House of Representatives Votes Needed to Pass a Bill

Tabular array of Contents

1. Difference Between House and Senate
2. House: Roles and Responsibilities
3. Senate: Roles and Responsibilities
4. How a Pecker Becomes Law
5. How Their Differences Make the Business firm and Senate Stronger

The U.S. Congress is oftentimes referred to as a single entity, but it'southward actually a combination of ii distinct groups: the House of Representatives and the Senate. While both houses of Congress piece of work together to advise and enact the laws that govern our country, the differences between the Firm and Senate ensure that each bedroom in this bicameral ("two room") arrangement has distinct roles and responsibilities.

Together, the House and Senate class the legislative co-operative of government. They collaborate with the executive and judicial branches to implement the checks and balances that proceed all 3 branches functioning and prevent any single branch from abusing its power.

Article I of the U.Due south. Constitution: Difference Betwixt Firm and Senate

The framers of the Constitution knew that it was important to protect the smaller states of the newly formed Union from being overshadowed by their more than populous counterparts. They hoped that by dividing legislative power between two houses, they'd be able to ensure equal representation for residents of all states, as the U.S. Capitol Visitor Centre explains.

At the Ramble Convention of 1787, delegates from Connecticut proposed that the seats in the House be assigned based on population, while the seats in the Senate be assigned two per state. The Not bad Compromise (or Connecticut Compromise) gives each state equal representation in the Senate while ensuring equal representation per citizen in the House.

Article I, Department 2: Composition and Office of the Business firm of Representatives

Article I of the Constitution specifies the powers, duties, and responsibilities of each of the two houses of Congress. Information technology lays out the rules for qualifying as a representative, equally well equally the method by which the seats in the Firm of Representatives are assigned to the states and how vacancies are filled.

The Constitution affords the House — known as the lower sleeping accommodation because it has more members than the Senate — much leeway in deciding how it will operate.

Historic period, citizenship, term elapsing, and residency requirements

Representatives:

• Must be at least 25 years erstwhile.
• Must exist citizens for at least vii years.
• Are elected to a two-year term.
• Must be residents of u.s. they represent.

Allotment of representatives based on population

Originally, the number of representatives was set at 1 per 30,000 inhabitants, but the representative count has since increased, as the U.S. House of Representatives History, Art, and Athenaeum website describes. The apportionment was to be based on an enumeration (population census) that was to be made within 3 years of the Constitution being ratified (canonical) by the 13 states, and and so every 10 years thereafter.

The Apportionment Act of 1911 and its successor, the Permanent Apportionment Human activity of 1929, capped the number of representatives at 435. For this reason, every bit of the 2010 Demography, the boilerplate number of inhabitants in a congressional district is about 710,000. The House of Representatives Archives states that the number of representatives was limited to 435 considering the U.South. population was growing faster in urban states than in rural ones, which gave big states a college proportion of representatives than smaller states.

Power to devise its ain rules of operation

The Constitution allows each house of Congress to set its ain rules. This has led to divergent practices and procedures in the Firm and Senate. The Library of Congress summarizes the operating rules of the House of Representatives:

• Simply a numerical majority is required to pass legislation in the House, which allows bills to be processed quickly. Past contrast, Senate votes typically require a three-fifths majority, or threescore votes in favor.
• Bulk party leaders in the Firm control the priority of diverse policies and decide which bills make their way to the House flooring for fence. In the Senate, minority political party leaders take more than influence over such procedures, so the majority leaders must work more closely with them.

Ability of impeachment

Commodity I, Department 2 of the Constitution states that the House "shall accept the sole ability of impeachment." This ability applies to the offices of president, vice president, federal judges, and other federal officers, equally the Library of Congress' Constitution Annotated explains. Grounds for impeachment are "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

The House determines whether to impeach and if an impeachment is chosen for; the Senate decides whether to convict and remove the official from office. This follows a design established in the British authorities and American colonial governments dating back to the 17th century, as the Senate website explains.

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Article I, Section 3: Composition and Function of the Senate

Article I, Department iii of the Constitution calls for two senators from each state to exist selected past a state's legislature to correspond that country. However, the 17th Subpoena, approved in 1913, mandates the straight election of U.S. senators, which means that they're elected past direct vote of the people rather than by state legislators.

Every bit the Senate website explains, the subpoena was in response to abuse and other bug that prevented state legislatures from choosing U.S. senators. The Senate is known as the upper chamber of Congress because it has fewer members than the Business firm.

Age, citizenship, term duration, and residency requirements

The Constitution requires that senators be at least 30 years old, U.South. citizens for at least nine years, and residents of the states they'll represent. Senate terms are for vi years; the terms are staggered so that approximately a third of all senate seats are up for election every two years. This is intended to protect the Senate from curt-term political pressure and to ensure that turnover in the Senate occurs evenly, rather than having stasis for vi years followed by upheaval.

