Chapter 10 section 2

The House of Representatives

Section Objection: To understand the structure of the House of Representatives

  1. Size and Terms
    1. Today there are 435 members of the House.
    2. The total number of seats is a apportioned among the States on the basis of their respective populations.
    3. Each state is guaranteed at least one seat in the House.
    4. Representatives hold office for two-year terms.
    5. No limit exists on the number of terms representatives may serve.
  2. Reapportionment
    1. Reapportionment is a redistribution of the seats in the house as a result of the decennial census.
    2. In 1929 the number of seats in the House was fixed at 435, to be redistributed every 10 years according to the census.
  3. Congressional Elections
  1. Date–congressional elections are held on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November of each even-numbered year.
  2. Off-Year elections–Congressional elections occurring in non-presidential election years are off-year elections, in which the party holding the presidency often loses seats.
  3. Districts
  1. Gerrymandering–congressional Districts often have been gerrymandered, or drawn to the advantage of the faction that controls the State legislature.
  1. Wesbury v. Sanders, 1964

1. For many years, rural congressional districts with few people were over represented in the House, at the expense of urban and suburban districts.
  1. The Supreme Court in the 1964 case, Wesberry v. Sanders, held that sections of States may not be over- or underrepresented in Congress, upholding the principle that one person’s vote should be worth as much as another’s.
  1. Qualifications for House Members
  1. Members of the House must be at least 25 years of age, have been a citizen for at least seven years, and must be an inhabitant of the State he or she represents.
  2. The House judges the acceptability of individual members and may vote to censure or remove members.
  3. The Supreme Court, in Powell v. McCormack (1969), ruled that the House may not exclude any member-elect who meet the Constitution’s requirements.