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Guide to:
U.S. Politics
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Hail to the Chief?
Persons of interest
If 'con' is the opposite of 'pro,' then what is the opposite of progress?
—Joe Swanson[1]

The United States Congress is the legislative body of the US government. It was equal to the executive and judicial branches, until January 20, 2001, when George W. Bush was sworn in and made short work of making Congress obsolete with his use of signing statements.

Congress, through the processes of the two bodies that comprise it, the Senate and the House of Representatives, was charged with "making laws" in the constitution. It also used to be empowered with the sole right to declare wars. Once in a while they impeach, but fail to convict, Presidents for getting blow jobs or just being assholes

The House of Representatives[edit]

The House of Representatives is a wing of the US Capitol Building featuring a couple of great sculpted pediments by Thomas Crawford and Paul Bartlett. Since 1911 it has become steadily less and less representative, as the number of seats stopped growing in line with population increases. The seats were capped at 435, with each state getting at least one, plus 5 nonvoting seats for DC, the US Virgin islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Puerto Rico also gets a "Resident Commissioner" with a 4 year term, as opposed to the other seats 2 years. The end result is that some states have more senators than representatives, and California gets 53 seats.

A major problem in the House of Representatives is that short terms and gerrymandering enable all sorts of absurd and childish behavior from congressmen in order to placate their absurd and childish constituents.

All revenue bills begin in the House.

Notable members[edit]


It is also the name for the lower, or in a few cases only, chamber of the legislature in over 20 other countries.

The Senate[edit]

The United States Senate is the "upper" house of the United States of mid-North America's bicameral legislative body. Senators are elected by eligible voters of their home state for a term of six years. This means they are three times as superior as the lower house Congresscritters, who only get to serve two years at a time. There are two Senators elected from each state, regardless of population, which means that one voter in Wyoming has as much Senate representation as 68 voters in California.[2][3] (Sorry D.C. and territories, you don't get any Senators; try again when you reach statehood).

Since Senators are far more likely to get elected POTUS,[4] they often get more money from interest groups. They also get the better interns. Who says government employees never get good perks?

The going rate for a Senate seat is roughly a million dollars. Governor Blagojevich of Illinois, a former mob bookmaker,[5] considered it a personal insult that he was expected to appoint a replacement for a former Senator turned President-elect without considerable financial remuneration.

Notable members[edit]

External links[edit]