Congress Princeton Review

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Congress Princeton Review
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Congress

• Bicameral (two-house) legislature responsible for
  writing the laws of the nation.
• Congress also serves other functions, such as
  overseeing the bureaucracy, consensus building,
  clarifying policy, legitimizing, and expressing
  diversity.

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Congress

• Made up of
• House of Representatives
• 435 members
• Senate
• -100 Members

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Congress

• Every 10 years a census is taken by the federal
  government to count the population to determine
  the number of each states congressional
  districts.
• Each state must then redraw its congressional
  boundaries to ensure that each district is equal
  in population.

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Congress

• Congressional redistricting is done by each state
  legislature. Therefore, the political party in
  control of the state legislature controls how the
  districts are drawn.
• The legislature will gerrymander the district
  boundaries to give the majority party an
  advantage in future elections.

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Congress

• Elections for all the 435 seats of the House of
  Representatives occur every two years.
• Must reside in district
• Be citizen of the state
• Be at least 25 years old
• Constituencies of representatives are small
  compared to those of Senate.
• House incumbent election rates are 90 percent,
  not much of a challenge.

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Congress

• Elections for one-third of the Senate occur every
  two years, with a senators term lasting six
  years.
• Senate elections are more competitive.

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Important Voting Rights Court Cases

• Smith v. Allwright (1944). The denying of
  African Americans the right to vote in a primary
  election was found to be a violation of the 15th
  Amendment.
• Wesberry v. Sanders (1963). Ordered House
  districts to be near as equal as possible-
  enshrined the principle of one man one vote.

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Important Voting Rights Court Cases

• Buckley v. Valeo (1976). The court ruled that
  giving money to a political campaign was a form
  of free speech and threw out some stringent
  federal regulations on fund-raising and election
  spending.
• Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Miller v. Johnson (1995).
  Race can not be the sole or predominant factor
  in redrawing legislative district boundaries.

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Important Voting Rights Court Cases

• U.S. Term Limits v. Thorton (1995). States
  cannot set term limits on members of Congress.
• Bush v. Gore (2000). Florida recount in the
  election of 2000 was ruled to be a violation of
  the 14th Amendments equal protection clause.

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