The United States Congress

Article I of the Constitution comes first for a reason. The framers expected the legislature to be the dominant branch, and they gave it the longest list of powers in the document: to tax, to spend, to borrow, to regulate commerce, to coin money, to declare war, to raise armies, and to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying those powers into execution. Congress convened for the first time on March 4, 1789, in New York City, and has met every year since. It is the only branch whose members are all chosen directly by voters.

Congress is two institutions sharing one building. The House of Representatives, with 435 voting members apportioned by population and elected every two years, was designed to be close to the people and quick to move. The Senate, with two members per state serving staggered six-year terms, was designed to be slower, more deliberate, and insulated from passing majorities. A bill becomes law only when both chambers pass identical text and the President signs it or Congress overrides a veto by two-thirds of each chamber. Nearly all of the real work happens in committees, where bills are drafted, amended, and most often left to die.

Beyond lawmaking, Congress holds the power of the purse, which means no federal dollar can be spent without an appropriation it has passed. It confirms or rejects the President's nominees through the Senate, ratifies treaties, and can remove any civil officer through impeachment by the House and trial in the Senate. It oversees the executive branch through hearings, subpoenas, audits by the Government Accountability Office, and the budget estimates of the Congressional Budget Office. Each two-year Congress is numbered. The 119th Congress sits from January 2025 to January 2027.

The institution's standing has shifted with the times. For most of the nineteenth century Congress set the national agenda and presidents followed. The twentieth century reversed that, as wars, depressions, and the growth of the executive branch concentrated initiative in the White House. Critics on both sides now describe a Congress that delegates broad authority to agencies, defers to presidents on war and emergencies, and struggles to pass budgets on time. Its defenders answer that the chamber still decides what gets funded, who gets confirmed, and which laws exist at all, and that no President has found a way around those facts.