Allotment of Senators: 2 per Land

As the Senate website indicates, the reason the framers decided to let each state to be represented by ii senators was to prevent the large states from overpowering their smaller counterparts. Benjamin Franklin believed that states should accept equal votes in all matters except those involving coin. (Article I, Department 8 assigns to the House the power to taxation and spend; this clause is described in the following section.)

Power to devise its own rules of operation

The Senate has the constitutional potency to set its own rules, just as the House does. The Senate website quotes George Washington as explaining to Thomas Jefferson that the framers intended the Senate to "cool" legislation passed by the House "just every bit a saucer is used to absurd hot tea."

• In the Senate, individual senators have more options to dull the progress of a bill by making procedural requests, such as keeping floor contend open on the affair at manus. This is intended to encourage deliberation, or the conscientious word and consideration, of issues.
• Majority party leaders in the Senate advise the priority of items to be debated, but they must work with minority party leaders — and often all senators — to make up one's mind the floor agenda: the club in which items are brought earlier the Senate.

Vice president as president of the Senate

The Constitution makes the vice president the president of the Senate, but the vice president is allowed to vote only to break a tie. The Senate is empowered to choose its own officers and president pro tempore to preside over the Senate when the vice president is unavailable.

Power to attempt and laissez passer judgment on all impeachments

Senators are empowered to attempt and gauge impeachments; in this capacity, they serve under "adjuration or affirmation." In the example of a president's impeachment, the chief justice of the United States presides. An impeachment conviction requires a 2-thirds bulk vote of the full Senate.

If the impeachment trial leads to a conviction, the punishment is removal from function and disqualification from "any part of honor, trust or turn a profit nether the United States," according to Commodity I, Section 3. However, the impeached person is "liable and discipline to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, co-ordinate to law."

Resources on the structure and function of the Business firm of Representatives and Senate

• Cornell Law School'south Legal Information Establish offers a fully annotated version of the Constitution and an explanation of the Constitution compiled past the Congressional Research Service.
• The S. Capitol Company Centre features a study guide that explains the deviation betwixt the Business firm and Senate. It poses six questions about the constitutional footing for the two houses of Congress and provides sample answers.

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U.S. House of Representatives: Roles and Responsibilities

The duties of the House of Representatives are stated in Commodity I, Sections 7 and eight of the Constitution. Nevertheless, the powers granted to both houses of Congress are derived from Article I, Section 1, as the Legal Information Establish explains.

In the early on Supreme Court case McCulloch 5. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that the government is "1 of enumerated powers," which ways that it tin exercise simply the powers that have been granted to it explicitly by the Constitution. Paired with this doctrine is the ruling that legislative powers may not exist delegated to any other branch of regime.

Subsequent rulings have modified these 2 doctrines, resulting in new categories of powers derived from this constitutional foundation.

Enumerated, implied, resulting, and inherent powers

Marshall'due south determination expanded the scope of the legislative powers enumerated in the Constitution by including the power to declare war, levy taxes, and regulate commerce. These powers are derived from the Constitution's necessary and proper clause in Article I, Section 8.

This gives Congress the right to exercise any "means which are appropriate" to perform its ramble duties, unless those ways are inconsistent with "the letter and spirit of the Constitution."

• Implied powers are those that aren't explicitly stipulated in the Constitution, but the authorities assumes these powers are granted to it past inference based on prior Supreme Court decisions, equally the Legal Dictionary explains.
• Resulting powers are those that Congress has considering they're needed for information technology to fulfill its duties. They're derived from other powers specifically granted to the government so that it tin can exercise its enumerated powers. The Legal Information Institute gives as an example the power to acquire territory, which results from the enumerated powers to brand war and treaties.
• Inherent powers are besides called unsaid powers, as the Constitution Annotated notes. They're powers that Congress possesses even though they've never been explicitly exercised. An example would be the ability to tax net service providers.

Just congress may declare war, levy taxes, and regulate commerce

The ability to declare war, levy taxes, and regulate commerce are among the congressional powers enumerated in Article I, Department 8 of the Constitution. The taxing and spending clause and the commerce clause have been used to augment congressional potency over federal taxation and economic policy.

In addition, Congress' state of war powers have created a lot of friction between the executive and legislative branches. For case, presidents accept tried to expand their ability to appoint the U.S. war machine in overseas conflicts, as the House of Representatives Archive describes. For instance, in the menstruum after World War Ii, presidents committed troops to the Dominican Republic, Laos, and Vietnam, among other countries, without requesting or receiving authorization from Congress.

