Key Terms:

apportioned; calendars; cloture; Committee of the Whole; concurrent resolutions; conference committee; congressional caucus; filibuster; franking privilege; gerrymandering; joint committees; joint resolutions; legislative oversight; off-year elections; oversight function; partisan; politico; roll-call vote; safe congressional district; seniority system; special or select committees; standing committees; standing vote; trustee; veto override; voice vote; whips

I.       Members of Congress, in general

A. Personal and Political Backgrounds

1. Congress is not a representative cross section of the American people.

2. The average member of Congress is a white male in his mid-50s.

3. Most members are married, have children, and are members of a Christian church.

4. Most members are lawyers, though many have backgrounds in business, education, agriculture, journalism, or professional politics.

B. Duties of the Job

1. In General. Members of Congress must act as legislators, committee members, representatives of their constituents, servants of their constituents, and politicians. **** The oversight function of a member of Congress is to check to see if agencies in the executive branch are working efficiently and according to law. It is NOT their job to run a department of the executive branch. Congress can generally control the bureaucracy through Senate confirmation of cabinet members (agency or department heads), authorizing the agency's programs, appropriating their budgets, and investigating agency operations.

2. Trustees — Many members see themselves as holders of the public trust who must decide issues based on merit alone, and not based on the opinions of constituents or any other groups. Constituents are people in a member of Congress's State or district.

3. Delegates — Many members see themselves as agents of those who elected them and believe they should suppress their own views in favor of those of the electorate.

4. Partisans — Many members see themselves as bound to vote on issues according to the party platform and the wishes of party leaders.

5. Politicos — The role of a member of Congress as a balancer of conflicting factors.

6. Other Roles — All members of Congress also must act as servants of their constituents, providing the people back home with a wide range of services, from making appointments to military academies to helping companies in their districts obtain government contracts.

C. Compensation

1. Senators and representatives receive salaries of $133,600 per year. Congressional leaders are paid an additional stipend.

2. Non salary Compensation — Members of Congress receive a wide range of fringe benefits, from free parking, low-cost medical care, generous pension plans, to free printing and distribution of speeches, newsletters, and other materials.

3. The Politics of Pay

a. Congress sets its own pay and benefits.

b. Reasons for high salaries include making public service appealing to qualified people; allowing people to move away from their home states; and as a guarantee that the most able people will run for Congress.

c. The President's veto and voter backlash act to limit salaries.

D. Membership Privileges

1. Members may not be arrested for misdemeanors while Congress is in session.

2. Members are immune from court action because of any speech they may make on the floor of Congress. Freedom of speech is vital to legislative debate.

II.     The House of Representatives

A. Size and Terms

1. Today there are 435 members (seats) of the House of Representatives.

2. The total number of seats are apportioned, i.e., distributed, among the States on the basis of their respective populations.

3. Each State is guaranteed at least one seat in the House.

4. Representatives hold office for two-years.

5. No limit exists on the number of terms representatives may serve.

B. Reapportionment

1. Reapportionment is a redistribution of the seats in the House as a result of the decennial census.

2. In 1929 the number of seats in the House was fixed at 435, to be redistributed every 10 years according to the census.

C. Wesberry v. Sanders, 1964

1. For many years, rural congressional districts with few people were overrepresented in the House, at the expense of urban and suburban districts.

2. The Supreme Court in the 1964 case, Wesberry v. Sanders, held that sections of States may not be over- or underrepresented in Congress, upholding the principle that one person's vote should be worth as much as another's, i.e., "one person, one vote".

D. Qualifications for House Members

1. **** Members of the House must be at least 25 years of age, have been a citizen for a least seven years, and must be an inhabitant of the State he or she represents.

2. The House judges the acceptability of individual members and may vote to censure or remove members.

3. The Supreme Court, in Powell v. McCormack (1969), ruled that the House may not exclude any member-elect who meets the Constitution's requirements.

III.    The United States Senate

A. Election and Terms

1. The Senate consists of 100 members, two from each State.

2. Prior to the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913, United States senators were chosen by state legislatures. Since 1914, members of the Senate have been chosen by the people at regular November elections.

3. Senators serve six-year terms that are staggered so that only a third of the members are up for election every two years. The Senate then, can be called a continuous body, i.e., all of its seats are never up for election at the same time. It is generally called the "upper" house because it has stricter qualifications than the House, more prestige, a longer term of office, and has historically been a stepping-stone to higher political office.

