Legislature - Wikipedia Legislature From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   (Redirected from Legislating) Jump to navigation Jump to search Deliberative assembly that makes laws Legislature Chambers Unicameralism Multicameralism Bicameralism Tricameralism Tetracameralism Upper house (Senate) Lower house Parliament Parliamentary system Parliamentary group Member of parliament International parliament Parliamentary procedure Committee Quorum Motion (no-confidence) Types Congress (Member of Congress) City council (Councillor) The Estates Legislatures by country v t e Part of a series on Politics Primary topics Index of politics articles Outline of political science Politics by country Politics by subdivision Political economy Political history Political history of the world Political philosophy Political systems Anarchy City-state Democracy Dictatorship Directory Federacy Feudalism Meritocracy Monarchy Parliamentary Presidential Republic Semi-parliamentary Semi-presidential Theocracy Academic disciplines Political science (political scientists) International relations (theory) Comparative politics Public administration Bureaucracy (street-level) Adhocracy Policy Public policy (doctrine) Domestic and foreign policy Civil society Public interest Organs of government Separation of powers Legislature Executive Judiciary Election commission Related topics Sovereignty Theories of political behavior Political psychology Biology and political orientation Political organisations Foreign electoral intervention Subseries Electoral systems Elections (voting) Federalism Form of government Ideology Political campaigning Political parties Politics Portal v t e A legislature is a deliberative assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. Legislatures form important parts of most governments; in the separation of powers model, they are often contrasted with the executive and judicial branches of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as primary legislation. In addition, legislatures may observe and steer governing actions, with authority to amend the budget involved. The members of a legislature are called legislators. In a democracy, legislators are most commonly popularly elected, although indirect election and appointment by the executive are also used, particularly for bicameral legislatures featuring an upper chamber. Contents 1 Terminology 2 History 3 Functions 3.1 Representation 3.2 Deliberation 3.3 Legislation 3.4 Authorizing expenditure 3.5 Making governments 3.6 Oversight 3.7 Function in authoritarian regimes 4 Internal organization 5 Relation to other branches of government 6 Members 7 Chambers 8 Size 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading Terminology[edit] Map showing the terminology for each country's national legislature The name used to refer to a legislative body varies by country. Common names include: Assembly (from to assemble) Congress (from to congregate) Diet (from old German 'people') Duma (from Russian dúma 'thought') Estates or States (from old French 'condition' or 'status') Parliament (from French parler 'to speak') Though the specific roles for each legislature differ by location, they all aim to serve the same purpose of appointing officials to represent their citizens to determine appropriate legislation for the country. History[edit] Among the earliest recognised legislatures was the Athenian Ecclesia.[1] In the Middle Ages, European monarchs would host assemblies of the nobility, which would later develop into predecessors of modern legislatures.[1] These were often named The Estates. The oldest surviving legislature is the Icelandic Althing, founded in 930 CE. Functions[edit] Democratic legislatures have six major functions: representation, deliberation, legislation, authorizing expenditure, making governments, and oversight.[1] Representation[edit] There exist five ways that representation can be achieved in a legislature:[1] Formalistically: how the rules of the legislature ensure representation of constituents; Symbolically: how the constituents perceive their representatives; Descriptively: how well the composition of the legilsature matches the demographics of the wider society; Substantively: how well representatives actually respond to the needs of their constituents; Collectively: how well the representatives represent the interests of the society as a whole. Deliberation[edit] One of the major functions of a legislature is to discuss and debate issues of major importance to society.[1] This can take place in two forms. In debating legislatures, like Parliament of the United Kingdom, there is lively debate on the floor of the legislature.[1] Contrastingly, in committee-based legislatures like the United States Congress, the deliberation takes place in closed committees.