Legislative Power US

11 Key excerpts on "Legislative Power US"

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  How Your Government Really Works

  A Topical Encyclopedia of the Federal Government

  • Glenn L. Starks, F. Erik Brooks(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  5 The Legislative Process The responsibility for passing new laws is vested in the legislative branch per the United States Constitution. Congress is thus charged with all federal legislative powers. The process of passing a new law begins with the introduction of a bill in one chamber of Congress. After committee reviews and legislative debate in the Senate and House of Representatives, the final approval of a bill is sent to the president who may approve or reject (veto) the bill. However, Congress still has final approval of new laws and has the power to override the president’s veto. The passage of new laws is impacted by input from outside the government through interest groups and lobbyists that attempt to sway the decisions of lawmakers through various means. PURPOSE AND POWERS OF CONGRESS The primary purpose and duty of Congress is to develop, evaluate, and pass laws. Ac- cording to Article I, Section 1, of the United States Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” The first Congress met on March 4, 1789, in New York City. It consisted of twenty Senators and fifty-nine Representatives. Today, Congress consists of 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives. Each senator and representative has the power to recommend new laws or changes to existing laws, and each has one vote toward the passage of new laws. Congress reviews and passes laws during each congressional session. A congres- sional session lasts for two years, beginning on January 3 of each odd-numbered (or biennial) year following a general election of its members. Each chamber of Congress abides by rules that govern its proceedings. These rules include the processes by which laws will be introduced, debated, and passed. The House adopts new rules on the opening day of each new session. The Senate maintains standing rules that are amended as needed.

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  Introduction to Law

  • Beth Walston-Dunham(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  After reading this chapter, you should be able to: • Describe the method of election of members to both houses of Congress. • Describe the three purposes of legislation. • Describe the process of legislation. • Discuss the effect of the presidential veto power on legislation. • Discuss the publication process of new legislation. • Describe the role of the lobbyist. • Describe the role of the judiciary with respect to statutory law. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES Legislation C H A P T E R 3 CHAPTER OUTLINE THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH THE PURPOSE OF LEGISLATION THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS The Path from Concept to Law Constitutional Amendments The Function of Lobbyists Public Hearings and Sessions Publication of Legislation LEGISLATION AND JUDICIAL REVIEW THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH A primary source of U.S. law is legislation enacted by the federal legislative branch known as Congress. (Because the legislative process at the state level is generally similar to the federal process, this chapter focuses on legislation by the U.S. Congress.) Although the judicial and executive branches make significant contributions to law in the U.S. legal system, often they are responding to actions already taken by the legislature. A primary responsibility of the judicial branch is to interpret and apply the laws. According to the Constitution, the executive branch has the gen -eral task to faithfully execute the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress. The authority of Congress is stated with specificity in Article I of the Constitution. Congress has the power to raise, through taxation, revenues that are used to support governmental functions. Congress also has the authority to determine the manner in which these revenues are to be spent. Congress has the author -ity to raise and support armies and to declare and support wars. Another major power of Congress—and the subject of much legislation—is the authority to regulate commerce.

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  Public Budgeting in Context

  Structure, Law, Reform and Results

  • Katherine G. Willoughby(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Jossey-Bass

    (Publisher)

  Wehner’s findings (2008) result in Australia landing in the lowest quartile regarding legislative budget institutions (and thus, legislative budget powers) and Italy in the second lowest quartile. The United States is in the highest quartile, with the highest index of legislative budgeting power of all countries included in this study. “The U.S. Congress has an index score that is more than three times as great as those for the bottom nine cases, predominantly Westminster-type systems. Even allowing for U.S. exceptionalism, the top-quartile legislatures score twice as high on this index as the bottom quartile” (Wehner 2008, 91). Essentially, these findings confirm the US Congress as the most influential legislative policymaking body of the countries studied here and, undoubtedly, one of the most influential such bodies in the world. The separation of powers enumerated in the US Constitution present a marked difference in the detail of expressed legislative versus executive budget powers. Those for the legislative branch are found in Article I, sections 1–10, whereas those regarding executive powers in Article II comprise just four sections. Powers of the president have to do with acting as commander in chief of the military, making treaties (with Senate concurrence), and nominating and appointing various federal officials. In addition, there is a requirement that the president periodically “give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union” (there is no stipulation that this be provided in a speech). The final section of Article II stipulates removal of the president, vice president, and all civil officers of the United States “on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” In fact, there is nothing in the US Constitution about executive budget powers or execution.