4. Because senators serve longer terms that House members and because they represent the views of their entire State, senators are expected to focus less on the interests of small localities and more on the "big picture" of government and of their entire State.

5. Senators have become famous earlier in their career than representatives because of its small size, longer terms, and larger staffs.

B. Qualifications

1. **** A senator must meet higher requirements for office that a member of the House. Senators must be at least 30 years of age, must have been a citizen for at least nine years, and must be an inhabitant of the state which he or she represents.

2. As in the case of the House, the Senate judges the qualifications of its members and may exclude a member-elect by a majority vote. The Senate may punish members with a majority vote or expel them with a two-thirds vote.

IV.    CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS

A. In general

1. Date — Congressional elections are held on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November of each even-numbered year.

2. Off-Year Elections — Congressional elections occurring in nonpresidential election years are called off-year elections, in which the party holding the presidency often loses seats.

3. Districts

a. Members of the House are chosen in single-member districts, i.e., by the voters in geographical districts in their States which are drawn by State legislatures.

b. All seats in the House are filled by voters in each district are able to elect one of the State's representatives from among a field of candidates running in that district.

c. Under the general ticket system, all of the State's seats are filled from the State at large — that is, from the State as a whole.

4. Gerrymandering — Congressional districts often have been gerrymandered, are drawn to the advantage of the faction that controls the State legislature.Gerrymandering: Drawing the lines of congressional districts, or of any other political district, in order to favor one party or group over another. (p. 551)

B. Who wins?

1. **** Incumbents are those already holding office. The most important facts about congressional elections is that voter turnout is usually higher in presidential election years, and that incumbents usually win. Even in a year of great political upheaval such as 1994, in which the Republicans gained eight seats in the Senate and fifty-three seats in the House, 92 percent of the incumbent representatives won their bids for reelection. **** A major advantage that an incumbent has over a challenger is the money that the incumbent receives from PACs and lobbyists.

2. House of Representatives

a. Not only do more than 90 percent of the incumbents seeking reelection to the House of Representatives win, but most of them win with more than 60 percent of the vote.

b. Even when challengers' positions on the significant issues are closer to the voters' positions, incumbents still tend to win.

c. Thus, the most important resource to ensure an opponent's defeat is simply to be the incumbent.

3. Senate

a. Even though senators have a better-than-equal chance of reelection, senators typically win by narrower margins than House members.

b. One reason for the greater competition in the Senate is that an entire state is almost always more diverse than a congressional district and thus provides more of a base for opposition to an incumbent.

c. Senators have less personal contact with their constituents and receive more coverage in the media than representatives do (and are therefore more likely to be held accountable on controversial issues).

d. Senators tend to draw more visible challengers who are already known to voters and who have substantial financial backing.

4. Despite their success at reelection, incumbents have a strong feeling of vulnerability; thus, they have been raising and spending more campaign funds, sending more mail to their constituents, traveling more to their states and districts, and staffing more local offices than ever before.

C. The advantages of incumbents

1. Voters are not very aware of how their senators and representatives actually vote.

2. Stories of presidential "coattails" (the theory that other candidates could ride into office by clinging to presidential coattails) do not seem to hold up in practice.

3. Members of Congress do not gain or lose very much from the fluctuations of the economy.

4. Members of Congress engage in three primary activities that increase the probability of their reelections: advertising, credit claiming, and position taking.

a. Most congressional advertising takes place between elections and takes the form of contact with constituents: members concentrate on staying visible, and trips to the home district (or state) are frequent.

b. Credit claiming involves personal and district service. There are two ways members of Congress can service the constituency: casework and the pork barrel.

(1) Casework is helping constituents as individuals, such as cutting through bureaucratic red tape.

