1. Chapter 5: The Organization of Congress
Section 1: Congressional Membership
Section 2: The House of Representatives
Section 3: The Senate
Section 4: Congressional Committees
Section 5: Staff and Support Agencies

2. Section 1: Congressional Membership
I. When does Congress meet?
Congressional sessions versus congressional terms. How long is a session? How long is a term?
The current Congress is the 111th Congress.
How many sessions will someone elected to the House serve?
How about in the Senate?

3. II: Membership of the House
To qualify to run for election as a member of the House of Representatives, you must:
Be at least 25 years old.
Have been a citizen for at least seven years
Meet the residency requirements for the district they want to represent.
Members serve two year terms.
The number of representatives from each state is determined by the population of that state.
That’s one reason why we have a census every ten years.
State legislatures set up the congressional districts in their states.

4. II. continued
If a state has gained or lost seats in the House, the process of changing the number of representatives they have is called reapportionment.
See p How many districts does Alabama have? Is that the same number that we had in 1990? How has Alabama’s population changed in the ten years between the 1990 and 2000 census? What pattern do we see across the country?
If a state has gained or lost population, the number of representatives they get will change. This means the state needs to draw a new map to divide up the districts to include the new districts or take out the old ones.
This process of redrawing the districts is called redistricting.

5. Is the redistricting always fair?
Who controls drawing the new state district map?
Can we trust them to draw the map in a fair way?
Historically, state legislatures have abused the redistricting power in two ways. . .
Dividing up the district so that the population was very uneven.
Drawing the districts in a way that gives more power to the political party in control. (Gerrymandering)
What does Alabama’s district map look like?
What district is Alabaster in? Who is our representative?

6. What has been done to prevent abuse of redistricting?
Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960) An Alabama case in which all but 4 of the 400 eligible voters in Tuskegee had been drawn out of the district. The new district had 28 sides to it! What would have been the purpose of excluding voters from this district?
Famous Supreme Court Cases:
Baker v. Carr establishes that urban and rural districts should be about the same.
Wesberry v. Sanders establishes the principle of “one person, one vote”, which means that districts should have populations that are roughly equal.
See Article I, Section 2

7. III: Membership of the Senate
To run for Senate, you must:
. Be at least 30 years old.
Be a citizen for at least 9 years
Be a resident of the state you want to represent.
Senators serve 6 year terms. There is no limit to the number of terms they can serve.
There are 100 Senators. (each state has two) 1/3 of them are up for re-election every two years. Why is this a good idea?
Who are the four extra people in the House? 1 delegate from the American territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, the Virgin Islands & Washington, D.C.)

8. Membership Has its Privileges
Can’t be arrested while in Congress or in transit to & from
Can’t be sued for what they say while on the House floor. (slander)
Can be censured for bad behavior.
Salary of $150,000 (2002)
Pension of $150,000/year for life
Franking privilege
Free medical care & gym access
Money to pay for office space & staff in Washington, D.C.
Tax deductions to pay for two residencies

9. The Privileges of membership continued. . .
Both Senators and House Members make $165,200 a year and voted in 2006 to give themselves a pay raise effective January 2007 of 2% to $168,500.
Is this fair compensation? Why? Why not?
The President makes $400,000 a year (2001) and the VP makes $208,100 (2004)

10. Who is in Congress?
Why don’t our representatives represent what the country looks like?
The main reason why the makeup of Congress changes slowly is because of the advantage incumbents have.
Main advantages:
Name recognition
Casework & credit claiming
Can use staff and franking privilege
Have had media exposure
See p. 129
Almost 50% are lawyers (why?)
Most Congresspersons are still white, middle-aged men.
Does Congress look like the rest of the country?

11. How Congress Works: the House of Representatives (Section 2)
I. Each chamber of Congress makes its own rules and procedures
Most of the work done in Congress happens in committees. This is especially true in the House since it is larger than the Senate
Party membership helps organize Congress in several ways:
The majority party (party in power) chooses who chairs each committee
Makes the rules (every 2 years)
Organizes the committees
Controls which bills go to which committees
Keeps the calendar

12. Who’s in charge in the House?
House Leadership
The Speaker of the House is leader of the majority party and has great power & influence over other members (Nancy Pelosi, D-8th-CA)
The majority leader is the Speaker’s top assistant (Steny Hoyer, D-5th MD)
The majority whip’s main job is to round up votes. (James Clyburn D-6th-SC)
The minority leader is in charge of the minority party members in the House. (John Boehner R-8th-OH)
The minority party also has minority whip (Roy Blunt R-7th-MO).

13. What do these leaders do?
Organize and unify party members
Schedule the work of the House (majority party only)
Make sure House members show up to vote
Distribute and collect information
Keep the House in touch with the President
Influence lawmakers to support the policies of their parties.