  LEGISLATIVE BUDGETING IN SELECT GOVERNMENTS

  The following section explains legislative budgeting in Australia, which has a parliamentary system of governance; in Brazil, which has a presidential, multiparty system; and in the United States, which has a presidential, two-party system. Each presents a distinctive legislative budget process. Then we will consider three US state governments that are representative of different budget power balance across executive and legislative branches. Texas has a budget system that rests most power with the legislature; New York has a strong executive budget process; and Georgia’s budget powers are balanced across the branches. Though it is unclear that such power differences significantly affect budget outcomes in these governments, these states certainly differ in their populations, budget size, and fiscal capacities. Also, of these three states, Georgia has the highest credit rating from Standard & Poor’s (AAA) and New York’s is the weakest of the three (AA). Texas has a credit rating that falls between the two (AA+).

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  State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century

  The Agenda of State Constitutional Reform

  • G. Alan Tarr, Robert F. Williams, G. Alan Tarr, Robert F. Williams, Robert F. Williams(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • SUNY Press

    (Publisher)

  Chapter Two The Legislative Branch Michael E. Libonati INTRODUCTION The state legislative branch is distinctive in comparison with the federal legisla- tive branch in that the Federal Constitution “is an instrument of grant— a document that expressly delegates powers to the federal government,” whereas “state constitutions in terms of basic theory, are instruments of limitation.” 1 Thus, “the state government, having plenary powers, need not look to the state consti- tution for any specific grant of powers, but must rather look to it for any limita- tions it may impose on the state’s plenary power.” 2 This “basic theory of state constitutional law, namely that state governments has plenary powers, and that, in consequence, any provision included in the constitution will operate as a limi- tation on its powers” 3 is not uncontroversial. Nevertheless, the plenary power principle has important consequences for the creation, drafting, and interpreta- tion of the article of the state constitution devoted to the legislative branch. The language of art. I (the Legislative Department) of the United States Constitution is relatively unchanged. But since 1776, when the first state con- stitutions were adopted, the language of state constitutional provisions con- cerning the legislative branch reflects change, adaptation, and experiment. As a result, the legislative branch article in most states contains specific provisions embodying such values as: (1) accountability; (2) representativeness; (3) trans- parency; (4) efficiency; (5) institutional autonomy; and (6) clarity in strength- ening or diminishing the policy-making role of the legislature in relation to the judicial and executive branches of government. POWERS Distribution of Powers All state constitutions contain a provision vesting the legislative power in the legislature, and most have a separation of powers provision. 4 The language of 37

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  Presidential Powers

  • Harold J Krent(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • NYU Press

    (Publisher)

  1The President’s Power to Execute the Laws Passed by Congress

  A. Presidential Participation in the Legislative Process—The Veto Power

  Before addressing the president’s powers to enforce the law, a short detour is necessary. The president plays a fundamental role not only in administering the law but also in helping Congress decide what needs to be administered. When civics courses teach that Congress makes law, the president enforces the law, and judges interpret law, they miss the critical function that the Constitution assigns to the president in the lawmaking process: Congress must present all bills to the president for his approval before the bills can become law. The Constitution provides that “[e]very Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated. . . .”1 Congress can override a president’s veto only by vote of two-thirds of each house.

  The veto power affords the president a potent weapon to influence legislation. As Madison commented, the veto power permits the president “to restrain the Legislature from encroaching on the other coordinate departments, or on the rights of the people at large, or from passing laws unwise in their principle, or incorrect in their form.”2 The power to block legislation also permits presidents to shape, if not control, the legislative agenda. The threatened use of a veto itself can cause Congress to revise or abandon planned legislation. Moreover, the Constitution provides that the president can “recommend to [Congress’s] Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”3

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  Gateways to Democracy

  • John Geer, Richard Herrera, Wendy Schiller, Jeffrey Segal(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  At the same time, the Framers worried that the legislative branch would grow too powerful, so they limited the powers of Congress to a list in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, together with a few stated responsibilities in other sections. The following discussion highlights the most important powers of Congress. It also examines the ways that Congress has used its constitutional powers to expand its role in the policy-making system and ways that Congress is balanced and checked by the executive and judicial branches. Taxation and Appropriation Congress has the power “To lay and Collect Taxes.” In a division of this important power, the Constitution states that all bills for raising revenue should originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate “may propose or concur with Amendments, as on other Bills.” Initially, the Framers thought that tax revenue would come primarily from levies placed on imported goods. As the industrial economy grew, so did the need for government services and programs that cost money. With the Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, Congress gained the power “to lay and collect taxes on incomes,” whatever the source. This amendment overturned prohibitions on certain types of income taxes. Paralleling the power to tax, Congress also has the power to spend—“to pay the Debts and to provide for the common Defence and general Welfare.” The general welfare clause has proven to be a major means by which Congress’s power has expanded. Congress appropriates (or allocates) federal monies on programs it authorizes (or creates) through its lawmaking power. This “power of the purse” has been instrumental in the expansion of Congress’s relative strength among the branches of government. 16 The Constitution also gives Congress the authority to borrow money, to coin money, and to regulate its value, and it requires a regular accounting of revenue and expenditures of public money.

