Congress is split up in to two parts: The Senate and The House of Representatives. Each branch works alongside each other but they are different and have different requirements to be a member. To be a member of the House you have to be at least 25 years only, a citizen for 7 years and can only serve in 2 year terms. To be a member of the senate, you need to be at least 30 years old, a citizen for 9 years and can only serve in 6 year terms. There are always 100 members of the Senate and 435 members of the House regardless of population in the United States. The House of Representatives is responsible for local representation whereas the senate focuses more on the states as a whole. There are two different types of representatives: a trustee …show more content…
However, they are able to serve an unlimited amount of terms so long as they are reelected back into their position. Due to these allowances, there are many incumbents, someone whose seat is held for them while they run for office and additional time. The incumbency rates are 98 percent for the House and 90 percent for the Senate. According to the textbook, We the People, “Incumbency can help a candidate by scaring off potential challengers”. Although people retire or others may not get re-elected, these shocking rates keep the same people in power for a very long time. So called “term limits” are in place but does not actually limit them from serving multiple terms as opposed to, for example, the 2 terms the president is limited to. Since each state has representatives from the House based on population, every 10 years redistricting occurs. The number of representatives in each district may change to accommodate new census information. Because these new lines are drawn, people in charge of redistricting may manipulate these lines and clump parts of the population together based on demographics or political ideology to favor their candidates. Other manipulation like this happens within congress such as patronage and pork-barrel legislation. Pork-barrel legislation is when congressmen enact special projects that are often not necessary, to gain …show more content…
Bills can start their long process to becoming a law in either the House or the Senate. If a bill begins in the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House will get the bill first. After the bill is reviewed by the speaker, it goes on to the committee. A committee is a group of staff working for either the House or the Senate who writes and amends legislation. There are many committees but the bill is passed on to the committee concerned with the topic of the legislation. It is then passed on to a subcommittee, which is a selection of people who are responsible for researching about the subject, listening to expert testimony, and holding hearings. This step allows for the views of others to be considered such as experts, other officials, or the opposing side. The subcommittees are very experienced in a specific area and are able to make amendments at this step as well. Subcommittees present their ideas and amendments back to the committee. Due to the intense nature of these reviews and amendments, most bills do not make it past these steps. About 95% out of about 8,000 bills die within committee. If a bill is able to survive such scrutiny, it goes on to the Rules Committee. Although called a committee, it is not a part of the “committee process”. The Rules Committee is responsible for setting the rules and regulations for which the House or Senate floor has to follow when discussing the