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Narrative
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The Executive BranchThe executive branch of government consists of the president, vice president, and the Cabinet. Unlike in many other nations, the US president is both head of state and head of government. His (to this date, there has never been a female president) principal powers are to sign or veto bills approved by Congress and to appoint Cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, Supreme Court judges and other federal judges (all with Senate approval), sign treaties subject to Congressional approval and issue pardons, which are not subject to anyone's approval. Additionally, the president is also the commander-in-chief of the military and is the highest-ranking individual in the chain of command, though he is not himself considered part of the military. Lastly, the president may issue "executive orders" - directives to the Cabinet instructing them on the enforcement of laws passed by the Congress. These are essentially laws, which have to fall under the domain of pre-existing laws while claiming to clarify law. Most modern executive orders actually cite the original legislature that they work on. These orders only have to be followed while the president that made it is still in office. Most executive orders are kept running by the next President in line. Presidents protect the prerogatives of the office. Go figure. All that gets summed up under the amorphous heading of "leadership", with all the free credit and lightning-rod for dissatisfaction that entails. You don't have to be crazy to run for President. That benefit will be provided by the Office at some point. The vice president, in contrast, has little authority and more often functions as a government spokesman. The vice president is described as chairman of the Senate, though in practice he often defers this job to a senior senator called the President Pro Tempore, and does not vote in the Senate except in the case of an exact tie. If the president dies, resigns, or is otherwise rendered incapable of discharging his duties, the vice president is the first in succession. At several points in American history the vice president has been, in effect, the Highest Elected Patsy, and "taken the fall" for the administration. A presidential term lasts four years, and an individual President is limited to two terms in office, originally as a tradition until it was codified in the Constitution through the 22nd amendment in 1951 after Franklin Roosevelt was in office just a bit too long. Presidential elections are held every four years, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.The Electoral CollegeThe president and vice president are not elected directly by the people, but rather by a group called the Electoral College, an office created by the Founding Fathers to preserve the power of the smaller states in the voting process. They also were not happy about the idea of the "mob" directly electing the president, so they had the state legislatures of each state choose the electors. It is only since the 20th Century that all states allow the common people to choose the electors. Each state boasts a number of electors equal to its Congressional representation: two senators plus however many representatives. When the College meets, about one month after the actual election, each state's electors vote for the presidential candidates; each state is allowed to set their own laws for how the electors vote, but in recent years all states have granted all their votes to whomever received the majority of popular votes in their state. Whichever presidential slate receives 50% + 1 of the electoral votes is elected. In the rare event that no candidate receives the needed number of electoral votes, the House of Representatives votes in the new president. To date, the House of Representatives has chosen the President on only two occasions: in 1801 and in 1825. To date, the Senate has chosen the Vice President only once, in 1837. Originally the vice president was the runner-up in the presidential election, but after a disastrous 1800 election, the 12th amendment changed it so that presidential and vice-presidential candidates run on a single "ticket"; a vote for one is a vote for both. On those occasions when a loser of the popular election gains office through this process - thankfully a rare occasion, but the most recent case was in 2000 - many Americans become confused and outraged. Newspapers and TV news are required to run articles explaining this all again for about two weeks, at which point it is promptly forgotten by Americans who have since moved on to something else outrageously confusing, like why all the rich celebrities are ending up in rehab all the time. In the course of these campaigns, presidential hopefuls spend millions upon millions of dollars on advertising, travel, staff, and various other campaign expenses, all for a job which pays a mere 400,000 dollars per year over four years. And yet, the winner is largely in charge of how the American government spends its revenue. The irony of this is not lost on the American people.The CabinetThe cabinet currently consists of 15 departments - State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs (there are a lot of US military veterans) and Homeland Security. Each department is headed by an officer called a Secretary (except for the Department of Justice, whose head is called the Attorney General, though the AG functions as a Secretary), who is appointed by the president at the beginning of each new term, subject to Senate approval. The average American has heard of maybe two of these guys. The powers of the Cabinet are not expressly delineated in the Constitution and have changed often throughout US history. Unlike many other countries, the Interior Department is not in charge of