11.1: Bicameralism

The Congress of the Constitution is an expansion of the Congress of the Articles of Confederation from one chamber to two: the House of Representatives, with 435 members (one per congressional district) and the Senate, with 100 members (two per state). The Great Compromise gave both large and small states something they wanted: proportionality in the House, equality in the Senate.

In crafting a bicameral (two-chamber) national legislature, the Founders had the British Parliament in mind, which also consists of two chambers (the House of Commons and the House of Lords). Many other world legislatures are bicameral, including Germany’s parliament (the Bundestag and Bundesrat), the National Diet of Japan (the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors), and the Federal Assembly of Russia (the State Duma and the Federation Council). Forty-nine of America’s 50 state legislatures are also bicameral, with Nebraska’s unicameral state senate being the only exception.

In most bicameral legislatures, almost all of the political power is concentrated in the so-called “lower” chamber, which is usually the larger of the two. In the United Kingdom, for example, the House of Commons is led by the Prime Minister and handles virtually all lawmaking duties, whereas the House of Lords debates policy and holds inquiries but does not play a direct role in the creation of laws. American bicameral legislatures are unusual in that their lower and upper chambers both have lawmaking authority. In Congress, both representatives and senators can introduce bills, and bills require the support of both chambers to become law. This extra step makes Congress less efficient than many comparable bicameral legislatures, whose upper chambers are often bypassed almost completely in the lawmaking process.

The U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate differ in several notable ways besides the size of their membership. Representatives serve two-year terms and senators six-year terms, though neither are term-limited (except by their own mortality). It is the Senate, not the House, that votes to ratify treaties and to confirm presidential cabinet appointees, Supreme Court justices, and the heads of certain government agencies. The House has the power to impeach a president, but the Senate holds the trial and votes to convict or acquit the president once he has been impeached. In rare cases where no presidential candidate wins a majority in the Electoral College, the House (voting by state) chooses the president, and the Senate (voting individually) chooses the vice president.

The differences between the House and Senate reflect the Founders’ belief that the two chambers would play equal but distinct roles in the American government. The House, popularly elected every two years and with most of its members representing fewer constituents than senators do, was expected to be closer and therefore more beholden to average Americans. The Senate, with its six-year terms, was designed to remain more independent of public opinion. In fact, until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, senators were elected indirectly by state legislatures rather than directly by voters. The idea was to strike the right democratic balance such that the people’s will would be accurately represented in the House while their passions would be held in check by the intervention of the more aloof Senate.