HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
The lower chamber, or larger branch, of the U.S.
Congress, or a similar body in the legislature of
many of the states.
The U.S. House of Representatives forms
one of the two branches of the U.S. Congress.
The House comprises 435 members who are
elected to two-year terms. The U.S. Constitu-
tion vests the House with the sole power of
introducing bills for raising revenue, making it
one of the most influential components of the
U.S. government.
Members
According to Article I, Section 2, of the U.S.
Constitution, a member of the House must be at
least twenty-five years of age and a U.S. citizen
for seven years before his or her election. In
addition, representatives must reside in the state
that they represent. Members of the House are
generally called congressmen, congresswomen,
or representatives.
During the First Congress (1789–91), the
House had sixty-five members, each representing
approximately 30,000 people. Until 1929 the law
required the number of members in the House
to increase in proportion to the national popula-
tion. That year Congress passed the Permanent
Apportionment Act (46 Stat. 21, 26, 27), which
limited the size of the House to 435 representa-
tives. During the 1990s each House member rep-
resented an average of 572,000 people.
Reapportionment or redistribution of
House seats—a process whereby some states lose
House representatives while others gain them—
occurs after census figures have been collected.
The Constitution requires that a census be con-
ducted every ten years (art. 1, § 2). Each state
must have at least one representative.
Puerto Rico elects a nonvoting resident
commissioner to the House for a four-year term.
Nonvoting delegates from American Samoa, the
District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin
Islands are elected to a two-year term. These
special representatives are allowed to participate
in debates and vote in committees.
Committees
House committees are responsible for most
of the work involved in the creation of new laws.
After a bill is introduced in the House, it is
referred to a committee. The committee studies
the bill and may hold public hearings on it or
suggest amendments. If the bill has the support
of a majority of committee members, it is
reported to the House, which then debates it and
votes on it. The Committee on Rules determines
how long a bill may be debated and the proce-
dure by which it is amended.
The number of standing, or permanent,
House committees has varied over time. In 1800
five standing committees existed. By 1910 the
number of standing committees had increased to
sixty-one. Between 1950 and the 1990s, the total
stabilized at nineteen to twenty-two. During the
104th Congress (1995–97), there were nineteen
standing committees in the House: Agriculture;
Appropriations; Banking and Financial Services;
Budget; Commerce; Economic and Educational
Opportunities; Government Reform and Over-
sight; House Oversight; International Relations; Judiciary; National Security; Resources; Rules; Science; Small Business; Standards of Official
Conduct; Transportation and Infrastructure;
Veterans’ Affairs; and Ways and Means.
Each committee has an average of eight to
ten subcommittees. Committee membership is
determined by a vote of the entire House, and
committee chairs are elected by the majority
party. The House may also create special committees,
including investigative committees.
Officers
The Speaker of the House has the most powerful
position in the House and is traditionally
the leader of the majority party. The Speaker
interprets and applies House rules and refers
bills to committees. Party leadership positions in
the House include the majority and minority
leaders, or floor leaders, and the majority and
minority whips.
The elected officers of the House include the
clerk, the sergeant at arms, and the doorkeeper.
The clerk oversees the major legislative duties of
the House. He or she takes all votes and certifies
the passage of bills, calls the House to order at
the commencement of each Congress, administers
legislative information and reference services,
and supervises television coverage of House
floor proceedings. The sergeant at arms, a member
of the U.S. Capitol Police Board, is the chief
law enforcement officer for the House. The sergeant
maintains order in the House and
arranges formal ceremonies such as presidential
inaugurations and joint sessions of Congress.
The doorkeeper monitors admission to the
House and its galleries and organizes the distribution
of House documents.
FURTHER READINGS
U.S. House. 1994. Committee on House Administration.
History of the United States House of Representatives,
1789–1994. 103d Cong. 2d sess. H.Doc. 103-324.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Apportionment; Congress of the United States; Constitution
of the United States.
The First U.S. House of Representatives, 1789–1791: Setting Precedent for Future Lawmakers
Today the U.S. House of Representatives is known
as an institution with established traditions and
procedures. It has 435 members, standing committees,
rules for evaluating legislation, and welldefined
relations with the Senate, the president, and
the executive agencies of the federal government.
However, the structure and operations of the House
have not always been well established. In 1789, as it
began the task of creating laws for a new nation, the
House had no precedent to guide it.
The House of Representatives first convened
April 1, 1789, in New York City. Representatives slowly
made the long journey to New York, and the First
House eventually reached a total of sixty-five members.
Fifty-five representatives belonged to the FEDERALIST
PARTY, and ten allied themselves with the
Anti-Federalist party.
The new House members were not without experience
in legislative matters. Fifty-two had served in a
state legislature, the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, or the
Constitutional Convention. Their legislative experience
proved invaluable during this First Congress,
because the Constitution gave them only limited guidance
on how to establish the House. It was up to the
representatives to work out the details of an effective
lawmaking body.
On its first day in session, the House elected its
officers, choosing Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg, of
Pennsylvania, as its first Speaker. On succeeding
days it established rules relating to debate, legislation,
committees, and cooperation with the Senate. It
also defined the duties of the Speaker, modeling that
position after the Speaker of the English House of
Commons. The Speaker was to preside over House
sessions, preserve order, resolve disputed points,
and appoint certain committees.
The lack of precedent made operations difficult for
the First House. JAMES MADISON, of Virginia, a principal
Framer of the Constitution and a leading member of
the First House, complained, “In every step the difficulties
arising from novelty are severely experienced. . . .
Scarcely a day passes without some striking evidence
of the delays and perplexities springing merely from the
want of precedents.” Madison was confident that the
House would resolve its problems, however, concluding,
“Time will be a full remedy for this evil.”
The House gradually found ways to improve the
problems cited by Madison and others. One important
solution was the development of committees.
The first legislation passed by the House was created
by the Committee of the Whole—that is, the entire
House acting as one large committee. Representatives
soon found that this was a cumbersome way to
pass legislation. When meeting as the Committee of
the Whole, they could consider only one piece of legislation
at a time. Moreover, the chamber often
became bogged down by seemingly endless debate
as each member sought to join the argument.
The House responded to this predicament by creating
temporary committees to research and draft
legislation, forming a separate committee for each
bill. This relieved the entire chamber of the necessity
of debating every detail of each piece of legislation.
The contemporary House, by contrast, has permanent,
or standing, committees, each of which handles
many bills. The sole standing committee to come out
of the first House was the Committee on Elections.
With these and other changes, the First House of
Representatives was able to accomplish many tasks
of vital importance to the young nation. Together with
the Senate, it passed sixty statutes, including laws
that founded the Departments of War, Treasury, and
Foreign Affairs. The House also established its power
to give limited orders to executive agencies, such as
when it requested Secretary of the Treasury ALEXANDER
HAMILTON to report on issues such as the federal
debt, plans to promote manufacturing, and the establishment
of a national mint. No less important, under
the leadership of James Madison, it drafted the first
ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the
BILL OF RIGHTS.
The House has changed greatly in more than two
centuries, but the foundation built by the first representatives
remains. Their innovations have become
flexible traditions that allow the House to maintain
order even as it evolves and adapts to new situations.
