The people of the state elected the House of Representatives. Their powers; the majority elects Speaker and officers, the House of Representatives have the sole power to impeach, debate is usually limited to one hour. The referral of bills is hard to challenge, but the House of Representatives have the power to begin tax bills. They also break the ties in the Electoral College. Fortunately, they rule Committee powerful; they also control time of debate, admissibility of amendments.
Zinn also uses an excerpt from historian Charles Beard to explain his reasoning. Beard basically said that the rich controls the government or the laws the government operates by. Zinn points out that the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights shows that quality of interest hides behind innocence. Meaning that Congress completely ignores the freedom of speech. Professor of history Gordon S. Wood views the struggle for a new constitution in 1787-1788 as a social conflict between upper-class Federalists who desired a stronger central government and the “humbler” Anti-Federalists who controlled the state assemblies.
First a bill must be passed in both houses of Congress with a super-majority of two-thirds. Then it goes to the states, where three-quarters of state legislatures must approve it. Thus it is very difficult to get an amendment proposed, hence why there have only been twenty seven successful attempts to amend the US constitution in over 200 years. This is in great contrast to the manner in which the UK constitution can be changed, where only a simple vote in parliament is required. This rigidity might suggest that to an extent, US politics is still firmly rooted in the political circumstances of the late 1700s when the constitution was devised, and often struggles to adapt to some changes that occur.
For a party to form an executive (government), the party needs a majority of 1 seat over the other party’s in the legislature (parliament). The British electoral system has come under scrutiny because a majority of seats allows a party to form an executive not the overall majority of public votes. In 1945 Labour won a landslide victory in the elections and gained a 180 seat majority over the Conservative party, and a 148 seat majority overall. For each seat Labour won they had polled 30,522 votes. However in the 1951 elections Labour had polled 231,067 more votes from the general public than the Conservative party, however the Conservative party gained 26 more seats and squeezed into power.
However, looking at the statistics such as Bill Clintons presidency, in the first 2 years which was a united government, Congress exercised limited oversight, and when needed to, asked softball questions, however , when Republicans took over Congress, things got much harder as they seek to hold the President to account, and after a while, impeach. Although this shows that things are more different when it is a united or divided government, Congress still has a task to do in which they must do oversight on President, so, it being united or divided government should not affect the task Congress are suppose to do, as they are an independent
Illinois has a population of 12 million people and 22 electoral votes. This means have one vote per every 550,000 voters. This is a very unbalanced form of voting, not capturing the popular vote at all. Durbin also points out that we use a direct popular election system for Senators, Governors, Congressmen, and mayors, but not for our President. The Founding Fathers knew during their time that people running for congress lived closer to the people voting for them, so at that time, the people voted directly for them but only for them.
Federalist was led by Alexander Hamilton, which believed that government should have more power. On the other hand, the anti-Federalist, also known as Jeffersonian insisted on a strict construction of the provisions of the Constitution. Later on, the Federalist have became the Republican Party, and the anti-Federalist represent the Democracy. However, at first, John Adams have defeated Jefferson by just three votes in the electoral college, but later year, Jefferson defeated the incumbent, and won control of both houses of Congress. The Federalist never returned to power.
But only about a third of the 100 seats in the Senate are up for grabs at any one time. This year, 37 Senate seats were being contested and there were 37 gubernatorial elections. Does the president's party normally do badly in mid-terms? The party of a sitting president often loses some seats in mid-term elections, particularly in a president's first term. Since 1946, the average loss in a president's first term is 25 seats in the House of Representatives and three seats in the Senate.
Our representatives have to decide on what the cost of improvement is and if the people really want or need it. They have to decided what the cost is to the average American. It would be hard to come back after a two year term, having raise taxes, and then asking to be reelected. The Senate is the smaller house, with fewer rules and a longer term of six years. The members of the Senate number at 100, with two representatives for each state.
The New parliament set up was to be made up of 2 houses; The Reichsrat and the Reichstag. The Reichsrat was the upper, but less important house in the legislature. It represented the 17 Lander (states) in the law making process. It could block or undo laws passed by the Reichstag, but the latter could override a Reichsrat veto by passing a measure by two thirds majority, the Reichsrat could also be overruled by a referendum. Germany was still a federal country, but the federal government in Berlin had more power over the states than ever before.