(2) The pork barrel refers to expenditures on federal projects, grants, and contracts for cities, businesses, colleges, and institutions. Because credit claiming is so important to reelection, members of Congress rarely pass up the opportunity to increase federal spending in their state or district.

c. Members of Congress must also engage in position taking on matters of public policy when they vote on issues and when they respond to constituents' questions about where they stand on issues. The positions they take may make a difference in the outcome of an election, especially if the issues are on matters salient to voters and their stands are out of line with those of a majority of their constituents (especially in the Senate, where issues are likely to play a greater role than in House elections).

d. Perhaps the most effective means of engaging in advertising, credit claiming, and position taking at the same time is the congressional newsletter. Most of the franking privilege is devoted to mailing newsletters. Franking privilege: A privilege under which members of Congress are entitled to send mail to constituents without charge by putting their frank, or mark, on the envelope. (p. 555)

5. Weak opponents

a. Incumbents are likely to face weak opponents.
b. Seeing the advantages of incumbency, potentially effective opponents often do not want to risk challenging members of the House.

D. The role of party identification

1. Although party loyalty at the voting booth is not as strong as it was a generation ago, it is still a good predictor of voting behavior.

2. Most members of Congress represent constituencies in which their party is in the majority.

E. Defeating incumbents

1. An incumbent tarnished by scandal or corruption becomes vulnerable. Voters do take out their anger at the polls.

2. Congressional membership is reapportioned after each federal census, and incumbents may be redistricted out of their familiar base of support. The majority party in the state legislature is more likely to move two of the opposition party's representatives into the same district than two of its own.

3. In 1994 a major political tidal wave spawned by angry voters defeated thirty-four Democratic incumbents in the House and two Democratic incumbents in the Senate.

F. Money in congressional elections

1. Candidates spend enormous sums on campaigns for Congress. In the 1996 Senate elections, the average winner spent over $3.6 million. In the 1996 House elections, the average winning candidate spent more than $660,000.

2. Spending is greatest when there is no incumbent and each party feels it has a chance to win.

3. Critics of Political Action Committees (PACs) offer substantive criticism of the present system of campaign finance.

a. Although most of the money spent in congressional elections comes from individuals, 29 percent (about $192 million) of the funds raised by candidates for Congress in 1996 came from the more than four thousand Political Action Committees (PACs).

b. In 1996, incumbents in both houses received $131 million from PACs, challengers received $26 million, and the rest went to candidates for open seats.

c. Each PAC is limited to an expenditure of $5000 per candidate (most give less), but some organized interests circumvent the limitations on contributions by creating or contributing to several PACs.

d. PACs seek access to policymakers. Thus, they give most of their money to incumbents, who are already heavily favored to win. Critics of PACs are convinced that PACs are not trying to elect but to buy influence.

4. Spending a lot of money in a campaign is no guarantee of success. (In 1986, Republican Senate candidates outspent their Democratic opponents in twenty-three of the thirty-four contested Senate races, but lost twenty of the thirty-four elections.)

5. Money is important for challengers. Money buys them name recognition and a chance to be heard.

6. When an incumbent is not running for reelection and the seat is open, there is greater likelihood of competition.

a. Most of the turnover of the membership of Congress is the result of vacated seats, particularly in the House.

b. In open seats, the candidate who spends the most usually wins.

G. Stability and change

1. The downside however, is that as a result of incumbents usually winning reelection, there is some stability in the membership of Congress. This provides the opportunity for representatives and senators to gain some expertise in dealing with complex questions of public policy. It also insulates them from political change and makes it more difficult for citizens to "send a message to Washington" with their votes.

2. Some reformers have proposed term limitations for senators and representatives. However, in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. et al v. Thornton, et al., the Supreme Court ruled that state-imposed term limits were unconstitutional in violation of the supremacy clause.

V.      How a Bill Becomes Law

A. Congressional leadership

1. Much of the leadership in Congress is really party leadership. Those who have the real power in the congressional hierarchy are those whose party put them there.

2. Power is no longer in the hands of a few key members of Congress who are insulated from the public. Instead, power is widely dispersed, requiring leaders to appeal broadly for support.

3. House leadership

a. The Speaker of the House is second (after the vice president) in the line to succeed a president who resigns, dies in office, or is impeached.

(1) At one time, the Speaker had almost autocratic powers. Many of the powers were removed from the Speaker's control in 1910 and given to committees; some of the powers were later restored.

(2) Formal powers of the Speaker today include:

A) presides over the House when it is in session;
B) plays a major role in making committee assignments;
C) appoints or plays a key role in appointing the party's legislative leaders and the party leadership staff,
D) exercises substantial control over which bills get assigned to which committees.

