1.
Everett Dirksen
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Everett McKinley Dirksen was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the House of Representatives and the Senate, Dirksen, a conservative, was one of the Senates strongest supporters of the Vietnam War and was also known as The Wizard of Ooze because of his flamboyant oratorical style. Dirksen was born in Pekin, Illinois, a city near Peoria. He was the son of German immigrants Johann Friedrich Dirksen and his wife Antje Conrady, Everett had a fraternal twin, Thomas Dirksen, and a brother named Benjamin Harrison, a nod to the Republican leanings of his father. The boys father died when the twins were nine years old, Dirksen grew up on a farm on Pekins outskirts, in a section called Beantown because immigrants grew beans instead of flowers. After attending the schools, he entered the University of Minnesota Law School. He served as a lieutenant in a field artillery battery. He was a member of the Reformed Church in America, founded in the 18th century by Dutch immigrants, after the war, Dirksen invested money in an electric washing machine business, but it failed. He joined his brothers in running a bakery and he expressed his artistic side by writing a number of unpublished short stories, as well as plays with former classmate Hubert Ropp. In addition, Dirksen was active in the American Legion, and his political career began in 1926, when he was elected to the nonpartisan Pekin City Council. He placed first in field of eight candidates vying for four seats, at the time, the top votegetter also received appointment as the citys commissioner of accounts and finance, and Dirksen held both posts from 1927 to 1931. Dirksen was a Freemason and was a member of Pekin Lodge #29 in Pekin, in 1954, he was Grand Orator of the Grand Lodge of Illinois. He was honored with the 33rd degree in 1954, after losing in the 1930 Republican primary, Dirksen won the nomination and the congressional seat in 1932 and was re-elected seven times. His support for many New Deal programs marked him as a moderate, Dirksen was able to secure the passage of an amendment to the Lend Lease Act by introducing a resolution while 65 of the Houses Democrats were at a luncheon. It provided that the Senate and the House could, by a majority in a concurrent resolution. Dirksen studied law privately in Washington, D. C. after he was elected and he was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar in 1936 and the bar of Illinois in 1937. In December 1943, Dirksen announced that he would be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1944 and he stated that a coalition of midwestern Republican representatives had urged him to run and that his campaign was serious. Dirksens presidential campaign was still alive on the eve of the 1944 convention
2.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
3.
United States Capitol Complex
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The United States Capitol Complex is a group of about a dozen buildings and facilities in Washington, D. C. that are used by the United States government. The buildings and grounds within the complex are managed and supervised by the Architect of the Capitol and these include the National Statuary Hall Collection and the Statue of Freedom among many others. The westernmost part of the grounds is the Capitol Reflecting Pool, which reflects the Capitol, construction of the Capitol began in 1793. When built, it was the existing building for the use by the nations legislature. In addition to Congress, the building was designed to house the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, the district courts. Following the completion of the building and as the nation grew, the Capitol and its grounds were enlarged accordingly, and by 1892 the building had reached essentially its present size and appearance. Even with the enlargements, Congress eventually grew too big for the building and these new buildings were heated and provided with electricity by the new Capitol Power Plant which opened in 1910 and is still used today. The 1930s was a decade of construction within the growing Capitol Complex. The Supreme Court at last found a permanent home when its own building was completed in 1935, the last building constructed within the complex in this decade was the Library of Congress Annex, now named the John Adams Building, which opened in 1939. Within twenty years, attention returned to the need for congressional office space, this led to the construction of a second building for the Senate. The Houses third building, the Rayburn House Office Building, opened in 1965, a third building for the Library of Congress, the James Madison Memorial Building, opened in 1980 and the Senates third building, the Hart Senate Office Building, was occupied in 1982. The most recent large structure within the Capitol complex is the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building, renovations to the Botanic Garden Conservatory began in September 1997 and continued for four years until December 2001 when the building reopened. The newest addition to the Capitol Complex is the Capitol Visitor Center, despite many delays, the Center opened in December 2008, and includes an exhibition gallery, two theaters, a dining facility, and gift shops. The budget for construction of the Center was $584 million
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Eggers & Higgins
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Eggers & Higgins was a New York architectural firm partnered by Otto Reinhold Eggers and Daniel Paul Higgins. Critics argued a competition should have held to choose Popes successor. In 1941, they completed construction of Popes other famous design. The pair were longtime associates of Pope in the firm he founded in 1903 as the Office of John Russell Pope, Eggers was a brilliant designer and renderer who served as Popes right hand for almost thirty years. They changed the name of the firm to Eggers & Higgins in 1937, the firm was renamed The Eggers Partnership in 1970, and then as The Eggers Group, PC when it became a professional corporation in 1976. It eventually merged into what is now RMJM Hillier, an architectural firm with offices in the United States, the United Kingdom. Eggers & Higgins also designed the Brooklyn War Memorial, a stone building in Cadman Plaza dedicated to Brooklynites who fought in World War II. At the same time, they designed the Vanderbilt Law School Building. For the 1939 New York Worlds Fair they designed the Railroads Building, the largest at the Fair, and the Schaefer center, in Lincoln Center the firm developed Damrosch Park, an outdoor amphitheater with a bowl-style stage known as the Guggenheim Band Shell. They designed all the buildings on the Bloomington campus from the Indiana University Auditorium completed in 1941. Their major campus building designs included the Fine Arts Building, Lilly Library and they were also tapped for the development of the Indiana University School of Medicine campus including the Indiana University Hospital building. In 1948, Eggers was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1951
6.
