Congress And Congress Similarities

The Three Branches of the Government Our government is made up of three branches, the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, which all work in conjunction to balance each other’s powers. The Constitution set up these branches to create order within the government and to limit the power of any singular unit of government. These branches are all separate, yet united, with the singular goal of maintaining the country’s freedom and aiding the citizens under it. The Legislative Branch of government is run by the U.S. Congress, which is made up of the Senate and House of Representatives.

The structure of the legislative arm is simple. It comprises of the assembly and the senate just like the federal government. In California, the state assembly comprises 80 members who are elected on a two-year term. The state senate comprises 40 members elected on a four year term. The requirements for election into office are: US citizen 18 years of age, resident

The government is divided into three branches. Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. James Madison states in his Federalist papers, “Liberty requires that the great departments of powers should be separate and distinct.” Legislative writes the laws for and consists of the House of Representatives and Senate. Executive branch passes the laws the legislative branch makes and the President is the head of this branch. Judicial branch decides if laws are constitutional or not and consists of the Supreme Court. This keeps one branch from getting too much power.

The United States government is made up of three separate branches: the legislative branch, the executive branch and the

According to the constitution of the United States the federal government is divided up into three branches to ensure an equal and balanced government and to make sure that no one or branch of government has too much power. The three branches are the legislative branch, executive branch, and the judicial branch. Each branch serves different purposes in the United States federal government and each branch is made up of different federal government employees. For example, the legislative branch make the laws. The legislative branch has the power to impeach the U.S. President and declare war. The legislative branch is made up of U.S. Congress which include the Senate and House of Representatives. Then there’s the executive branch which carry

In “Congressional Government”, Woodrow Wilson tries to explain the system of Congress and in it he thoroughly discusses the predominance of Congressional Committees in the legislative body. He argues that our legislature is more analogous to a conglomerate, not a homogenous body and that “we are ruled by a score and a half of ‘little legislatures’”(Wilson p. 323). There is little unity in the House and party organization is not strong according to Wilson. The many distinct, disconnected committees has leads Congress to have weak leadership and therefore decreases decision making. Also Wilson shows how multiple committee jurisdictions creates a system where there is no clear voice on the issue and since committees differ in political ideology broad questions of policy suffer. Lawrence C. Dodd also discusses the committee system in “Congress and the Quest for Power”. In it, he argues that the solution to congressmen’s need for power is a decentralized congress with a committee system that allows members to gain considerable power in their small committees. “Each member wants to exercise power, to make the key policy decisions. … Given this widespread power motive, an obvious way to resolve the conflict is to disperse power”(Dodd p. 335). Dodd argues that the solution to member Congress constantly seeking power is the current

A bicameral legislature is simply a legislature with two houses. The historical reason that the united states has this type of congress is that the British had this type of congress and they seemed to work so well so we decided to use this type of legislature. The practical reason was to settle the dispute between the New Jersey plan and the Virginia plan. The theoretical reason was so that one could check on the other. In the house of representatives there are 435 people. They serve a 6 year term. To qualify for the house of representatives you must be at least twenty-five years old, you have to be a citizen for the last 7 years, and own a house in the state you wish to represent. There are 100 members in the senate. They serve for 6 years. To be a senator you have to be at least 35 years old, you have to be a citizen for the past 9

We created the three branches of government, so that each branch as a different power, but having them all work together to be able to function themself. Therefore not giving any of the branches enough power to overthrow one another. These branches consist of the Legislative branch, which is separated into two groups, The House of representative, which is in charge of originating spending bills. The we have the Senate, which is in charge of impeaching officials and approving treaties. But all together they have the power to pass laws, which is headed by

As mentioned before, the U.S. Congress is made up of two chambers-the House and the Senate- that is provided by the constitution as a bicameral legislature. They each cater to different constituencies. The House is known to be more responsive to the people and the Senate is responsive to the elite. They both are elected directly by the people. Four hundred thirty-five of the members of the U.S. Congress are apart of the House and one hundred of the members are apart of the Senate (Lowi, 136). Can you imagine having to make compromises and decisions on thing with five hundred thirty-five people? I can imagine with that many people apart of the U.S. Congress that they dealt with a lot of conflict when having to make decisions.

