What does Congress do (in theory)?

Article I of the Constitution details the powers and responsibilities of Congress. It is important that Congress is defined in Article I; the Founding Fathers seemed to have been suggesting that Congress is the most important branch and should probably have the most power.

As a reminder, some of the powers of Congress are:

· Establish and collect taxes

· Regulate commerce and the federal budget

· Make federal laws

· Create naturalization laws

· Coin money and regulate its value

· Declare war

Congress also some important powers regarding checks and balances:

· With a 2/3 vote, Congress can overturn a Presidential veto

· The Senate must confirm/approve of Presidential nominees (such as nominees to head the major government departments and Supreme Court justices)

· Congress can impeach and remove the President from office (more on this in a few weeks)

The Senate
The US Senate is one of the chambers of Congress. This chamber is made up of 100 individuals, 2 of whom are elected from each state.

Senators are elected to 6-year terms; meaning, if a Senator is elected is 2018, that individual serves until 2024 before facing reelection.

Senators do NOT have term limits; meaning, there is no limit to how many times a Senator can be reelected. They must keep getting reelected in order to keep their office, but as long as they keep getting reelected, then they can keep their job for as long as they want!

In the US, federal elections happen every 2 years, in even numbered years (the next major federal election is in 2020). NOT all Senators are up for reelection every two years; in general, only about 1/3 of the Senate will face reelection in a particular election year. Meaning, these are staggered elections and in which only around 33 Senate seats will up for election in 2020.1 page
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