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 4 House and Senate leaders: Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. There are also 5 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 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.

This book serves not only students in middle school and high school American history courses, but will also be suitable for the public library market and online applications.