This completely revised and updated third edition to the Young Oxford Companion to the Congress of the United States (1994) and The Congress of the United States: A Student Companion, second edition (2001) contains more than 200 articles, arranged alphabetically, that provide a concise and easy-to-use guide to the people, issues, vocabulary, and activities of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.In this third edition, there are new articles on four House and Senate leaders: Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. There are also five new articles on the Capitol Visitors Center, Homeland Security, Nuclear option, Recess appointments (including a chart of recent statistics), and Association of the Centers for Congressional Studies. There are updates to 24 articles: Advice and consent; African Americans in Congress; Appropriations; Campaign financing; Chisholm, Shirley; Commemoratives, Constituent services; Constitutional amendments; Daschle, Tom; Dress; Ethics; Filibuster; Hastert, Dennis; Hispanic Americans; Lott, Trent; Mansfield, Mike; Media coverage; Nominations; Reapportionment; Records of Congress; Reporters of Debate; Salaries; Voting; War Powers. Several of the tables are l also revised: Apportionment of the House of Representatives; Committees; Lame duck sessions; Longest serving members; Majority leaders; Vetoes; and the Congresses list in the appendix.All of the back matter is thoroughly updated. Visiting Congress has information on new security procedures; Doing Research is expanded to include new books and a new section on websites. The bibliographies both at the back of the book and for each of the entries are thoroughly updated.