The structure of Congress:

A bicameral institution

The Founding Fathers ensured that Congress had two chambers. The House of Representatives (or simply `House') awards political representation to states in proportion to their population — so larger states have more seats. In the Senate, there are two politicians per state, regardless of population . Congress was thereby able to apply a number of key principles required by the framers:

• ■ Checks and balances, in which checks took place within the legislative branch as well as between the executive, legislature and judiciary

• ■ The creation of different term lengths, providing different types of representation within Congress, with senators (6-year term) being far less sensitive to public opinion than members of the House of Representatives (2-year term)

• ■ Protection of state interests — the driving force behind the creation of a Senate in which all states were given an equal number of politicians, regardless of population

The membership of Congress

There are minor differences in the constitutional requirements for membership of each of the two chambers of Congress. While senators are required to be at least 30 years of age and to have been a citizen for 9 years, members of the House need only be 25 and to have been a citizen for 7 years.

Election cycle

Congressional elections take place every two years in November. All members of the House are on the ballot, but only one-third of Senators, so the party majority in either chamber can change every two years. Some congressional elections take place at the same time as the presidential election. Mid-term elections take place in the middle of a presidential term and occur every four years.

The two chambers are theoretically equal, each having exclusive powers and both having joint powers. The Senate gets called the 'Upper' House; this is not accurate — officially.

The Senate can claim to be more important for a number of reasons. Senators are elected for six years rather than two. Senators represent the whole state, not just part of it. The Senate is smaller and Senators, therefore can become more prominent. Senators have been serious Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidates. President Obama was a Senator, Vice-President Biden also. House members become Senators, but virtually never the other way around. The Constitution gave exclusive roles to the Senate which may be seen as higher status, such as conducting impeachment trials, ratifying treaties and agreeing to executive and judicial appointments. The title has more prestige. Senators are seen as more experienced politicians. Senators have the ability to filibuster bills. They are on average older than their counterparts in the House, and have an older minimum age to be selected, according to the Constitution. If a Washington politician has ambitions for higher things, then the Senate will provide a better springboard.

Arguments to say that the House is more important may be as follows.

They are equal in legislative power-No bill can become law unless the House agrees to it. It's also true that finance bills have to start in the House. The Speaker is next in line to the Presidency, after the Vice-President. There is no single figure in the Senate with the stature of the Speaker of the House. The House tends to deal with issues that are of day-to-day importance to the electorate. Two-year terms make them closer to the voters in their area. The House is mentioned first in the Constitution. It is the House that decides on an impeachment trial. If there is no decision in the Electoral College, the House has to choose the President. It could be argued that the representational function in the House has to be stronger than that of the Senate given the more frequent elections. They are all elected every two years which gives them the most current mandate. Gerrymandering has created many ‘safe’ districts in the House

In the end, however, neither part of Congress can function effectively without the other.

Structural differences between the Houses

House of Representatives

House representatives are specialists: they serve on one or two standing committees and their areas of specialism are often linked to the concerns of their district.

House representatives have fewer constituents than almost all senators (far fewer in some cases), so there is a closer relationship between them. As they are elected every 2 years, House members tend to be highly responsive to the views of their constituents.

The size of the House means its organisation needs to be more bureaucratic, with the Speaker in overall control, and with strict rules on debate on the floor of the chamber.

Senate

Senators are generalists: they usually serve on two or three standing committees, and are more concerned than House representatives with national and international issues.

Senators represent a broader range of opinion than most House members. As they are elected for a 6-year term, they need not be as immediately responsive to constituents' views.

The Senate is traditionally more collegiate and consensual. There is no equivalent of the Speaker (the vice-president is president of the Senate but only takes the chair if a vote is tied), and it is less committee-based and less needful of rules, for example there is no limit on debate. It is more resistant to centralised leadership, and the power of the filibuster symbolises its individual nature.

• Congressional Committees 'The engine room'

• Factors affecting voting behaviour in congress

The changing Senate

A number of factors have combined to change the traditional image of the Senate as an exclusive non-partisan club, detached from the raw politics of the House of Representatives. The rapidly increasing costs of Senate elections (the average winning candidate spent $10.2 million in 2012 according to OpenSecrets.org, compared to $3.7 million in 1996) mean that, even with 6 years between elections, senators now have to spend as much time as possible in their states, fundraising for the next one. Most Senate votes are consequently scheduled between Tuesday and Thursday, and with senators spending most of the week outside Washington, traditional social bonds are weaker. A higher proportion of the Senate is now made up of former House representatives — for example, 48 of the 2012-14 senators had previously served in the House, 26 Democrats and 22 Republicans, whereas 30 years before, fewer than a third had — and they bring the more combative ethos of the House with them. In contrast, former governors, who tend to be less partisan, are now much fewer in number. Aides have proliferated in recent years and are often more ideological than the senators they serve, pushing them to take more entrenched positions.

The balance of power between the two houses can lie with either, dependent on the context.

• When the president is attempting to push measures through a Congress controlled by his own party, the Senate often has a greater influence on the shape of the final legislation. This is because:

• · as they represent a whole state rather than a district, senators tend to be more moderate, and, as only a third are elected at any one time, there is rarely a strong sense of mandate behind the president's proposals, or a sense that they owe their election to him

• · the increasingly routine use of the filibuster means a 'supermajority' of 60 is always required for even faintly controversial legislation

In contrast, the House tends to be more partisan and, since all its members are elected simultaneously, can exhibit a strong sense of mandate. The frustrations House members sometimes feel with the slower pace and more centrist outlook of the Senate were expressed by Sam Rayburn, a Texas Democrat, who was House Speaker in the 1940s and 1950s and was famously quoted as saying: 'The Republicans are the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.'

Greater Senate influence was evident on a number of occasions during President Obama's first 2 years. The final healthcare legislation was based on the Senate version, which the House was forced to pass as it stood. The climate-change bill, which passed the House, subsequently died in the Senate. Press reports characterised House Democrats as 'expendable shock troops, able to move quickly and put pressure on the Senate to strike a deal'. '

However, if Congress (or just the House) is controlled by the opposing party to the president, the House will often take the lead in opposing him, and may attempt to move its own agenda forward. Given the right circumstances, the House can exercise considerable influence, and after the election of a Republican majority to the House in 2010, the president Obama's agenda, at least that part which requires legislation, was effectively stalled. After the Democrats regained control of the House in 2018 Trump's ability to adavnce a legislative agenda ended.