Today we have a bicameral legislature. This means our Legislative branch is split into two parts, one being the House of Representatives and the other being the Senate. The two houses were created by the framers based on two separate plans. The Virginia plan and the New Jersey plan. The Virginia plan called for congress based on the population, like the House of Representatives, but the New Jersey plan was more in favor of a congress with equal representation, like the Senate. The Great Compromise combined these two plans to create the Congress we know today. The House of Representatives and the Senate have many similarities and differences in requirements, structure, and powers, in order to create a balanced legislative branch. BODY PARAGRAPH …show more content…
The main reason for this is the size. The Senate only has 100 members, while the House of representatives has over 4 times as many at 435 members. With many more members, there needs to be more rules in order to keep everything under control. The size of the Senate is based on equal representation, being two senators per state. The House of Representatives, however, is based on population of each state. Since the population fluctuates, a census is taken every 10 years to count the number people in each state, and to give and take representatives in order to have a fair number per state. Both houses share a similarity in the term limit per member. In both houses a member can run for reelection for an unlimited amount of time, being no restrictions as to how long they run. A difference in the structure is not how many times a person can run for reelection, but how they do it. Members of the House of Representatives run for reelection every two years, while only ⅓ of the Senate runs for reelection every two years. This is to prevent the senate from being taken over by the political views of the people during the reelection time. The structures of the houses may be different, but they are set up they way they are in order to follow through with the powers given to
The Senate is also important because each Senator serves six years in office making it difficult for them to “yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions” and allows them to gain experience and make minimal to no errors (pg. 337). Federalist Paper Sixty-Three emphasizes that having Senators serve six years allows them to be more responsible of the decisions they take while in office. James Madison wrote “It is evident that an assembly elected for so short a term as to be unable to provide more than one or two links in a chain of measures” (pg. 338).
lha Kaleem Emplid-23406195 AMERICAN POLITICS & GOVERNMENT‐ UNIT 1 EXAMINATION, SPRING 2017 Unit 1- Question 1 What was the “compromise” between two different plans in creating the legislature? What was the compromise regarding representation to appease the plantation elites? Explain. PG 48-49 In 1978, two plans were put forth regarding how each state in the union? would be represented in the national legislature.
So, we know by now there’s the House of Representatives and the Senate in the legislative branch, the amount of members in each are based off a compromise between the Virginia plan and the New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan called for the votes in congress to be based on population, while New Jersey called for the votes to be equal amount states. The House of Representatives is based of the population idea of the Virginia Plan, consisting of no more then 435 members, each state has proportional representation based on population. The Senate, however, is based of the New Jersey Plan, each state having two senators, equal representation among all the states. This way, big states have an advantage in the House, small states have the advantage in the Senate making it very balanced.
To solve this issue, Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman came up with a compromise. He drafted—what is called today—the Great Compromise. The Great Compromise synthesized the two state plans into one combined agreement, in which both sides received part of what they wanted. It stated that there would be two houses of the legislative branch. One house would have representation based on population, and the other would receive the same amount of representatives from each state (two per
This is shown in the House of Representatives,
all states were represented equally in the Senate. This made the smaller states happy. In the House of Representatives, representation was based on population. This pleased the bigger states. The Great Compromise settled the method of representation in the legislative branch.
Liberty Sumners 712 The Articles of Confederation were a great change to our Government. With time spent using this system, we realized the weaknesses associated with it. This lead to the Constitutional Convention being convened on 1787 in Philadelphia. We needed to find out what was weakening our Government.
"How Democratic is the American Constitution ?", by political scientist Robert A. Dahl is a short book that questions the ethical and political issues in America 's Constitution and the structure of the United States government. The book consists of a series of abstract lectures composed by Dahl that reflects on how the American Constitution affects modern society. While this short book brings out plentiful knowledge on the American system , it does not go any deeper into those general ideas for it is only about 200 pages. However, it is still a knowledgeable book to introduce the fundamentals of American government and political science and why American citizens should uphold the Constitution. Dahl introduces the book of how the Founding
While debating how to set up representation in Congress, the large states wanted Congress representation to be based on population, so they would have more say in the government. The small states wanted each state to have only 2 people represent, so everyone would have an equal say. Together they decided that they would have two houses in congress, called the house of representative and the senate. The house of representatives is based on the states population(Source D), appeasing the large states. The senate had 2 representatives, (Source D).The small state-large state compromise protects against tyranny because it ensures that the large states do not take away power from the small states when it comes to making laws.
This, later know as the Great Compromise, was an idea by Roger Sherman from CT. At the time, this was called the CT Compromise, as they likely did not understand how big of a deal this would become. It was simply a combination of both the Virginia and New Jersey plans. It took the two houses from the Virginia plan, but they decided the Senate would be equal, pleasing the small states, and then House of Representatives would then be based off population, satisfying the larger states. This is so important because they created a government we would continue to use for hundreds of years to come, including
The Great Compromise which was founded at the Constitutional Convention wasn't formed without trouble. Many of the delegates that participated in the convention were wealthy landowners and lawyers, who owned many slaves. They failed to notice the diversity that excited within the nation. As they talked how to repair the Articles of Confederation, issues would arise that would create continuous debates amongst each other. One of the issues that would arise would be the nature of the new government.
One of the compromises made in the Constitutional Convention is the three-fifths compromise. In this compromise, the southerners wanted to add slaves to the population of the state they lived in. If slaves were included in their state’s population, that state would be able to add more representatives in the House of Representatives. Northerners did not agree with that statement because slaves did not have the right to vote. After the delegates compromised, they agreed that only three-fifths of the slave’s population would be counted into the state’s population.
Each state has two senators no matter what their population size and they serve six year terms. The senate has many exclusive powers that are not granted to the House such as consenting to treaties as a precondition to ratification and/or confirming appointments of cabinet members, secretaries, federal judges and other federal executive officials and including military officers. The senate is considered to be more decorative and prestigious than the House of Representatives due to longer terms its smaller size and statewide constituencies. The senate was not created to represent the people of the united states equally. Each state has two members of the senate and at least one member in the house of representatives which means only three electors regardless of the population
The Senate and House of Representatives comprise the two chambers of the United States Congress. While both houses are representative bodies and jointly oversee the executive branch, both must approve all bills before the president, but both chambers have different roles according to the Constitution. The House of Representatives has 435 members apportioned to the house from across the United States. States with larger populations receive more seats within the house.
The Great Compromise represented the interest of those who wanted a strong national government and those who wanted states to have a strong voice by establishing a two-house Congress. History Alive, pg. 152 states, “The second house, the Senate, would represent the states. Each state would have two senators, to be elected by their state legislatures.” The Senate represented those who wanted a strong national government-the smaller states- because since their population was tiny compared to the massive population of the larger states, the Senate will make sure that all the states have an equal say in Congress.