The House originates all acquirement legislation

Article I, Section vii of the Constitution states that bills intended to raise revenue must originate in the House. This is one of the major differences between the House and Senate. The Senate is allowed to suggest amendments to spending and taxing legislation, just as it can with other bills sent to it from the Business firm.

Bills require only a numerical majority vote

The determination of the framers to allow bills to pass the Firm after getting a simple bulk of votes was motivated past the desire to allow legislation to be enacted quickly. The responsibility for assessing and developing bills belongs to standing committees that are chaired by members of the majority party, just are made up of members of both parties, equally the Congressional Research Service explains.

Majority political party powers and prerogatives

The of import role of political parties in the arrangement and functioning of the House is described past the House of Representatives Archive. The bulk political party elects a speaker of the house and chooses other leadership positions, including the chair of all House committees. At that place are more members of the House than of the Senate, so the bulk party wields more ability in the lower chamber.

Prepare policy agenda

The speaker of the house usually selects the House bulk leader. The House majority leader is charged with formulating the party's legislative calendar, equally described by USHistory.org. The minority party chooses a minority leader whose touch on the House policy agenda is much more limited.

Determine which legislation reaches the House floor

Amid the duties of the speaker of the house are presiding over all Business firm proceedings, determining which bills go to which committees, influencing committee assignments for new House members, and deciding the priorities for bills to be debated and voted upon by the entire body of representatives.

Chair all committees

While majority party members are chosen to chair all House committees, they must work with the ranking member of the minority party to prepare bills for deliberation past all Firm members. The House of Representatives Archives describes the three types of House committees:

• Standing committees are permanent; their jurisdiction is defined in the House rules.
• Select committees are temporary; they're created by resolution and charged with conducting investigations or researching specific topics.
• Joint committees include members from the Firm and Senate, normally to study specific matters rather than to consider a piece of legislation.

Resources on Firm of Representatives roles and responsibilities

• The legal site Justia details the powers that the House derives from the taxing and spending clause of Article I, Section 8, including the types of taxes permitted and limits imposed on the power to revenue enhancement and spend.
• The House of Representatives website explains the composition and functions of the House, including its leadership, committees, commissions, schedule, rules, and history.

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U.Due south. Senate: Roles and Responsibilities

Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution describes the basic composition, operation, and duties of the Senate, although the Constitution grants the Senate elbowroom in determining how information technology will conduct its business. The Senate website describes the powers and procedures of the legislative trunk, which include trying impeachments, reviewing and approving presidential nominees, approval treaties, and managing internal matters.

Powers

The Senate receives all its authority from the Constitution. Equally described higher up for the Firm, the Senate's powers are either enumerated, or expressly stated in the Constitution, or derived from the enumerated powers through the Commodity I, Section viii necessary and proper clause.

Just the Senate confirms presidential nominations and treaties

Article II, Section two of the Constitution grants the president power to nominate and appoint ambassadors, Supreme Court justices, and "other officers of the Usa." However, the Constitution requires that nominations and appointments be made "with the Advice and Consent of the Senate."

Similarly, the Senate is empowered to approve treaties proposed past the president by a 2-thirds majority vote. The Senate also has the ability to change a treaty's terms. (The president'southward power to found executive agreements with other nations doesn't require Senate blessing.)

Senate rules and procedures encourage deliberation rather than speed

The Senate website explains that the framers modeled the upper chamber of Congress after early state senates and the governor's councils of the Colonial era. To shield senators from brusque-term political force per unit area, their terms were set up at six years rather than the ii-year terms of House representatives.

The Senate was intended to act more deliberately than the House. This emphasizes the Senate's duty to advise on and consent to deportment taken in the House and past the executive co-operative of government. In this part, the framers expressed their "suspicion of the presidency" by allowing the Senate to serve as a bank check on executive powers. It besides serves as a cheque confronting the impulsiveness of the House.

Individual senators have significant procedural leverage

The standing rules of the Senate promote deliberation by allowing senators to "fence at length" and by requiring greater than a simple majority to end contend on a thing, every bit the Congressional Research Service explains. The rules also let Senators propose flooring amendments to pending bills that are outside of the subject thing of the bills themselves. For case, the Real ID Act of 2005 passed as a "rider": an additional provision to a military spending act that in its original version fabricated no reference to traveler identification, as ThoughtCo explains.

The result is an unpredictable daily flooring schedule for Senate business and the possibility that bills will exist proposed whose subjects haven't been researched or debated in committee. To bring some club to Senate proceedings, the majority leader is given priority in being recognized to speak and to propose the bills and legislation that the torso volition consider.

