CHECKS and BALANCES TITLES IN THIS SERIES in the U.S. GOVERNMENT T h e L e g i s l a t The Executive Branch i v e B Carrying Out and Enforcing Laws r a The Legislative Branch n c h Making Laws The Judicial Branch M a k i n Evaluating and Interpreting Laws g L aw Edited by Brian Duignan and Carolyn DeCarlo s The Legislative Branch Making Laws D u i The U.S. Constitution g n a n and the Separation of Powers a n d D e C a r l o CHECKS and BALANCES in the U.S. GOVERNMENT The Legislative Branch Making Laws Edited by Brian Duignan and Carolyn DeCarlo Published in 2019 by Britannica Educational Publishing (a trademark of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.) in association with The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. 29 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010 Copyright © 2019 by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, and the Thistle logo are registered trademarks of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Rosen Publishing materials copyright © 2019 The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed exclusively by Rosen Publishing. To see additional Britannica Educational Publishing titles, go to rosenpublishing.com. Britannica Educational Publishing J.E. Luebering: Executive Director, Core Editorial Andrea R. Field: Managing Editor, Compton’s by Britannica Rosen Publishing Carolyn DeCarlo: Editor Nelson Sá: Art Director Brian Garvey: Series Designer/Book Layout Cindy Reiman: Photography Manager Bruce Donnola: Photo Researcher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Duignan, Brian, editor. | DeCarlo, Carolyn, editor. Title: The legislative branch : making laws / edited by Brian Duignan and Carolyn DeCarlo. Description: New York : Britannica Educational Publishing, in Association with Rosen Educational Services, 2019. | Series: Checks and balances in the U.S. government | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Audience: Grades 7-12. Identifiers: LCCN 2017059716| ISBN 9781538301722 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: United States. Congress—Juvenile literature. | Legislative power—United States— Juvenile literature. | Legislation—United States—Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC JK1025 .L44 2019 | DDC 328.73—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059716 Manufactured in the United States of America Photo credits: Cover, p. 1 Alex Wong/Getty Images (Congress), Lightspring/Shutterstock.com (scale), © iStockphoto.com/arsenisspyros (capitol); p. 5 © MedioImages/Getty Images; p. 6 Riverside County Registrar/KRT/Newscom; p. 9 © Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. 3g07216); p. 16 © Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZC4-10297); p. 18 Win McNamee/Getty Images; p. 20 Karl Gehring/Denver Post/Getty Images; p. 22 © Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. lc-usz61-269); pp. 26, 95 Bettmann/Getty Images; p. 29 Visions of America/Universal Images Group/Getty Images; pp. 30, 77, 107 © Encyclopaedia Britannica; p. 32 © Architect of the Capitol; p. 37 The Washington Post/Getty Images; p. 38 © AP Images; p. 41 © Lawrence Jackson – Official White House Photo; pp. 45, 89 Hulton Archive/Getty Images; p. 48 © Harris & Ewing Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-hec-22504); p. 51 © U.S. Senate Photo Studio; p. 56 © Dave Newman/Fotolia; p. 60 © Mike Criss; p. 64 © Chuck Kennedy - Official White House Photo; p. 67 © Peter Souza - Official White House Photo; pp. 75, 86, 103 © Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; p. 91 MPI/Archive Photos/Getty Images; p. 105 © Tim Ross; p. 111 Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. C O N T E N T S Introduction � � � � � � � � � � � 4 CHAPTER ONE Powers and Functions of the U.S. Congress � � � � � � � � � � � � � 8 CHAPTER TWO The U.S. Capitol and Library of Congress � � � � � � � � � � � � � 24 CHAPTER THREE The House and the Senate � � � � � � 40 CHAPTER FOUR Major Legislation � � � � � � � � � 55 CHAPTER FIVE Western Expansion and Overseas Territories � � � � � � � � � � � � 70 CHAPTER SIX Foreign Relations, Immigration, and National Security � � � � � � � � � 84 CHAPTER SEVEN Civil Liberties and Social Welfare � � 101 Conclusion � � � � � � � � � � � � 119 Glossary � � � � � � � � � � � � � 121 Bibliography � � � � � � � � � � �123 Index � � � � � � � � � � � � � �126 The characteristic function of all legislatures is the making of law. In most political systems, however, legislatures also have other tasks, such as selecting and criticizing the government, supervising administration, appropriating funds, ratifying treaties, impeaching offi- cials of the executive and judicial branches of government, accepting or refusing executive nominations, determining election procedures, and conducting public hearings on petitions. Legislatures, then, are not simply lawmaking bodies. Neither do they monopolize the function of making law. In most systems, the executive has a power of veto over legislation, and, even where this is lacking, the executive may exercise original or delegated powers of legislation. Judges, also, often share in the lawmaking process through the interpretation and application of stat- utes or, as in the U.S. system, by means of judicial review of legislation. Similarly, administrative officials exercise quasi-legislative powers in making rules and deciding cases that come before administrative