Senators originally were elected by state legislatures to six-year terms to maintain their accountability to their states and to buffer them against constant political pressures faced by House members. Ratified in 1913 as a reform, the 17th Amendment reassigned the Senate election process from legislators to citizens at large. While I respect the admirable efforts of Americans of a century ago to expand the reach of democracy, the 17th Amendment unintentionally broke the link between senators and their state government that their offices were designed to…
In this republican, democratic hybride government, the legislative branch is the most powerful. Therefore, it must be divided into two more branches, the House, and the Senate, which need to have a little of as connection as possible to keep the power…
The Constitution guards against tyranny by utilizing all three branches to keep each other in check. Each branch of government is separate, which allows them to not abuse their power and take advantage of people. Small and large states need to have one representative, as well as two senators. The three branches of government have prevented tyranny for a long time.…
Hamza Jeter 4/28/17 Professor Roxas Political Science Single Member District Vs Proportional Representation The two most popular and most used types of voting systems are single member districts and proportional representation. A single member district is a voting system with a predetermined constituency that elects a single individual to some place in office. A proportional representation is a voting system used to elect an assembly or group of people.…
Firstly, the House would have limited powers because of the term length. House members couldn’t introduce legislation that would take years to get through…
a Democrat, while the the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, is a Republican (Ballotpedia n.d.). Political parties are a crucial component to the New York legislature because the parties control the overall processes, the legislation, and the leadership. The partisanship in the Assembly, unlike in the Senate, is controlled dominantly by the Democrats, 105 to 44, with one open seat (Ballotpedia n.d.). Since the Senate is tied on partisanship, the parties have to work hard to ensure the members vote for the party line, instead of defecting to vote with the other party. The unfortunate component of this tie, however, is that in order for any legislation to pass, partisans have to either vote against their party, or create a compromise.…
It’s time to change! Canada is a great developed country without a long history, but its culture is rich and various, beautiful scenery, people live with happiness and content, perfect social welfare and so on. But there are still some problems exist in the country, one of them is about should the senate still working as a decision-making place or it should be abolished.…
Modern Issues and Applications Both majority and minority parties have utilized the filibuster and the vague rules surrounding it to pursue individual party agendas. For example, during the 113th Congress (2013-2015) changes to the “tracking” technique occurred when minority Republicans agreed to not filibuster legislation so long as the Democratic majority allowed them to suggest amendments. This restricted the Democrat Majority Leader’s ability to block the Republican minority from adding amendments, entitling the minority to two of the four pending amendments. The 113th Congress also considered changes to filibuster rules, such as lowering the number of votes necessary for cloture, however there wasn’t enough support at the time to obtain…
Both the house of representatives and the senate follow through the same steps when they create an idea. After they individually decided on an idea then they put it on paper. Which they later define that one idea is the idea of the house takes about 10 Billion dollars and the senate's idea only takes about only 9 Billion dollars for their idea to be created. Then it goes through the committee after the committee has talked it through and has either decided to pass or drop the bill…
The House of Representatives is lead by the Speaker of the House. The Constitution states that the House will elect a new speaker before the start of every new Congress. Now, the Constitution does not explicitly state that the Speaker must an elected House Representative, but every Speaker so far has been an elected Member of Congress. Normally, the majority party in the House of Reps. elects the Speaker of the House, and as such, the Speaker is the leader of this majority party. The person who is actually elected is normally a person who has spent much time in service to the house.…
Sen. Inhofe believes that human life begins at conception, influencing his vote on the 14th amendment to apply to pre-born fetuses, so that the right of life guaranteed by the Constitution applies to them too. In addition, he even against a bill that allocated $100 million to reduce teen pregnancy by education and contraception, and is given a 100% by the NRLC indicating a pro-life voting record (James Inhofe on Abortion). This is fitting for him, considering that he represents Oklahoma, one of the top 10 conservative states in the country (Newport, 2015). In part this is because it’s a very religious state, with 66% of adults saying that religion is important to them (Lipka and Wormald, 2015). As a result of this, there are only 5 abortion…
The United States and most Latin American nations have congress, Great Britain and most Western European nations have parliaments. A person becomes a member of a parliament such as the British House of Commons by being nominated by party leaders, voters generally choose between parties and parliaments tend to be made up of people loyal to the national party leadership who meet to debate and vote on party issues. A person becomes a member of the United States Congress by winning both a primary and a general election, elections in which personalities are usually most important to voters. A congress tends to be made up of people who think of themselves as independent representatives of their districts or states and who while willing to support…
Many years ago our founding fathers made a government without tyranny, they were smart to do this because they didn't want to have all the power in the hands of one person or group. Delegates (55) gathered in Philadelphia at the Constitutional Convention to frame a government without too much power in the hands of one person or a group. The Constitution was signed September 17, 1787. How did these framers protect us from tyranny ? They wanted to create a government without tyranny and they did by creating federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and the small state big state compromise.…
Through the analysis of different factors describing why the Senate is not representative and how that effects the entirety of the nation, this leads to the discussion of Senate reform and representative alternatives to improve the red chamber. A representative alternative that has been previously proposed was that of a Triple E Senate. A Triple E Senate would be comprised of elected senators versus the unrepresentative appointment of individuals by the Prime Minister (Makarenko, 2006). An elected Senate would benefit the entire nation as it would allow different regions and provinces to choose exactly who would best represent their interests, versus the Prime Minister practicing political patronage. The triple E Senate would also permit,…
Whereas small states such as Iowa could have only one representative. The house legislative process is different from the senate in several ways. First,…