The United States Congress has two chambers, one called the Senate and the other called the House of Representatives (or “House” for short) which share the responsibilities of the legislative process to create federal statutory law. They occupy opposite ends of the Capitol Building.
About the Senate
The United States’s 50 states each elect two senators for staggered six-year terms. A senator represents between 0.6 and 40 million people, depending on their state’s population.
The day-to-day activities of the Senate are controlled largely by the political party holding the most seats, called the “majority party.” Here is a count of senators by party:
Senators by Party
| D | Democrats Includes 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats | 50 |
| R | Republicans | 50 |
| Total Seats | 100 |
Democrats hold the majority in the Senate because the Vice President, a Democrat, joins them to cast tie-breaking votes when necessary.
The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.’s four other island territories — American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands — are not represented in the Senate.
Tenure of Senators
The table below shows a breakdown of how many years the senators have been serving in office.
Age and Sex of Senators
48% of senators are men over the age of 62, while only 7% of senators are women 62 years old or younger.
About the House of Representatives
The United States is also divided into 435 congressional districts with a population of about 750,000 each. Each district elects a representative to the House of Representatives for a two-year term.
As in the Senate, the day-to-day activities of the House are controlled by the “majority party.” Here is a count of representatives by party:
Representatives by Party
| D | Democrats | 221 |
| R | Republicans | 212 |
| Vacancies | 2 | |
| Total Seats | 435 |
The 435 congressional districts do not include the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.’s four other island territories — American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands — which each send a non-voting delegate to the House. Puerto Rico’s delegate is called the Resident Commissioner.
Tenure of Representatives
The table below shows a breakdown of how many years the representatives have been serving in office.
Age and Sex of Representatives
30% of representatives are men over the age of 62, while only 17% of representatives are women 62 years old or younger.
The U.S. Congress consists of two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Each state elects two senators, while seats in the House of
Representatives are apportioned by state according to population, with each state receiving a minimum of one representative. After each decennial census, the House of Representatives used to increase in size, but in the 1910s overall membership was capped at 435 (it expanded temporarily to 437 after Alaska and Hawaii were admitted as states in 1959). Now, after each census, legislative seats are reapportioned, with some states increasing their number of representatives while other states may
lose seats.
The number of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives by state is provided in the table.
U.S. congressional apportionment
| Alabama | 7 |
| Alaska | 1 |
| Arizona | 9 |
| Arkansas | 4 |
| California | 52 |
| Colorado | 8 |
| Connecticut | 5 |
| Delaware | 1 |
| Florida | 28 |
| Georgia | 14 |
| Hawaii | 2 |
| Idaho | 2 |
| Illinois | 17 |
| Indiana | 9 |
| Iowa | 4 |
| Kansas | 4 |
| Kentucky | 6 |
| Louisiana | 6 |
| Maine | 2 |
| Maryland | 8 |
| Massachusetts | 9 |
| Michigan | 13 |
| Minnesota | 8 |
| Mississippi | 4 |
| Missouri | 8 |
| Montana | 2 |
| Nebraska | 3 |
| Nevada | 4 |
| New Hampshire | 2 |
| New Jersey | 12 |
| New Mexico | 3 |
| New York | 26 |
| North Carolina | 14 |
| North Dakota | 1 |
| Ohio | 15 |
| Oklahoma | 5 |
| Oregon | 6 |
| Pennsylvania | 17 |
| Rhode Island | 2 |
| South Carolina | 7 |
| South Dakota | 1 |
| Tennessee | 9 |
| Texas | 38 |
| Utah | 4 |
| Vermont | 1 |
| Virginia | 11 |
| Washington | 10 |
| West Virginia | 2 |
| Wisconsin | 8 |
| Wyoming | 1 |
| Total | 435 |
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.