American Government
Mr. Bekemeyer
Comparison: U.S. House and U.S. Senate
Why We Have a House and Senate Driven by Their Differences
By Robert Longley
Why do we have two chambers in Congress, the House and Senate? Since
members of both are elected by, and represent the people, wouldn't the
lawmaking process be more efficient if bills were considered by only one body?
While it may appear clumsy and often overly time-consuming, the two-chamber
or "bicameral" setup of Congress works today exactly the way a majority of the
Founding Fathers envisioned in 1787. Clearly expressed in the Constitution is the
Founders' belief that power should be shared among all units of government.
Dividing Congress into two chambers, with the positive vote of both required to
approve legislation, is a natural extension of the Founders' concept of employing
"checks and balances" to prevent tyranny. The Founding Fathers explain the
formation of Congress to the people in the Federalist Papers 52-66.
Why are the House and Senate so Different?
Have you ever noticed that major bills are often debated and voted on by the
House in a single day, while the Senate's deliberations on the same bill take
weeks? Again, this reflects the Founding Fathers' intent that the House and
Senate not be carbon-copies of each other. By designing differences into the
House and Senate, the Founders assured that all legislation would be carefully
considered, taking both the short and long-term effects into account.
Why are the Differences Important?
The Founders intended that the House be seen as more closely representing the
will of the people than the Senate.
To this end, they provided that members of the House - U.S. Representatives - be
elected by and represent limited groups of citizens living in small geographically
defined districts within each state. Senators, on the other hand, are elected by and
represent all voters of their state. When the House considers a bill, individual
members tend to base their votes primarily on how the bill might impact the
people of their local district, while Senators tend to consider how the bill would
impact the nation as a whole. This is just as the Founders intended.
All members of the House are up for election every two years. In effect, they are
always running for election. This insures that members will maintain close
personal contact with their local constituents, thus remaining constantly aware of
their opinions and needs, and better able to act as their advocates in Washington.
Elected for six-year terms, Senators remain somewhat more insulated from the
people, thus less likely to be tempted to vote according to the short-term passions
of public opinion.
By setting the constitutionally-required minimum age for Senators at 30, as
opposed to 25 for members of the House, the Founders hoped Senators would be
more likely to consider the long-term effects of legislation and practice a more
mature, thoughtful and deeply deliberative approach in their deliberations. Setting
aside the validity of this "maturity" factor, the Senate undeniably does take longer
to consider bills, often brings up points not considered by the House and just as
often votes down bills passed easily by the House.
A famous (though perhaps fictional) simile often quoted to point out the
differences between the House and Senate involves an argument between George
Washington, who favored having two chambers of Congress and Thomas
Jefferson, who believed a second chamber to be unnecessary. The story goes that
the two Founders were arguing the issue while drinking coffee. Suddenly,
Washington asked Jefferson, "Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?"
"To cool it," replied Jefferson. "Even so," said Washington, "we pour legislation
into the senatorial saucer to cool it."
2
Leadership Structure of the U.S. Congress (adapted from Lowi, et al.,
American Government and Barbour, et al., Keeping the Republic)
The majority and minority in each house elect their own leaders, who are, in turn,
the leaders of Congress.
The Constitution provides for the election of some
specific congressional officers, but Congress itself
determines how much power the leaders of each
chamber will have. The main leadership offices in the
House of Representatives are the Speaker of the
House (the only post established by the
Constitution), the majority leaders, the minority
leader, and the whips. The real political choice about
who the party leader should be occurs within the
party groupings or caucuses in each chamber. The
Speaker of the House is elected by the majority party Speaker of the House John
Boehner (R-OH)
and, as the person who presides over debates on the
floor of the House, is the most powerful House member. The House majority
leader, second in command, is given wide-ranging responsibilities to assist the
Speaker. The House minority leader is the official head of the minority party in
the House.
In the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House and the majority leader
work together to organize the chamber and set the legislative agenda. The
Speaker and the majority leader have great influence in the process of
determining which members are seated in the different committees and
subcommittees. They also have some sway over determining the powerful
position of chair of each committee, although the traditional seniority system
gives strong preference to members of the majority party who have been sitting in
the committee the longest.
