Paper 3 (USA) regularly leans on the basics of Congress: the numbers, the term lengths, the article numbering and the way each branch checks the other two. Once these are cold-recall, every essay paragraph gets faster and tighter because we are not searching for the structural fact mid-sentence.
| House of Representatives | Senate | |
|---|---|---|
| Members | 435 (fixed since 1929) | 100 (two per state) |
| Term | 2 years | 6 years |
| Refresh | All 435 every 2 years | A third up every 2 years |
| Apportionment | By population (redrawn every 10 years) | Two per state regardless of population |
| Article | Article 1 | Article 1 |
The named undemocracy contrast: Wyoming (around 580,000 people) and California (around 39 million) both get exactly two senators. That single fact does most of the AO2 work in any "Senate is undemocratic" paragraph.
| Branch | Source of power | Article | Headline power |
|---|---|---|---|
| President Executive |
Mandate from being elected every 4 years | Article 2 | Commander-in-chief; appoints Supreme Court justices |
| Supreme Court Judiciary |
The Constitution | Article 3 | Strike-down: voids any presidential or congressional act that breaches the Constitution |
| Congress Legislature |
Elected (FPTP, heavily distorted) | Article 1 | Passes legislation; Senate confirms Supreme Court appointments |
This table is the single most useful thing to commit to memory from this topic. Three rows, three branches, three articles - everything else on the paper hangs off it.
House districts are redrawn every ten years after the Census. In the United States, the body that draws them is the state legislature - which means the maps are openly partisan. In the United Kingdom the equivalent job is done by an independent Boundary Commission, which is the cleanest comparative point to drop into any "checks and balances" answer.
The federal guardrail on the worst gerrymandering has been the Voting Rights Act 1965. Recent Supreme Court rulings have weakened it case by case, which is the legal reason Trump's 2026 redistricting push - more Republican-favourable maps in several states - has a realistic path through.
Senate seats cannot be gerrymandered because the boundary is the state itself. That is why Republican focus is on the House.
Senators serve six years. In their first four years they tend to vote with the public mood; in the final two they get visibly more responsive because re-election is in sight. The flip side is that six years of name recognition makes them very hard to unseat in the first place, which is what the incumbency effect describes.
House members are running constantly, so they never quite escape campaign mode. That is the structural reason the House is more responsive to short-term sentiment - and the reason Trump's House majority of one is so fragile heading into 2026.