senate, house, congress, representatives?

Question

I thought I understood all this, but now I'm confused. What is the difference between the senate, house, congress and representatives? What are their duties? How are they different? Please explain

Answer 1

Short answer:
Congress is the legislative branch of the government
The Senate is half of Congress
The House of Representatives (sometimes called just "House") is the other Half of Congress
Representatives are the members of the House of Representatives

Long answer:
The US government is made up of three branches - executive (president), judicial (courts, from the Supreme Court on down), and legislative (Congress). There is a separation of powers (you probably learned the phrase "checks and balances" in school) - this allows each branch to have some power of its own and some power to regulate the other branches.

Congress is made up of two elected groups - the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both have similar duties - the difference is in how the numbers are distributed over the states, and how long their terms are. All states have two Senators, and they serve 6 years. With Senators, all people in the state vote for both Senators, just not both at the same time. The number of Representatives is determined by the population of the state. Right now there are 435 voting members (representatives from DC, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands don't vote). Every state gets at least one Representative, but the larger the state, the more Representatives they have. Each Representative comes from a section of their home state - not everyone in the state gets to elect all of the state's Representatives. You elect one in your region. Representatives serve 2 year terms, so every two years all of the seats in the House of Representatives are up for vote.

Congress deals with stuff like interstate and international commerce, declaring war, levying taxes, maintaining the military, and organizing the federal courts. There are some things that they cannot control according to the Constitution - powers that are reserved for the states.

There are a few things that only the Senate or only the House can do. For example, when the President nominates a new Supreme Court Justice or federal judge, the Senate votes whether or not to accept (confirm) the nomination. Only the House can begin impeachment proceedings against the President (and it doesn't go to the Senate unless the House vote to impeach). The House also is the only place where bills for raising money can be started.

Answer 2

Congress is both the House and Senate. Representatives is the House. The differ in that the House has 435 members, and the Senate 100. The House members represent 600,000 people, while the Senate members represent the enitre state.

Answer 3

The Senate is part of congress. The house is the other part. The house of Representatives is the part of the government that start the bills that get voted on. The bill then goes to the senate where they make their own version of the bill.Then both the senate & house get togather in a conferance committee & iron out the differances & send the bill to the White House where the President either signs it or vetoes it. If it is vetoed it goes back to the house to start allover.

Answer 4

Representatives serve in the House. Both the House and the Senate are in Congress. That's how it works.

Answer 5

OK, here it is. The Senate and the House of Representatives (or just the House), are two parts of the bicameral Congress, the Legislative branch.

Answer 6

Don't be lazy, go to the library...Or wikipedia.

Answer 7

read constitution