US Congress Trivia
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99 free US Congress trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Congress writes the laws, holds the purse and still runs on rules written in 1789. This congressional trivia covers both chambers: how many members sit in each, who breaks a Senate tie, why the House carries a silver-and-ebony mace, and the senator who spoke for more than 24 hours straight. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many voting members does Congress have in total?
535
535 is 100 senators plus 435 representatives; add the three electors given to Washington, D.C., and you reach the Electoral College's 538.
Q 02After 1913 the House briefly grew from 435 seats to 437 when which two states joined the Union?
Alaska and Hawaii
Alaska and Hawaii each got one seat on joining in 1959, and the House dropped back to 435 in 1963; a 1929 law had made that cap permanent after a rural-urban fight blocked any reshuffle following the 1920 census.
Q 03How long is a single U.S. Senate term?
Six years
Six years was a Convention compromise between delegates who wanted short terms and those after long ones, among them Alexander Hamilton, who proposed that senators serve for life.
Q 04Which future president was elected to the Senate at 29?
Joe Biden
Joe Biden won in November 1972 and turned 30, the Constitution's minimum, thirteen days later, well before the oath; back in 1806 the Senate had simply seated Henry Clay at 29.
Q 05House members need not live in their district, only where?
The state they represent
The state they represent is the Constitution's only residence test, and states may not add qualifications of their own, so state laws tying candidates to a district have been struck down.
Q 06Which part of the Constitution creates Congress?
Article One
Article One comes first because the framers expected the legislature to predominate in a republic, which is why Congress is nicknamed the First Branch.
Q 07Who steered the Bill of Rights through the First Congress?
James Madison
James Madison had once opposed a bill of rights, yet he introduced the amendments in June 1789 and pressed reluctant colleagues until Congress sent twelve of them to the states.
Q 08Which 1787 deal, also called the Great Compromise, gave every state two senators and tied House seats to population?
Connecticut Compromise
Connecticut Compromise honours that state's delegates Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, whose plan broke a deadlock by giving small states equal votes in the Senate and large states weight in the House.
Q 09Which chamber must originate revenue-raising bills?
The House
The House was seen as closest to the people, who ought to hold the purse-strings, and the rule was borrowed from Britain, where tax bills start in the House of Commons.
Q 10Which president survived impeachment by one Senate vote in 1868?
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing his war secretary in defiance of a law Congress had passed to stop him; the 35 to 19 vote to convict missed the required two-thirds.
Q 11Who became the first female President of the Senate in 2021?
Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris gained the title along with the vice presidency, since the Constitution makes the vice president the Senate's presiding officer, though modern vice presidents rarely take the chair.
Q 12When is the vice president allowed to vote in the Senate?
Only to break a tie
Only to break a tie: the framers wanted an outsider in the chair, because a senator made to preside would have skewed the voting strength of that senator's own state.
Q 13Who chairs the Senate when the VP is away?
President pro tempore
Q 21Which state had the largest House delegation after the 2020 census?
California
California kept the biggest delegation with 52 seats, even though that count cost it a House seat for the first time in its history as a state.
Q 22Which state with a single House seat had the fewest people in 2020?
Wyoming
Wyoming counted about 577,000 residents in 2020, well under the 761,000 in an average House district, but the Constitution guarantees every state at least one seat.
Q 23Which U.S. territory sends a resident commissioner to the House?
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico elects its resident commissioner for four years, double a regular House term, and like the delegates from other territories the commissioner gets no vote when the full House decides a bill.
President pro tempore goes by tradition to the majority party's most senior senator, who seldom takes the chair either and asks new senators to preside so they learn the rules.
Q 14Which senator's 1957 filibuster of a civil rights bill ran past 24 hours, a Senate speech record until 2025?
Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond of South Carolina held the floor for 24 hours and 18 minutes, but his one-man stand failed and the Civil Rights Act of 1957 became law.
Q 15How were U.S. senators chosen before 1913?
By state legislatures
By state legislatures, which sometimes deadlocked and left seats empty for months or even years; that and a bribery scandal led to the 1913 amendment that handed the choice to voters.
Q 16The word "senate" is traced to a Latin word meaning what?
Old man
Old man is what the Latin senex meant, and from it came senatus, Rome's council of elders, which dictionaries give as the origin of the English word.
Q 17One Senate desk has been kept stocked with what since 1965?
Candy
Candy arrived with George Murphy, who kept sweets in his drawer by the chamber's busiest door and shared them with colleagues of either party; senators at that spot have kept the custom going.
Q 18Which vice president shattered the Senate's old ivory gavel while presiding over a heated late-night debate in 1954?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon broke the handleless, hourglass-shaped gavel, which may have been in use since 1789; no replacement could be found at home, so India presented a replica later that year.
Q 19What decided which first senators got short terms?
Drawing lots
Drawing lots split the senators into three classes with same-state colleagues kept apart, so that only a third of the chamber would ever face election at once.
Q 20Which ex-president returned to Congress as a House member until his death in 1848?
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams spent eight years fighting the House gag rule on anti-slavery petitions and won in 1844; he later collapsed at his desk on the House floor and died inside the Capitol.
Q 24Legend says first Speaker Frederick Muhlenberg cast the vote that kept which language from becoming official?
German
German was never in the running: the House only weighed printing federal laws in translation, a motion to adjourn failed 42 to 41, and nothing shows Muhlenberg casting a deciding vote.
Q 25Where did the First Congress meet before moving to Philadelphia?
New York City
New York City's old city hall, remodeled as Federal Hall, was the first capitol, though the House needed nearly a month after opening day in March 1789 to muster a quorum there.
Q 26In the 1800 contingent election, the House chose Jefferson over which rival?
Aaron Burr
Aaron Burr and Jefferson each drew 73 electoral votes, and the House needed 36 ballots to break the tie; the Twelfth Amendment then gave president and vice president separate ballots.
Q 27Which House panel can do business with only 100 members present?
Committee of the Whole
Committee of the Whole is the full House working under looser rules: the quorum drops from 218 members to 100, which makes it easier to debate and amend big bills.
Q 28Which Texan served longest as Speaker of the House, holding the gavel in three stints between 1940 and 1961?
Sam Rayburn
Sam Rayburn lost the gavel twice when Republicans won the House, led the minority each time and won it back, and he was still Speaker when he died in 1961.
Q 29Who was the first woman elected Speaker of the House?
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi first won the gavel in 2007, lost it four years later when Republicans took the House, and won it back in 2019.
Q 30Who in 2023 became the first Speaker ever removed by a House vote?
Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy lost the gavel 216 to 210 when eight fellow Republicans joined every voting Democrat, nine months after he had needed 15 ballots to win it.