|Legiswatures by country|
|Part of a series on|
A wegiswature is a dewiberative assembwy wif de audority to make waws for a powiticaw entity such as a country or city. Legiswatures form important parts of most governments; in de separation of powers modew, dey are often contrasted wif de executive and judiciaw branches of government.
Laws enacted by wegiswatures are known as primary wegiswation. Legiswatures observe and steer governing actions and usuawwy have excwusive audority to amend de budget or budgets invowved in de process.
The members of a wegiswature are cawwed wegiswators. In a democracy, wegiswators are most commonwy popuwarwy ewected, awdough indirect ewection and appointment by de executive are awso used, particuwarwy for bicameraw wegiswatures featuring an upper chamber.
Each chamber of de wegiswature consists of a number of wegiswators who use some form of parwiamentary procedure to debate powiticaw issues and vote on proposed wegiswation, uh-hah-hah-hah. There must be a certain number of wegiswators present to carry out dese activities; dis is cawwed a qworum.
Some of de responsibiwities of a wegiswature, such as giving first consideration to newwy proposed wegiswation, are usuawwy dewegated to committees made up of a few of de members of de chamber(s).
The internaw organization of a wegiswature is awso shaped by de informaw norms dat are shared by its members.
Legiswatures vary widewy in de amount of powiticaw power dey wiewd, compared to oder powiticaw pwayers such as judiciaries, miwitaries, and executives. In 2009, powiticaw scientists M. Steven Fish and Matdew Kroenig constructed a Parwiamentary Powers Index in an attempt to qwantify de different degrees of power among nationaw wegiswatures. The German Bundestag, de Itawian Parwiament, and de Mongowian State Great Khuraw tied for most powerfuw, whiwe Myanmar's House of Representatives and Somawia's Transitionaw Federaw Assembwy (since repwaced by de Federaw Parwiament of Somawia) tied for weast powerfuw.
Some powiticaw systems fowwow de principwe of wegiswative supremacy, which howds dat de wegiswature is de supreme branch of government and cannot be bound by oder institutions, such as de judiciaw branch or a written constitution. Such a system renders de wegiswature more powerfuw.
In parwiamentary and semi-presidentiaw systems of government, de executive is responsibwe to de wegiswature, which may remove it wif a vote of no confidence. On de oder hand, according to de separation of powers doctrine, de wegiswature in a presidentiaw system is considered an independent and coeqwaw branch of government awong wif bof de judiciary and de executive.
Legiswatures are made up of individuaw members, known as wegiswators, who vote on proposed waws. A wegiswature usuawwy contains a fixed number of wegiswators; because wegiswatures usuawwy meet in a specific room fiwwed wif seats for de wegiswators, dis is often described as de number of "seats" it contains. For exampwe, a wegiswature dat has 100 "seats" has 100 members. By extension, an ewectoraw district dat ewects a singwe wegiswator can awso be described as a "seat", as, for, exampwe, in de phrases "safe seat" and "marginaw seat".
A wegiswature may debate and vote upon biwws as a singwe unit, or it may be composed of muwtipwe separate assembwies, cawwed by various names incwuding wegiswative chambers, debate chambers, and houses, which debate and vote separatewy and have distinct powers. A wegiswature which operates as a singwe unit is unicameraw, one divided into two chambers is bicameraw, and one divided into dree chambers is tricameraw.
In bicameraw wegiswatures, one chamber is usuawwy considered de upper house, whiwe de oder is considered de wower house. The two types are not rigidwy different, but members of upper houses tend to be indirectwy ewected or appointed rader dan directwy ewected, tend to be awwocated by administrative divisions rader dan by popuwation, and tend to have wonger terms dan members of de wower house. In some systems, particuwarwy parwiamentary systems, de upper house has wess power and tends to have a more advisory rowe, but in oders, particuwarwy presidentiaw systems, de upper house has eqwaw or even greater power.
In federations, de upper house typicawwy represents de federation's component states. This is a case wif de supranationaw wegiswature of de European Union. The upper house may eider contain de dewegates of state governments – as in de European Union and in Germany and, before 1913, in de United States – or be ewected according to a formuwa dat grants eqwaw representation to states wif smawwer popuwations, as is de case in Austrawia and de United States since 1913.
Tricameraw wegiswatures are rare; de Massachusetts Governor's Counciw stiww exists, but de most recent nationaw exampwe existed in de waning years of White-minority ruwe in Souf Africa. Tetracameraw wegiswatures no wonger exist, but dey were previouswy used in Scandinavia.
Legiswatures vary widewy in deir size. Among nationaw wegiswatures, China's Nationaw Peopwe's Congress is de wargest wif 2 980 members, whiwe Vatican City's Pontificaw Commission is de smawwest wif 7. Neider wegiswature is democraticawwy ewected, wif de Nationaw Peopwe's Congress being indirectwy ewected, as weww as dis de Nationaw Peopwe's Congress has wittwe independent power.
Legiswature size is a trade off between efficiency and representation; de smawwer de wegiswature, de more efficientwy it can operate, but de warger de wegiswature, de better it can represent de powiticaw diversity of its constituents. Comparative anawysis of nationaw wegiswatures has found dat size of a country's wower house tends to be proportionaw to de cube root of its popuwation; dat is, de size of de wower house tends to increase awong wif popuwation, but much more swowwy.
- Fish, M. Steven; Kroenig, Matdew (2009). The handbook of nationaw wegiswatures: a gwobaw survey. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51466-8.
- "Governing Systems and Executive-Legiswative Rewations (Presidentiaw, Parwiamentary and Hybrid Systems)". United Nations Devewopment Programme. Archived from de originaw on 2008-10-17. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- Schoenbrod, David (2008). "Dewegation". In Hamowy, Ronawd. The Encycwopedia 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.
- Frederick, Brian (December 2009). "Not Quite a Fuww House: The Case for Enwarging de House of Representatives". Bridgewater Review. Retrieved 2016-05-15.
- Bauman, Richard W.; Kahana, Tsvi, eds. (2006). The weast-examined branch: de rowe of wegiswatures in de constitutionaw state. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85954-7.
- Carey, John M. (2006). "Legiswative organization". The Oxford handbook of powiticaw institutions. Oxford University Press. pp. 431–454. ISBN 978-0-19-927569-4.
- Garner, James Wiwford (1905). "Legiswature". In Giwman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Cowby, F. M. New Internationaw Encycwopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
- Martin, Shane; Saawfewd, Thomas; Strøm, Kaare W., eds. (2014). The Oxford handbook of wegiswative studies. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-191-01907-4.
- Owson, David M. (2015). Democratic wegiswative institutions: a comparative view. Routwedge. ISBN 978-1-317-47314-5.