Two comments, seven tips, and five recs last time! That brings a bonus segment from the Congress section (because I wrote it after last Friday), followed by half of the Interesting Individuals:
Congress is led by several individuals in both chambers, though only the positions of Speaker of the House, President of the Senate, and President of the Senate pro tempore are mandated by the Constitution, the second which is simply another title applied to the Vice President, and that office is rarely used. The party leaders and whips were established in 1899 in the House; previously the chair of the powerful Ways and Means Committee had directed the floor, but with the House much larger than it had been previously, the incoming Speaker David Henderson of Iowa labeled Sereno Payne of New York the new majority leader, to help guide the House as Henderson became more of a national figure. In the Senate, the office of Minority Leader was instated in 1920, with Democrat Charles Underwood of Alabama holding the post; Republicans copied the practice a few years later, with Charles Curtis of Kansas being the first formal Majority Leader, though Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts had performed the same duties before him.
The President of the Senate pro tempore is on paper a role similar to, but more limited than, the speakership; in practice, it has faded in and out of importance, as well as up and down the list of presidential succession. At the moment, the president pro tem is a purely ceremonial position, assigned to the most senior (not oldest, though they are often the same) member of the majority; since 2001, when the most senior member of the minority has served as president pro tem previously, there is a president pro tem emeritus, with no official duties but more staff, and an advisory role to the actual leadership. With the exception of the president and president pro tem, leadership in the Senate largely goes to whomever wants it and can muster up support: Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell were both first elected in the nineties, which puts them only in the top twenty ranks of Senate seniority. House leadership tends to rely more on previous service: Pelosi and Boehner both served as minority leaders before they assumed the Speakership, and Cantor and McCarthy also held posts in the leadership before they moved up when Republicans gained the majority in 2011. Reid and McConnell both served as whips before becoming leaders, but their predecessors, Daschle and Frist, did not, and McConnell's successor as whip, Jon Kyl of Arizona, is retiring, so it's very unlikely that he'll become leader. In both houses, the actual presiding officer of floor debates, except when passing particularly significant bills, will be a junior member of the chamber, so that everyone learns parliamentary procedure, which is what governs every bit of Congressional proceedings.
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