police or security, but with federal lands and resources. The Cabinet Secretaries are in the Presidential line of succession, in the order listed above, though they're preceded by the Vice President and the two leaders of the legislative chambers (the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore.) Beneath the cabinet are various government agencies: the Federal Aviation Administration, for example, reports to the Secretary of Transportation. There are also a number of "independent agencies", like the Federal Communications Commission, that don't report to any of the above, in order to make organization charts that much more confusing. In aggregate, this is commonly referred to as the Bureaucracy: the number two government source of fear, after the Internal Revenue Service, which reports to Congress (see below), which means that whatever the IRS does has no single master. You can sue City Hall. Any suit against the IRS will not be decided in your lifetime.The Legislative BranchThe legislative branch of government consists of a Congress made up of two houses - the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives has 435 members apportioned among the states based on their population. States with a population smaller than 1/435th of the total population (approximately 693,000 at present) receive one representative, while larger states receive a larger share. Apportionment is recalculated every ten years, after each national census. Each state is free to determine how congressional districts (similar to Parliamentary constituencies in the UK) are drawn up, with the proviso that each district must be roughly equal in population. This can (and frequently does) lead to a practice called "gerrymandering" where the party in charge draws up ridiculously-shaped districts so as to secure as many safe districts for themselves while splitting up the other party's strongholds across multiple districts. Gerrymandering is legal, believe it or not; both parties squawk about reform, but neither is willing to be the first one to give up its precious safe seats. Representatives are elected every two years and there is no limit on the number of terms one may serve. While the House of Representatives is generally referred to as the "junior" house, this has little practical meaning, as bills can originate in either house, with the exception that spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives. The House also reserves the power to impeach the president or other federal officers upon a simple majority vote, whereupon a trial is carried out in the Senate. The House is chaired by an officer called the Speaker, who is generally a senior representative from the majority party in the House. The Senate consists of two Senators from each state. Originally, Senators were appointed by the state legislatures, but after the passage of the 17th amendment in 1916 they became publicly elected officers. Senators serve a term of six years and have no limit on the number of terms they can serve. The Senate is described as the senior house of Congress, and reserves the power to confirm presidential appointees, ratify treaties, and conduct the trial of an impeached president or other officer, whereupon the accused may be removed from office by a two-thirds majority. Only two presidents have ever been impeached - Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton - and both escaped conviction. Richard Nixon would have been impeached, but resigned first. The Senate is chaired either by the vice president or by the president pro tempore, traditionally the most senior senator of the majority party. In order for a bill to become law, it must pass by a simple majority in both houses and receive the president's signature. The president has the power to "veto" a bill, though Congress may override his veto with a two-thirds majority. Overridden vetoes are somewhat rare, and were virtually nonexistent for the first 90 years of the nation's history. The Senate is considered the more 'deliberative' of the two houses, especially in that its rules place no time limit on how long debate can go on for before a vote is held on a bill. A senator determined to block the passage of a bill can 'filibuster' its vote by lodging endless procedural motions to delay, or simply getting up and talking for hours and hours until the bill's proponents get tired and go home. The record for a speech on the Senate floor is 25 hours. Indeed, it takes more votes to end debate and bring a bill to a final vote - three-fifths of the Senate - than it does to actually pass the bill once it comes to a vote. Scrapping the filibuster - the so-called "nuclear option" - has been considered by various blocs over the years, most recently the Republicans in 2005, but the general feeling has been that for a majority party to do so would weaken their position when and if they become the minority party. Congress can also propose amendments to the Constitution, which must receive two-thirds majority in both houses and must then be approved by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. Yes, the representation that Americans fought for in the Revolution is this. Essentially two committees, one with 435 members and one with 100. Pretty clever way to keep government busy in such a way that it can't get too uppity.The Judicial BranchThe judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court and the lesser Courts of Appeals established under it. The Supreme Court consists of a number of judges, called justices, who are appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation, and who serve for life. The number of justices is not set by the Constitution, but traditionally has been nine. The Supreme Court is the highest body of appeal in US law, and is charged with the task of reviewing cases where the constitutionality of a law or governmental act is in question. If