tribunals. A legislature may be unicameral, with one chamber, or bicameral, with two chambers. Unicameral legislatures are typical in small countries with unitary systems of government—i.e., systems in which local or regional gov- ernments may exist but in which the central government 4 retains ultimate sovereignty. Federal states, in which the central government shares sovereignty with local or regional governments, usually have bicameral legislatures, with one house representing the main territorial subdivi- sions. The United States is a classic example of a federal system with a bicameral legislation: the U.S. Congress consists of a House of Representatives, whose members are elected from single-member districts of approximately The west front of the U.S. Capitol building, Washington, D.C., where both houses of the U.S. Congress convene. 5 The Legislative Branch equal population, and a Senate, consisting of two persons from each state elected by the voters of that state. The fact that all states are represented equally in the Senate regardless of their size reflects the federal character of the American union. A unitary system of government does not necessar- ily imply unicameralism. In fact, the legislatures of most countries with unitary systems are bicameral, though one chamber is usually more powerful than the other. The United Kingdom, for example, has a unitary system with a bicameral legislature, which consists of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Although in the United States all fifty states except Nebraska have bicameral leg- islatures, their govern- mental systems are uni- tary. In the forty-nine U.S. states with bicam- eral legislatures, the two houses have equal legis- lative authority, but the so-called upper houses— usually called senates— have the special function of confirming the gover- nors’ appointments. The procedures of the U.S. House of Representa- tives, which derive from A woman with her child uses an electronic voting system to exercise her right to vote in California. 6 Introduction a manual of procedure written by Thomas Jefferson, are among the most elaborate of parliamentary rules. Voting procedures range from state to state; a pop- ular method is the electronic voting methods employed in the California legislature and in some other states. Another point of difference among legislatures concerns their presiding officers. These are sometimes officials who stand above party and exercise a neutral function as parliamentary umpires; sometimes they are the leaders of the majority party and, like the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, major political figures; and sometimes they are officials who, like the vice president of the United States in his role as presiding officer of the Senate, exer- cise a vote to break ties and otherwise perform mainly ceremonial functions. Likewise, legislative parties are of various types and play a number of roles or functions. In the U.S. House of Representatives, for example, the party is responsible for assigning members to all standing committees; the party leadership fills the major parliamentary offices, and the party membership on committees reflects the proportion of seats held by the party in the House as a whole. The congressional party, however, is not disciplined to the degree found in British and some other European legisla- tive parties, and there are relatively few “party line” votes in which all the members of one party vote against all the members of the other party. 7 CHAPTER ONE Powers and Functions of the U.S. Congress The U.S. Congress, the legislative branch of the Amer- ican federal system, was established under the Con- stitution of 1789 and is separated structurally from the executive and judicial branches of government. As noted previously, it consists of two houses: the Senate, in which each state, regardless of its size, is represented by two sen- ators, and the House of Representatives, to which mem- bers are elected on the basis of population. Among the express powers of Congress as defined in the Constitution are the power to lay and collect taxes, borrow money on the credit of the United States, regulate commerce, coin money, declare war, raise and support armies, and make all laws necessary for the execution of its powers. THE CONTINENTAL AND CONFEDERATION CONGRESSES The Congress established in 1789 was the successor of the Continental Congress, which met in 1774 and 1775–81, 8 Powers and Functions of the U.S. Congress and of the Confederation Congress, which met under the Articles of Confederation (1781–89), the first constitution of the United States. The First Continental Congress was convened in Philadelphia in 1774 in response to the British Parliament’s passage of the Intolerable (Coercive) Acts, which were intended as punishment for the Boston Tea Party and other acts of colonial defiance. Fifty-six depu- ties in a single chamber represented all the colonies except Georgia. Peyton Randolph of Virginia was unanimously elected president, thus establishing usage of that term as well as “Congress.” Other delegates included Patrick Henry, George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, and John Jay. Meeting in secret session, the body adopted a declaration of personal rights, including life, liberty, Leaders of the Continental Congress (left to right): John Adams, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. 9