The US Congress
The Congress of the United States is composed of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate represents the states. Each state is granted at least one representative in the House. The remainder are apportioned among the states according to their population. The Senate of US is composed of one hundred members - two being elected from each state. Senators are chosen for six years, one-third retiring or seeking is re-elected every two years. Two senators from the same state never finish their terms at the same time, one of them is called "Senior Senator" and the other - "Junior Senator".
The presiding officer of the Senate is the Vice-President of the United States. The Vice-President is not a member of the chamber over which he presides and he sometimes is not a member of the party in power.
The work of the US Congress is done mostly in different committees. The most important of the Senate committees are Appropriations Foreign Relations, Finance, Armed Services.
In the House of Representatives the most important are Rules, Appropriations, Ways and Means, Judiciary, Agriculture.
The chairmen of the standing committees are considered the real rulers of the Senate and the House of Representatives.