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Education. The Congressional Research Service notes that the vast majority of Members (95 percent) had an academic degree: 168 Representatives and 57 Senators had a law degree. Of these, five (three Representative and two Senators) also hold a Master of Laws (LL.
The overwhelming majority of Members of Congress have a college education. The dominant professions of Members are public service/politics, business, and law. Most Members identify as Christians, and Protestants collectively constitute the majority religious affiliation.
Congress has two legislative bodies or chambers: the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. Anyone elected to either body can propose a new law.
— U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 2, clause 2
The Constitution requires that Members of the House be at least 25 years old, have been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and live in the state they represent (though not necessarily the same district).
But it sure provides graduates with the skills, knowledge and problem solving ability that makes an extremely desirable employee, especially in industries such as banking and finance.
27 Representatives and one Senator (Mark Begich) have no educational degree beyond a high school diploma. 23 Representatives, & one Senator (Kyrsten Sinema) have a PhD.
Position | Salary |
---|---|
Senators and House Representatives | $174,000 |
Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico | $174,000 |
President pro tempore of the Senate | $193,400 |
Majority leader and minority leader of the Senate | $193,400 |
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
A senator’s term of office is six years and approximately one-third of the total membership of the Senate is elected every two years. Look up brief biographies of Senators from 1774 to the present in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
A Senate term is six years long, so senators may choose to run for reelection every six years unless they are appointed or elected in a special election to serve the remainder of a term.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
H.J. Res. 2, if approved by two-thirds of the members of both the House and Senate, and if ratified by three-fourths of the States, will limit United States Senators to two full, consecutive terms (12 years) and Members of the House of Representatives to six full, consecutive terms (12 years).
In the 117th Congress, the current party alignments as of August 5, 2021,6 are as follows: House of Representatives: 224 Democrats (including 4 Delegates), 214 Republicans (including 1 Delegate and the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico), and 3 vacant seats.
With more than 59 years of service, Representative John Dingell, Jr., of Michigan, holds the record for longest consecutive service.
Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) is the youngest member of the 117th Congress at age 26. He replaced Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress and was the youngest of the 116th Congress. Cawthorn is the youngest person elected to the U.S. Congress since Jed Johnson Jr.
The Twenty-Seventh Amendment has one of the most unusual histories of any amendment ever made to the U.S. Constitution. … The Amendment provides that: “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.”
This system revolves around three separate and sovereign yet interdependent branches: the legislative branch (the law-making body), the executive branch (the law-enforcing body), and the judicial branch (the law-interpreting body). Executive power is exercised by the government under the leadership of the president.
Nancy Pelosi is the 52nd Speaker of the House of Representatives, having made history in 2007 when she was elected the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House.
The Checks and Balances system provides each branch of government with individual powers to check the other branches and prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful. … The Checks and Balances System also provides the branches with some power to appoint or remove members from the other branches.
There are currently six non-voting members: a delegate representing the District of Columbia, a resident commissioner representing Puerto Rico, and one delegate for each of the other four permanently inhabited U.S. territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
To guarantee senators’ independence from short-term political pressures, the framers designed a six-year Senate term, three times as long as that of popularly elected members of the House of Representatives. Madison reasoned that longer terms would provide stability.
For this reason, and in order to distinguish who is a member of which house, a member of the Senate is typically referred to as Senator (followed by “name” from “state”), and a member of the House of Representatives is usually referred to as Congressman or Congresswoman (followed by “name” from the “number” district of …
What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens? The right to vote.
Article I, section 7 of the Constitution grants the President the authority to veto legislation passed by Congress. This authority is one of the most significant tools the President can employ to prevent the passage of legislation.
A term of Congress is two years long and begins on January 3 of each odd-numbered year. Each Member of the U.S. House of Representatives is elected to serve for one term at a time, and may be elected later to serve additional terms. A session of Congress is one year long.
No senator shall serve for more than two consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term of which he was elected.