[1] Legislation[edit] While legislatures have nominally the sole power to create laws, the substantive extent of this power depends on details of the political system. In Westminster-style legislatures the executive (composed of the cabinet) can essentially pass any laws it wants, as it usually has a majority of legislators behind it, kept in check by the party whip, while committee-based legislatures in continental Europe and those in presidential systems of the Americas have more independence in drafting and amending bills.[2] Authorizing expenditure[edit] The origins of the power of the purse which legislatures typically have in passing or denying government budgets goes back to the European assemblies of nobility which the monarchs would have to consult before raising taxes.[3] For this power to be actually effective, the legislature should be able to amend the budget, have an effective committee system, enough time for consideration, as well as access to relevant background information.[3] Making governments[edit] The power of the legislature over the government is stronger Oversight[edit] There are several ways in which the legislature can hold the government accountable, including questioning, interpellations, and votes of confidence. Function in authoritarian regimes[edit] In contrast to democratic systems, legislatures under authoritarianism are used to ensure the stability of the power structure by co-opting potential competing interests within the elites, which they achieve (cap) by:[4] Providing legitimacy; Incorporating opponents into the system; Providing some representation of outside interests; Offering a way to recruit new members to the ruling clique; Being a channel through which limited grievances and concessions can be passed. Internal organization[edit] Each chamber of the legislature consists of a number of legislators who use some form of parliamentary procedure to debate political issues and vote on proposed legislation. There must be a certain number of legislators present to carry out these activities; this is called a quorum. Some of the responsibilities of a legislature, such as giving first consideration to newly proposed legislation, are usually delegated to committees made up of a few of the members of the chamber(s). The members of a legislature usually represent different political parties; the members from each party generally meet as a caucus to organize their internal affairs. Relation to other branches of government[edit] Legislatures vary widely in the amount of political power they wield, compared to other political players such as judiciaries, militaries, and executives. In 2009, political scientists M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig constructed a Parliamentary Powers Index in an attempt to quantify the different degrees of power among national legislatures. The German Bundestag, the Italian Parliament, and the Mongolian State Great Khural tied for most powerful, while Myanmar's House of Representatives and Somalia's Transitional Federal Assembly (since replaced by the Federal Parliament of Somalia) tied for least powerful.[5] Some political systems follow the principle of legislative supremacy, which holds that the legislature is the supreme branch of government and cannot be bound by other institutions, such as the judicial branch or a written constitution. Such a system renders the legislature more powerful. In parliamentary and semi-presidential systems of government, the executive is responsible to the legislature, which may remove it with a vote of no confidence. On the other hand, according to the separation of powers doctrine, the legislature in a presidential system is considered an independent and coequal branch of government along with both the judiciary and the executive.[6] Nevertheless, many presidential systems provide for the impeachment of the executive for criminal or unconstitutional behaviour. Legislatures will sometimes delegate their legislative power to administrative or executive agencies.[7] Members[edit] Legislatures are made up of individual members, known as legislators, who vote on proposed laws. A legislature usually contains a fixed number of legislators; because legislatures usually meet in a specific room filled with seats for the legislators, this is often described as the number of "seats" it contains. For example, a legislature that has 100 "seats" has 100 members. By extension, an electoral district that elects a single legislator can also be described as a "seat", as, for, example, in the phrases "safe seat" and "marginal seat". After election, the members may be protected by parliamentary immunity or parliamentary privilege, either for all actions the duration of their entire term, or for just those related to their legislative duties. Chambers[edit] The Congress of the Republic of Peru, the country's national legislature, meets in the Legislative Palace in 2010 A legislature may debate and vote upon bills as a single unit, or it may be composed of multiple separate assemblies, called by various names including legislative chambers, debate chambers, and houses, which