POLS 206 1st Edition Lecture 10 Outline of Current Lecture l Congress a Senate b House of Representatives I Qualifications for Congress II Senate Seats III House Seats IV Apportionment V Equal Representation VI Styles of Representation VII Congressional Elections VIII Congress Operation Current Lecture l Congress a Senate 6 year term 100 Senators 2 per state b House of Representatives 2 year terms 435 representatives divided between states based on population today each member represents at least half million people ll Qualifications for Congress a Senate must be a US citizen for at least 9 years legal resident of the State and at least 30 years old b House of Representatives must be a US citizen for at least 7 years legal resident of the State and at least 25 years old lll Senate Seats There are 2 Senators from each state each Senator is elected per state they stand for all of the state the senators cannot be re elected at the same time for example in Texas Ted Cruz elected 2012 is called Jr Senator until John Cormin called Sr Senator is out of office There are 100 Senators a First Congress had 24 Senators b 1800 there were 32 Senators c 1900 there were 90 Senators d 1959 there were 100 because Hawaii became a state lV House Seats a Now 435 seats Texas has 32 b It is not Constitutional so the government decided on the number c There has to be at least one representative per state d First Congress 65 Representatives e 1929 435 seats V Apportionment a Every 10 years a census electronically by mail or even by person is made to account for population in each state in order for Congress to divide the 435 seats b State Legislatures figure out the single member geographical sections a representative will represent c There are qualifications for each district i equal representation there are rules to district boundaries so each district has roughly the same population ii contiguous boundaries no little sections not connected iii the boundaries must be in a geographically dense area so no Gerrymandering iv However not all boundaries are contiguous and dense Vl Equal Representation a Illegal representation i Malapportionment essentially one group has more influence than another group ii Gerrymandering purposeful drawing of boundaries in order to have a distinct supporter advantage b Supreme Court mandated the one person one vote rule requiring districts to have equal number of people in each c Baker v Carr 1962 can State court hear this the issue is supported by 14th Amendment d Reynolds v Sims 1964 one person one vote is mandated e Westbury v Sanders looks at Baker v Carr ideas from legislature view and decides all districts are equal by population f In 1990 s Minority Majority districts where minorities are the voting power was tested for legality and found no Though trying to make it more equal this is really considered Gerrymandering Vll Representation Styles a Trustee Does what s best for the rest of the country the Senate b Instructed Delegate Does only what is good for the people House people c Partisan votes only on a political party s opinion d Politico Maverick Combination of all three they often break the norm John McCain was this Vlll Congressional Elections a Incumbency Advantage Congress members get to mail letters for free they have a budget which is specifically for Professional staff who know the business very very well Access to the media in order to promote them Lawmaking power power to make laws especially for their people and name recognition people are going to want to vote for people they recognize lX Congress Operation a Congress meets for two terms right now it is the 113th First Session and each term is placed into 1 year sessions b Up until 1940 Congress met about 4 5 months per session but now Congress meets for about 9 10 months out of each year c The President can call Congress into a special session to deal with very specific issues but does normally does not prefer to because can upset Congress members only 26 special sessions has ever been called
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