a law is deemed "unconstitutional" - that is, contradictory to the letter or spirit of the Constitution - the Court has the power to declare it null and void by a majority vote of justices. The Court also has the power to settle disputes between the states themselves, but this power rarely has a chance to exercise itself. The Court is led by the Chief Justice, a position that has the duties of chairing any meeting of the Court for both selection of cases to review and ruling on said cases. However, he or she does not have more power in any actual vote. The Chief Justice also has the Constitutional duty of presiding over any impeachments of the President or other officer, and traditionally administers the Oath of Office to new presidents and Supreme Court Justices (including his or her successor) unless unavailable. In short, this committee tries to make sense of the output of the other two committees. They have a tougher rule to follow, in that they cannot "tie" on an issue, no matter how much they try to (the 5-4 Court vote is one of the most dreaded things in American politics). Since a justice might be absent from a case due to illness or he "recuses" (removes) himself because of a conflict of interest (it is up to the justice themselves to decide if they wish to recuse themselves) it is possible to have a 4-4 tie. Since almost every case before the court is an appeal, in the case of a tie, the decision of the court below the Supreme Court is upheld. On the plus side (for them), legally the only person that can overrule the Court decision is a later Court Decision or Constitutional Amendment. Given that the Supreme Court claims to follow a policy of stare decisis, or sticking with old decisions whenever possible, and amending the Constitution is difficult, this is typically rare. However, in practice, Courts of Appeals can twist decisions to mean nearly anything. The "interstate commerce" clause of the Constitution is particularly abused in this regard. Still with us? This is the committee that is meant to simple things up. The Supreme Court is theoretically an apolitical body, though more often than not presidents will appoint a judge whose political opinions agree with their own. Of course, it's hard to tell how a justice will rule once he's on the bench - David Souter, a justice appointed by George Bush Sr., is commonly considered one of the more liberal-minded justices. (This may say more about the current Supreme Court than about Justice Souter, however.) At present, seven of the nine justices on the bench were appointed by Republican presidents. Of the nine, four are typically considered "conservative", two "liberal", and three "right-leaning moderate". The fact that Justices serve for life means that they, unlike Congress and the President, are free to issue rulings purely based on their own judgement and conscience, without worrying about the whims of public opinion, party support, or reelection.The StatesThere are, at present, 50 states in the Union. Each state is required by the Constitution to guarantee its citizens a "republican form of government". For the most part, state governments are identical in their structure and function to the federal government, but on a smaller scale. New states may be admitted to the Union upon Congressional approval. States may not raise their own armies, sign treaties, or coin money on their own, and when a conflict between state and federal law arises, federal law wins out. Conversely, federal laws have little impact on the lives of most Americans except in the broadest terms, with most everyday legal and criminal issues being decided and enforced on the state level. One major difference between the states and the federal governments is that states hold a lot more elections. A state need not limit its elections to the legislature and the governor, as the federal government does; they can also hold elections for secretary of state, attorney general, comptroller, state supreme court judges, judges of lower courts, district attorneys, sheriffs, and/or dog catchers. Much of this will be specified in the state constitution, which is generally amended by popular vote as well. All this voting theoretically makes state governments more accountable to the people. In practice, this doesn't quite work.Local GovernmentThe Constitution says nothing about government below the state level, so states are free to set up whatever structure they'd like. There's a lot of variation from state to state here (Connecticut has no county governments, while Hawaii has no municipal governments), so this is just a general overview. 48 of the 50 states are divided into counties. (The exceptions: Louisiana is divided into "parishes", which are identical to counties in all but name. Alaska is divided into "boroughs", which actually are a bit different from counties, but not enough to matter for our purposes.) County governments are usually headed by a "Board of Supervisors" or "Board of Commissioners" or the like, and may have a "County Executive" overseeing the executive departments. Municipal government can take various forms; depending on the state, municipalities can be called "cities", "towns", "villages", "townships", "boroughs", or something else, which may or may not have different meanings or governmental structures. Larger cities usually have their executive power vested in an elected mayor, with the city council (also elected) having legislative power over local ordinances. Smaller cities and towns tend to use a "city manager" system, in which the city council appoints a professional city manager to run the executive departments, and the office of mayor is either nonexistent or ceremonial. The services provided by counties and cities overlap a lot (the police/sheriff's department, fire department, transportation, parks, etc.) and the precise arrangement varies from state to state, and sometimes