Structure of Congress

This question is slightly tricky. The correct answer is the Vice President of the United States of America. The Constitution mandates that the VP serve as the President of the Senate. Substantively speaking, the President of the Senate has relatively little power—the only time that the President may vote is in the event of a straight tie (50/50 split). Although this does happen, it’s not an incredibly common occurrence (Joe Biden—the VP/President of the Senate under Obama—for example, has not cast a single tie-breaking vote to date). That being said, the President of the Senate is responsible for Congressional procedure in the Senate, and a cunning Senate President can accomplish much using only the rules of procedure (for a fantastic, if somewhat inflated, example of this, watch House of Cards Season 2, Episode 3—it’s actually based off of a real event!).

The leader of the House of Representatives is called the Speaker of the House. The most infamous Speaker of the House was Speaker Joe Cannon. He wielded nearly unlimited power in the House and generally stirred up so much trouble that the member of the House eventually revolted against his rules and instituted new procedural rules that greatly curbed the powers of the Speaker. Regardless, the Speaker is still the most powerful position within the House.

UCAs are only important in the Senate. Neither the House nor the Supreme Court have anything to do with UCAs. Because the Senate does not have a Rules Committee, technically, bills are just free-for-alls when it comes to rules of consideration. That said, in order to prevent the Senate from devolving into a madhouse, the Senate operates under UCAs (Unanimous Consent Agreements) which establish rules of consideration for each bill.

Questions dealing with procedural differences between the Senate and the House tend to be a little more difficult; they are both foreign and somewhat dull. But regardless, the answer to this question is false for the simple reason that only the House has a Rules Committee. While the Senate is the “upper” chamber, and more powerful in a few different ways, it is less strict than the House when it comes to procedure. This is reflected in the fact that it lacks a Rules Committee.

This is a relatively straightforward question. In order to answer, however, you must have understood the distinction between popular/direct election and indirect election. Recall that a directly-elected office means that we the people vote for a person, and then based off of those votes alone, that person is elected (or not). Indirect election, however, means that we the people vote for a person, and then that person votes FOR us to elect the candidate. Do you understand the distinction?

Prior to the ratification of the 17th Amendment, the only popularly elected federal office in the US was the House. In other words, voting members of the public directly cast their ballots for Mr. X or Ms. Y, and whoever gained the majority vote in their district, won.

Senators were NOT directly elected. The founders viewed the passions of the general public to be somewhat too inflammatory (or at least too easily inflamed) to warrant them picking any more than 1 chamber (the House). Senators were elected via state legislatures. In other words, the General Court of Massachusetts (that’s what they call their state legislature) would elect the two senators to represent Massachusetts.

The President was not and is not directly elected. This might be slightly tricky, but remember that WE don’t elect the President: the Electoral College does.

Hence, the correct answer is “the House only.”

Standing committees exist from one Congress to the next—in other words, they are (mostly) permanent committees which continue to exist until they are affirmatively disbanded (whether through actual destruction or combination). The easiest way to remember the function of standing committees is that they “stand” on top of Congress—they never go away until Congress tells them to!

This is a relatively easy question, provided that you know (or remember) what candidate- and party-centered politics are. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct answer, and that is indeed the case here: candidate-centered politics emphasize the role of the individual politician—in other words, the candidate seeks to run on the message of, ‘what can I do for you?’ Party-centered politics, however, emphasize the role of a particular politician’s party more so than his individuality—that is, the candidate seeks to run on the message of, ‘what can my party do for you?’

The other two answers involving the constitution are wrong for the simple reasons that political parties are not even mentioned in the Constitution (thus, it would be impossible for a party-centered politics to be anywhere in the Constitution).

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.

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.

Only the Senate can try impeached government officials. The rest of the choices apply to the House of Representatives. The House initiates impeachment procedures and all revenue bills. The Senate has one hundred members with six-year terms.