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Many European nations, and I believe the EU itself, has a parliament. A legislative body made up of representatives of a group of people. In the EU parliament, maybe each nation sends a representative.
For reasons that I think have to do with getting rid of royalty/nobility, the US legislative body is called the Congress. Much like the British parliament has a House of Commons and a House of Lords, which have different functions, serve different interests and serve as a check on each other, the US has a House of Representative and a Senate.
The House of Representatives is the lower house, it has more members, over 400. Each state gets a number of representatives based on population; small states like Rhode Island or states where nobody lives like Montana may have as few as one, big states with lots of people like California, Texas and New York might have 30 or 40. The idea here is equal representation of the POPULATION, though a cap on the number of members has kind of ruined that.
The Senate is the upper house. Each state sends exactly two senators. With 50 states in the union, there are 100 senators. Early on, senators were appointed by the governments of each state, but by amendment to the constitution senators are now elected directly by the people. Both senators are supposed to represent the state as a whole. Weird thing about our senate: The Vice President is nominally a member of the Executive branch, but the only job the constitution lays out for the VP is to preside over the senate and cast a tie breaking vote (because each state gets 2 senators, no matter what we do there’s an even number of senators, so ties aren’t uncommon). Otherwise the VP has no powers other than to be the hot spare for the president.
For a bill to become law, it must be deliberated and voted on in both houses. If both houses pass the bill, it goes to the President’s desk to be signed into law.
There are details like which house what kind of legislation is to come from, etc. There are some powers that ONLY the House of Representatives have, and some that ONLY the Senate has.
There are certain appointed positions, such as cabinet members, supreme court justices etc. that the President appoints, but the Senate must approve. If I understand it right, the President/executive branch makes treaties but the Senate must ratify it for the treaty to go into effect. The House of Representatives has the power to impeach federal officials (impeachment is kind of like indictment) but the trial takes place in the Senate.
Being a senator is seen as more prestigious than being a representative; senators are considered senior and there are fewer of them. It’s a position of significant political influence and massive corruption. Your friend’s father is definitely in the position to have protestors killed if a big business asks him to.
cattywampas@lemm.ee 3 days ago
The legislative branch of the US government is bicameral, which means it is composed of two houses. One being the House of Representatives, and the other being the Senate. The House of Representatives is composed of 435 Representatives, divided proportionally based on the population of the states, while the Senate is composed of 100 members, with two from each state. The theory behind this bicameral legislature is that the House of Representatives represent the people, while the Senate represents the states.
The Senate and House together make up the legislative branch. They work together to enact legislation, and they also hold checks and balances over the other two branches (executive and judicial).
Each of the houses has more specific duties as well. The Senate has power to confirm presidential appointments, to approve or reject treaties, and to convict or exonerate impeachment cases brought by the House.
evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The last paragraph is a good catch. Someone from outside the US is not going to catch the difference between “a Wisconsin state senator” and “a senator from Wisconsin”.
guldskat@feddit.dk 3 days ago
supernicepojo@lemmy.world 3 days ago
This is very concise. Id like to add a little something. We have multiple levels of government, starting at city/town or county (as in mayors or county seats), then there are state level governments each of the 50 states have their own governors and senates and courts. Then there is the federal government which the comment above shows.
I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Also worth adding that the original concept of the Senate was meant to give more representation to the political bureacracy/aristocracy class.
Originally, state legislatures voted amongst themselves to appoint state senators to represent them at the Federal level.
Then, in 1913, the 17th Ammendment was passed, which mandated the populations of states voting for their Federal Senators, not the state legislatures.
…
So, the original idea of Senators was pretty much that they were to be ‘august, seasoned statesmen’… or more cynically, well connected elder political insiders who functionally amounted to an aristocracy… vs the House, who would be… fucking whoever, basically…
And then that was altered around 100 years ago such that Senators are more directly democratically chosen… but, they still serve 6 year terms as opposed to 2, and very much still are the elder statesman/aristocrat types, usually older than House of Rep members, etc.