within states as well. If there are any areas outside municipal governments, the county will provide all services there. (In some states, mostly in the Northeast, cities and towns cover the entire state; this is how Connecticut gets away with not having any counties at all.) Cities can cross county lines (like Dallas, in five different counties), exist outside any county (like Baltimore and most cities in Virginia), or take up entire counties and merge with the county governments (New York City's five boroughs are five separate counties, none of which has an independent government). There are also elected school boards that operate local schools independent of any government in much of the country, as well as special districts or government corporations providing services, but describing all of them would make this article even more complicated than it is. In short, then, the membership of all the elected committees in American government -- federal, state, county, and municipal -- is north of 60,000. In a country where getting five friends to agree on where to have dinner can result in fist-fights.Additionally ...Separate from the states are several US territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands, that are also under American sovereignty. Thirty one states were territories (or part of a territory) at one point, but these in particular have for various reasons never received statehood -- Puerto Rico in particular has had several elections on the matter, all of which have been voted down by its citizens. Their citizens also receive United States citizenship, meaning that if they choose to "emigrate" to any of the states, they have no legal problems. Unlike states, territories do not have representation in Congress; however, they also do not have to pay federal taxes, so many would argue they got the better deal. This is part of the reason that Americans are bewildered when non-Americans have opinions about all Americans. On any apartment corridor in the States you can have, per door, a different language, philosophy, level of education, financial condition ... How in the Nine Circles does anyone generalize from that?Political PartiesThe Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution with the intent of creating a state free from the influence of political parties. In this they failed, as parties began forming while the ink was still wet on the parchment, arguing over whether the federal government or individual states should have the greater power. Though parties have less official influence than they do in most countries, they still hold an immense amount of sway in the government, largely due to the funding they can collect for candidates who agree with their policies. There are two major parties in the US today; the Republican party and the Democratic party. The Republican party is also known as the G.O.P. which stands for "Grand Old Party" (despite the fact that the Democratic party is several decades older). A member of the Republican party is known as a Republican. The symbol of the Republican party is an elephant. A member of the Democratic party is known as a Democrat. The symbol of the Democratic party is a donkey. Republicans are called "conservatives." Democrats are called "liberals." These terms don't mean the same thing as they do anywhere outside the US. Very roughly, an American "conservative" wants to conserve action (power) from the government, except in cases where such conservation will enable their own moral agendas. American "liberals" wish to make government less forbidding on moral issues, and more empowered to take action, hopefully, for the people. The general feeling among Americans about these parties is that one of them is evil, and the other is incompetent. Which is which depends on who you talk to. It's important to note that the American definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" are rather different from how the terms are used in most of the rest of the world. While in most societies a liberal favors letting events take their course unimpeded by government control and a conservative wants government to maintain the status quo through laws and regulations, in the US people who would consider themselves one or the other use the terms with almost opposite meaning, particularly on economic matters, where it is conservatives (Republicans) who favor small government and the free market, while liberals (Democrats) call for redistribution of wealth and heavy regulation of business and industry -- these are huge generalizations, of course. For social and moral issues, it's more complicated, and generally extremists on both ends tend to favor government policies that enforce their values and restrict (or outright prohibit) behavior they disapprove of, while moderates, who make up the vast majority of the American populace, would rather they all just shut up about it. The Republican party was considered a progressive group when it was founded in the 1850s as largely an anti-slavery party, but is today known as the "conservative" party. The Republican party has often been described as a "big tent party" in that it encompasses a number of political philosophies, including classical conservatism, neo-conservatism, and libertarianism, and, especially in the past 35 years, has also been the preferred party of most Christian fundamentalists. Joy. Socially speaking, the Republican party tends to favor lawful gun ownership, the death penalty, and limited governmental intervention on matters like health, while being fairly conservative on matters of sex, education, and some other social issues. Notable Republican US presidents have included Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and both George Bushes. The Democratic party, in contrast, is generally considered the "liberal" party in US politics, though its politics are far more centrist than what would