(3) The Speaker also has a great deal of informal power both inside and outside Congress.

b. The Speaker's principal partisan ally is the majority leader. The majority leader is responsible for rounding up votes on party legislation and for scheduling bills in the House.

c. Party whips work with the majority leader to round up votes and to report the views and complaints of the party rank-and-file back to the leadership. Whips are legislative leaders of each party who are responsible for rounding up party members for important votes in the House and the Senate. (pp. 560/574)

d. The minority party is also organized (with a minority leader and whips), and is prepared to take over the key posts if it should win a majority in the House.

4. Senate leadership

a. The Constitution names the vice president as president of the Senate. Vice presidents typically have little power or influence in the Senate except in the rare case when their vote can break a tie.

b. The Senate majority leader — aided by the majority whips — is the position of real power and authority in the Senate. He rounds up votes, schedules the floor action, and influences committee assignments.

5. Congressional leadership in perspective

a. The structure of Congress is so complex that it seems remarkable that legislation gets passed at all. Its bicameral division means that bills have two sets of committee hurdles to clear. Recent reforms have decentralized power, and so the job of leading Congress is more difficult than ever.

b. Congressional leaders are not in the strong positions they occupied in the past. Leaders are elected by their fellow party members and must remain responsive to them.

c. Party leadership — at least in the House — has been more effective in recent years. Following the Republican takeover in 1995, former Speaker Newt Gingrich centralized power and exercised vigorous legislative leadership.

B. Creating and Introducing Bills

1. **** Most bills do not originate with individual members of Congress but rather, are suggested by the executive branch, after coordination by OMB. In addition, special interest groups often suggest ideas for bills as do private citizens.

a. Presidents have their own legislative agenda, based in part on their party's platform and their electoral coalition. Political scientists sometimes call the president the chief legislator; the president's task is to persuade Congress that his agenda should also be Congress' agenda.

b. Presidents have many resources with which to influence Congress. They may try to influence members directly, but more often will leave White House lobbying to the congressional liaison office and work primarily through regular meetings with the party's leaders in the House and Senate.

2. **** All revenue-raising bill must begin in the House; all other bills may be introduced in either chamber.

C. Types of Bills and Resolutions

1. Bills — These are proposed laws presented to Congress. Public bills apply to the entire nation; private bills pertain to certain persons or places.

2. Joint Resolutions — These deal with temporary or unusual matters, have the possibility of gaining the force of law, must be passed by both houses, and must be signed by the President.

3. Concurrent Resolutions — These deal with common concerns of both houses, have the force of law, and do not require the President's signature.

4. Resolutions — Voted on by either house, but have no force of law; they usually are concerned with house rules and do not require the President's signature.

5. A rider is a provision not likely to pass on its own merit that is attached to an important measure.

D. The First Reading

1. The first reading of a bill consists of the assignment of a house number, a short title, and entry into the House Journal and the Congressional Record for the day.

2. After its first reading, the Speaker refers the bill to the appropriate standing committee for consideration.

E. The committees and subcommittees

1. **** Most of the significant decisions in the legislative process usually goes on in committees.

a. Committees dominate congressional policy-making.

b. They regularly hold hearings to investigate problems and possible wrongdoing, and to investigate the executive branch.

c. They control the congressional agenda and guide legislation from its introduction to its send-off for the president's signature.

2. Committees can be grouped into four types: standing committees (by far the most important), joint committees, conference committees, and select committees.

a. Standing committees are permanent subject-matter committees, formed to handle bills in different policy areas. Each chamber has its own committees and subcommittees. In Congress, the typical representative serves on two committees and four subcommittees, while senators average three committees and seven subcommittees each. **** Between 1945 and 1975, prior to Congressional reforms, power in the House of Representatives was primarily concentrated in those senior members who chaired the standing committees.

b. Joint committees are study committees that exist in a few policy areas, with membership drawn from both the Senate and the House.

c. **** Conference committees are formed to reconcile the differences when different versions of a bill is passed by the two houses. Membership is drawn from both houses.

d. Select committees are temporary committees appointed for a specific ("select") purpose, such as the Senate select committee that looked into Watergate.

