Magruder's American Government: 4. The Legislative Branch, Sections 1–3

Delegates see themselves as the agents of the people who elected them.

Trustees believe that each question they face must be decided on its merits.

Partisans believe that they owe their first allegiance to their political party.

Politicos attempt to combine the basic elements of the delegate, trustee, and partisan roles.

In every session of Congress, proposed laws, known as bills, are referred to the various committees in each chamber.

It does so through the exercise of its critically important oversight function, the process by which Congress, through its committees, checks to see that the executive branch agencies are carrying out the policies that Congress has set by law.

Each term of Congress lasts for two years, and each of those two-year terms is numbered consecutively (Article I, Section 2, Clause 1).

A session of Congress is that period of time during which, each year, Congress assembles and conducts business.

The second session of each two-year term frequently convenes a few days or even a few weeks after the third of January.

Congress adjourns, or suspends until its next session, each regular session as it sees fit.

Both houses do recess for several short periods during a session.

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution does give the President the power to prorogue a session, but only when the two houses cannot agree on a date for adjournment.

The Constitution provides that the total number of seats in the House of Representatives shall be apportioned among the States on the basis of their respective populations (Article I, Clause 3).

Gerrymandering is widespread today—and not just at the congressional district level. Districts for the election of State legislators are regularly drawn for the advantage of one party.

Being the incumbent, the person who currently holds the office, almost always helps. Regularly, well over 90 percent of those members of the House who seek reelection do so successfully.

The larger size and the geographic scope of their constituencies—the people and interests the senators represent—are designed to have much the same effect.

The Constitution grants it a number of specific powers—and, it delegates those powers in three different ways: (1) explicitly, in its specific wording—the expressed powers; (2) by reasonable deduction from the expressed powers—the implied powers; and (3) by creating a national government for the United States—the inherent powers.

The Constitution grants it a number of specific powers—and, it delegates those powers in three different ways: (1) explicitly, in its specific wording—the expressed powers; (2) by reasonable deduction from the expressed powers—the implied powers; and (3) by creating a national government for the United States—the inherent powers.

Commerce, generally, is the buying and selling of goods and services. The commerce power—the power of Congress to regulate interstate and foreign trade—is vital to the welfare of the nation.

A tax is a charge levied by government on persons or property to raise money to meet public needs.

The public debt is all of the money borrowed by the Federal Government over the years and not yet repaid, plus the accumulated interest on that money.

For decades, the Federal Government has practiced deficit financing. That is, it regularly spends more than it takes in each year and then borrows to make up the difference.

Bankruptcy is the legal proceeding in which the bankrupt’s assets—however much or little they may be—are distributed among those to whom a debt is owed.

Legal tender is any kind of money that a creditor must by law accept in payment for debts.

A copyright is the exclusive right of an author to reproduce, publish, and sell his or her creative work.

A patent grants a person the sole right to manufacture, use, or sell “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.”

That power relates to the District of Columbia and to the several federal territories, parts of the United States that are not admitted as States and that have their own systems of government, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.

It may also do so through the exercise of the power of eminent domain, the inherent power to take private property for public use.

Citizens of one country become citizens of another through a process called naturalization.