be called liberal in most countries. The Democratic party is perhaps best known for a strong stance on civil liberties and for its advocacy of broad-reaching social welfare programs. Democrats tend to promote gun control laws, ranging from advocating outright bans to just requiring background checks and waiting periods before acquisition. The Democrats are also more supportive of gay rights than the Republicans, though there are major exceptions within both parties. Despite proclaiming itself the "party of the poor" the Democratic party does very well in the richest per-capita zip codes in the country. Notable Democratic US presidents have included Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. There are a number of smaller groups, typically called "third parties" in the US, which are largely active only at the municipal level and rarely elect members to federal office. By most counts, the largest is the Libertarian Party, which aims to be the leading party for libertarianism but sees a lot of the nation's leading libs go to the other two parties, especially the Republicans. Currently, the only third party federal office-holder is Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont who identifies himself as a Socialist but for all intents and purposes caucuses ("hangs out") with the Democrats. There is also Joseph Lieberman, who was not renominated by the Democratic Party in the 2006 election, but ran as an "Independent Democrat" without party funding and won reelection anyway; he also caucuses with the Democrats on most domestic issues but openly defies them on foreign policy. No third party candidate has ever been elected president except William Henry Harrison, the president who died a month into his term, though there have been several third party candidacies with a sizeable impact on the two-party race - which is to say, backlash on the third-party voters' second choice. This is known as the "spoiler" effect. Exception: just before the Civil War, the then-current party alignments began to collapse. But the third party that won that election was the Republicans, who have been a major party ever since. America uses a first-past-the-post voting system -- in any election, one vote is cast and the candidate/option with the most votes is the winner, even if a majority did not vote for it. Quick example: In an election between A, B, and C, A gets 35%, B gets 45%, and C gets 20%. B wins, even though 55% of the electorate voted against it. If it seems to you that the A and C supporters should have teamed up and pooled their votes rather than splitting them, congratulations -- you've just discovered why America has only two major political parties. Using political science it can be shown that plurality elections tend to lead to two-party systems, which is exactly what happened in America.
At present (2008), both houses of Congress have a Democratic majority, although just barely in the Senate. As the executive and legislative branches are distinct in the US government, it is possible for one or both houses of Congress to be controlled by the opposite party than the president, and indeed this is more often than not the case - Bill Clinton had a Republican congress for six years of his presidency, and George W. Bush is currently working with a Democratic congress. While such differences can often lead to a political stalemate - a budgetary standoff between Clinton and Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich lead to a federal government shutdown in 1995 - more often than not compromise rules the day.
The Constitution makes no mention of political parties anywhere in the document. However, various laws have been passed (especially during the 20th Century) that have given them official powers. Many of them are designed to make it very hard to create third party with any real influence. Political parties are considered "private" organizations who just happen to be given government power in a number of ways. Since they are not "officially" part of the government, they are not required to adhere to the general principles of "the will of the people" or such. Understanding this will help in the next chapter on Primaries.
PrimariesEvery election for an office more important than dog catcher for Tinyville will involve two major candidates, one Republican and one Democrat. How each party picks their candidate is totally up to them. Every state has laws which regulate this practice but each law is written by the parties, so they can choose whatever they want. This can help explain some confusion that you might have. To use a current example, the Democratic party recently had a primary election to decide if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be their candidate for president. One might think that the party would simply have all members vote for who they want and which ever one gets the most votes would win. This is not how it works. The leaders of the Democratic party, who are not elected, can choose any method they want to decide who their candidate is. The current method involves having the vote of the members choose most of the "delegates" (who themselves are chosen by the party), while the remaining delegates are high ranking party members. Depending on state law and state party rules, the delegates who were voted for might or might not be required to support the candidate they were elected to. Just to mention, the Republican party rules are pretty much the same as far as this goes. All this is one reason why, despite the claims made at the top of this page, some people still insist on saying the United States is not a democracy but a republic. We just want to make clear that the majority of the people do not get to decide who wins elections. It does work out that way most of the time but it isn't always the case, as happens every so often. |
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