it and votes on it. The bill then goes to the other chamber, which does the same. Both chambers must pass exactly the same text, so if the two versions differ, members agree on one common version and vote again.

The bill then goes to the President. The President signs bills to become laws. The President can instead veto the bill, which means refusing to sign it and sending it back to Congress with the reasons.

A veto does not always end the bill. If two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate vote for it again, it becomes law without the President's signature. That is called overriding a veto. A President can also do nothing at all. If Congress is meeting, and the President keeps the bill for ten days, the bill becomes law without a signature. Sundays are not counted in those ten days.

Passing a bill is how Congress uses its main power, the power to write laws. Congress has other powers as well. Congress declares war. Congress makes the federal budget, which sets how the government's money is raised and spent.

Once a law exists, the other branches take over. The executive branch carries it out, and the courts decide what it means in real cases and whether it agrees with the Constitution.