debate and vote separately and have distinct powers. A legislature which operates as a single unit is unicameral, one divided into two chambers is bicameral, and one divided into three chambers is tricameral. The British House of Commons, its lower house In bicameral legislatures, one chamber is usually considered the upper house, while the other is considered the lower house. The two types are not rigidly different, but members of upper houses tend to be indirectly elected or appointed rather than directly elected, tend to be allocated by administrative divisions rather than by population, and tend to have longer terms than members of the lower house. In some systems, particularly parliamentary systems, the upper house has less power and tends to have a more advisory role, but in others, particularly federal presidential systems, the upper house has equal or even greater power. The German Bundestag, its theoretical lower house In federations, the upper house typically represents the federation's component states. This is also the case with the supranational legislature of the European Union. The upper house may either contain the delegates of state governments – as in the European Union and in Germany and, before 1913, in the United States – or be elected according to a formula that grants equal representation to states with smaller populations, as is the case in Australia and the United States since 1913. The Australian Senate, its upper house Tricameral legislatures are rare; the Massachusetts Governor's Council still exists, but the most recent national example existed in the waning years of White-minority rule in South Africa. Tetracameral legislatures no longer exist, but they were previously used in Scandinavia. Size[edit] Legislatures vary widely in their size. Among national legislatures, China's National People's Congress is the largest with 2,980 members,[8] while Vatican City's Pontifical Commission is the smallest with 7.[9] Neither legislature is democratically elected: The Pontifical Commission members are appointed by the Pope and the National People's Congress is indirectly elected within the context of a one-party state.[8][10] Legislature size is a trade off between efficiency and representation; the smaller the legislature, the more efficiently it can operate, but the larger the legislature, the better it can represent the political diversity of its constituents. Comparative analysis of national legislatures has found that size of a country's lower house tends to be proportional to the cube root of its population; that is, the size of the lower house tends to increase along with population, but much more slowly.[11] See also[edit] Law portal Politics portal Congress Election apportionment diagram Evidence-based legislation House of Assembly Legislative Assembly Legislative Council National Assembly Parliament References[edit] ^ a b c d e f g Hague, Rod, author. (14 October 2017). Political science : a comparative introduction. pp. 128–130. ISBN 978-1-137-60123-0. OCLC 961119208.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Hague, Rod, author. (14 October 2017). Political science : a comparative introduction. pp. 130–131. ISBN 978-1-137-60123-0. OCLC 961119208.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ a b Hague, Rod, author. (14 October 2017). Political science : a comparative introduction. pp. 131–132. ISBN 978-1-137-60123-0. OCLC 961119208.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Hague, Rod, author. (14 October 2017). Political science : a comparative introduction. ISBN 978-1-137-60123-0. OCLC 961119208.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Fish, M. Steven; Kroenig, Matthew (2009). The handbook of national legislatures: a global survey. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51466-8. ^ "Governing Systems and Executive-Legislative Relations (Presidential, Parliamentary and Hybrid Systems)". United Nations Development Programme. Archived from the original on 2008-10-17. Retrieved 2008-10-16. ^ Schoenbrod, David (2008). "Delegation". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 117–18. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n74. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024. ^ a b "IPU PARLINE database: "General information" module". IPU Parline Database. International Parliamentary Union. Retrieved 30 April 2019. ^ "Vatican City State". Vatican City State. Retrieved 30 April 2019. ^ Pope John Paul II (26 November 2000). "Fundamental Law of Vatican City State" (PDF). Vatican City State. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 February 2008. Retrieved 30 April 2019. ^ Frederick, Brian (December 2009). "Not Quite a Full House: The Case for Enlarging the House of Representatives". Bridgewater Review. Retrieved 2016-05-15. Further reading[edit] Bauman, Richard W.; Kahana, Tsvi, eds. (2006). The least-examined branch: the role of legislatures in the constitutional state. