When discussing the makeup of Congress, one must first look to the intent of the framers around creating a bicameral legislature. This would take me to the first section of our class regarding the debates the founding fathers had about equal representation of the states in the Congress.Edmund Randolph of Virginia was the first to offer a suggestion, known as the Virginia Plan, that addressed representation. His plan provided for a system of representation based on the population of each state or the proportion of each states revenue contribution, or both. This did not fly with the smaller states like New Jersey, Delaware, or Connecticut. The smaller states saw this idea as a bias towards the larger states, with the potential for domination of the legislature in a new government. This was primarily seen as a battle between the smaller merchant states versus the larger, slave owning states. In fact, this issue threatened the entire constitutional process if a reasonable compromise could not be achieved. The Great Compromise (also called the Connecticut Compromise), set to establish two chambers of the Congress, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, with the House being apportioned by he number of people in that state, while the Senate would contain equal representation from all states, regardless of the size or number of people from that state. This idea is also referred to as a bicameral legislature, meaning two chambers.The House and Senate are somewhat different in terms of size, structure and procedure. However, despite their differences, collectively the Congress did make up the dominant class of the three branches of government for the 150 years of American government. The American people directly elect both the House and the Senate (since 1913), and both have term limits that they can serve in office, although they differ in length of time. Each congressional member also has a plentiful staff assigned to them w...
