Congress
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“”If 'con' is the opposite of 'pro,' then what is the opposite of progress?
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| —Unknown[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.
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[edit] The House of Representatives
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 behaviour from congressmen in order to placate their absurd and childish constituents.
All revenue bills begin in the House.
[edit] Notable members
- John Boehner: Speaker
Eric CantorKevin McCarthy: Majority Leader- Nancy Pelosi: Minority Leader
- Some others we have articles on
- Some people who were once members we have articles on
[edit] Elsewhere
It is also the name for the lower, or in a few cases only, chamber of the legislature in over 20 other countries.
[edit] The Senate
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. Since there are two Senators elected from each state (sorry D.C. and territories, you don't get any Senators; try again when you reach statehood), that means there are how many Senators in the Senate? Anyone?
Since Senators are far more likely to get elected POTUS,[2] 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,[3] considered it a personal insult that he was expected to appoint a replacement for a former Senator turned President-elect without considerable financial remuneration.
[edit] Notable members
- Joe Biden: President of the Senate
- Mitch McConnell: Majority Leader
- Harry Reid: Minority Leader
- Some others we have articles on
- Some people who were once members we have articles on
[edit] External links
- Library of Congress
- Official Website of the House of Representatives
- Official Website of the Senate
- Ideology and party unity in the House, 1857-2011
- Wikipedia Now Blocking US Congress From Making Edits, Daily Tech (But some still manage to seep through.)
- Everybody is going to be fine. Seriously.
- List of global warming denialists in Congress
- Get the majority leaders in here. Now. (Suck it, Ryan.)
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Wikiquote on United States Congress
- ↑ Sixteen senators have been elected President after serving as senators. Three have been elected while seated as a senator: Warren G. Harding, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama. [1]
- ↑ FBI informant: Blagojevich was mob-connected bookie, The Raw Story