HOW CONGRESS WORKS GVPT170 REVIEW 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 THE POWERS OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT The position of the president dominates American Politics The president is head of America s executive Congress heads America s legislative and the Supreme Court America s judiciary These three parts of the government make up the federal structure of politics in America Usually the only two elected members of the Executive are the president and the vice president The president is also commander in chief of the armed forces a position he takes immediately on taking the oath of office The president does not govern by himself The president of America is not the government of the US Bowles The government of America is by co operation and the theory is that the executive legislative and judiciary should work together in harmony to formulate policy The president has to seek co operation but he also has to be seen to be leading the nation This is one of the great ironies of being the most powerful man in the world As the leader of his nation he has to be seen to lead yet he is frequently engaged in negotiations etc either personally or by proxy with politicians based in the Capitol Instances do exist where this co operation has broken down but it is rare and it is usual for all three partners in government to work together as anything else discredits the whole system In the past when a breakdown has occurred Congress has received the blame thus giving the president an edge over it as an institution For normal day to day purposes the president has to accept that senators and representatives have their own legitimate power bases and these have to be recognized In Britain the prime minister appoints his cabinet who are party members and who are there to support him and his party in power In America the cabinet of the president might have no other party colleague in his cabinet except the vice president In this sense outsiders are brought in However they are picked because it is felt by the president that they can do the task and work with him and support his policies The federal system of government in America and the three distinct forms of government institutions in Washington limit presidential power Bowles claims that presidents have to bargain with other politicians and that at times presidential power is illusory The other politicians who work out of the Capitol building are not controlled by the president his only chance might be to influence them but the recent out spoken Democrat members who wanted Clinton to resign rather than drag down the name of the Democrat Party over the release of the Starr report and the video tape recordings etc are indicative of how little influence the president has over his own party members in a time of crisis However the president does have two great advantages He does have the ability to set the nation s political agenda which he can do by exploiting the powers given to him by the Constitution see below he can negotiate and bargain with other politicians so that he gets their support for his policies which are then adopted by the Federal government Ironically the two above statements include the words one would least associate with a president negotiate and bargain That such a position as that of president of America has to do these despite being formally given power by the Constitution is indicative of the position presidents find themselves in The powers of the Presidency as laid down by the Constitution The official power of the president can be found in Article