Guided Reading Activity Answer Key - Weebly

Guided Reading Activity Answer Key

The Structure of Congress

Lesson 3 The Senate

I. The Senate at Work

A. Two senators represent an entire state, rather than a district, so they must be knowledgeable on matters pertaining to their whole state, from national defense to farming.

B. The Senate is much smaller, and the focus is on deliberation, so the rules are more flexible than in the House in order to give all senators maximum freedom to express their ideas. The Senate usually allows unlimited debate on bills, while the House often has time restrictions on debate.

II. Leadership in the Senate

A. The vice president presides over the Senate but does not have the same role or power as the Speaker of the House. While the vice president may recognize members and put questions to a vote, he or she does not take part in Senate debates and only votes in the event of a tie.

B. The president pro tempore, or pro tem, is the Senate leader who presides over the Senate in the absence of the vice president. The president pro tem is elected by the Senate from the majority party and is usually the party's longest-serving member.

C. The most important Senate officers are the majority and minority leaders, both of whom are elected by party members. The job of the majority leader is to steer the party's bills through the Senate, while the job of the minority leader is evaluating the majority party's bills and keeping his or her own party united.

III. Lawmaking in the Senate

A. A supermajority is two-thirds of the Senate, and this number is needed to approve treaties, overturn presidential vetoes, and remove federal officials from office if they have been impeached in the House.

B. Unanimous consent is a motion by all members present to set aside formal rules and consider a bill from the calendar. Since unanimous consent means that all members agree, even one senator can place a hold on a bill, preventing it from being brought to the floor by unanimous consent. This means that each senator, no matter how junior, can impact the progress of a bill.

C. A filibuster is a method of stalling a bill and preventing it from coming to a vote. Since the Senate rules usually allow for unlimited discussion of a bill, the usual method of filibuster is for a single senator or a group of senators to speak continuously so that other senators cannot take action on the bill. Other filibuster methods simply set aside a bill while the Senate moves on to other business.

D. A cloture resolution is a method of ending a filibuster, but it requires that sixty senators vote for it.

Summary and Reflection

Since each state is equally represented in the Senate, sparsely populated states have equal representation with heavily populated states. Most bills come to the Senate floor through unanimous consent, so one senator, no matter how junior the senator or how small the state he or she represents, can slow or halt the progress of a bill by placing a hold on it. Even when a bill reaches the floor, one or a few senators can prevent a vote on the bill through a filibuster.

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