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Comparison of the American and British parliamentary systems
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This analysis begins by exploring the major differences between the U.S. Congress and British House of Commons in terms of political accountability, committee importance, and party loyalty to the President/Prime Minister. The basic political structures of both the House of Commons and the House of Representatives are very similar in structure and function and this most likely stems from the fact that the United States Congress is based, at least in principle on that of the British House of Commons, however those similarities soon diverge from each other rather quickly and both implement policy and law in a very different fashion. Just as there are similarities between the Congress and House of Commons there are striking similarities between the House of Lords and the United States Senate. These types of political systems found both in the United Kingdom and the United States are referred to as “bicameralism” (congresslink.org n.d.). Bicameralism is defined as a government body that consists of two chambers. Congress, like most of the world's legislatures, is bicameral, that is, it is composed of two chambers, just as the British Parliamentary system. In the United States there are two chambers, One consisting of the House of Representatives, and the other consisting of the senate. The British parliament also consists of a two chamber system which includes the house of the lords (the equivalent of the United States Senate), and the House of Commons (which is the equivalent of the United States Senate). Not only do these systems parallel each other in their make-ups of legislative bodies but they are also similar in that they both were set up to accomplish similar work which consists of creating legislation, and enacting or amending...
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...the British House of Commons are formed and maintained as needed or as specific bills are introduced. The members of these committees normally do not normally work together and are selected to form said committee only for the consideration of a specific bill. These members normally do not possess any particular level of expertise when it comes to the subject matter of the bill and once all considerations are made and the bill is formally introduced the committee is disbanded and no longer exists. The committee does not have the authority to call witnesses or hold open hearings on the bill. There is no permanent staff assigned to the committee and although they are allowed to read, discuss, and propose changes they cannot make changes to the legislation nor can they stop, stall, or otherwise impede its process to the floor for a vote or consideration (fas.org, 2005).
Congressional committees are the part of the iron triangle that puts bills into the legislative process after they work with interest groups. A member of a congressional committee proposes a bill into the committee to be voted on. Members of congressional committees are members of the legislative branch, so when they propose the bill into their committee they work with the other members to get it passed. If one member doesn't like the bill they can try to get the bill maker to change it to his liking so he will vote for it. For example in my congressional committee, the judiciary committee, congressman Mclenan proposed a bill to give tax cuts to banks who approve a certain amount of low income people's loans. We all thought that other people that needed loans might be overlooked just because they were not low income people. We made him make guidelines for that issue, so we could vote for it.
Firstly, the bicameral system started in the 17th century and has been set up in many countries since. This system is justified on its standard of checks and balances on the governing party. The members of the two houses are elected or appointed to their positions depending on what method the country decides on. Canada is one of the countries with a bicameral parliamentary democracy, which was modeled off of England’s House of Lords. (Supreme Court 2014, pg. 720) One of the important factors of the bicameral system is the upper house of Parliament called the Senate, which has a long history and distinctive structure within Canada.
In comparison to the American System of government, other nations such as Britain, France, Canada, and Mexico are quite similar. The British Parliamentary system does not have two houses of the legislature; however it has the upper house called the House of Lords, which were comprised of Britain as in dukes, earls, viscounts, barons, and bishops.
The original Parliamentary System was created in Great Britain. This form of government includes a leader known as a prime minister, usually from a legislative party. The prime minister then selects a cabinet from their legislative majority party. Their objective is to focus on the daily operations caused by the government’s bureaucracy. The parliamentary government is in charge of initiating and passing all legislation created. The advantages of this system is that there is a unified government, there is no veto power, and the party is responsible for the decisions, consequences or rewards of policies that are passed. The Cabinet must “maintain the confidence” of parliament. Some disadvantages of this method is that divided governments are Constitutionally impossible to control. In addition to that, power is from this system falls all on the Prime Minister and Cabinet. They rule with the entire trust of parliament on them. If something goes wrong, it’s solely their
Canada’s friendly neighbor to the South, the US, has an electoral system that is composed of 3 separate elections, one of them deciding the head of state. The president elected by the people and he or she is the determining person of the country’s political system. In the US runs like a majority system” In Canada, however, elections are held slightly differently. Citizens vote for a Member of Parliament in a 308-seat house and candidates win not by a majority, unlike in the US, but by a plurality. This means that a candidate can actually win by simply having more votes than the other candidates. This method of representative democracy, in general, does not cause too much controversy in a global scope but has caused controversy in a Canadian scope. With many critics of the Canadian election system calling it archaic and non-modern, the idea of reforming the election system has been in discussion numerous times. In 2004 by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, created by the government of British Columbia, brought into question the current first past the post system. In an alternative state at which the Canadian election system is changed, a different set of questions is brought to the table. How can changes to the electoral system affect how the House of Commons is run and its respective procedures? In this essay, I will be discussing the possible effects of changing the Canadian electoral system on the House of Commons.
