House of Representatives: Definition, Facts, History

Table Of Content

• Presiding officer
• For Trump:
• Member officials
• Census: Apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives
• House Progressive Caucus members say Israel aid bill "could result in more killings of civilians"
• House passes key foreign aid package
• It felt like a TikTok ban was moving slowly, then quickly. What happened?

The House Majority Leader—who is also chosen from among the membership of the political party with the most seats in the House—schedules time for floor debate on legislation and sets the legislative strategy for the party in control. The committees also play an important role in the control exercised by Congress over governmental agencies. Cabinet officers and other officials are frequently summoned before the committees to explain policy. The Constitution (Article I, section 6) prohibits members of Congress from holding offices in the executive branch of government—a chief distinction between parliamentary and congressional forms of government. Most committee work is performed by twenty standing committees, each of which has jurisdiction over a specific set of issues, such as Agriculture or Foreign Affairs. Each standing committee considers, amends, and reports bills that fall under its jurisdiction.

Presiding officer

Congress is also empowered to enact laws deemed “necessary and proper” for the execution of the powers given to any part of the government under the Constitution. After being introduced, a bill is referred to the appropriate committee for review. There are 17 Senate committees, with 70 subcommittees, and 23 House committees, with 104 subcommittees. The committees are not set in stone, but change in number and form with each new Congress as required for the efficient consideration of legislation. Each committee oversees a specific policy area, and the subcommittees take on more specialized policy areas. For example, the House Committee on Ways and Means includes subcommittees on Social Security and Trade.

For Trump:

For that situation the House minority leader can play the role of a de facto "leader of the opposition", often more so than the Senate minority leader, due to the more partisan nature of the House and the greater role of leadership. When the presidency and Senate are controlled by a different party from the one controlling the House, the speaker can become the de facto "leader of the opposition". Some notable examples include Tip O'Neill in the 1980s, Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, John Boehner in the early 2010s, and Nancy Pelosi in the late 2000s and again in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Since the speaker is a partisan officer with substantial power to control the business of the House, the position is often used for partisan advantage. Representatives are usually identified in the media and other sources by party and state, and sometimes by congressional district, or a major city or community within their district.

Member officials

The House also appoints members to serve on joint committees, which include members of the Senate and House. Some joint committees oversee independent government bodies; for instance, the Joint Committee on the Library oversees the Library of Congress. Other joint committees serve to make advisory reports; for example, there exists a Joint Committee on Taxation. Hence, the power of joint committees is considerably lower than those of standing committees.

Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., who was reelected this fall, became the most recent widow to serve out her husband’s term in the House. She won a special election in 2021 after Luke Letlow died from COVID-19 complications shortly before swearing into office. Six of the 14 women senators who served before 1980 were either elected or appointed to fill their late husbands’ seats. Of those, two (Hattie Caraway of Arkansas and Maurine Brown Neuberger of Oregon) subsequently won full terms in their own right. The first, Montana Republican Jeannette Rankin, was elected to the House in 1916, two years after her state gave women the vote. But women only began serving in more substantial numbers in the past few decades.

Census: Apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives

Committees have extensive powers with regard to bills; they may block legislation from reaching the floor of the House. Standing committees also oversee the departments and agencies of the executive branch. In discharging their duties, standing committees have the power to hold hearings and to subpoena witnesses and evidence.

House Progressive Caucus members say Israel aid bill "could result in more killings of civilians"

There are approximately 20 standing (permanent) committees, organized mainly around major policy areas, each having staffs, budgets, and subcommittees. They may hold hearings on questions of public interest, propose legislation that has not been formally introduced as a bill or resolution, and conduct investigations. Among important standing committees are those on appropriations, on ways and means (which handles matters related to finance), and on rules.

House passes key foreign aid package

Kennedy's campaign and a super PAC supporting him say he has enough signatures to potentially also get on ballots in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina and South Carolina. This analysis builds on earlier Pew Research Center work to analyze the gender makeup of Congress. Independent members of Congress are counted with the party they caucus with. Virginia’s 4th Congressional District seat, now vacant after Democrat Donald McEachin’s recent death, is excluded from the analysis. Women make up more than a quarter (28%) of all members of the 118th Congress – the highest percentage in U.S. history and a considerable increase from where things stood even a decade ago. All representatives serve until the end of the current Congress on Jan 3, 2025.

