The Legislative Branch

The Basics

The two houses of the U.S. Congress write, debate, and pass all federal laws and the federal government’s budget. The House of Representatives is divided into 435 districts proportionally by population, which means every district has roughly the same number of people. The Senate is organized differently – there are 100 Senators, two for each state, and population doesn’t matter. Any bill has to pass both the House and the Senate to become law, but there are a few differences in responsibilities:

All bills involving taxes have to start in the House
Only the Senate can vote on the president’s nominees for federal courts and executive branch positions
Only the Senate can vote on treaties, which are agreements the U.S. makes with other countries
If a president or another official is impeached, the two parts of that process are divided up – only the House can start the process, then the Senate gets to vote on whether to remove the official. See ‘can a President be removed from office?’ for more details

For more information on the different responsibilities of members of Congress, see our explainers on U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators.

Sources: the U.S. Constitution; the Reapportionment Act of 1929, which permanently set the number of U.S. Representatives at 435 and laid out the process for the Census and redistricting

How can I make my voice heard?

So the thing about Congress is…you learn about it one way in school, but when you read the news, it seems like everybody’s playing by a totally different set of rules. It can feel like only people who do politics for a living can get anything done in Washington.

You’re not crazy! There’s how Congress works, and then there’s how Congress really works. And with more and more partisan gridlock every year, people are starting to wonder if anything can get done. Nothing is ever simple, but if you’re ready to put in the work, there’s a lot you can do to impact your representatives and senators.

Hit them up

You might assume that your senators and reps know what you think about the issues – doesn’t there always seem to be some layer of professional advocates and organizations that go crazy every time anyone in DC says something? There is, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a say. Hit the phones, hit send on an email, or hit the streets for a meeting to make your voice heard. (Calls can be especially effective – staffers log every call the office gets!)

Happen to be in the neighborhood

Meeting with your congressional representatives in person at their DC offices is a bit more of an undertaking, but totally worth the trip if you can swing it. You can also get a face-to-face chat much closer to home at one of their district offices. All representatives have at least one office in your congressional district, and senators have several across your state.

Firsthand account

When Congress holds hearings, it asks all kinds of people to testify: experts, government officials, and yes, regular people. If you have experience or expertise that could help Congress understands how an issue affects individual Americans, make sure your senators and representative know that you’re engaged and willing to speak publicly. It’s a long shot, but constituents absolutely testify at hearings, and their words can be powerful.

Bottom up

You may not think of states and cities having DC lobbyists, but they do! That means your representatives are hearing from your state legislators, mayor, county government, and more. Is there a local issue that you think needs more oomph in Congress? Talk to your local elected officials and ask them to push it in Washington.

Knock, knock

Running a successful congressional campaign takes a LOT of elbow grease. Get directly involved by supporting or opposing a House or Senate race. In most House districts, the real action is in the primary (that’s when the Dems and Republicans decide who’s going to run on their party line), so start paying attention early to see which candidate is doing it for you. Posting on social media is just one small piece of winning a campaign – research shows that one-on-one conversations are most effective. Sign up to phonebank if you like making a difference from the comfort of your home, or to knock on doors if you’re looking for some exercise and like to play with other people’s dogs.

Vote

Duh. You’d think so, anyway. Even though the 2020 elections had record voter turnout, millions of eligible voters still didn’t cast ballots. Stop reading this right now and make sure you’re registered to vote! When you get back from doing that, learn how to make the most of your ballot.

What has Congress done?

Every single federal law has gone through Congress! Here are just a few that have made a big impact:

Passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning discrimination in voting, public education, public benefits and employment and setting the stage for lots of other anti-discrimination laws
Passed the 2001 Authorization of the Use of Military Force after the 9/11 attacks, giving every US President since a lot of leeway to deploy the military to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and several other countries without officially declaring war
Passed the REAL ID Act of 2005 – the reason why you need a REAL ID to fly (and need to bring extra documents to the DMV!)
Passed the No Surprises Act of 2022, banning surprise medical billing for emergency hospital services

This can be a complicated process! The main steps are:

Proposed laws, which are called bills, can begin in either the House or the Senate
When a bill is introduced, it is assigned to a committee that reviews it and votes on whether to move it forward
Once the committee has approved the bill, it is voted on by the whole House or Senate
All bills need to get a majority (over half) vote to pass, in both the House and the Senate.
Sometimes the versions of a bill in the House and the Senate are slightly different – when this happens, lawmakers will negotiate on which version to move forward on. Sometimes the final version is a compromise that’s slightly different than either original version
Once a bill has passed in the House and the Senate, it is sent to the president’s desk
If the president approves of a bill, they sign it, and then it officially becomes law.
If the president doesn’t approve of a bill, they can reject it. This is called a veto
Even if a bill is vetoed, it’s still possible for it to become law. Congress can override a veto by voting on the bill again – if, on this second vote, the bill gets a two-thirds majority in the House and the Senate, then it becomes law regardless of what the president does. This is pretty rare, though, especially in the modern era.

Source: the U.S. Government

A federal law is a law that was passed by Congress and either signed into law by the president, or vetoed by the president but the veto was overridden by Congress. A federal law applies to everyone in the country, the federal government, and state governments too (states have their own laws, but they can’t contradict federal law). The president cannot make laws all by themselves, and laws cannot be reversed easily – if Congress wants to get rid of a federal law, they have to repeal it by going through the same process as passing a law.

An executive order is a directive from the president to the executive branch of the federal government – think of them like instructions from the CEO of the company to all employees.