United States Senate
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The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. S. From 1789 until 1913, Senators were appointed by the legislatures of the states represented, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. The Senate chamber is located in the wing of the Capitol, in Washington. It further has the responsibility of conducting trials of those impeached by the House, in the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers. This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise, there was also a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a Peoples House directly elected by the people, the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally, the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate, the name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the comment about the Senate, In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation, landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, the senate, therefore, ought to be this body, and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability. The Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that states consent, the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two senators, but they are officials of the D. C. city government. The United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. In 1787, Virginia had roughly ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has roughly 70 times the population of Wyoming and this means some citizens are effectively two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are approximately proportionate to the population of each state, before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were elected by the individual state legislatures
7.
History of the United States Senate
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The United States Senate, named after the ancient Roman Senate, was designed as a more deliberative body than the House of Representatives. Edmund Randolph called for its members to be less than the House of Commons, to restrain, if possible, the fury of democracy. According to James Madison, The use of the Senate is to consist in proceeding with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch. Instead of two-year terms as in the House, senators serve six-year terms, the smaller number of members and staggered terms also give the Senate a greater sense of community. Many of the founding fathers greatly admired the British government, at the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton called the British government the best in the world, and said he doubted whether anything short of it would do in America. In the minds of many of the Founding Fathers, the Senate would be an American kind of House of Lords, the Senate was also intended to give states with smaller populations equal standing with larger states, which are given more representation in the House. The apportionment scheme of the Senate was controversial at the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton, who was joined in opposition to equal suffrage by Madison, said equal representation despite population differences shocks too much the ideas of justice and every human feeling. Referring to those who demanded equal representation, Madison called for the Convention to renounce a principle which was confessedly unjust, the state delegations originally voted 6–5 for proportional representation, but small states without claims of western lands reopened the issue and eventually turned the tide towards equality. On the final vote, the five states in favor of equal apportionment in the Senate—Connecticut, North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, the four states that voted against it—Virginia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Georgia—represented almost twice as many people than the proponents. Convention delegate James Wilson wrote Our Constituents, had voted as their representatives did, would have stood as 2/3 against equality. 62, James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, openly admitted that the suffrage in the Senate was a compromise, a lesser evil. Even Gunning Bedford, Jr. of Delaware admitted that he only favored equal representation because it advanced the interests of his own state, can it be expected that the small states will act from pure disinterestedness. Are we to act with greater purity than the rest of mankind, once the issue of equal representation had been settled, the delegates addressed the size of the body, to how many senators would each state be entitled. Giving each state one senator was considered insufficient, as it would make the achievement of a more difficult. A proposal from the Pennsylvania delegates for each state to elect three senators was discussed, but the greater size was deemed a disadvantage. When the delegates voted on a proposal for two senators per state, all supported this number. Since 1789, differences in population between states have more pronounced. At the time of the Connecticut Compromise, the largest state, Virginia, had only twelve times the population of the smallest state, today, the largest state, California, has a population that is seventy times greater than the population of the smallest state, Wyoming
8.
Classes of United States Senators
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The three classes of United States Senators are made up of 33 or 34 Senate seats each. The purpose of the classes is to determine which Senate seats will be up for election in a given year, the three groups are staggered so that one of them is up for election every two years, rather than having all 100 seats up for election at once. For example, the 33 Senate seats of Class 1 were elected in 2012, the 33 seats of Class 2 were up for election in 2014, the three classes were established by Article I, Section 3, Clause 2 of the U. S. Constitution. The actual division was performed by the Senate in May 1789 by lot. A senators description as junior or senior senator is not related to his or her class, rather, a states senior senator is the one with the greater seniority in the Senate. This is mostly based on length of service, when the Founding Fathers agreed to give six-year terms to Senators, they also decided to stagger the elections, so that a third of the Senate was up for election every two years. At the same time, they wanted more frequent elections, as opposed to waiting every six years and this was achieved in May 1789, several weeks after the first Senate assembled. To decide on how to implement this, on May 11 the Senate appointed a committee consisting of Senators Ellsworth, Carroll, in accordance with their recommendation, on May 14 the Senate divided the members into three classes, Thursday, May 14,1789. That three papers of a size, numbered 1,2, and 3, be, by the Secretary, rolled up and put into a box, and drawn by Mr. Langdon, Mr. Wingate. On the following day, May 15, the expiration of each class was determined by drawing lots. Upon the expiration of a term of any length, someone starts a new six-year term as senator. Because each state is represented by two Senators, regardless of population, each Senate class collectively represents a different number of people than each other Senate class. When a new state is admitted to the Union, its two senators have terms that correspond to those of two different classes, among the three classes defined below, a coin toss determines which new senator enters which of the classes selected to be expanded. This means at least one of any new states first pair of senators has a term of less than six years, when the last state, Hawaii, was admitted in 1959, candidates for the Senate ran either for seat A or seat B. The new Senators, in a process managed by the Secretary of the Senate, should a 51st state be admitted, it would receive senators in Classes 1 and 2, at which point all three Classes would have 34 senators. US Senate class page Current Class 1, Current Class 2, Current Class 3, A2013 analysis of the partisan leanings of each class
