Members Of The United States Congress
The One Hundred Twelfth United States Congress is the current meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It convened in Washington, D.C. on January 3, 2011, and will end on January 3, 2013, 17 days before the end of the presidential term to which Barack Obama was elected in 2008. Senators elected to regular terms in 2006 will complete those terms in this Congress. This Congress includes the last House of Representatives elected from congressional districts that were apportioned based on the 2000 census.
In the 2010 midterm elections, the Republican Party won the majority in the House of Representatives. While the Democrats kept their Senate majority, it was reduced from the previous Congress. This is the first Congress in which the House and Senate are controlled by different parties since the 107th Congress (2001–2003), and the first Congress to begin that way since the 99th Congress (1985–1987). In this Congress, the House of Representatives has the largest number of Republican members, 242, since the 80th Congress (1947–1949). This is also the first Congress since 1947 in which a member of the Kennedy family has not served, as well as the most politically polarized Congress since Reconstruction, with record low approval ratings.
Read more about Members Of The United States Congress: Major Events, Party Summary, Administrative Officers
Famous quotes containing the words members of the, members of, members, united, states and/or congress:
“It took six weeks of debate in the Senate to get the Arms Embargo Law repealed—and we face other delays during the present session because most of the Members of the Congress are thinking in terms of next Autumn’s election. However, that is one of the prices that we who live in democracies have to pay. It is, however, worth paying, if all of us can avoid the type of government under which the unfortunate population of Germany and Russia must exist.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“This Administration has declared unconditional war on poverty and I have come here this morning to ask all of you to enlist as volunteers. Members of all parties are welcome to our tent. Members of all races ought to be there. Members of all religions should come and help us now to strike the hammer of truth against the anvil of public opinion again and again until the ears of this Nation are open, until the hearts of this Nation are touched, and until the conscience of America is awakened.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The government of the United States at present is a foster-child of the special interests. It is not allowed to have a voice of its own. It is told at every move, “Don’t do that, You will interfere with our prosperity.” And when we ask: “where is our prosperity lodged?” a certain group of gentlemen say, “With us.””
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Such is the labor which the American Congress exists to protect,—honest, manly toil,—honest as the day is long,—that makes his bread taste sweet, and keeps society sweet,—which all men respect and have consecrated; one of the sacred band, doing the needful but irksome drudgery.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)