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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 10 February 2025. Bicameral legislature of the United States For the current Congress, see 119th United States Congress. For the building, see United States Capitol. This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, potentially preventing the article from being ...
As a practical matter, the limitation of Congress's ability to investigate only for a proper purpose ("in aid of" its legislative powers) functions as a limit on Congress's ability to investigate the private affairs of individual citizens; matters that simply demand action by another branch of government, without implicating an issue of public ...
Some committees manage other committees. Congresspersons have various privileges to help the presidents serve the national interest and are paid a salary and have pensions. Congress formed a Library of Congress to help assist investigations and developed a Government Accountability Office to help it analyze complex and varied federal ...
The U.S. Congress is the bicameral legislature of the United States government, and is made up of two chambers: the United States Senate (the upper chamber) and the United States House of Representatives (the lower chamber). Together, the two chambers exercise authority over the following legislative agencies:
The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U.S. Constitution in the Congress, the president, and the federal courts, respectively. [2]
Unlike the federal government, which only has those powers granted to it in the Constitution, a state government has inherent powers allowing it to act unless limited by a provision of the state or national constitution. Like the federal government, state governments have three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.
In the United States, the state legislature is the legislative branch in each of the 50 U.S. states. A legislature generally performs state duties for a state in the same way that the United States Congress performs national duties at the national level.
One congressional power is oversight of other branches of the government. In the early 1970s, the Senate investigated the activities of President Richard Nixon regarding Watergate which led to the president's resignation. One of the foremost legislative functions of the Congress is the power to investigate and to oversee the executive branch.