The Speaker and the majority leader also help determine the course of legislation
in the chamber. For example, when a bill is initially dropped in the hopper as a
legislative proposal, the Speaker of the House determines which committee has
jurisdiction over it. Since the mid-1970s, the Speaker has had multiple-referral
power, permitting him or her to assign different parts of a bill to different
committees or the same parts sequentially or simultaneously to several different
3
committees. The Speaker can also influence the scheduling of legislation, a factor
that can be crucial to a bill’s success, even pulling a bill from consideration when
defeat would embarrass the chamber’s leadership.
The Speaker is also second in the line of succession to the presidency after the
Vice President under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.
The leadership organization in the Senate is similar but not as elaborate.
According to the Constitution, the presiding officer of the Senate is the vice
president of the United States, who can cast a tie-breaking vote when necessary
but otherwise does not vote or take part in debates and does not sit in any
committee. When the vice president is not present, which is almost always the
case, the president pro tempore of the Senate officially presides. This role is
given to the majority party member with the greatest seniority. Because of the
Senate’s much freer rules for deliberation on the floor, the presiding officer has
less power than in the House, where debate is generally tightly controlled by the
Speaker. The locus of real leadership in the Senate is the Senate majority leader
and the Senate minority leader. Although the smaller and highly individualistic
Senate would not accept the kind of formal authority afforded the Speaker of the
House, like the Speaker, the Senate majority leader can influence the scheduling
of bills and can withdraw a bill from consideration.
In both chambers, Democratic and Republican leaders are assisted by party
whips. (The term whip comes from an old English hunting expression; the
“whipper in” was charged with keeping dogs together in pursuit of the fox.)
Elected by party members, whips find out how people intend to vote so that on
important party bills, the leaders can adjust legislation, negotiate acceptable
changes, or employ favors (or, occasionally, threats) to line up support. Whips
work to persuade party members to support the party on key bills, and they are
active in making sure favorable members are available to vote when needed.
The Committee System (adapted from Lowi, et al., American Government
and Barbour, et al., Keeping the Republic)
Meeting as full bodies, it would be impossible for the House and the Senate to
consider and deliberate on all of the 100,000 bills and 100,000 nominations they
receive every two years. Hence, the work is broken up and handled by smaller
groups called committees. The Constitution says nothing about congressional
4
committees; they are completely creatures of the chambers of Congress they
serve. But they are, indeed, the only way that the legislative process can function
in an efficient manner in the House and, to a lesser extent, in the Senate, where
chaos would ensue were all matters to be addressed by the general membership.
It is at the committee and, even more, the subcommittee stage that the nittygritty details of legislation are worked out – and where members of Congress –
who in committees act as specialists in an area of legislation – have the most
opportunity to influence the outcome of the process. Committees act as the eyes,
ears, and workhorses of Congress in considering, drafting, and redrafting
proposed legislation.
Congress has four types of committees: standing, select, joint and conference.
The vast majority of work is done by the standing committees. These are
permanent committees, created by law, that carry over from one session of
Congress to the next. Standing committees are said to have gate-keeping
authority. They review most pieces of legislation that are introduced to Congress.
After a bill is sent to a committee, the committee may take no further action on it,
amend the legislation in any way, or even write its own legislation before
bringing the bill before the whole chamber for a vote. Committees, then, are lords
of their jurisdictional domains, setting the table, so to speak, for their parent
chamber. So powerful are the standing committees, in sum, that they scrutinize,
hold hearings on, amend, and, frequently, kill legislation before the full Congress
ever gets the chance to discuss it.
The size of the standing committees and the ratio of majority to minority party
members on each are determined at the start of each Congress by the majority
leadership in the House and by negotiations between the majority and minority
leaders in the Senate.
Standing committee membership is relatively stable as seniority on the
committee is a major factor in gaining subcommittee or committee chair; the
chairs wield considerable power and are coveted positions.
When a problem before Congress does not fall into the jurisdiction of a standing
committee, a select committee may be appointed. These committees are usually
temporary and do not recommend legislation but are, rather, used to gather
information on specific issues. An example of a select committee was the Select
5
Committee on Homeland Security that conducted investigations following the
September 11 terror attacks.
Joint committees are made up of members of both houses of Congress. There are
currently only four joint committees. They are the joint committees on the library,
on printing, on taxation, and the joint economic committee. None of the joint
committees have legislative powers, limiting themselves to conducting
researching issues and monitoring the activities of the parts of the executive
branch.
Before a bill can become a law, it must be passed by both houses of Congress in
exactly the same form. But because the legislative process in each house often
subjects bills to different pressures, they may be very different by the time they
are debated and passed. Conference committees are temporary committees made
up of members of both houses of Congress commissioned to resolve these
differences, after which the bills go back to each house for a final vote.
