The Senate in a certain state is comprised of 56 Republicans, 42 Democrats, and 2 Independents. How many committees can be formed if each committee must have 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats?

Step 1 ：The Senate in a certain state is comprised of 56 Republicans, 42 Democrats, and 2 Independents. We are asked to find out how many committees can be formed if each committee must have 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats.

Step 2 ：This is a combination problem. We are choosing 3 Republicans out of 56 and 2 Democrats out of 42. The number of ways to do this is given by the formula for combinations, which is \(nCr = \frac{n!}{r!(n-r)!}\), where n is the total number of items, r is the number of items to choose, and ! denotes factorial.

Step 3 ：We need to calculate this twice, once for the Republicans and once for the Democrats, and then multiply the two results together to get the total number of committees.

Step 4 ：First, calculate the number of ways to choose 3 Republicans from 56. Using the combination formula, we get \(\frac{56!}{3!(56-3)!} = 27720.0\) combinations.

Step 5 ：Next, calculate the number of ways to choose 2 Democrats from 42. Using the combination formula, we get \(\frac{42!}{2!(42-2)!} = 861.0\) combinations.

Step 6 ：Finally, multiply the number of Republican combinations by the number of Democrat combinations to get the total number of committees. \(27720.0 * 861.0 = 23866920.0\)

Step 7 ：\(\boxed{23866920}\) is the total number of committees that can be formed.