Government: United States and Bicameral Legislature Essays

Submitted By johnhardin024
Words: 1070
Pages: 5

2. On the Constitution and its Purpose: Discuss the American brand of democracy characterized by constitutionalism, federalism, and separation of powers. How do these attributes enable the American government to function effectively for the welfare of its citizens and its national defense? Pull from Federalist 10 and 51 as well as our other readings to date. The Democratic Party develops their ideas on a basis that we are better together than on our own. They central their ideas on the world will succeed if everyone does their fare share, and follow the same rules. They look into advancing ideas like job creation, education, health care and clean energy. Democrats are very liberal in their ideas, and focus mainly on the needs of the state, and not the entire U.S. Democrats use three different political theories, one of which is called “Constitutionalism” theorized by John Locke, this theory makes sure the government is limited in its powers, and its authority depends on enforcing these limitations. The other theory is “Federalism” which is basically a relationship between the State and Federal Government, in means to limit the authority of the Federal Government. The “Separation of Powers” set in place by our Constitution provides our government with a system of checks and balances, a way to prevent one branch from becoming too powerful. Democrats use these three theories to make one central government and not one by one single ruler.

4. On Congress: You are teaching a visitor from Canada – a parliamentarian government system – about the U.S. Congress. Explain concisely how the legislative branch functions as a bicameral legislature – include examples of how it allocates power to make laws. Additionally, from Mayhew’s Congress, discuss four essential lessons the author teaches us about Congress – choose two from parts one and two. The United States runs off a system that is not too similar to the Parliamentarian

Government system in which Canada is based off of. We use a system called the U.S. Congress. This System erupted when the Constitution was instilled into the United States by our Founding Fathers. Article 1 Section 1 states “All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” This Section brings into place a bicameral legislature, in which the House of Representatives are elected directly by the people, and the Senate, consisting of two members from each state, are chosen by the legislatures of each state. This Bicameral Legislature gives all states equal representation, and allows us to check power in both houses. The goal of these two houses is to debate legislatures that are presented to them, in a series of committees to debate the pros on cons of these bills, to eventually send to the president to make it a law. The U.S. is not a single organization; it is very complex in which to organize the business of Congress, members of Congress form alliances. The Bicameral Legislature is organized into two different Parties, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate are organized by party leaders, which are elected by the full party membership in the House and Senate. The most important organizational feature of Congress is these parties all have different legislative committees, which deal with different issues. The U.S. Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature; each state is represented by two senators, regardless of the size of the state, who serve six-year terms. In the Senate there is a majority leader who’s primary task is to schedule the business of the Senate, with consultation to the minority leader. The Senate is also composed of Policy Committee, which helps the party leader schedule business, such as choosing which bills should be given attention.