It felt like a TikTok ban was moving slowly, then quickly. What happened?

The term of the replacement member expires on the date that the original member's would have expired. Under Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states by population, as determined by the census conducted every ten years. Each state is entitled to at least one representative, however small its population. During the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery.

Members of the House are elected every two years and must be 25 years of age, a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and a resident of the state (but not necessarily the district) they represent. Although this process means that only a fraction of proposed legislation actually becomes law, the framers of the Constitution wanted careful deliberation in which diverse views are heard and our rights as citizens are represented and defended. Committees in both houses review bills that have been introduced by their colleagues, holding hearings in which their merits are debated. The Speaker of the House is also the second person in the U.S. presidential line of succession—the order in which presidents are replaced if they die, resign or are removed from office—after the Vice President and before the President pro tempore of the Senate. The Senate includes 100 members, with each of the 50 states electing two senators to this body of Congress to six-year terms.

How many house seats are up for election in 2024? These are the U.S. House races to watch. - USA TODAY

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The presiding officer sits in a chair in the front of the House chamber. The powers of the presiding officer are extensive; one important power is that of controlling the order in which members of the House speak. No member may make a speech or a motion unless they have first been recognized by the presiding officer. Moreover, the presiding officer may rule on a "point of order" (a member's objection that a rule has been breached); the decision is subject to appeal to the whole House. A foreign aid package passed by the US House of Representatives will “exacerbate global crises,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement to CNN on Saturday. If the Senate votes to approve the TikTok legislation, it heads to the desk of Biden, who endorsed the prior version of the bill and may quickly sign any foreign aid package that includes similar language targeting TikTok.

HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Articles with the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata. Constitution saw the two houses as having distinct roles, with the House designed to serve as a forum for more pressing, everyday concerns, while the Senate was intended to be a place for calmer deliberation. Given the shortcomings of the government created by the Articles of Confederation, the framers soon realized that a bicameral legislature at the national level would foster a more representative central government. Congress first convened in the newly independent country’s then-capital of New York City, heralding the birth of the two bodies that form the legislative branch of government—the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The approval of the Senate and the House of Representatives is required for a bill to become law. Both Houses must pass the same version of the bill; if there are differences, they may be resolved by a conference committee, which includes members of both bodies. For the stages through which bills pass in the Senate, see Act of Congress. During debates, a member may speak only if called upon by the presiding officer. The presiding officer decides which members to recognize, and can therefore control the course of debate.[62] All speeches must be addressed to the presiding officer, using the words "Mr. Speaker" or "Madam Speaker". Only the presiding officer may be directly addressed in speeches; other members must be referred to in the third person.

Majority of House Democrats, Led By Jewish Members, Unified Behind President Biden's Leadership in the Middle East - Jerry Nadler

Majority of House Democrats, Led By Jewish Members, Unified Behind President Biden's Leadership in the Middle East.

Posted: Fri, 20 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

The chairs of House committees, particularly influential standing committees such as Appropriations, Ways and Means, and Rules, are powerful but not officially part of the House leadership hierarchy. Until the post of majority leader was created, the chair of Ways and Means was the de facto majority leader. The party with a majority of seats in the House is known as the majority party. The speaker, committee chairs, and some other officials are generally from the majority party; they have counterparts (for instance, the "ranking members" of committees) in the minority party. Write in votes in the Democratic presidential primary in Philadelphia this year exceeded write in votes from the 2020 election by nearly seven to one.

Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War (1861–1865), which began soon after several southern states attempted to secede from the Union. The war culminated in the South's defeat and in the abolition of slavery. All southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, and therefore the Senate did not hold the balance of power between North and South during the war. With nominees already essentially chosen for president — and not everyone is happy with them — and U.S. Senate and a general absence of passion, indications were that 70% or more of voters in the region and across the state decided this primary wasn’t worth their trouble. House Democrats poured more than $300,000 into Dougherty’s campaign in Northeast Philadelphia in recent weeks, hoping to unseat Boyle – who sought reelection without the party’s support as his family said he’s struggling with a serious mental health condition.