Executive orders apply only to the executive branch of the federal government. They have to be followed, unless they’re challenged or overturned in court, but they are not laws. That means that they can’t override federal laws, state laws, or the U.S. Constitution – they can only tell the federal government how to interpret and carry out existing federal laws. They can also be reversed just as easily as they’re issued if a future president disagrees with them.

BUT – and this is a big ‘but’ – that doesn’t mean executive orders don’t have an impact on peoples’ lives! The U.S. is a big country with a complex government that deals with all sorts of issues, so changes in how the federal government operates can affect potentially millions of people. As it’s become harder to get a law through Congress, recent presidents have relied more on executive orders to achieve their policy goals.

Here are just a few of the things the federal government does where the processes, details, or specific regulations can be altered by executive order:

Issues U.S. passports
Approves or denies disability claims and healthcare coverage for veterans
Sets limits on air and water pollution, and enforces those limits
Decides what can be done with national parks and other public lands
Approves or denies visas, work authorizations, green cards, and naturalization applications
Administers Medicare and Social Security
Manages border security and deportation policies

…and so much more.

Executive orders can also have an indirect impact on state governments. For example, in June of 2026, 20 states sued the federal government because of an executive order banning DEI and diversity initiatives in federal contracting. States often use federal funding in their own budgets and programs, which means this executive order may have impacted their ability to operate (that’s what the lawsuit alleges), even though state governments are not part of the federal government.

If a president issues an executive order that might be illegal or unconstitutional, a lawsuit will usually be filed over it, like in the above example. In those situations, it’s up to the courts to decide whether the federal government actually has to follow the executive order. The Supreme Court has a long history of deciding what the president has the power to do with executive orders.

Sources: the National Constitution Center; the Harvard Kennedy School of Government; CNN

You may have heard about this process, which exists only in the Senate – it’s gotten a lot of attention in the last several years. Technically, senators have the right to debate any bill for an unlimited amount of time, and a filibuster is when a senator (or group of senators) uses that right to block a bill from being voted on or moved forward. The filibuster can also be used to block or delay a vote on one of the president’s nominees for the executive branch or a federal court. It takes 60 votes, not just a simple majority of 51, to end a filibuster and move forward with a set period of debate on a bill. This is why, even though it technically only takes a majority vote to actually pass a bill, you’ve probably heard that it ‘takes 60 votes’ to get anything through the Senate.

There are a couple specific things that can’t be filibustered – the most notable example is the federal budget, which needs to be passed each year to keep the federal government running. The Senate can use a process called ‘budget reconciliation,’ which bypasses the filibuster so the budget can be passed with a simple majority vote.

When the filibuster was first established, senators were required to actually speak continuously on the floor of the Senate to keep a filibuster going. The rules were later changed so that a filibuster could be done ‘procedurally’ by filing a specific motion, so using it (or threatening to) became much more common. The rules about the filibuster are not laid out in law – they’re Senate procedure, so in theory the Senate could vote to change the process or even get rid of the ‘procedural’ filibuster altogether. The old-school ‘talking’ filibuster is still used sometimes, though – most recently Senator Cory Booker set a new record by speaking for around 25 hours straight.

Sources: the National Constitution Center; NPR

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as the ACA or ‘Obamacare,’ is one of the most impactful federal laws of the last 20 years – and a great example of the long and complicated process that’s often needed to get a major federal law over the finish line.

President Obama hit the ground running on healthcare reform soon after he came into office, announcing a joint session of Congress in February 2009. First, the House and Senate worked separately to develop their own proposals. The president and Congressional leaders also consulted experts in healthcare policy. Throughout the whole process, negotiation was key, especially in the Senate because of the filibuster. At this time, there were 58 Democratic senators and 2 independents who usually voted with Democrats, but several Democrats were more moderate, and all the Republicans were no’s. There wasn’t enough filibuster-proof support for transitioning to the kind of universal system which is common in other democracies, so the Democrats settled on expanding Medicaid and reforms to make the private insurance system cover more types of care and be more affordable and accessible.

During Congress’s summer break, members held town hall meetings in their districts to inform the public about the proposals. (Attending a town hall is one of many ways for regular citizens to have a say in the lawmaking process! You can also call or email your representatives to let them know how you feel about a bill they’re considering.)

The House of Representatives passed their bill first, in November 2009, and negotiations continued in the Senate to get moderate and conservative Democrats on board. The biggest sticking points were a publicly-funded insurance option (a dealbreaker for one senator, so it was dropped), and abortion (some conservative Democrats didn’t want any government money paying for abortion care, so states were given the right not to cover it if they didn’t want to). The Senate passed their version in December 2009 with 60 votes – just enough to avoid a filibuster.

The last step was to negotiate the final version of the bill, but a special election complicated that. A Democratic senator passed away during the negotiation process – the interim senator who was appointed after his death provided the crucial 60th vote in December, but in January 2010 the seat was filled by a Republican and the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority. The president held a final meeting with the leaders of both chambers. Knowing that a new bill and the House version of the bill would both need to be voted on in the Senate, everyone agreed to use the bill that had already passed the Senate to avoid a second vote and a potential filibuster. House Democrats didn’t get everything they wanted in this version, but agreed to vote for it anyway if they were able to pass another bill later in the year.

The bill was passed on March 21, 2010, and the President signed it into law two days later. It was the first comprehensive reform of the healthcare system in the U.S. since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960’s.

Sources: the Obama Presidential Center; the Wall Street Journal