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  A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments

  • John R. Vile(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  Similarly, the third paragraph limits states from exercising other powers that the Constitution reserves for Congress. The section specifies that Congress must approve attempts by states to keep troops in times of peace, to enter into agreements with foreign governments, or to agree to compacts among themselves. The Constitution does, however, permit states to employ defensive forces when they are invaded and delay is impossible.

  SUMMARY

  Article I of the U.S. Constitution outlines the powers of the legislative branch, which delegates to the Constitutional Convention thought would be the most powerful branch and that which would be closest to the people. The Constitution divides Congress into two houses (bicameralism): a House of Representatives, where states are represented according to population, and the Senate, in which each state is represented equally. Although members of the Senate were once selected by state legislators, members of both houses are now elected by the people. Members of the House serve for two-year terms and members of the Senate for six, with qualifications for the Senate being somewhat more stringent than those for the House. Only the House can originate revenue bills and impeach certain officials, while only the Senate can ratify federal treaties, confirm presidential appointments, and try impeachment trials. To become laws, bills must pass both houses of Congress and either be signed by the president or repassed by both houses by a two-thirds vote or more. The central powers of Congress, the most important of which involve the power of the purse, are enumerated in Article I, Section 8, but this enumeration includes the necessary and proper clause that recognizes the existence of certain implied powers. Article I, Section 9 further lists restraints on Congress, while Article I, Section 10 lists further restraints on the states.

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  The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia

  History, Principle and Interpretation

  • Nicholas Aroney, Peter Gerangelos, Sarah Murray, James Stellios(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  It begins by examining the nature of legislative power in general, comparing the ‘plenary’ character of legislative authority with several possible limitations on legislative power. These limita- tions concern the delegation of law-making power, the enactment of retrospec- tive laws, the imposition of special procedural requirements for the enactment of laws, territorial limitations on the operation of laws, and other limitations on law-making power that are expressed in or may be inferred from the text and structure of the Constitution. The chapter then turns to the interpretation of the Commonwealth’s legislative powers. It critically introduces the methods and techniques of interpretation that have been developed by the High Court, and shows how the Court has moved over time from a set of approaches that understood the constitutional distribution of powers to be grounded upon a ‘compact’ between the States to a set of approaches premised on a conception of the Constitution as an exercise of British parliamentary sovereignty. Under this last approach, it is shown, the Commonwealth’s heads of power have come to be interpreted virtually as widely as the words used can possibly sustain. The chap- ter deliberately emphasises several important techniques of constitutional inter- pretation that underwrite this approach. In this extended discussion, particular heads of legislative power are used to illustrate wider points about interpretive method. The chapter then closes with a more detailed analysis of three very im- portant heads of power, namely those concerning ‘corporations’ and ‘external affairs’, and the so-called ‘implied nationhood’ power. II The nature of legislative power 1 Plenary power: ‘Peace, order, and good government’ The words ‘peace, order, and good government’ were terms of art used frequent- ly by the British Parliament to confer legislative power on colonial legislatures, 17 including those of the six Australian colonies.

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  The American Congress

  • Steven S. Smith, Jason M. Roberts, Ryan J. Vander Wielen(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  The result is a legislative process that cannot address certain subjects, is motivated by political considera- tions, is likely to involve bargaining, and is biased against enacting new legislation. EXPLICIT RESTRICTIONS. A list of powers explicitly denied Congress is provided in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. For example, Congress may not tax state exports, pass bills of attainder (pronouncing guilt and sentencing someone without a trial), or adopt ex post facto laws (altering the legal standing of a past action). The list of explicit limitations was extended by the 1791 ratification of the first ten amendments to the Constitution – the Bill of Rights. Among other things, the Bill of Rights prohibits laws that abridge freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the freedom to peaceably assemble (Amendment 1) and preserves the right to a jury trial in certain cases (Amendments 6 and 7). And the Bill of Rights reserves to the states, or to the people, powers not delegated to the national government by the Constitution (Amendment 10). In practice, the boundary between allowed and disallowed legislative acts is often fuzzy. Efforts by Congress to exercise its powers have often con- flicted with individual rights or with powers asserted by the president and the states. The Supreme Court has resolved many ambiguities about where the lines should be drawn around the powers of Congress, but many remain for future court consideration. In some cases, particularly in the foreign policy realm, the Supreme Court has left the ambiguities to be worked out between Congress and the president. REPRESENTATION AND LAWMAKING IN CONGRESS 41 CONSTITUTIONAL PROCEDURES FOR PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL OR DISAPPROVAL OF LEGISLATION If Congress remains in session, the president may sign a bill into law, veto the bill and send it with a statement of his objections back to the house in which the bill originated, or do nothing.

