United States Congress

The legislative body of the federal government of the United States of America is known as the United States Congress. It is bicameral, meaning that it is made up of two chambers: the House of Representatives, which is the lower body, and the Senate, which is the upper body. It has its meetings at the Capitol Building in Washington, District of Columbia. Both senators and representatives are selected via the process of direct election; however, vacancies in the Senate may be filled by an appointment made by the governor. Only in the event that senators are deadlocked in their opinions does the Vice President of the United States have a vote in the Senate. There are six members of the House of Representatives who do not have voting privileges.

At the moment, each session of Congress lasts for a period of two years and starts again on the first of January every other year. Election Day is the day on which elections are conducted every other even-numbered year. During each Congress, members of the House of Representatives stand for election in order to serve for the following two years. The Reapportionment Act of 1929 specifies that there will be 435 Representatives, and the Uniform Congressional Redistricting Act mandates that each Representative must be chosen from a single-member constituency or district. Both of these laws were passed in 1929. It is also required that the congressional districts be apportioned among the states every ten years using the results of the United States Census, provided that each state has at least one representative in Congress. This requirement is based on the fact that each state must have at least one representative in Congress. Because the tenure of the senators are staggered and they are all elected at-large in their respective states for a period of six years, about one-third of the Senate comes up for election every two years. Because there are two senators for every state, regardless of population or size, there are presently 100 senators serving the United States' fifty states.

Article One of the Constitution of the United States stipulates that individuals who wish to serve in the House of Representatives or the Senate must be at least 25 years old (for the House) or at least 30 years old (for the Senate), must have been a citizen of the United States for at least seven years (for the House) or nine years (for the Senate), and must currently reside in the state that they intend to represent. There is no restriction on the number of times a member of either house of Congress may run for reelection.

The Congress of the United States was established by the Constitution of the United States and had its first session in 1789. It succeeded the Congress of the Confederation in performing the legislative duties formerly assigned to that body. It is not required by law, but in practise since the 19th century, members of Congress have almost always been affiliated with one of the two major parties, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It is extremely uncommon for members of Congress to be affiliated with a third party or independents who are not affiliated with any party. In the second scenario, the absence of membership in a political party does not exclude individuals from caucusing with members of other political parties, despite the fact that these individuals do not belong to any political party. It is also possible for members to swap parties at any moment, but this occurs very seldom.