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85954-7. Carey, John M. (2006). "Legislative organization". The Oxford handbook of political institutions. Oxford University Press. pp. 431–454. ISBN 978-0-19-927569-4. Garner, James Wilford (1905). "Legislature" . In Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M. (eds.). New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. Martin, Shane; Saalfeld, Thomas; Strøm, Kaare W., eds. (2014). The Oxford handbook of legislative studies. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-191-01907-4. Olson, David M. (2015). Democratic legislative institutions: a comparative view. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-47314-5. v t e Law Core subjects Administrative law Civil law Constitutional law Contract Criminal law Deed Equity Evidence International law Law of obligations Procedure Civil Criminal Property law Public law Restitution Statutory law Tort Other subjects Agricultural law Aviation law Amnesty law Banking law Bankruptcy Commercial law Competition law Conflict of laws Construction law Consumer protection Corporate law Cyberlaw Election law Energy law Entertainment law Environmental law Family law Financial law Financial regulation Health law History of the legal profession History of the American legal profession Immigration law Intellectual property International criminal law International human rights International slavery laws Jurimetrics Labour Law of war Legal archaeology Legal fiction Maritime law Media law Military law Probate Estate Will and testament Product liability Public international law Space law Sports law Tax law Transport law Trust law Unenforced law Women in law Sources of law Charter Code Constitution Custom Divine right Divine law Human rights Natural law Natural and legal rights Case law Precedent Law making Ballot measure Codification Decree Edict Executive order Proclamation Legislation Delegated legislation General executory decree Regulation Rulemaking Promulgation Repeal Treaty Concordat Statutory law Statute Act of Parliament Act of Congress (US) Legal systems Civil law Common law Chinese law Legal pluralism Religious law Canon law Hindu law Jain law Jewish law Sharia Roman law Socialist law Statutory law Xeer Yassa Legal theory Contract theory Critical legal studies Comparative law Feminist Fundamental theory of canon law Law and economics Legal formalism History International legal theory Principle of legality Rule of law Sociology Jurisprudence Adjudication Administration of justice Criminal justice Court-martial Dispute resolution Fiqh Lawsuit/Litigation Legal opinion Legal remedy Judge Justice of the peace Magistrate Judgment Judicial review Jurisdiction Jury Justice Practice of law Attorney Barrister Counsel Lawyer Legal representation Prosecutor Solicitor Question of fact Question of law Trial Trial advocacy Trier of fact Verdict Legal institutions Bureaucracy The bar The bench Civil society Court Court of equity Election commission Executive Judiciary Law enforcement Legal education Law school Legislature Military Police Political party Tribunal Category Index Outline Portal v t e Separation of powers Typical branches Executive Legislature Judiciary Additional branches Fourth Estate Civil service commission Auditory Electoral Prosecutory By country Australia Hong Kong United Kingdom United States Singapore See also Fusion of powers Separation of duties Judicial independence Judicial review Dual mandate Find out more on Wikipedia's Sister projects Media from Commons Definitions from Wiktionary Quotations from Wikiquote Data from Wikidata Authority control GND: 4131717-8 LCCN: sh85075807 Law portal Politics portal Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Legislature&oldid=998110224" Categories: Legislatures Separation of powers Hidden categories: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the New International Encyclopedia Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikinews Wikiquote Languages Afrikaans Alemannisch አማርኛ العربية Asturianu Azərbaycanca বাংলা Bân-lâm-gú Беларуская Беларуская (тарашкевіца)‎ Български Bosanski Català Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Frysk Gaelg Galego 客家語/Hak-kâ-ngî 한국어 Հայերեն हिन्दी Hornjoserbsce Hrvatski Ido Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska Italiano עברית Jawa ಕನ್ನಡ Қазақша Kreyòl ayisyen Кыргызча ລາວ Latina Latviešu Lëtzebuergesch Lietuvių Limburgs Lumbaart Magyar Македонски മലയാളം मराठी مصرى Bahasa Melayu Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Norsk nynorsk Occitan Oʻzbekcha/ўзбекча ਪੰਜਾਬੀ پنجابی پښتو Plattdüütsch Polski Português Română Runa Simi Русский Scots Shqip සිංහල Simple English سنڌي Slovenčina Slovenščina Soomaaliga Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Sunda Suomi Svenska Tagalog தமிழ் తెలుగు ไทย Тоҷикӣ Türkçe Українська اردو Tiếng Việt 吴语 粵語 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 3 January 2021, at 21:36 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement