POLS 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Pork Barrel, Voting Rights Act Of 1965, Edmund Burke
7 Dec 2015
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Congress- lawmaking body of federal govt, formulates legislation. Basic structure of the legislative branch: bicameral legislature because of great compromise, lower house- house of reps, upper house- senate. Used to be elected by state legislators but now by general population. 2 things the senate does that doesn"t include hor. Resident of state you"re trying to represent. Average congressional district has 710,000 constituents: 100 senators. Apportionment of population: 2010 apportionment map, definition- every 10 years, reallocate hor seats among states because. Some states lose, some gain because set number of seats in. Every state gets at least 1 representative, regardless of. Redistricting: definition- redrawing of legislative boundary lines after a census, account for population movements, constitutionally, state legislature in charge of drawing congressional boundaries, sometimes given to a committee or commission. The malapportionment issue: badly apportioned, districts had wildly unequal population counts, up until 60s ish, series of apportionment cases.
