Article I, Section 1, of the United States Constitution, provides that:
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.
The House of Representatives has 435 Members who are elected every two years from the 50 States, apportioned to the population of the previous decennial census as directed in , of the Constitution. With the exception of the 87th Congress, which gave Alaska and Hawaii each one Congressman, the number in the House has been set at 435 following the Thirteenth Decennial Census in 1910.
Congressional districts are to be as numerically uniform as is practical. Supreme Court decisions require that “as nearly as is practicable one man’s vote in a Congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s” . Each state, however, must have at least one Representative or “Congressman” in the House of Representatives. Prior to 1967, Congressmen could be elected at-large by all the voters of a state, and did not have to run in geographically defined districts, though most states had so provided. (States with only one representative technically have at-large districts because the entire state is the Congressional district.)
The Senate has 100 Members – two from each State – regardless of the state’s population. Senators serve a term of six years. Elections are staggered within each state so that no more than one Senator from a state may be up for election at a time. Each Congressman and Senator have one vote.
In addition to the Congressmen for each state, the House of Representatives has in its membership a Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and Delegates from the Washington DC, American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. The Resident Commissioner and the Delegates may not vote on the House floor, but they are members of committees and can vote there.
The Constitution () requires the Congress to meet at least once a year on January 3rd, unless they pass a law specifying another day. A “Congress” lasts for two years, starting in the January following the regular election of Members. In 1998, we have the 105th Congress. Each year is a “session” of a Congress. The Constitution authorizes the House and Senate to establish rules establishing the processes under which laws are introduced, considered, debated and voted on.
The legislative powers of the House and Senate are identical except for three matters: all revenue bills must originate in the House; the Senate has the power of ratifying international treaties; and the Senate must consent to Presidential nominations of federal judges and certain nominations within the executive branch. There is one other power that is used only when no one receives an absolute majority of the electoral votes cast by state electors in a Presidential election. When that happens, the House of Representatives selects the President with votes cast separately by each by state delegation, and the Senate chooses the Vice President.