House Of Representatives Compare And Contrast

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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