What does Congress do (in theory)? Article I of the Constitution details the powers and responsibilities of Congress.  It is important that Congress is defined in Article I; the Founding Fathers seemed to have been suggesting that Congress is the most important branch and should probably have the most power.   As a reminder, some of the powers of Congress are:  · Establish and collect taxes · Regulate commerce and the federal budget  · Make federal laws · Create naturalization laws  · Coin money and regulate its value  · Declare war Congress also some important powers regarding checks and balances: · With a 2/3 vote, Congress can overturn a Presidential veto · The Senate must confirm/approve of Presidential nominees (such as nominees to head the major government departments and Supreme Court justices)  · Congress can impeach and remove the President from office (more on this in a few weeks) The Senate The US Senate is one of the chambers of Congress.  This chamber is made up of 100 individuals, 2 of whom are elected from each state.   Senators are elected to 6-year terms; meaning, if a Senator is elected is 2018, that individual serves until 2024 before facing reelection.   Senators do NOT have term limits; meaning, there is no limit to how many times a Senator can be reelected.  They must keep getting reelected in order to keep their office, but as long as they keep getting reelected, then they can keep their job for as long as they want! In the US, federal elections happen every 2 years, in even numbered years (the next major federal election is in 2020).  NOT all Senators are up for reelection every two years; in general, only about 1/3 of the Senate will face reelection in a particular election year.  Meaning, these are staggered elections and in which only around 33 Senate seats will up for election in 2020.   Senators represent the entire state.  Since every state has two senators, that means senators from large states, like California, have to represent a much larger number of people than senators from smaller states.  For example, the population of California is approximately 39 million people.  The population of North Dakota is 760,000.  So California's two senators represent approximately 19 million people each, whereas the two senators from North Dakota represent 380,000 people each.  That's a HUGE DIFFERENCE!!   Currently, there are 53 Republican senators, 45 Democratic senators, and 2 independent senators (both of these senators almost always vote with the Democratic Party).   Some other important facts about the Senate:  · In order to run for the Senate, you must be at least 30 years old · Senators have the power to approve or not approve of Presidential nominees.  For example, when the President nominates someone like Secretary of Defense, a majority of the Senate must approve of that person (the House of Representatives is NOT involved in this process).  This is called the confirmation power. · Originally in the Constitution, ...

1. What does Congress do (in theory)?
Article I of the Constitution details the powers and
responsibilities of Congress. It is important that Congress is
defined in Article I; the Founding Fathers seemed to have been
suggesting that Congress is the most important branch and
should probably have the most power.
As a reminder, some of the powers of Congress are:
· Establish and collect taxes
· Regulate commerce and the federal budget
· Make federal laws
· Create naturalization laws
· Coin money and regulate its value
· Declare war
Congress also some important powers regarding checks and
balances:
· With a 2/3 vote, Congress can overturn a Presidential veto
· The Senate must confirm/approve of Presidential nominees
(such as nominees to head the major government departments
and Supreme Court justices)
· Congress can impeach and remove the President from office
(more on this in a few weeks) The Senate
The US Senate is one of the chambers of Congress. This
chamber is made up of 100 individuals, 2 of whom are elected
from each state.
Senators are elected to 6-year terms; meaning, if a Senator is
elected is 2018, that individual serves until 2024 before facing
reelection.
Senators do NOT have term limits; meaning, there is no limit to
how many times a Senator can be reelected. They must keep
getting reelected in order to keep their office, but as long as
they keep getting reelected, then they can keep their job for as
long as they want!
In the US, federal elections happen every 2 years, in even

2. numbered years (the next major federal election is in 2020).
NOT all Senators are up for reelection every two years; in
general, only about 1/3 of the Senate will face reelection in a
particular election year. Meaning, these are staggered
elections and in which only around 33 Senate seats will up for
election in 2020.
Senators represent the entire state. Since every state has two
senators, that means senators from large states, like California,
have to represent a much larger number of people than senators
from smaller states. For example, the population of California
is approximately 39 million people. The population of North
Dakota is 760,000. So California's two senators represent
approximately 19 million people each, whereas the two senators
from North Dakota represent 380,000 people each. That's a
HUGE DIFFERENCE!!
Currently, there are 53 Republican senators, 45 Democratic
senators, and 2 independent senators (both of these senators
almost always vote with the Democratic Party).
Some other important facts about the Senate:
· In order to run for the Senate, you must be at least 30 years
old
· Senators have the power to approve or not approve of
Presidential nominees. For example, when the President
nominates someone like Secretary of Defense, a majority of the
Senate must approve of that person (the House of
Representatives is NOT involved in this process). This is called
the confirmation power.
· Originally in the Constitution, the people did not have the
ability to directly elect their Senators. Instead, they were
appointed by state legislatures. However, that changed with
the 17th amendment (in 1913) which allowed the people to vote
for their senators. This is yet another example of how the
Founding Fathers wanted limits to the power of the people
· The two Senators for California are Dianne Feinstein (Links to
an external site.) and Kamala Harris (Links to an external
site.). Feinstein is 85 years old, was first elected to the Senate

