The Supreme Court

The President

Political Parties

THE US STATE SYSTEM

After its 200-th birthday the USA still holds the leading position in the western world.

A country, that has got several names “Land of Opportunity”, “Melting-Pot”, “God’s Country” is still referred to as a land of superlatives – “the richest”, “the greatest”, “the most”.

The US is a parliamentary republic. The Government is divided into three branches: legislative (the US Congress), executive (the President and his Administration) and judicial (the US Supreme Court).

There are 2 main political parties in the USA: the Democratic (symbolized by a “donkey”) and the Republican (its symbol is an “elephant”).

They both are parties of bourgeois democracy and the American people do not see much difference between them.

This is one of the reasons why so many abstain from voting.

The US President is both head of state and of government.

He is elected for a 4-year term.

Presidential elections are held every leap-year on the 1-st Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

The President is assisted by Secretaries who are at the head of the executive departments.

The most important of the departments are those of State and Defence.

The Supreme Court consists of Chief Justice and 8 Associate Justices who are appointed for life.

The Supreme Court is supposed to decide whether a law of the Congress or an executive order of the President is “constitutional” or not.

The US Constitution

The form of the US government is based on the Constitution of September 17, 1787, adopted after the War of Independence.

A “constitution” in American political language means the set of rules, laws, regulations and customs which together provide the practical (norms) standards regulating the work of the government.

The US Constitution consists of the Preamble, 7 articles and 26 amendments, the first 10 of them called collectively the Bill of Rights and adopted in 1791.

When the Constitution was first proposed in 1787, there was wide-spread dissatisfaction because it did not contain guarantees of certain basic freedoms and individual rights.

In December 1791 the Congress adopted 10 amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights enumerated what the government controlled by the oligarchy was not going to be allowed to do, which was, of course, an important democratic gain for the people.

Some of these 10 amendments are now quite unimportant, such as the Third which forbids the quartering of soldiers in private houses in peace-time without the consent of the owners.

But others, the Fifth Amendment in particular, continue to be of importance and significance.

The Fifth (the “due process” amendment) provides that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”, and no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be witness against himself”.

“Taking the Fifth” – has become a common phrase after many witnesses before televised congressional committee investigations initiated by the notorious Senator McCarthy had refused to answer the questions about their records and activities on the grounds that such answers might incriminate them.

The Bill of Rights is abridged by the daily judicial and law-enforcement practice.

The so-called “gag laws” abridge freedom of speech, of the press and of the right to petition

The Fourth (the “searches and seizures” amendment) is nullified by the “law and order” edicts of the government such as “knock, knock” and “stop and frisk”.

The US Constitution

The Sixth Amendment is the “right to counsel”, a fundamental right of an attorney at any stage of a criminal prosecution.

But many Americans feels that of all the freedoms proclaimed in the Constitution the most important is the freedom of enterprise.

The US Congress

The Congress of the US is composed of two houses, the Senate and the Houses of Representatives.

The Senate represents the states and the House represents the population according to its distribution among the states. Each state is guaranteed at least one representative in the House.

The Senate consists of 100 members, 2 from each state.

Senators are chosen for 6 years.

All states have electoral requirements of same nature.

First of all, there are residence requirements.

At the same time it’s well known that Americans are less disposed to use their right to vote than any other nation.

The percentage of voters is about 65%.

One of the reasons is the two-party system.

In the US there are 2 major political parties, the Democratic and the Republican (also called GOP – the “Grand Old Party”).

Both of them represent the interests of different business circles and there is no clear-cut difference between 2 parties, between their policies and their party machines.

The party machines of both Republican and Democratic parties are run by party bosses closely associated with different monopoly groups of big business.

The fact that these two main parties in the USA are parties of big business can explain the well-known phenomenon of the American political scene: the simultaneous financing of the two biggest parties of the country by the same companies.

The highest position in the House of Representatives is the Speaker. He is the second to the Vice-President in the line of presidential succession.

The presiding officer of the Senate is the Vice-President of the US. Unlike the Speaker, the VP is not a member of the Chamber and sometimes he is not a member of the party in power.

Debate in the House of Reps is subject to rigid controls.

In the Senate when a Senate committee reports a non-controversial bill, its spokesman moves for its immediate consideration: if no member objects, discussion begins at once.

But a group of senators may organize a filibuster: they attempt lengthy discourse.

The Civil Act of 1964 provoked debate lasting for 83 days.

It was the longest filibuster in history and was brought to the end by the drastic action known as “closure”.

An important role in the American legislature is played by lobbyism. Lobbyists are agents of different business groups who through persuasion make congressmen for measures favourable to the group they present.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-26