Presidential Democracy

Our government, the government of the United States of America, is Democratic. In a Democracy, the power to govern belongs to the people. There are two types of democracy, direct democracy, where the people vote directly on issues (this typically only works in small communities), and indirect or representative democracy, where the people vote for representatives to decide on issues for them. The government of the United States is an indirect democracy. It is also a Presidential democracy, meaning we have an Executive branch made up of the President and his cabinet. The Executive Branch works with the Legislative Branch as well as the Judicial Branch. These branches each have completely different jobs with checks and balances so one doesn't

Congress has two parts, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives is made up of officials elected every two years. There are currently 435 members in The House, but this is not a fixed number. The number of seats is apportioned among the states on the basis of their respective populations. The Senate is made up of 100 members, two from each state, and serve 6 year terms. One of the major jobs of the Legislative Branch is keeping the Executive and Judicial Branches in check. It does this in many ways. To keep the Legislative branch from becoming to powerful it can: override presidential vetoes with a two-thirds vote, may remove the president through impeachment, controls the money to fund any executive actions, and also approves treaties and presidential appointments. To keep the Judicial Branch in check Congress can create lower courts and impeach supreme court

These were created because the House and the Senate are both so large and the amount of work they must do is so great that they must divide up labor. In 1794 both houses began setting up standing committees which were permanent committees that all of the similar bills could be sent to. The House Committee on Rules is a very important committee that determines whether or not a bill will reach the House floor after it has passed through the lower committees to which it was first assigned. Tons of bills never make it through the first round of committees, but for the ones that do they must then pass through the Rules Committee. Occasionally both houses will find need for a select committee which is a panel set up for a specific purpose, typically to investigate a current matter. The committee members are appointed by the Speaker of the House or the president of the Senate. A joint committee is made up of members from both the Senate and the House. While most are permanent committees some are select committees created for a single purpose. Some are investigative and from time to time issue reports to the House and Senate. Each house must pass a certain bill before it can be sent to the President. On occasion a different form of each bill will pass through each separate house. To get rid of these differences and come to a compromise a conference committee is