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  Australian Constitutional Law

  Concepts and Cases

  • Luke Beck(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  part legislative powers 2 chapter state legislative powers 2.1 OVERVIEW 37 2.2 THE SOURCE OF STATE LEGISLATIVE POWER 37 2.3 THE SCOPE OF STATE LEGISLATIVE POWER 40 2.4 RESTRICTIVE PROCEDURES FOR ENACTING LEGISLATION 45 2.5 KEY LIMITATIONS ON STATE LEGISLATIVE POWER 50 2.6 POWER TO REFER LEGISLATIVE POWER TO THE COMMONWEALTH PARLIAMENT 51 2.7 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 53 2 2 State legislative powers 37 2.1 Overview This chapter examines the legislative powers of the States. The chapter explains that the legislative powers of the States pre-date the Australian Constitution, were made subject to the Australian Constitution but otherwise continued in force at Federation, and were confirmed by the Australia Act 1986. In general terms, the States possess plenary legislative power allowing them to make and unmake any laws they want. That power extends to amending State Constitution Acts by ordinary legislation. The plenary power of the States is subject to the possibility of restrictive procedures that regulate the way in which certain types of laws must be passed, but which do not prohibit the passing of those laws. The States also have power under the Australian Constitution to refer power to make laws to the Commonwealth Parliament and thereby expand the practical scope of federal legislative power. Key concepts addressed in this chapter include: • legislative power • plenary power • fundamental common law rights • manner and form procedure • double entrenchment • referral of power. 2.2 The source of State legislative power Before Federation, the six States existed as colonies with their own Constitutions, Parliaments and laws. On coming into force, the Australian Constitution transformed the colonies into States and made provision for their Constitutions, legislative powers and laws to continue in force subject to the demands of the Australian Constitution.

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  The Constitution of Mexico

  A Contextual Analysis

  • José María Serna de la Garza(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  With respect to deputies and senators, the Constitution does not foresee a specific number of legislators required to exercise the power to introduce bills; therefore, it is understood that this can be done either by individual legislators or groups of them. Finally, State legislatures also have power to introduce bills in the general Congress, but in practice they do not do so often.

  The rules on the relationship between the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in the context of the legislative process can be found in article 72 of the Constitution. Essentially, both chambers of Congress must agree on the text of a bill, both in general and article-by-article, in order to refer it to the president of the Republic (who shall either promulgate the new statute or veto the bill). The approval of a report in general and article-by-article requires the majority of the legislators present.

  A recent constitutional reform, published on 9 August 2012, has granted a new power to the president of the Republic in connection with the legislative process, known as the ‘priority legislative procedure’: at the opening of periods of ordinary sessions of Congress, the Executive can introduce up to two bills that shall receive preferential treatment. Each house of Congress has to discuss and vote on the bill in a specific time frame (within 30 days after introduction of the bill by the Executive or after the referral by the house that discussed and voted the bill in the first place).35

  Finally, the president of the Republic has the power to veto legislation passed by Congress. Nevertheless, it can be overcome by a two-thirds majority in each house of Congress, in which case the Executive has to publish the new statute in the ‘Official Gazette of the Federation’.36 Usually, the statute shall be valid as of the day of its publication or at such later time as is outlined in the statute’s ‘transitory articles’.37

  Divided government produced an unprecedented surge in legislative activism. As explained by Nacif, the number of bills introduced by opposition parties increased substantially at the same time that the amount of Executive-initiated legislation decreased. All actors made an adjustment in their law-making behaviour as the balance of power changed. Legislators anticipated that their capacity to influence the process of legislation had increased substantially, and they responded by introducing bills in areas of legislation in which only the Executive had formerly taken the initiative.38 Contrary to the expectation that divided government would produce legislative gridlock, Mexico’s federal legislative process is now highly productive, as the result of multi-party coalitions formed to approve bills. Notably, the most common legislative coalition formed in Congress – regardless of the bill’s origin – has been that of all parties.39

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