Voters elect Congress. Congress elects its leaders. How that works.

Voters directly elect representatives to serve in Congress, but the leaders of those 435 House members and 100 senators are chosen through an internal – and, for many Americans, largely opaque – process.

Yet congressional leaders play a critical role in setting legislative agendas, wrangling votes, and communicating party priorities to the public.

The House has three main leadership roles: speaker, majority leader, and minority leader. The Senate has majority and minority leaders. In both chambers, the majority and minority