3. The committees at work: legislation and oversight

a. More than 11,000 bills are submitted by members every two years, which must be sifted through and narrowed down by the committee process. Every bill goes to a standing committee; usually only bills receiving a favorable committee report are considered by the whole House or Senate.

b. New bills sent to a committee typically go directly to subcommittee, which can hold hearings on the bill. The most important output of committees and subcommittees is the "marked-up" (revised and rewritten) bill, submitted to the full House or Senate for consideration.

c. Members of the committee will usually serve as "floor managers" of the bill when the bill leaves committee, helping party leaders secure votes for the legislation. They will also be cue-givers to whom other members turn for advice. When the two chambers pass different versions of the same bill, some committee members will be appointed to the conference committee.**** Conference committee: A committee composed of members of the House and Senate that tries to reconcile disagreements between the two branches of Congress over differing versions of a bill.

d. Legislative oversight — the process of holding executive branch agencies accountable for its actions. It is one of the checks Congress can exercise on the executive branch.

(1) Oversight is handled primarily through hearings. Members of committees constantly monitor how a bill is implemented. The process enables Congress to exert pressure on executive agencies, or even to cut their budgets in order to secure compliance with congressional wishes.

(2) Congressional oversight occasionally captures public attention, such as congressional investigations into the Watergate scandal, the 1987 Iran-Contra affair, Whitewater, and numerous other scandals during the Clinton Administration.

(3) Congress keeps tabs on more routine activities of the executive branch through its committee staff members, who have specialized expertise in the fields and agencies that their committees oversee (and who maintain an extensive network of formal and informal contacts with the bureaucracy).

4. Getting on a committee

a. Just after election, new members write to the party's congressional leaders and members of their state delegation, indicating their committee preferences. Each party in each house has a slightly different way of picking its committee members, but leaders almost always play a key role.

b. **** Members seek committee assignments that will help them achieve opportunity to make policy in areas they think are important. For the first-term representative, concentrating on assigned committee work is essential to maximize his or her power in the House. Merely doing constituent work to assure reelection or performing other functions with that same goal will not enure power in the House but may guarantee reelection.

c. Although every committee includes members from both parties, a majority of each committee's members — as well as its chair — come from the majority party.

5. Getting ahead on the committee: chairs and the seniority system

a. **** Committee chairs are the most important influencers of the committee agenda. They play dominant — though no longer monopolistic — roles in scheduling hearings, hiring staff, appointing subcommittees, and managing committee bills when they are brought before the full House. As a rule, the chairs of the standing committees are held by members of the majority party, but not necessarily the most senior members of that party.

b. Until the 1970s, committee chairs were always selected through the seniority system. Seniority system: A system, until modified and reformed in the 1970s, that resulted in those members of the majority party in a house of Congress with longest continuous service on a committee automatically becoming heads of committees. (p. 548) Consequently, up until 1975, most of the congressional power was held by the chairs of the standing committees. Example: Sen. Strom Thurmond.

(1) Chairs were so powerful that they could single-handedly "bottle up" legislation in committee.

(2) **** The system also gave a decisive edge to members from "safe" congressional districts, where members were seldom challenged for reelection. Consequently, "safe" seats are usually won by the incumbent by a very large margin.

c. In the 1970s, Congress faced a revolt of its younger members.

(1) Both parties in both houses permitted members to vote on committee chairs.

(2) Today, seniority remains the general rule for selecting chairs, but there have been notable exceptions.

(3) These and other reforms have somewhat reduced the clout of the chairs.

F. The mushrooming caucuses: the informal organization of Congress

1. The explosion of informal groups in Congress has made the representation of interests in Congress a more direct process (cutting out the middleman, the lobbyist).

2. **** A congressional caucus is a group of members of Congress sharing some interest or characteristic, such as the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, the Congresswomens Caucus, and the Sunbelt Caucus. Caucuses include regional groupings, ideological groupings, and economic groupings. DO NOT confuse a congressional caucus with a political caucus!

3. The proliferation of congressional caucuses (about 130 as of late) gives members of Congress an informal, yet strong say in the policy agenda. Composed of three goals: reelection, influence in Congress, and the legislative insiders who share similar concerns, the caucuses exert a much greater influence on policymaking than most citizen-based interest groups can.

G. The Bill in Committee

1. Most committee work is done by subcommittees which investigate, debate, and recommend the fate of particular bills.

2. After subcommittees complete their work, the measure returns to the full committee.

a. The full committee may report the bill favorably to the full House with a "do pass" recommendation.

b. The full committee may refuse to report the bill, or pigeonhole it. A discharge petition enables members to force a bill out of a committee pigeonhole.

c. The full committee may report the bill in an amended form.

d. The full committee may report the bill unfavorably.

e. The full committee may report an entirely new bill.

