Learn the U.S. Constitution

Welcome to “Learn the U.S. Constitution” sponsored by The Freedom Library, where every Wednesday in the Yuma Sun you can learn about the U.S. Constitution and give yourself an opportunity to earn a prize. Each week a question concerning the U.S. Constitution or related history will appear in this section of the Yuma Sun. Some weeks may have multiple questions requiring multiple answers.

Submit the correct answer(s) to the question(s) to info@freedomlibrary.org by Sunday at 6 p.m. MST for a chance to win a prize. The first randomly selected submission with the correct answer(s) will be declared the winner whose name along with the correct answer(s) will appear the following week. This week’s questions: Who is the leader of Congress?

How is the leader of Congress chosen?

Congratulations to Gary Prange, who correctly answered last week’s quiz! Here is the Aug. 16th answer:

Congress represents both the people and the states. The people are represented in the House of Representatives and the states are represented in the Senate. The people directly elect their representatives every two years, the number of whom is based upon the population of the state. The state legislators of each state elect their representatives called senators. This was changed by the 17th Amendment. A senator has a 6-year term, however, the number of senators is divided into thirds allowing the election of 1/3 of the senators to take place every two years. There were to be 1 representative for every 30,000 of population, however, Congress passed a law (possibly unconstitutionally since no constitutional amendment was ever passed) limiting the number of members in the HR to 435. There are 2 senators for each state, thereby making a total of 100 members of the Senate.