Majority political party powers and prerogatives

In improver to the Senate majority leader's power to control debates on the Senate flooring, the majority party is granted other rights in the operation of the Senate.

Proposes items for consideration

The duties of the Senate majority leader include handling all procedural matters that arise on the Senate floor and informing members of the majority party about the content, implications, and status of all pending legislation. In collaboration with Senate commission chairs, the majority leader addresses whatsoever conflicts that may forbid proposed bills from being passed.

Negotiates with the minority party to bear Senate floor action

Most Senate actions crave greater than a elementary bulk to laissez passer. Therefore, the majority party must work more closely with the Senate minority political party than is typical in the House, which needs only a elementary majority to approve measures. The Senate website describes the human relationship between the majority and minority parties in the Senate as "1 of compromise and mutual abstinence" that'south intended to forestall stalemates from arising on of import matters of legislation.

Chairs all committees

Similarly, members of the Senate majority party are chosen to chair all committees. However, the nature of the Senate requires that the majority leaders of committees work with the ranking member of the minority party to accomplish the committee'due south goals. The Senate website explains that the majority political party controls most committee staff and resources, but the minority political party retains a level of control based on its share of Senate seats.

Resources on Senate roles and responsibilities

• The Senate website details the institution'due south history and operation, including biographies of by senators, historical highlights, and a consummate chronology.
• The Library of Congress profiles current members of the Senate and explains the body's policies and procedures. The site links to active legislation and floor activity, as well as specific committees, leadership, and officers.

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How a bill becomes law

The procedure that Congress must follow to enact legislation is described in Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution. U.s.a..gov explains that anyone who has an idea for a new law is encouraged to contact their U.S. representative or senator to suggest it. Even so, well-nigh bills originate in the offices of one or more of their legislative sponsors.

Step 1: The bill is introduced in either the House or the Senate

A beak can exist introduced past a representative or a senator; that person becomes the bill'south sponsor (note that bills can have multiple sponsors). Later meeting in small groups to discuss the bill's merits, representatives or senators assign the bill to a committee for further research, discussion, and potential amendments.

Step 2: The bill is debated and put to a vote

Once the bill is released by the commission, representatives or senators debate it and suggest amendments or other changes prior to putting the bill to a vote. Later passing in the initial body (Firm or Senate), the pecker goes to the other body, where it'south researched, discussed, and amended further.

After both chambers accept the bill, joint committees work out the differences between the two versions. Both houses then vote on the exact aforementioned nib. If the bill passes, information technology'southward sent to the president for approval.

Step three: The president considers the pecker

The president has 10 days to sign or veto bills that Congress sends to the White Business firm for blessing. (A presidential veto prevents the legislation from taking effect.) If the president approves the bill, information technology's signed into police. If the president rejects the bill, information technology's returned to Congress with an caption for the veto.

If Congress adjourns before the 10-day menstruation for signing the neb expires, the president tin simply choose not to sign the bill, and the beak won't become police. This is called a "pocket veto."

Footstep 4: Congress may vote to override a presidential veto

Congress has the power to override a presidential veto by a two-thirds bulk vote of both the House and Senate. If the veto is overridden, the bill becomes law. A pocket veto by the president can't be overridden past Congress.

Resource on how a beak becomes law

• The Business firm of Representatives website explains the legislative process, including how bills and resolutions are proposed, introduced, amended, debated, voted on, and enacted.
• Vote Smart examines each step in the procedure of a beak becoming law in both the Business firm and Senate, including committee action, flooring action, conference committees, and presidential review.

Decision: How Their Differences Make the House and Senate Stronger

The framers of the Constitution worked carefully to ensure that the powers wielded past the 3 branches of government —  legislative, executive, and judicial — were carefully counterbalanced so that the duties of each branch were clear and no 1 branch would overpower the other two. The bicameral legislature that splits legislative duties between a big House of Representatives and a smaller Senate is a fundamental component of the framers' power-sharing strategy.

Despite struggles and challenges that arose early in our land's history and persist today, the division of responsibilities and sharing of ability have succeeded in keeping the wheels of regime turning relatively effectively more than two centuries later on the Constitution was written. While few constitutional experts and political scholars would argue that the bicameral legislative system works perfectly, near would agree that the conception has stood the examination of time.

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Additional Resources

The New York Times, "When the House and the Senate Are Controlled by Two Different Parties, Who Wins?"

U.Southward. Congress, "The Legislative Process: Overview"

U.S. National Archives, "The Constitution of the Usa: A Transcription"

U.Southward. Senate, "Constitution of the United states"

Vote Smart, "Government 101: Congress"

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Source: https://online.maryville.edu/blog/difference-between-house-and-senate/

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