Section 1 gives federal legislative power exclusively to Congress. Similar clauses are found in Articles II and III. The former gives executive power to the President. The latter grants judicial power to the federal judiciary. These three articles create a separation of powers among the three branches of the federal government. The separation of powers was intended to limit Congress to making law, the President to enforcing the law and the courts as interpreting the law in different cases.
There is no provision in the Constitution that gives Congress the power to investigate. However, before the adoption of the Constitution, assemblies| in the American colonies exercised that power. Before them, the British Parliament had investigative powers. Congress has always considered it an implicit power in the Constitution. In "McGrain v. Daugherty" (1927), the Supreme Court held that Congress did have the power to investigate.
Section Two provides for the election every two years of members of the House of Representatives by the people of the respective states. The "electors" (voters) in the state are those who the state decides are eligible to vote for "the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature" are eligible to vote for members of the House of Representatives from that state.
The Constitution provides three requirements for Representatives. A Representative must be at least 25 years old. He or she must live in the state in which he or she is elected. A Representative must also have been a citizen of the United States for the previous seven years.
After much debate, the framers of the Constitution compromised and made population the basis of determining the number of seats (called apportionment) in the House of Representatives. It also used apportionment to determine the tax liability among the states. To accomplish this, the Constitution requires that a census be conducted every ten years. This is to determine the population of each state and of the nation as a whole. It also establishes a rule for who should and who should not be included in the count. Because the Constitution would go into effect before the completion of a national census, it provides for a temporary apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives.
Originally, the population of each state and of the nation as a whole was determined by adding to the whole number of free Persons, three-fifths the number of all other persons (slaves), but excluding non-taxed Native Americans. This Constitutional rule was known as the three-fifths compromise. It was used to determine the number of Representatives in the House. Larger states contributed more money and would have more seats in the House of Representatives.
The Fourteenth Amendment removed the three-fifths rule and ordered the census to count everyone regardless of skin color. It stipulated that males over the age of twenty-one could vote. The Sixteenth Amendment removed the connection between apportionment and direct taxes. The 19th Amendment removed the restriction by sex allowing women to vote. The 26th Amendment reduced the voting age requirement to those 18 years of age and older. But none of these amendments changed congressional apportionment.
Since enactment of the Reapportionment Act of 1929, Congress set the number of House seats at 435, except in 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted as states. Then the number became 437 temporarily.
Section two, Clause four, provides that when vacancies occur in the House of Representatives, it is not the job of the House of Representatives to arrange for a replacement. It is the job of the State whose vacant seat is up for refilling. In addition, the Constitution does not authorize a State Governor to appoint a temporary replacement. He is to arrange for a special election to fill the vacancy. The original qualifications and procedures for holding that election are still valid.
Section Two also provides that the House of Representatives may choose its Speaker and its other officers. The Constitution does not require it but every Speaker has been a member of the House of Representatives. The Speaker rarely presides over routine House sessions. Instead he chooses to deputize a junior member to accomplish the task.
Finally, Section Two grants to the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment. Although the Supreme Court has not had an occasion to interpret this specific provision, the Court has suggested that the grant to the House of the ""sole"" power of impeachment makes the House the exclusive interpreter of what constitutes an impeachable offense.
This power, which is analogous to the bringing of criminal charges by a grand jury, has been used only rarely. The House of Representatives has initiated impeachment proceedings 62 times since 1789, and nineteen federal officials have been formally impeached as a result, including: three Presidents (Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump), one Cabinet Secretary (William W. Belknap), one Senator (William Blount), one Supreme Court Associate Justice (Samuel Chase), and fourteen federal judges.
The Constitution does not specify how impeachment proceedings are to be initiated. Until the early 20th century, a House member could rise and propose an impeachment, which would then be assigned to a committee for investigation. Presently, it is the House Judiciary Committee that initiates the process. It does this only after investigating the allegations, prepares recommendations for the whole House's consideration. If the House votes to adopt an impeachment resolution, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee recommends a slate of "managers," whom the House subsequently approves by resolution. These Representatives then become the prosecution team in the impeachment trial in the Senate (see Section 3, Clause 6 below).
The first Clause of Section Three provides that each state is entitled to have two Senators. It states they would be elected by its state legislature and serve six-year terms. Each Senator has one vote. By these provisions, the framers of the Constitution intended to protect the interests of the states as states. However, this clause has been superseded by the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913. Due to problems in the Senate, it was changed to Senators would now be elected by the people instead of the state legislatures.
Approximately one-third of the Senate is up for re-election every two years. But the entire body is never up for re-election in the same year. The Seventeenth Amendment changed how vacancies would be filled. Under the Seventeenth Amendment, if a Senator dies or has to leave office, his state governor may appoint a temporary Senator until a special election can be held.
A Senator must be at least 30 years of age, must have been a citizen of the United States for at least nine years before being elected, and must reside in the State he or she will represent at the time of the election. As with Representatives in the House, the Constitution sets the qualifications to be a Senator.
Section Three provides that the Vice President is the President of the Senate. When serving in this capacity, the Vice President, who is not a member of the Senate, may cast a vote to break a tie. Early in the nation's history, Vice Presidents frequently presided over the Senate. In modern times, the Vice President usually does so only during ceremonial occasions or when a tie in the voting is anticipated. A tie-breaking vote has been cast 243 times by 35 different Vice Presidents.
Clause five provides for a President "pro tempore of the Senate" (meaning temporary), a Senator elected to the post by the Senate, to preside over the body when the Vice President is either absent or exercising the Office of the President.