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How Does Congress Represent The American People

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Chapter 12 Journal: Congress 1. How Congress Represents the American People The United States Congress is more than likely the most significant representative institution in the United States government. Each member of Congress has a primary obligation to the district, to his or her constituency. Though Congress is divided into two parts, called the House of Representatives and the Senate, they both play different roles in the legislature process. Senate is more deliberative and the House is the more centralized and organized. Congress is supposed to represent the American people but they will not always make the “right” decisions, according to some individuals. Obviously it is impossible to please everybody, but surely the laws that are being passed are because Congress views some sort of usefulness from it. There are two different types of representation that was spoken about in the chapter including sociological and agency representation. Sociological is based off of the idea that if two individuals have similar background, character, interests, and perspectives, then they can correctly represent others’ views. Agency is when a representative is held accountable to a constituency for when that constituency is represented poorly. The constituents have the power to hire and fire their representatives. 2. The …show more content…

Members of the government all take part in drafting legislation. Afterwards, the committee markup sessions begin (the congressional committee rewrites legislation to incorporate changes discussed during hearings on the bill). Then it’s the close rule; in this step, the house committee limits the introduction of amendments during the debate. The group of people who are not for the amendment would go for the open rule which is the house committee that permits floor debate and addition of new amendments). The final step of a law being passed is being vetoed or approved by the

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