3. in 1992 and was reelected in 2018. Harris is 54 years old, and
is in her first term as Senator and was elected in 2016. She is
also running for president (Links to an external site.)
· Senators have an incumbency advantage. Incumbents refer to
those individuals who are already in office and are trying to
remain in office, meaning, that Senators who are running for
reelection have a very good chance of winning their campaign.
So the senators who are already there are very likely to stay
there. Most research shows that approximately 80% of
incumbents will win their reelection campaign. Why do you
think this is? What are the consequences of the incumbency
advantage?
· In case you are curious, senators make on average
$174,000. The House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is the other chamber of
Congress. This chamber is made up of 435 members.
Representation in the House is based off of the population of
each state; meaning, the more populated states have more
people that represent that state in the House. For example,
there are 53 members of the House that represent
California whereas there is 1 member of the House that
represents North Dakota (not that I am trying to pick on North
Dakota!). If you are asking yourself, why 53? The next page
will answer that question!
Members of the House are elected to 2-year terms; meaning,
that if a member of the House is elected in 2018, they serve
until 2020. EVERY seat in the House is up for reelection
EVERY two years. These are not staggered elections. All 435
members of the House have to run for reelection every even-
numbered year.
There are NO term limits in the House. Members of the House
can serve for as long as they keep getting reelected.
Members of the House represent a district within a state and not
the entire state. A district is a geographical region of the state.
District boundaries are man-made and change from time to

4. time. District boundaries are not the same as city lines or
county lines. One county can have several districts within its
boundaries. You are only able to vote for one of the individuals
running for election from YOUR district (meaning where you
live). You cannot vote for all members of the House running in
California.
Members of the House represent approximately 700,000 people
in each district.
Currently, in the House, there are 235 Democrats, 198
Republicans, and 2 vacant seats.
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Some other important facts about the House are:
· The House is often called "the people's house." The idea is
that members of the House are supposed to be very responsive
to their people. An example of this is that members of the
House have to run for reelection very frequently. The thinking
is that by frequently running for election, members of the House
will know what their people want and will be more responsive
to their needs.
· As mentioned above, currently the Democratic Party has the
majority in the House (they have more members of the House
than the Republican Party). The Democrats in the House vote
for who they want to be their "leader." This individual is called
the Speaker of the House. The Speaker is a very powerful and
influential individual who is not only the leader of the
Democratic Party in the House, but also tends to speak for the
party and plays a large role in the law-making process. The
current Speaker is Nancy Pelosi, who represents the San
Francisco district.
· Individuals running for office in the House must be at least 25
years old.
· Where you live determines who your member of the House is.
If you live in the Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, or San Leandro
areas, your member of the House is Barbara Lee (Links to an
external site.). Lee is 72 years old, was first elected to the

5. House in 1998, and was just reelected again in 2018.
· The incumbency advantage is also prominent in the House;
approximately 80-85% of incumbents win reelection.
· Members of the House also on average earn $174,000.
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So we have established that the terms for the Senate and the
House are different (6 year terms in the Senate and 2 year terms
in the House). But what are the consequences of this
difference?
Imagine you were hired to a job and were guaranteed you would
have that job for 2 years. Then imagine you were hired to a
different job and were guaranteed to have that job for 6 years.
How would your thinking from the first job to the second? How
might your priorities change?
More likely, you would think about getting something done
quickly in your job that you have for 2 years. Your priorities
would be short-term and you would try to boost your resume by
accomplishing as much as you could in a relatively short
amount of time. You would also have to remember that you are
going to be running for reelection very soon, and you will want
to talk about your accomplishments in your two years in office.
On the other hand, for the job you have for 6 years, you would
be more likely to think long-term. Your focus might be on big
picture things that you could spend some time working on. You
don't need to have anything done in a year or two, so you can
prioritize things that might take longer and things that might be
more ambitious.
This could be a consequence of the different term lengths in
Congress. The House is more focused on getting things done
now, whereas the Senate might prioritize bigger picture items
that happen down the road. This could be both a good or a bad
thing, depending on your point of view. Reapportionment
What is reapportionment? This is the process for deciding how
many representatives a state will receive. This process answers

6. the question from the previous page: "why does California have
53 representatives?"
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Reapportionment is tied to the census (let's take a moment to
discuss the census). The census is something that happens
every 10 years (with the next one happening in 2020) when our
federal government tries to count how many people reside in the
United States. Part of this process is also determining how
many people reside in each state. The census is extremely
important and has recently been controversial (Links to an
external site.). It is important because we need to know how
many people are in our state and in our country. This number
determines how many representatives a state will receive (since
representation in the House is based on population) and the
census is also important in determining how much aid from the
federal government a state receives. However, the census tends
to be very bad at counting people who are homeless, people of
color (Links to an external site.), and those that
are undocumented (Links to an external site.) (the census
attempts to count all people residing in the US regardless of
citizenship status). States that have large populations of these
individuals (like California) might be undercounted, meaning
that the official census does not accurately reflect how many
people actually live here. The Trump administration has been
trying to insert a question on the census asking people about
their citizenship status, which could serve to make
undocumented people reluctant to respond. So basically, the
census is very important but it is also not done particularly well
which has significant impacts on representation and funding for
states.
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And now back to our discussion of reapportionment...
Once we have established how many people live in a state, the
decision then needs to be made on how many representatives

