system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: As a non-American, what is the purpose of The Senate, Congress and House of Representatives, and how do they work in relation to each other?
gpt
Congress is the name for the whole legislative branch; it includes both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives is meant to be the people's voice in government. Each representative covers roughly the same population and they're voted on every two years, meaning they're theoretically more responsive to their electorate's desires.

The Senate is the states' voice in government. Each state gets two senators, regardless of population. A third of them are voted on every two years, so they serve six year terms in total. They're supposed to be more stable and interested in the big picture.

The reason for the two house structure was because small states were afraid they'd have no voice in a purely by-population legislature while big states felt they deserved more say given their bigger size. Creating one house to serve each need and making them compromise with each other to pass laws was a way to balance these competing interests.