Today the U.S. government’s legislative branch, Congress, is divided into two independent chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The system is called a bicameral system, which means it is divided into two chambers. The Framers of the Constitution created the system because was it successful in Britain, the two separate chambers could ensure that each side would not abuse their power, and the system created a compromise between the New Jersey and Virginia Plan. Although both chambers can initiate laws, they were created independent of each other and different in authority. In the House, “committees consider bills and issues and oversee agencies, programs, and activities within their jurisdictions” (House of Representatives). The Senate is in charge of giving guidance and approval of treaties or presidential appointments and holding impeachment trials (American Politics).
When many people hear the words the Senate and the House of Representative they might think of Congress. They do not truly go into depth of what those two departments mean, and they do not understand how vital they are to our own government. Congress is part of the Legislative Branch and is a bicameral legislature. Which means that is a legislature that is separated into two houses, and in that case is the House of Representatives and the Senate. Many know the words "The Senate" and "The House of Representatives" but they do not truly know what those words entail, many do not know the contrast and comparisons of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The first factor that seems to have influenced the operations of Congress is the committee system. Congress has four different types of committees. The four committees are the joint committees, conference committees, standing committees, and select committees. The standing committee has an influence on Congress because of the fact that they have jurisdiction over all the bills of a given type. Select committees, however, influence congress because since they study and investigate rather than consider legislation, congress has to take into consideration of who is making sure that they have to make careful decisions with these operations with according to what is considered “right and wrong”. The joint committee has to give a full congressional overview to a complex subject to Congress and to the public. This influence congress because again it shows Congress that they are being watched and cannot make any decisions that might seem unfair or unfit. Both houses because they were created to make sure that both the House and the Senate agree on passing a bill, or for them to produce a version that would pass the Conference committee influences co...
Canada runs on a democratic model of governing based on the British parliamentary system. Its parliament is thus divided into two chambers: the House of Commons and the Senate. Elected politicians are seated within The House of Commons while the Senate occupies qualified citizens which are appointed by the Prime Minister. Parliament’s purpose is to hold responsibility for passing legislations and the choosing of government, referring to the political party with the largest amount of seats. Depending on the results of the election, Canada has the potential of having either a majority, minority or in the rare case a coalition government. Customarily, an election in Canada usually ends up forming a majority government. The party with more than
The United States Congress was the result of two historical moments in United States, the First and Second Continental Congress. Long before he was a president, James Madison wrote the Virginia Plan for the governor of Virginia, Edmund Randolph, to propose at the convention. It basically stated that the Congress should be separated into two houses so it would not become tyrannical (Davidson 152). One of the houses eventually became the House of Representatives and one became the Senate. With the creation of a bicameral legislative branch, the framers had to separate the jobs each House would have to do and set the checks and balance so one body would not have more power than the other. Each House was presented with different responsibilities that are ...
importance." (Loades 93) But the Parliament did also have its faults. It had a separation between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of the Lords was closer to the court, highly spiritual, and made themselves to the hand of the monarch.
The Role of the Senate and House of Representatives. The Congress of the United States consists of the Senate and the House. of Representatives, which means the USA is bi-cambial. The Congress of the United States was created by Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution, adopted by the Constitutional Convention in September.
they must be a member of either the House of Commons or the House of
The United Kingdom is formally called “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” Government in the United Kingdom is considered to be Parliamentary. Although it is parliamentary, it is also described as being “majoritarian.” Parliament in the UK works a little different than the United States; the people of the U.S. are allowed to elect their president. In the parliamentary system the people elect who will be in the legislature, and the legislature then selects who the next prime minister will be. Then, once the prime minister is selected he choses members of the cabinet. This system creates a quick and easy political decision-making by popular majority. In this essay we will discuss the strengths and limitations the majoritarian government of the UK. One of the strengths of majoritarian government is perhaps that it is the fastest to pass or veto legislation, however there are limitations or weaknesses also like it lacks checks and balances from the House of Lords, and the disadvantage that the smaller parties have when it comes to elections, and not having a set calendar date for elections.
is the House of Commons a law-maker in the true sense of the word. The