The U.S. House of Representatives
What You Need to Know
The House of Representatives and the Senate have separate chambers in which the majority of their work is done. The members of both houses meet in the Great Rotunda during “Joint Sessions of Congress.”
Issue #58: The American Government
(About 4 minutes average reading time)
The United States House of Representatives is in the news a lot lately:
1) The January 6 Committee that is investigating the insurrection and attempted coup is currently very busy and planning live TV hearings in June. Supporters of Donald Trump were called to Washington by Trump to be there on January 6 to overturn the election by stopping the legal counting of the Electoral College votes that were ratified the previous December 14. They failed. This time.
2) All members of the House are up for election every two years, and since the Democrats currently hold a very narrow majority, it would take only a few election turnovers by Republican candidates to put the majority in Republican hands. In states with Republican control, there are many operations put in place after the 2020 election to suppress the votes of Democrats and/or count only Republican votes—the only way Republicans win.
3) Kevin McCarthy, the current minority leader, has threatened that if he becomes Speaker of the House, he would spend the time in the House not legislating, but instead getting “revenge” against the Democrats by attempting to impeach President Biden and Vice-President Harris, by stripping all Democrats of their committee assignments, and by holding investigations into everything and everyone the Republicans do not like.
The House of Representatives is part of the Legislative Branch of the U.S. Government
The Legislative Branch was established by Article I of the United States Constitution and consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which together make up the Congress. The Constitution grants Congress the sole authority to enact legislation, to declare war, to confirm or reject most Presidential appointments, and also grants the members substantive investigative powers.
The House of Representatives is made up of 435 elected members, and the membership is divided proportionally among the 50 states, based on their population as of the latest Census count.
There are also 6 non-voting members of the House, representing the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the four territories of the United States: American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.
These additional 6 domains also vote in the presidential elections, equaling 56 jurisdictions that vote for the president every four years. This is what then-Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama meant in 2008 when he stated that there were 56 jurisdictions (NOT “states”) that vote for president. The uninformed “haters” said that Mr. Obama said 56 “states” (he never said that) and that proved that he, a constitutional scholar and professor, “did not know” how many states were in the United States.
The presiding officer of the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House, is elected by a majority of the members and is 3rd in line for the presidency after the Vice-President.
The members of the House of Representatives are elected every two years. They must be at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen (native-born or naturalized for at least seven years), and a resident of the state (but not necessarily of the district) they represent.
Powers of the House of Representatives
There are several powers exclusively assigned to the House of Representatives:
the power to initiate any bills having to do with revenue,
the power to approve appointments to the vice-presidency (as occurred when Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace and Richard Nixon appointed Congressman Gerald Ford to take that position; that is how Gerald Ford subsequently became president when Richard Nixon resigned),
the power to approve any treaty that involves foreign trade,
the power to impeach federal officials, and
the power to elect the president in the case of a tie in the Electoral College.
The Articles of Impeachment can only be filed by the House of Representatives, which then sends the impeachment (which is similar to an indictment in regular criminal court cases) to the Senate for the trial and the vote. Impeachment does not remove a federal officer from office, it only states the charges that are alleged.
A member of the Supreme Court has been impeached only once in American history: Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805. He was acquitted by the Senate. Associate Justices can still be indicted, Mr. Clarence Thomas.
Articles of Impeachment can only be filed if the federal officer is accused of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, not just because someone in the House “doesn’t like” what another federal officer has done. The charges contained in the Articles of Impeachment are charges that must be proved and then voted upon by the Senate. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides over the Senate trial, and conviction and removal occur when there is a vote of 2/3 of the 100 members of the Senate.
All of the introduced bills are first sent to the related committee, which then sends the bill to the appropriate subcommittee to conduct hearings and then vote to reject the bill or move it forward to the full committee. This is why committee assignments are so important. The majority of the work of a member of the House is done in the committees and members such as Majorie Taylor Green (R-Georgia) with no committee assignments really don’t have anything to do.
”I’m Just a Bill, I am Only a Bill…
If the bill is accepted in the full committee (after another set of hearings), it is then reported to the floor where the Speaker decides when to place the bill on the calendar for consideration. The bill can be considered right away or never scheduled at all.
In the House, the debate process for a bill on the calendar is structured so that members can speak for only a few minutes and the number and kind of amendments allowed is also usually very limited.
In the Senate, members can debate on a bill for an unlimited amount of time (the “filibuster”), and the filibuster can only be broken if a 60 Senators vote to invoke cloture, which is the cessation of debate on the bill.
The House of Representatives and the Senate are Different—On Purpose
I previously published an article about the history and composition of the United States Senate on May 12, 2022.
Many people complain that it seems to take Congress forever to get anything done (although Congress can move very quickly when it wants to). Legislating is complicated, but that was done on purpose by the framers of the Constitution. They met and deliberated on every part of the Constitution for several months before it was sent to the various states for ratification.
Knowing how each branch of government is meant to operate is essential for citizens of the United States to properly participate in the workings of the country.
Unfortunately, comprehensive “Civics” education seems to have been diluted and, in many cases, misappropriated to present only some viewpoints instead of being part of a nonpartisan and secular education.
