U.S. House of Representatives
The legislative branch of the American national government is made up of two lawmaking bodies: the House of Representatives
and the Senate, collectively known as Congress. Each has particular institutional responsibilities, as well as strengths and weaknesses.
The House is our largest legislative body, and representation is determined proportional to a state’s population (i.e., New York, a
highly populated state, has 29 representatives, while Wyoming, a state with a much smaller population, has only one). Members of
Congress are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. The House has some powers that the Senate does not, such as the power to impeach
officials and write bills that deal with financial revenue. Because of the sheer size of the House, it is tightly organized into
subcommittees that draft and vote on bills on a range of issues. All bills must pass through the House and the Senate and signed by
the President to become law.
The House at HMCE
Congressional committees are the birthplace of legislation. The House at HMCE is composed of two subcommittees. Students will play
the role of elected representatives with a particular focus on individual representatives' ideologies, party affiliations, and constituent
interests. Keep in mind that the members of Congress that you will be representing depend on their constituents to remain in office and
are therefore heavily influenced by the needs of their districts as well as their party platforms. At HMCE, delegates draft legislation
through informal caucuses and discussing, amending, and voting on bills during formal debate. Committee sessions let students experience
the fun, excitement, and occasional disappointment of creating new legislation by allowing each delegate to personally invest in the
legislative process. Each House or Senate committee is coordinated by two Harvard undergraduates: a Chair and a Vice-Chair. These students
spend the year leading up to the conference writing issue briefings and updates for the committee, and during the conference they serve as
substantive and procedural experts. Staffers encourage the committee as a whole to develop comprehensive and innovative legislative solutions
as well as working with individual delegates to help students get the most they can out of the conference.
On the second and third days of the conference, the two House committees convene into full legislative sessions. Here, members of Congress
have the opportunity to present their bills and the bills of their fellow committee members to the full legislative chamber, and to serve as
experts on the topics with which their committee has been struggling. In addition to taking on this leadership role, students also have the
chance in full session to debate bills that have passed in committees besides their own. Debate on this broader range of issues requires all
delegates to think deeply about their stance on any given issue. Each bill passed by both the House and the Senate is submitted to and
considered by the President, who either signs it into law or vetoes it at closing ceremonies.
For more details, see the 2010 Guide to Congress.
2010 Staff and Topics
House I
Committee Chair:
Marc Steinberg
Committee Vice-Chair:
Sean Ouellette
Topic 1:
Global Food Crisis (
Update)
Topic 2:
Credit Crisis (
Update)
House II
Committee Co-Chair:
Vasiliki Katsarou
Committee Co-Chair:
Brenda Maldonado
Topic 1:
Organized Crime (
Update)
Topic 2:
US-Cuba Relations (
Update)
Committee message board:
http://hmce.activeboard.com
Relevant Links
Use these links to research individual representatives, the structure of the House, and the issues currently facing Congress.