Have you ever had a first day at school? How did you feel? Anxious? Excited? Nervous? Maxwell Alejandro Frost might be feeling all these feelings on January 3rd. He is twenty-five years old. He is starting a new job. He will become a congressman.
Members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms. Members of the Senate serve six year terms. Not all Senators are elected at the same time. So, every two years there is a new congress. This is the 118th Congress of the United States of America.
Maxwell Alejandro Frost will enter a divided congress. After midterm elections, Republicans have the majority in the House of Representatives. Democrats have a majority in the United States Senate. Both houses are very close to evenly divided. Members of the House of Representative and United States Senate will have to find things that they can both agree on.
Maxwell Alejandro Frost is the first person from Generation Z (people born at the end of the 1990s or beginning of the 2000s) in congress. However, he is not the only first in the 118th Congress. Hakeem Jeffries will become the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. He will be the first African American leader in congress.
Frost will be entering a diverse congress. This congress has more women than ever before. It has more Republican women representatives than ever before. There are also more African American and Latina women in this congress. However, still only about one out of every four representatives are women. This does not match the population of the United States. More than half its citizens are women.
What Do You Think? Imagine you have been elected to Congress. What issues would be important to you?
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