# Congress > [!info] Gateway page > Orientation here. The full section — committees, legislative-support agencies, and the process maps — is at [[Congress Hub]]. Congress is the bicameral legislative branch: the [[United States Senate]] (100 members, two per state, six-year staggered terms) and the [[United States House of Representatives]] (435 members apportioned by population, two-year terms). It is Article I, placed first because the framers understood the legislature as the branch closest to the people and the primary check on executive power. In the 119th Congress, Republicans hold the Senate 53–45 with two independents caucusing with Democrats, and the House by roughly 218–215 — a margin thin enough that individual absences, resignations and special elections determine outcomes. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats (33 regular plus special elections in Ohio and Florida) are contested in the [[2026 Midterms]]. ## The powers that matter, and their condition Congress's enumerated powers are not abstractions; each is a live question about whether the branch still functions. **[[Power of the Purse]]** — the appropriations power is Article I's strongest lever, and it is the one under most active pressure. The test is not whether Congress appropriates but whether the executive spends what it appropriates; see [[How Federal Money Moves]] and the vault's spending-delta tracking for the Authorized → Apportioned → Spent lens. Note the [[Golden Dome]] case, where appropriators told the Pentagon they could not assess the program because it has no consolidated budget line — the purse power fails quietly, through opacity, long before it fails loudly. **Advice and consent** — the Senate's confirmation power. Its condition is measurable by how much of the government runs on acting officials and invented titles. The [[IRS]] has no Senate-confirmed Commissioner and is run by a "Chief Executive Officer," an office the Internal Revenue Code does not contain. **Oversight** — subpoenas, hearings, inspectors general. Effective only to the extent the majority wishes to exercise it against a President of its own party, which is a political variable, not a structural one. **Impeachment** — the House impeaches, the Senate tries, conviction requires 67 votes. In a polarised era that threshold makes it functionally unavailable, which is worth stating plainly rather than treating as a live check. ## Why Congress matters to this vault Because **most of the vault's material describes the consequences of a legislature that has stopped legislating.** Executive orders, agency rulemaking, emergency powers, impoundment fights, and judicial policymaking all expand into space that Article I has vacated. [[Trump v. Slaughter]] dissolved the independent-commission model Congress built over a century — and Congress's practical response was to keep the statutory text on the books. Three structural features explain most of the vacancy. The [[Filibuster]] and the 60-vote cloture threshold push all major partisan legislation through [[Reconciliation]], where the [[Byrd Rule]] dictates what may be included — so budget procedure, not policy debate, determines what becomes law. [[Gerrymandering]] makes most House members answerable to a primary electorate rather than a general one, which rewards position-taking over legislating. And the [[Freedom Caucus]] and similar blocs function as internal vetoes that can deny a majority its majority. The money layer runs alongside: [[Dark Money]], the [[Federalist Society]] pipeline shaping judicial confirmations, and the [[Koch Network]] and [[Heritage Foundation]] supplying both policy text and primary-election pressure. ## Where to go from here | Destination | What's there | |---|---| | [[Congress Hub]] | The full section — committees, support agencies, process maps | | [[United States Senate]] · [[United States House of Representatives]] | The two chambers | | [[Committees Hub]] · [[Congressional Committees Tree]] | Where legislation actually happens, mapped | | [[How a Bill Becomes Law]] · [[Confirmation Pipeline]] · [[Impeachment and Removal Process Flow]] | The process maps | | [[Congressional Budget Office]] · [[Congressional Research Service]] · [[Library of Congress]] | Congress's own analytic capacity — and the pressure it came under | | [[Members of Congress Hub]] | The people | | [[2026 Midterms Hub]] | The cycle that decides control | ## See also [[Power of the Purse]] · [[Federal Agencies]] · [[Separation of Powers]] · [[Unitary Executive Theory]] · [[Gerrymandering]] · [[Dark Money]] · [[Filibuster]]