Congress Princeton Review

Congress

• Bicameral (two-house) legislature responsible for writing the laws of the nation.

• Congress also serves other functions, such as overseeing the bureaucracy, consensus building, clarifying policy, legitimizing, and expressing diversity.

Congress

• Made up of:

• House of Representatives:– 435 members

Senate:-100 Members

Congress

• Every 10 years a census is taken by the federal government to count the population to determine the number of each state’s congressional districts.

• Each state must then redraw its congressional boundaries to ensure that each district is equal in population.

Congress

• Congressional redistricting is done by each state legislature. Therefore, the political party in control of the state legislature controls how the districts are drawn.

• The legislature will gerrymander the district boundaries to give the majority party an advantage in future elections.

Congress

• Elections for all the 435 seats of the House of Representatives occur every two years.– Must reside in district– Be citizen of the state– Be at least 25 years old– Constituencies of representatives are small

compared to those of Senate.– House incumbent election rates are 90 percent,

not much of a challenge.

Congress

• Elections for one-third of the Senate occur every two years, with a senator’s term lasting six years.

• Senate elections are more competitive.

Important Voting Rights Court Cases

• Smith v. Allwright (1944). The denying of African Americans the right to vote in a primary election was found to be a violation of the 15th Amendment.

• Wesberry v. Sanders (1963). Ordered House districts to be near as equal as possible- enshrined the principle of one man one vote.

Important Voting Rights Court Cases

• Buckley v. Valeo (1976). The court ruled that giving money to a political campaign was a form of free speech and threw out some stringent federal regulations on fund-raising and election spending.

• Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Miller v. Johnson (1995). Race can not be the sole or predominant factor in redrawing legislative district boundaries.

Important Voting Rights Court Cases

• U.S. Term Limits v. Thorton (1995). States cannot set term limits on members of Congress.

• Bush v. Gore (2000). Florida recount in the election of 2000 was ruled to be a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.