Ailyn Palancares Poli 100 Professor Monroe July 1, 2022 Assignment #1 - Visions of Congress The Constitution outlines specific guidelines on how the House should be run and who can hold positions in the House. For example, when it comes to elections, it advises that elections should occur every two years. They also detail who would be eligible to run in these elections and hold a seat in the House. A person who is twenty-five years or older is at least a 7th-year citizen of the United States and has been an inhabitant of the state they are running to represent. The constitution specifies that there should be a proportional representation of 1 representative per 30,000 people in each state. Additionally, the constitution gives leaders in congress the ability to choose who holds the speaker positions, along with other officer positions. Lastly, leaders are also given the power of impeachment to act as a form of checks and balances towards other branches of government. As for the senate, the constitution outlines that every state should have two senators, who each serve for six years. The constitution also puts guidelines on who would be eligible to run for a seat in the senate. For example, a candidate must be at least thirty years or older, have to have been a citizen for 9 years or longer, and have been an inhabitant of the state when elected. Under article 3 certain aspects of how the Senate should be run, and the powers the senate has are also outlined. For example, they state that the Vice President of the United States is also the President of the senate, if the Vice President is ever absent, a Pro Tempore is put in place to oversee the operations of the senate. The members of the senate also have the ability to choose their own officers and also try all impeachment trials. I think the founding fathers organized each structure differently in order to provide better representation for states. For example, in the Senate, every state regardless of its population has the same number of representatives. These guidelines create discrepancies and trends of miss-representation of the entire population when a state like California with a population of about 39.35 million gets the same amount of representatives in the Senate as a state like Wyoming only has a population of 581,348. However, this is why Congress is structured in a way in which there are 1 representative for every 30,000 people. By doing this the framers can allow representation for states and the entire population. I strongly believe the founders had a vision of a true democratic society, however over the years our system has become less and less democratic. Demographics have changed and so has our population, hoever our system does not reflect. Since 1789 people of color and women have received the right to vote, however they still only represent a small portion of the seates in the senate and congress. This is very concerning considering both groups represent a huge part of the american population.