6
U.S. House Standing Committees
(Source: U.S. House Website)




















U.S. Senate Standing Committees
(Source: U.S. Senate Website)
Committee on Agriculture
Committee on Appropriations
Committee on Armed Services
Committee on the Budget
Committee on Education and
Labor
Committee on Energy and
Commerce
Committee on Financial Services
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Homeland Security
Committee on House
Administration
Committee on the Judiciary
Committee on Natural Resources
Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform
Committee on Rules
Committee on Science and
Technology
Committee on Small Business
Committee on Standards of
Official Conduct
Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure
Committee on Veterans' Affairs
Committee on Ways and Means
















7
Agriculture, Nutrition, and
Forestry
Appropriations
Armed Services
Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs
Budget
Commerce, Science, and
Transportation
Energy and Natural Resources
Environment and Public Works
Finance
Foreign Relations
Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs
Judiciary
Rules and Administration
Small Business and
Entrepreneurship
Veterans' Affairs
Members of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, 113th Congress
(Source: U.S. House Website)
8
9
10
11
12
Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and
Forestry (Source: U.S. Senate Website)
13
14
Constituency Demographics
The United States
Ethnicity
65.9% White Non-Hispanic, 15.1% Hispanic, 12.4% Black, 4.3% Asian
Distribution
82% urban, 12% rural
Median Income
$49,445
Poverty Rate
15.1%
2008 Election
52.10% Barack Obama (Dem.), 45.7% John McCain (Rep.)
State of Georgia – Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Population
9,829,211
Ethnicity
57.5% White Non-Hispanic, 30.2% Black, 8.3% Hispanic, 3.0% Asian
Median Income
$44,696
Poverty Rate
16.9%
Distribution
81% urban 18% rural
2008 Election
52.10% McCain, 46.90% Obama
49.8% Sen. Chambliss (Rep.), 46.8% Martin (Dem.)
Georgia’s 6th Congressional District – Rep. Tom Price (R-GA)
Population
629,725
Ethnicity
74.2% White
8.9% Black
8.7% Hispanic
6.3% Asian
Distribution
96.69% urban
2.31% rural
Median Income
$82,593
Poverty Rate
3.9%
2008 Election
64.7% McCain
68% Rep. Price
15
Georgia’s 5th Congressional District – John Lewis (D-GA)
Population
629,727
Ethnicity
50.2% Black
37.6% White
8.1% Hispanic 2.6%
Asian
Distribution
99.54% urban
0.46% rural
Median Income
$50,072
Poverty Rate
15.2%
2008 Election
78.9% Obama
100% Rep. Lewis
Georgia’s 9th Congressional District – Tom Graves (R-GA)
Population
629,672
Ethnicity
81.3% White
3.4% Black
12.8% Hispanic
1.3% Asian
Distribution
33.8% urban
66.12% rural
Median Income
$49,065
Poverty Rate
10%
2010 election
80.1% McCain
100% Rep. Graves
State of New York – Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Population
19,541,453
Ethnicity
59.9% White Non-Hispanic, 17.2% Black, 16.8% Hispanic, 7.1% Asian
Median Income
$46,320
Poverty rate
13.7%
Distribution
92.2% urban 7.8% rural
2008 Election
Obama 62%, McCain 37%
2006 Election
68% Sen. Clinton (Dem.)
16
2010 Election
63% Kirsten Gillibrand (Dem.)
New York’s 15th Congressional District – Charlie Rangel (D-NY)
Population
654,360
Ethnicity
45.1% Hispanic
27.6% Black
21.3% White
3.7% Asian
Distribution
100% urban
Median Income
$37,240
Poverty Rate
22.6%
2008 Election
87.9% Obama
89% Rep. Rangel
New York’s 26th Congressional District – Christopher Lee (R-NY)
Population
654,360
Ethnicity
90.2% White
3.5% Black
2.5% Hispanic
2.2% Asian
Distribution
71.17% urban
28.8% rural
Median Income
$55,576
Poverty Rate
6%
2008 Election
51.7% McCain
55% Rep. Lee
17
Party Voting in Congress, 1970-2006 (Source: Barbour, et al., Keeping the Republic)
Ideological Distance Between the Two Major Parties in the U.S. Congress, 18792011 (Source: Voteview.com)
18