What is the Senate and the US Legislative Chamber

What is the Senate? Many Russian citizens, accustomed to the domestic system of government, sometimes it is very difficult to understand the bizarre cobwebs of foreign power apparatus. So, one of the most interesting structures in this respect is the US Senate. The fact is that the US states have a very peculiar system of state power, formed in The result of no less than a unique historical path.

What is the Senate: the fundamentals

Like many modern countries, the US has a differentiation of the branches of power into judicial, executive and legislative branches . Function of the latter is executed at once by two bodies, to be exact, by two chambers of the state Congress of the country. The lower chamber is the so-called House of Representatives. It is elected for two years and consists of deputies elected from each state, in proportion to the size of its population. The total number of members of the lower house is 435. The upper house is the United States Senate. It includes one hundred deputies elected by two from each state, regardless of the size and density of the latter's population . The term of office of the Senate between the elections is six years.

What is the Senate: history

This government body is actually the same age as the American state itself. The idea of such a parliament was first voiced at the Continental Congress of the United States, which made the first drafts for the future independent State. The subsequent disagreements with the British metropolis and the war for independence finally affirmed the sovereignty of local authorities over the young democratic country. The first meeting took place in 1789 (symbolically, that it happened in the year of the Great French Revolution overthrowing the reactionary monarchy in the Old World). This congress took place in the same Philadelphia, but already in 1800 the Senate building moved to Washington. In the world-famous Capitol it is located to this day.

What is the Senate: powers

While the House of Representatives is in the full sense a legislative body issuing federal laws for the whole country, the functions of the upper house today are basically control and personnel appointments in the power structure. So, in her hands are the destinies of the members of the Cabinet Ministers. The Senate considers nominees nominated by the president for higher state posts, creates or dissolves commissions on internal or external affairs, approves or rejects international treaties, implements the impeachment procedure. It is important to recall that in America each state has broad own powers, including its own bodies, which are responsible for local legislation, - Legislative assemblies. It is interesting that due to historical peculiarities the name of these local assemblies in each state can be its own. In Massachusetts it is the General Council, in Oregon - the Legislative Assembly, and in Nebraska there is a bicameral parliament.