There were three branches created for our government, the Legislative (Senate), Executive (President), and Judicial (Supreme Court). Each branch is responsible for their own part in functioning our government. As distinguished in (Doc. 1) of the D.B.Q, the Constitution divided the responsibilities into sections to evenly level power among the branches, this is called

In Washington, the president is required to sign or reject the bills passed by congress. They are not allowed to approve the parts that they like and veto the parts that they dislike because they need to focus more on ways to improve the government. Since the line item- veto power allows the governor to reduce or eliminate the specific spending item and not increase the bill, California legislature members are not allowed to force the governor’s hand by including an item that he rejects a larger bill which was supported by many candidates. Third, the apportionment and district size have a significant impact on fully developing the national growth based on the circumstances of the U.S. Congress and the California Legislature. Both houses of the California legislature, the Senate and the Assembly, are

Proposition 140 created term limits for assembly members and state senators. Assembly members are only able to serve three two-year terms or 6 years while state senators are able to serve two four- year terms or 8 years (Van Vechen, 32). Another effect of Proposition 140 was that it limited the allocated budget to legislative staff (Lustig, 62). Proposition 140 is one of the tools that helped undo the reform done by Jessie Unruh in the 1960’s. This is problematic for it hinders the legislature to do their job efficiently by having less staff. Other propositions attempt to change the representation of Californians, which ultimately changes the legislators we see in the legislature. Proposition 118, required redistricting to be approved by two thirds of both chambers. The passage of this proposition would have been catastrophic to redistricting, for it simulates the same problem that the legislature deals with when it comes to passing new revenues. In different propositions, we see that the major effects are the only ones highlighted when in fact, the smaller details of the proposition also have drastic

The Constitution of California expects legislators, which includes both State’s senate and House of Representatives, to influence agency decision making, to build political support for increases or decreases in agency funding to lay the political foundation for new programs and policies, and to capture media attention and enhance the power of the California State Congress members. However, not all legislators are able to fulfill their duties and comply with the state’s expectations. Indeed, their efficacy to serve California varies on the length of their experience, familiarity to government system, and commitment to public service. Evaluating their performances for the past ten years, legislators can be distinguished by their competence

These 435 seats are divided among the states every ten years. Representatives serve for two years at a time, and every second November there is a new election where they are chosen by the people in a direct election. (1) The House is required to choose a Speaker for itself who is in charge over the proceedings of the House and is the highest position in the House leadership. Other leadership positions are the Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Majority and Minority Whips. The Minority Leader would generally be the Speaker if his party were the majority.(1) The whips act as a median between the leadership and the other House members. The Senate is the Upper House and its members are called Senators. The qualifications for Senators are similar to those of house representatives, he or she must be 30 years old or older, must have been a U.S. citizen for nine years, and must live in the state they plan to represent.There is again no restriction of sex, race, class, social standing, or any other classification, for both a Senator or House representative . Each state has two Senators, no matter what the size of the state happens to be. A Senators term lasts six years and like the other house members every second November there is a new election. The Vice President of the United States is the President of the Senate but he is a non-voting member unless a vote of the Senate ends in a tie which causes him to cast the deciding vote. If the Vice President is not available

We see that the passage of these initiatives affected the ability of the legislature to create important policies. Proposition 140 is a reform initiative that drastically changed the fundamentals of the legislative system. This proposition halted the cycle of institutional knowledge for legislators who become experts in certain policies. They are barred from running for office once the term limit is fulfilled. In the bigger picture, legislative committee leaders are sometimes new legislators who do not have expertise in the policy. This is problematic because lack of expertise hinders the creation of innovative and effective policy. Proposition 140 created a better over turn thus, giving minorities and women the chance to represent their constituents; the point of the term limit was to repopulate the legislature. By creating this constant repopulation, it allows expertise to be achieved by legislators but it bars them to contribute into policy making once their term limit is achieved. Proposition 118 on the other hand intends to change the composition of the legislature but makes it harder for redistricting to occur. By passing Proposition 118, the legislature will not be able to represent the people of California accurately; thus, creating policy problems since enacted policies will not