What Is the US House of Representatives? - December 13, 2018

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1. 0:00Many news stories about the United States government tell about Congress and American lawmakers.
2. 0:09The U.S.
3. 0:10Congress is the nation's legislature.
4. 0:13It is made of two parts, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
5. 0:19The House of Representatives is called the House for short.
6. 0:25And sometimes it is called the People's House.
7. 0:29House. That term was chosen as a nickname because the men who wrote the U.S.
8. 0:35Constitution in 1787 set few restrictions on who could serve there.
9. 0:43They wanted the House to be as close as possible to everyday Americans.
10. 0:50One of the writers of the Constitution, James Madison wrote about the House years later.
11. 0:57He noted, The door of this part of the federal government is open to merit of every description,
12. 1:05whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth,
13. 1:13or to any particular profession of religious faith.
14. 1:17In other words, House members can be born in the United States, or in any other country.
15. 1:25They can be as young as 25 years old, or, as some members have been, into their 90s.
16. 1:34They do not have to be rich, and they do not have to belong to any religion.
17. 1:40However, in reality, for many years, only free white men were permitted to serve as lawmakers.
18. 1:48speakers. Women and other groups had limited legal rights, to say the least.
19. 1:57However, as laws changed over time, members of the House also changed.
20. 2:04The website of the U.S.
21. 2:07House of Representatives notes the House's first African-American member was elected in 1870.
22. 2:15The first Hispanic member took office in 1877,
23. 2:21the first woman member in 1917,
24. 2:26the first Asian American member in 1957,
25. 2:30and the first African American woman member in 1969.
26. 2:37The country's constitution writers also made the terms for house members short,
27. 2:45compared to the president and senators, only two years.
28. 2:50One reason is so house members would have to stay in close contact with the people who live in the area they represent.
29. 3:00Otherwise, voters would soon have a chance to push them out of office.
30. 3:07One of the other central ideas about the House of Representatives is that known as proportional representation.
31. 3:16The idea was that each member of the House would represent 30 ,000 U.S.
32. 3:23citizens. That situation would enable states with large populations
33. 3:29to send more lawmakers to Congress.
34. 3:34But the Constitution writers of 1787 struggled with how to count a state's population.
35. 3:42At that time, more than 650 ,000 enslaved people lived in the country.
36. 3:49After much debate, the Constitution writers decided the enslaved population would be
37. 3:57only partly counted for legal and tax purposes.
38. 4:02The decision is known as the Three-Fifths Compromise.
39. 4:07The first U.S.
40. 4:09House of Representatives had 67 members.
41. 4:14As the country's population grew,
42. 4:16the number of House members increased from 105 to 142, and so on.
43. 4:26After the approval of constitutional amendments following the Civil War,
44. 4:32most formerly enslaved people were fully counted in the state's population.
45. 4:38The House House continued to grow into the 20th century.
46. 4:43Finally, in 1929,
47. 4:47lawmakers officially limited the total number of House members to 435.
48. 4:54Today, each member of the House represents about 700 ,000 people.
49. 5:00Members of the House, along with the Senators,
50. 5:05develop national laws.
51. 5:06They also help voters who live in their districts deal with problems related to the government.
52. 5:14And members of the House have other important jobs.
53. 5:19They can investigate people with government ties who are suspected of wrongdoing.
54. 5:25For example, members of the House have looked into cases of bribery, corruption, and abuses of power.
55. 5:33power. In the 1950s, the House
56. 5:37and American Activities Committee demanded information from private citizens suspected of Communist activity.
57. 5:47But critics said the Committee had gone too far.
58. 5:52In time, the Supreme Court limited Congress's power to investigate issues related
59. 5:59to the law instead of people's private beliefs.
60. 6:04Over its history, the House has brought impeachment charges against government officials,
61. 6:10including presidents, more than 60 times.
62. 6:15But only a few officials were removed from office.
63. 6:18Of those, some were federal judges accused of being drunk at court.
64. 6:27Members of Congress also have what some call the power of the purse.
65. 6:33In other words, they control how the government spends public money.
66. 6:38The House of Representatives website explains that the Constitution writers wanted to put spending decisions
67. 6:46in the hands of the people's representatives in Congress.
68. 6:52Similarly, the Constitution writers did not want the chief executive to decide alone whether
69. 6:58to take the country to war.
70. 7:00They wanted to make war difficult to enter.
71. 7:04They also wanted to prevent the president from going to war because of political or personal interests.
72. 7:13Congress, so they wrote that the Congress had the power to declare war.
73. 7:19But in truth, lawmakers have only officially declared war 11 times.
74. 7:26The last time was in 1942.
75. 7:30Since then, Congress has simply approved the use of military force.
76. 7:37I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.