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United States Congress

bicameral legislature of the United States

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ11268
Source-derived summary

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Members of Congress are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a governor's appointment. Congress has a total of 535 voting members: 100 senators and 435 representatives. The House of Representatives also has 6 additional non-voting members. The vice president of the United States, as president of the Senate, has a vote in the Senate only when there is a tie.

Congresses convene for two-year terms (a Congress), commencing every other January. Each Congress is usually split into two sessions, one for each year. Elections are held every even-numbered year on Election Day. The members of the House of Representatives are elected for the two-year term of a Congress.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “United States Congress” is bicameral legislature of the United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through United, States and Congress, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current 163-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1789-03-04. For this dossier, United, States and Congress is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “bicameral legislature of the United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11268. VIAF identifies the subject as 128620508. The Library of Congress control number is n79006865. Authority coordinates are 38.890, -77.009. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “United States Congress”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow United States Congress primary sources, United States Congress archive and United research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “United States Congress”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from United States Congress” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.