This should have been a fairly easy question, provided that you know what descriptive representation means. Remember: descriptive representation refers to the type of representation where a particular congressman (or woman) physically reflects his constituency. In other words, if a Congressman came from a predominantly black area, he would be black. If (the same) Congressman came from a district that was predominantly black females, he wouldn’t be a “he” at all—this congress person would be a black female.

In reality, however, Congress is not descriptively representative. The majority of Congress is made up of middle-aged, white, educated, males. The country, on the other hand, is not predominantly middle-aged, white, educated males. Thus Congress is not descriptively representative. 

While the Framers did indeed predict that the Senate would likely be inclined to cater to the elite, they explicitly moved to counter this tendency through the setup of the House of Representatives. Ideally, the House would act as a ballast in favor of the general public, where the concerns of ordinary people would have a more direct impact on their state representatives. Yet the Senate’s elitism was not seen as entirely negative – the Framers also wanted to avoid tyranny of the majority taking hold in the House. These concerns are clearly on display when it comes to the rules of Congressional apportionment – with numerous Representatives and comparatively fewer Senators. The powers delegated to each of the two sections also reflect this balance: the Senate alone is allowed to ratify treaties and confirm presidential appointments, while the House holds sway over more generalized functions, such as initiating funding bills and overseeing the federal budget.

According to the section of the Constitution which lists the order of presidential succession, the Speaker of the House is actually second in line, directly behind the Vice President. If some emergency (typically either death or grave incapacitation) were to befall the President while s/he is in office, the Vice President would step into the role – but if the Vice President were similarly somehow unable to serve, the Speaker of the House would assume the presidential mantle. While this precise series of events has not yet ever occurred in the history of the American presidency, it nevertheless does play a small part in influencing each party’s selection of their Speaker.

On the contrary, the House’s power is much more centralized, with House leadership able to command significantly greater influence than its Senate counterparts. Due to the House’s much larger size, it is necessarily more centralized and hierarchical in nature, in order to enforce some sort of order among the ranks of its disparate membership. The House’s leaders exercise much greater control over their fellow representatives, the better with which to share the responsibilities of governing. The opposite is true of the Senate, whose small numbers make each Senator essentially equal in power. Senators are able to operate under much more fragmentary conditions, with less enforced discipline and less regard for their leaders’ mandates. These conditions remain true regardless of party allegiance and/or dominance at the time.

Caucuses are actually one of the most diverse and uniting features of Congress, with many counting Democrats, Republicans, House members, and Senators all mingling together, on relatively equal footing within their ranks. This equality is due to the intrinsic mutuality of caucus formation – because caucuses are born out of commonality, their members ally themselves voluntarily and with enthusiasm, agreeing to pool their resources and time to benefit their shared cause. Bonded by shared passions, geographic interests, or demographic similarity, representatives in a caucus use their friendship to promote their pet aims amongst the wider Congressional population. In this way, caucuses function much like interest groups, but are far more equitable in nature. Recent decades have seen a rise in the popularity of caucus creation, with more and more Congress men and women seeking like-minded allies across both the party aisle and Capital chamber.

This is a trick question. Note that the question asks you about the Senate. Remember, there is no Rules Committee in the Senate! All of these answers are therefore incorrect, due to the fact that the Rules Committee exists ONLY in the House. Other than the size of the two chambers (and in reality because of the size difference), the Rules Committee is the biggest difference between the two chambers.

This is a difficult question, mainly due to the fact that the Rules Committee is one of the more foreign topics in American Politics. Remember: the Rules Committee only exists in the House, and so any question you ever get about the Rules Committee should automatically trigger a warning that the question must be about the House. Regardless, the Rules Committee can attach one of three different rules to a bill: open, closed, or structured. An open rule permits any amendment (that is germane) and allows debate. A closed rule essentially eliminates any attempts to offer amendments to the bill. A structured rule is somewhat in between the two and specifies only certain amendments may be considered along with the time for debate. 

**NB: Technically speaking, there is a fourth rule called “modified-open” but it is somewhat nuanced and beyond the scope of an intro course. 

This is a very tricky question, for two reasons: first, and foremost, the Constitution doesn’t even mention cloture; second, the correct fraction for invoking cloture is , not . Thus, this question is completely false.

While the Constitution does not mention cloture, it is a part of Senate procedure (in the form of parliamentary rules, which the Constitution gives each chamber the authority to prescribe).

The Vice President, despite not being a senator, serves as the President of the Senate. In their absence, the president pro-tempore takes over to run the Senate.

The Speaker of the House serves as the leader of the House of Representatives. Whichever member of Congress that serves as the Speaker runs the congressional meetings and votes that take place.