How is representation decided in both the House and the Senate?

How is representation decided in both the House and the Senate?

Each state sends two Senators to represent their state in the U.S. Senate. However, in the House of Representatives, a state’s representation is based on its population. For example, smaller states like Vermont and Delaware have one representative while large states like California have 53 representatives.

How is representation in Congress decided?

The Constitution provides for proportional representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the seats in the House are apportioned based on state population according to the constitutionally mandated Census.

What is representative in the Senate based on?

As outlined in the Constitution , the House represents citizens based on district populations, while the Senate represents citizens on an equal state basis.

How were senators originally chosen?

From 1789 to 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, senators were elected by state legislatures. Beginning with the 1914 general election, all U.S. senators have been chosen by direct popular election. Unusual circumstances also have produced some uniquely historic elections.

What is the difference between a Senator and a representative?

Senators represent their entire states, but members of the House represent individual districts. The number of districts in each state is determined by a state’s population. Today, Congress consists of 100 senators (two from each state) and 435 voting members of the House of Representatives.

How did the states get equal representation in the Senate?

During the 1787 convention, Sherman proposed that House representation be based on the population, while in the Senate, the states would be equally represented. Benjamin Franklin agreed that each state should have an equal vote in the Senate except in matters concerning money.

How is the number of Senators in each state determined?

While the US House of Representatives is based on proportional representation, the Senate was designed to have two senators per state regardless of population. This leads to some interesting variations in the number of votes that some senators get relative to other senators (and how many people they represent).

How are the 435 seats in the House of Representatives determined?

Updated August 04, 2019. Apportionment is the process of fairly dividing the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives among the 50 states based on population counts from the decennial U.S. census.

What does the constitution say about the Senate?

The Senate and the United States Constitution. The clearest antecedent to the U.S. impeachment clause, however, is found in Massachusetts’ 1780 constitution. Section 2, Article VIII states, “The senate shall be a court, with full authority to hear and determine all impeachments made by the house of representatives,…