Current members of the United States Congress

The 110th United States Congress consists of 540 elected officials from fifty states, four territories, and the District of Columbia. It is the current federal legislature of the United States of America, continuing an unbroken chain dating back to the first congress in 1789. Its lower house, the House of Representatives, has 435 members and five non-voting delegates, and its upper house, the Senate, has 100 members.

Demographics

In the Senate, there are 16 women, the highest number ever. There are also 13 Jews, three Hispanics, two Asian Americans, one Arab American, and one African American. The average age of Senators in 2007 is 62 years. The oldest Senator in 2007 is President pro tempore Robert Byrd (89 years old on opening day), and the youngest is John E. Sununu (43). The 110th Congress includes the most religiously diverse House in history, including the first Muslim, (Keith Ellison), the first Buddhists (Mazie Hirono and Hank Johnson), and thirty Jews. There are 42 African Americans (including two non-voting delegates) and 74 female representatives. There are also 27 Hispanics, four Asian Americans, and one Native American.

Religious demographics

At present^{[update needed]} the top six denominations in the Congress are Roman Catholic (28.8%), Baptist (14.1%), Methodist (11.4%) Presbyterian (9.7%), Episcopalian (7.9%) and Jewish (6.9%). The first Jew in the House was Lewis Charles Levin, elected in 1844. The first Jew in the Senate was David Levy Yulee, elected in 1845. Catholics have been in Congress from the beginning. Charles Carroll was in the Continental Congress and was in the Senate in 1789. Daniel Carroll of Maryland and Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania were Catholics in the first House of Representatives. Gabriel Richard became the first Catholic priest in Congress in 1823. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, allegedly a Scientologist, has been in Congress since 1989. Dalip Singh Saund, elected in 1956, was the first, and so far only, Sikh in Congress.^[1] Keith Ellison became the first, and so far only, Muslim to be elected into the United States Congress on November 7, 2006. ^[2] Mazie Hirono and Hank Johnson became the first two Buddhists to be elected to the United States Congress on November 7, 2006, although Mazie Hirono is not a practicing Buddhist. There are eleven Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in the House of Representatives (including one delegate) and five LDS Senators: Senators Bennet (R-UT), Crapo (R-ID), Hatch (R-UT), Reid (D-NV, the Majority Leader), and Smith (R-OR). As of a statement in March 2007, Pete Stark is the only known atheist in Congress. ^[3]

Gender

As of 2007, 83.7% of Congress is male and 16.3% is female.^[4] The global average for female representation at the parliamentary level in 2007 was 17.0%.^[5] Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, in 1916. Women could not vote or be elected in most of the United States until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920. Rebecca Felton was the first woman to become a Senator in 1922, serving for a brief two-day period when she was appointed to fill a vacancy left by Georgia Senator Thomas E. Watson. The first woman to win a race for Senate was Hattie Caraway, who won a special election in January 1932 to fulfill her late husband's Senate term of office. Caraway subsequently won the scheduled November 1932 election, eventually serving two more full terms. In the 109th United States Congress, there were 70 women serving the U.S. House and 14 in the U.S. Senate, which was the highest number of women to hold Congressional office in the United States at one time.^[6] Those numbers went up in the 110th Congress, with 74 women in the House^[7] and 16 in the Senate.^[8]

Sexual Orientation

There are two openly gay members of Congress. There is one gay man in the House (Barney Frank) and one lesbian woman (Tammy Baldwin).

Occupational background

Senators come from a variety of occupational backgrounds. Fifty-six hold degrees in the law, of whom forty-nine actually practiced law. Nineteen are career politicians, having pursued no other career for any significant period of time. A number come from various business backgrounds and seven have MBAs. There are four doctors serving in the Senate: two M.D.'s and two veterinarians. There are two career military members (both Navy). The remaining senators held positions ranging from blacksmith to social worker.

Race/ethnicity

See also: African Americans in the United States Congress

The Senate is 1% African American and the House is approximately 9.2% African American.^{[update needed]}. Representation of Hispanics is somewhat complex. Hispanics represent over 14% of the U.S. population, while the Senate is 3% Hispanic and the House is approximately 5% Hispanic. Considering that Hispanics make up only 4% of American voters, Hispanic political incorporation has been relatively high compared with previous immigrant groups. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus [3] has 21 members. Joseph Marion Hernández, a Cuban American, was the first Hispanic in Congress. He was a Whig Party territorial representative for Florida in 1823. The first to represent a state was Romualdo Pacheco, who represented California in 1877. In 1929, Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo became the first Hispanic to be elected to the United States Senate. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban American first elected in 1989, was the first Hispanic woman in Congress. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders also have a high level of political incorporation in terms of their actual voting population. But, as a result this group's historically low voting rates, overall political incorporation of the general population is relatively low. Although the population of this group has increased in size by 600% in 30 years due to immigration, heavy naturalization and voter outreach efforts have provided this primarily foreign-born community with less than 1% of voters but 1.25% of congressional population. However, since they represent 4.4% of the total population in the United States, this 1.25% still represents less than 1/3rd of the total Asian American and Pacific Islander population. There are four Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders in the House and two in the Senate. Dalip Singh Saund was the first Asian American in Congress. Hiram Fong, who served three decades in the Senate, remains the sole Chinese American member to have ever served in the U.S. Senate. Daniel Inouye was the first Japanese American in the House and later the first in Senate. Patsy Mink was the first Asian American woman in Congress. Compared with the primarily European American, African American, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American communities, American Indians, comprising 0.8% of the population, are under-represented, leaving Tom Cole as the only registered American Indian currently in the House. Currently there is one foreign-born U.S. Senator, Mel Martinez of Florida, who was born in Cuba. There are eight current representatives who were born overseas — three from Cuba and one each from Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Hungary — who in total comprise 1.8% of the House. This figure does not include three members who were born overseas to U.S. citizen parents.

Sources

• This Nation
• Hispanic Americans in Congress

Elections

See also: United States general elections, 2006

Elections for all House seats and 33 Senate seats were held on November 7, 2006 across the country. Following 12 years under Republican control, the Democratic Party became the majority in both houses, regaining control of the House for the first time since 1994 and the Senate for the first time since 2002.

The Democratic Party is considered to hold a majority with 51 seats because the two independents, Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman (Connecticut), caucus with the Democrats.

Special case: FL-13 (FL certified the Republican the winner, but this election is being disputed in court and Congress.)

Senate

Affiliation Members Note   Democratic Party 49   Republican Party 49   Independent Democrat 1 Joe Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats.   Independent 1 Bernie Sanders caucuses with the Democrats. Total 100

Image:110th US Senate.png Senators' party membership by state.

Leadership

Members

House of Representatives

Overview

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Affiliation Members Voting share Delegates and Resident Commissioner   Democratic Party 232 53.3% 4   Republican Party 200 46% 1 Total 432 (3 vacancies)

Percent of members of the House of Representatives from each party in the 110th US Congress by state

In Florida's 13th congressional district, Democrat Christine Jennings is contesting the certification of Republican Vern Buchanan as the winner in that race.^[12]

Voting members by state