The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate, its upper house, and the House of Representatives, its lower house. Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Both representatives and senators are chosen through direct election. There are 535 voting Members of Congress (the House of Representatives' membership of 435 plus the Senate membership of 100). Members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by population using the United States Census results, each state in the union having at least one representative in the House of Representatives. Regardless of population, each of the 50 states has two senators; the 100 senators each serve a six-year term. The terms are staggered so every two years approximately one-third of the Senate is up for election. Each staggered group of one-third of the senators are called 'classes'. No state of the United States has two senators from the same class. Most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent. In August 2012, a Gallup poll reported that Congress’s approval rating amongst Americans was at 10%, matching a 38-year low reached in November 2011.
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“Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody’s image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded hope, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
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—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
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—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)