14. How a bill passes through the House
A member can introduce a bill in either house but the bill can originate elsewhere, often in the executive branch.
Bills are referred to standing committees, where most die.
Surviving bills are studied in subcommittees, and bills reported out of committee are placed on a calendar.
The Rules Committee must approve bills before they can reach the floor for a vote.
Measures that do win House approval are then sent to the Senate.

15. So, to summarize. . .
The Rules Committee also settles disputes among other committees and delays or blocks bills that representatives and House leaders don’t want to come to a vote.
When the Rules Committee sends bills to the floor, the House may sit as a Committee of the Whole, in which 100 members (not 218) constitutes a quorum, in order to speed up consideration of an important bill, so that the full House can then vote on it.
All laws begin as bills by being introduced, then go to committee.
If approved, they are put on the calendar, listing the order in which they will be considered on the House floor.
The House Rules Committee receives all bills approved by the various committees of the House.
The Rules Committee determines which bills will be considered by the full House and places them on the House Calendar.

16. Section 3: The Senate
I. The Senate at Work
A Has fewer rules than the House. Senators have more freedom and face less pressure from party leadership
The Senate is more informal in general
The Vice President acts as President of the Senate, casting a tie-breaking vote if necessary. The VP doesn’t usually participate in day-to-day Senate matters
The Senate elects a President Pro Tempore “for the time being”, but this position is not nearly as powerful in that position as a leader as the Senate Majority Leader.

17. Senate Leadership VP as President of the Senate
President Pro Tempore (Robert Byrd, D-WV)
Senate Majority Leader (Harry Reid, D-NV)
Senate Minority Leader (Mitch McConnell, R-KY)
Majority Whip (Richard Durbin, D-IL)
Minority Whip (Trent Lott, R-MS)

18. What do the Senate Leaders do?
The Senate majority floor leader is responsible for guiding bills through the Senate
The minority floor leader develops criticisms of majority party bills and tries to keep the opposition party members working together
Majority and minority whips make sure their party members show up to vote and report the status of votes to the majority and minority leaders
All Senate leaders control the flow of bills to committees and to the floor for debate; there is no Senate committee comparable to the House Rules Committee.

19. The Senate at Work continued
There are only 2 calendars in the Senate:
Calendar of General Orders (bills for consideration go here)
Executive Calendar (treaties and nominations)
The majority party controls the flow of legislative work in the Senate. (why?)
The filibuster is a tool either party can use as a tactic to stall or prevent a vote on a bill. It takes a vote of 3/5ths of Congress to reach cloture (to end a filibuster and put the bill to a vote)

21. To help us remember the process. . .
“I’m Just A Bill’

22. Section 4: Congressional Committees
What do committees do?
Ease the workload by dividing up the work into smaller groups.
This allows members to specialize on certain issues.
If you were in Congress, which committees would you want to be on?
House committees
Senate committees
Committees allow members to discuss and selecting the most important bills Congress will consider.
Committees perform congress’ oversight function by holding public hearings on key problems and issues as a way of investigating and keeping the public informed.

23. Types of committees
Standing committees are permanent from one congress to the next
The majority party controls membership on the standing committees, so membership can change with each round of elections.
Subcommittees look at issues more closely and in more detail. Also continue from one Congress to the next. Examples: the subcommittee on economic security (Committee on Homeland Security) or the Subcommittee on Livestock in the Agriculture Committee)
Select committees study a specific issue and issue a report on it. They are formed in both houses and usually only last one term. (The 9/11 Commission)
Joint committees include members from both houses.
Conference committees are temporarily set up to work out difference in House and Senate versions of a bill.

24. Choosing Committee Members
Enables members to influence each other
Parties assign members to the standing committees
The chairpersons of the standing committees are powerful members of Congress because they’re regarded as experts on a particular issue
Membership used to be based on seniority, but not since the 1970s.
Which committee you’re on is a big deal because:
It helps members build their reputations in their home districts, which helps win re-election
Gives members a chance to influence important national legislation

25. Section 5: Staff & Support Agencies
The number of staff members has grown to more than 11,000 in 1990 from 2,000 in Why do you think this growth has happened?
Two types of staff
Personal staff
Administrative assistants
Legislative assistants
caseworkers
Committee staff
Some say committee staffers have too much power; that they do work the legislators should do themselves.
I. Congressional Staff Role
A. Lawmakers rely on their staffs to help with many of their duties
Handle communication with constituents
Run committee meetings
Draft new bills
Write reports
Attend meetings
Write newsletters & speeches

27. Congressional Support Agencies
The Library of Congress
Contains over 100 million items
Administers the copyright law
Tracks what goes on in Congress both in quarterly journals and online (
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
Streamlines the budget-making process
Studies budget proposals submitted by the president’s Office of Management & the Budget (OMB)
Puts together cost estimates
Study and track economic trends