7. that state should have. If the population of a state has increased
since the previous census, then that state might need more
representatives (since representation is based on population).
However, if the population of a state decreased, then they might
not need as many representatives as they had before.
As mentioned before, there are 435 members of the House, so
we can say that there are 435 positions/seats in the
House. Reapportionment is the process of allocating those 435
to states based on population. So every 10 years, some states
might lose representatives/seats and some states may gain
representatives/seats. Population tends to shift, so some states
grow and some state decrease in population. We are not adding
to the number 435, but rather reallocating those 435 seats to all
the states.
The video below is mandatory viewing and provides more
explanation of reapportionment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=69mFqlK
Dz0MRedistricting
Redistricting also refers to elections for members of the
House.
Redistricting is the process of deciding what a district looks
like, meaning, where the district lines are drawn. Below is a
picture of California's 13th district, which is represented by
Barbara Lee. The shaded area is the district. Redistricting is
the process for deciding what that district looks like.
Redistricting is also tied to the census. Once the determination
is made of how many districts a state will receive, the decision
then needs to be made to see what the districts should look
like. The overall goal is to have districts that are roughly the
same size in terms of population. You would not want one
district that has 1,000 people living in it and another district
that has 2,000,000 people living in it. That would not be fair.
Population might shift within a state from one census to the
next. So to balance out the population within districts,
redistricting happens every 10 years.
This sounds fine right? There's nothing inherently wrong with

8. redistricting but...
It can sometimes lead to gerrymandering! Gerrymandering is
the process of designing a district to give a particular political
party or a group of people an advantage. Depending on how the
district lines are drawn, could give a party an advantage. For
example, if the district lines were drawn around an area where
there are known to be lots of Republicans, then it is very likely
that a Republican will the election in that district. As a side
note, this kind of information is publicly available. Meaning,
politicians, political parties, and the public as a whole are able
to know who is registered to vote and what their party is. This
information DOES NOT indicate who you voted for, that is
confidential. This information can then be used to determine
how district lines are drawn.
In many states, political parties themselves draw the district
lines. For example, in some states, whichever party has the
majority in the state legislature is able to redraw the lines of all
the districts in that state. This can easily lead to those parties
drawing districts in a way that makes it easier for someone from
their party to win an election in that district.
Is gerrymandering legal? Well....that's complicated.
Technically, no, districts should not be drawn to favor a
particular political party. But, there has tended to not be much
enforcement of this and it is not always obvious that
gerrymandering has occurred. However, there are some
interesting cases that have come before the Supreme Court
challenging the constitutionality of gerrymandering.
Below are some maps of districts that are clearly
gerrymandered. You can see that the district looks very odd,
and that is because they were potentially designed to give one
party an advantage.
So what is going on in these pictures? The red areas are all
districts within different states. A reason why these districts
look so weird is that there is likely a large number of registered
voters for a particular party in that district. The lines were

9. drawn around these areas to give that party an advantage and
enable them win an election more easily.
How sneaky!!
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Please watch the mandatory video below for a humorous take on
gerrymandering. Pay attention to what John Oliver says about
gerrymandering, how it works, the different tactics used to give
parties an advantage, and the consequences of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-4dIImaodQ
Representation in Congress
What does representation in Congress currently look like, in
terms of demographics?
In the House of Representatives:
· There are 435 members of the House
· 328 are men; 106 are women
· Of the women, 91 are Democrats and 15 are Republican
· 319 are white; 54 are African American; 42 are Hispanic/Latin
American; 14 are Asian American/Pacific Islander; 4 are Native
American
· Of the African American population, 53 are Democrats and 1
is Republican
· Of the Hispanic population, 35 are Democrats and 7 are
Republican
· Of the Asian American population, 13 are Democrats and 1 is
Republican
· Of the Native American population, 4 are Democrats and 4 are
Republican
· 26 are considered "millennials;" meaning were born after 1981
· 8 individuals identify as members of the LGBTQ community
· These numbers are based in part on how the members of
Congress identify themselves
This qualifies as the most diverse House of Representatives in
history. The 2018 elections saw a huge wave of women winning
elections throughout the country, particularly from the
Democratic Party.

10. _____________________________________________________
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In the Senate:
· 75 are men, 25 are women
· Of the female population, 17 are Democrats and 8 are
Republican
· 89 are white; 4 Hispanic/Latino; 3 are African American; 3 are
Asian American; one identifies as multiracial
· There are two people of color in the Senate that are
Republicans, Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of
Florida, both of whom are Hispanic
· 2 individuals identify as members of the LGBTQ community
This is the most number of women serving in the Senate in
history.
Why this Congress is considered to be diverse in comparison to
previous years, there is obviously still some major discrepancies
and the demographics in Congress are not similar to the
demographics of the entire United States.
The Law-Making Process
Please watch the video below for a discussion of how laws get
made in Congress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQHqhgADtCQ
The articles below are not required reading:
Filibuster and Cloture (Links to an external site.)
Famous Filibusters (Links to an external site.)