H. Rules and Calendars

1. Before reaching the floor of the House, a bill must be placed on one of several calendars, or schedules, for deliberation. Calendars: Lists of business eligible for consideration by legislative bodies. (p. 567)

2. **** In order to be debated on the floor, the House Rules Committee must give each bill a rule, or approval for its appearance on the floor (unless the bill is privileged or the rules are suspended), as well as the conditions under which a bill can be debated on the floor of the House of Representatives.. The House Rules Committee can kill a bill even after it has been recommended by a standing committee by refusing to perform any of the above. (Example: the UIL bill and CHS)

I. The Bill on the Floor

1. Most important bills are considered in the Committee of the Whole. The Committee of the Whole is the House sitting as a large committee of itself.

2. Debate — Strict rules limit the length of each individual's debate.

3. Voting — A bill requires formal House vote on it and on various amendments that might be attached to it. A quorum is necessary. A quorum is the majority of the full membership of either house. A floor vote may be taken in varous way:

a. Voice votes are the most common. Voice vote: A vote in the House of Representatives in which members shout "aye" or "no" and the chair decides the result. (p. 567)

b. A standing vote may be demanded if any member thinks the Speaker has erred in judging a voice vote. Standing (division) vote: A vote in the House of Representatives in which members for or against a bill stand up for a head count. (p. 567)

c. One-fifth of a quorum may demand a teller vote.

d. A roll-call vote may be demanded by one-fifth of the members.Roll-call vote: A vote in which each representative's position becomes a matter of public record. (pp. 567-568)

J. Final Steps in the House of Representatives

1. An approved bill is engrossed, read a third time, voted on again, and signed by the Speaker.

2. A signed bill is then sent from the House to the Senate.

VI.     The Bill in the Senate and the Final Stages

A. Introducing the Bill in the Senate

1. Bills are introduced by senators, given a number and title, read twice, and referred to committee.

2. Senate proceedings are less formal than those of the House, have only one calendar for bills, and are called to the floor by the majority floor leader.

B. The Senate's Rules for Debate

1. Floor debate is almost unlimited in the Senate.

2. The Filibuster — **** The filibuster, which permits unlimited debate on a bill, is a process by which a single senator, or a group of senators, can talk a bill to death, thus blocking votes on proposed legislation. It is a practice that DOES NOT APPLY TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, but rather, is used ONLY in the Senate. (p. 573) At the present time, sixty members present and voting can halt a filibuster by invoking cloture (closure) on debate. Cloture is a Senate procedure that allows a filibuster to be ended by a vote of three-fifths (sixty members) of the entire Senate. (p. 573)

3. The Cloture Rule

a. This is the Senate's check on the filibuster and limits debate, but requires a petition signed by at least 16 senators and approval by at least three-fifths of the full Senate.

b. Many senators hesitate to use the cloture rule for fear that it will limit free debate and it will undermine the effectiveness of the filibuster technique.

C. The Conference Committees

1. If House and Senate versions of a bill differ, a conference committee (sometimes called a "joint" conference committee) is appointed to achieve a compromise bill acceptable to both houses. No new material can be included in the compromise version.

2. Appointees are usually the senior, most powerful members of each committee and the compromises they reach are usually acceptable to both houses.

D. The President Acts

1. The Constitution requires that all bills passed by both houses of Congress be sent to the President for his action.

2. The President may sign the bill, veto it, allow the bill to become law by not signing it within ten days of receiving it while Congress is in session, or pocket veto the bill by not acting on it before Congress adjourns.

E. The Congressional Veto Override

1. Except for the pocket veto, when a bill is vetoed it is returned to the chamber of its origin by the President with a message explaining the reasons for the veto. Congress can vote to override the veto with a two-thirds vote in each chamber. Veto override: An action by Congress to try to reverse a presidential veto of legislation by a two-thirds vote in both chambers.

2. **** Historically, Congress has overridden only a very small number of presidential vetoes. In over 200 years, there have been approximately 2,500 vetoes and only about a hundred have been overridden.

Chief Justice Richard Barajas
Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics
Cathedral High School, El Paso, Texas
Last updated: April 3, 2000