The House of Representatives

The House was built to feel the public mood immediately. Every one of its 435 voting members faces the voters every two years, and seats are divided among the states by population after each census. A member must be at least 25, a citizen for seven years, and an inhabitant of the state they represent. The chamber reached its first quorum on April 1, 1789, and elected Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as the first Speaker the same day. The 435 cap dates to the Reapportionment Act of 1929, which froze the size of the House even as the population tripled.

The Constitution gives the House two exclusive powers. All bills for raising revenue must originate there, a rule borrowed from the British Commons and meant to keep taxation close to the people. And the House alone holds the power of impeachment: it decides by simple majority whether to charge a President, judge, or other civil officer, after which the Senate holds the trial. If no presidential candidate wins a majority in the Electoral College, the House chooses the President, with each state delegation casting one vote, as it did in 1801 and 1825.

Size shapes everything about how the House works. With 435 members, unlimited debate is impossible, so the chamber runs on strict rules set by the majority. The Rules Committee decides which bills reach the floor, how long they are debated, and which amendments are allowed. The Speaker, elected by the full House and in practice by the majority party, controls the calendar, appoints committee members for the majority, and stands second in the line of presidential succession. A disciplined majority can pass almost anything in days. A fractured one can struggle to elect a Speaker at all, as the fifteen ballots of January 2023 showed.

Six non-voting delegates sit alongside the 435: one each from the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. They serve on committees and speak on the floor but cannot vote on final passage. Debate continues over whether the chamber should grow again, with proposals ranging from a few dozen additional seats to doubling its size, and over how districts are drawn, since the states, not the House, control redistricting.