The United States Congress

What is the Legislative branch?

Among other powers, the legislative branch makes all laws, declares war, regulates interstate and foreign commerce and controls taxing and spending policies. The legislative branch is made up of the House and Senate, known collectively as the Congress.

How do they differ?

There are a number of differences between the two parts of the legislative branch, outlined in the table below:

Branch Comparison
	House of Representatives	Senate
Chamber	Lower	Upper
# of members	435	100
Term Length	2 years	6 years
Age Minimum	25 years old	30 years old

Current Leaders of the Legislative Branch

Kevin McCarthy

Speaker of the House
Institutional role of presiding officer and administrative head of the House
Leader of the majority party in the House
Second in line to succeed the President, after the Vice President

Charles (Chuck) Schumer

Senate Majority Leader
Lead speaker during floor debates
Schedules the daily calendar
Works to promote the majority party's legislative agenda
Acts as the voice of the Democratic Party as the House is controlled by the Republican Party

History

In the House, every state is represented according to its population, with larger states getting more representatives than smaller ones. In total, there are 435 representatives. In contrast, in the Senate, each state, regardless of its population, gets 2 representatives, so there are 100 of them in total.

When it comes to debate procedures, since the Senate is smaller, they are less formal there than in the House. In addition, the term-lengths in the House are shorter: two years, in contrast with six years in the Senate. That is why the representatives of the House tend to be more sensitive to the issues that concern the constituents than the senators. One other interesting difference is that in the House, the debates usually can not go for longer than an hour, while in the Senate, they are unlimited.

The House and the Senate also have very different powers. For example, all revenue bills originate in the House because, as mentioned above, the representatives are more responsive to the needs of the residents than senators. However, it is the Senate that is responsible for impeachment trials. This happens because this way, each state has equal power over deciding what will happen with the president.