Text 20: lawmaking in the Senate

Visitors going from the House of Representatives to the Senate are often startled by the difference. The Senate chamber is smaller and quieter than the House chamber. Usually only a few senators attend sessions. The Senate chamber has 100 desks — one for each senator — facing a raised platform where Senate leaders preside over sessions. The party leaders or their assistants stay in the Senate chamber at all times to keep the work moving and to look after their party's interests.

As in the House, any member of the Senate may introduce a bill. Procedures for moving bills through the Senate, however, are more informal than in the House. Senate leaders control the flow of bills to committees and to the floor for debate and vote. They do this by consulting closely with one another and with other senators.

Senate leaders also try to schedule sessions to fit the interests and needs of as many senators as possible. In contrast to the procedure in the House, individual senators have the power to disrupt work on legislation. As one former Senate leader declared, a senator, "if he wants to exercise power, can tie up the Senate for days, and if he allies himself with a few other Senators, he can tie up the Senate for weeks."

The Senate brings bills to the floor by unanimous consent, a motion by all members present to set aside formal rules and consider a bill. The procedure has not changed much through the years. In 1913 Massachusetts Senator Henry Lodge explained that the Senate conducted most of its business through unanimous-consent agreements. He emphasized that Senators depended on the principle of unanimous consent while discussing both large and generally contested measures, and all the small business of the Senate.

TEXT 21: CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

When the Founders of the US Constitution established the principle of separation of powers, they did not make the three branches completely independent. Although each branch has its own functions, they are related in a system of checks and balances. As a result, Congress and the President share certain powers. Thus, many of the President's most important executive responsibilities — such as making treaties, appointing federal officials and judges, and paying the expenses of the executive branch — require congressional cooperation.

On the other hand, all bills Congress passes require the President's signature before they become law. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds majority in each house of Congress, which usually is difficult to obtain. Consequently, a veto or even the threat of one is an important legislative power the President exercises. In addition, modern Presidents are expected to develop a legislative program and secure its adoption by Congress.

The level of cooperation between Congress and the President has varied throughout history. Usually, the best relations exist between the two branches when the President makes few demands on Congress. Less active Presidents who do not take an aggressive role in shaping legislation may get along well with Congress. Those who propose major new programs will almost surely come into conflict with the legislative branch. Recent Presidents have frequently found it hard to work with Congress for several reasons.

In domestic as well as in foreign policy, the President can seldom count upon the automatic support of Congress, even when his own party has a majority in both the Senate and the House. Therefore, he must be able to convince Congressmen, the Representatives and Senators, of his point of view.

TEXT 22: VOTING IN THE USA

Voting by United States citizens is absolutely vital to the success of American democracy — after all, democracy means rule by the people. Through their votes, Americans have the power to select more than 500,000 government officials at all levels of government.

The right to vote, or suffrage, is the foundation of American democracy. Today all United States citizens over 18 years of age may exercise this right. This situation did not always exist, however. In various periods in the history of the United States, law, custom, and sometimes even violence prevented certain groups from voting.

Before the American Revolution, the colonies placed many restrictions upon the right to vote. Women and most blacks were not allowed to vote; neither were white males who did not own property or pay taxes. Also excluded in some colonies were people who were not members of the dominant religious group. As a result, only about 5 or 6 percent of the adult population was eligible to vote.

Why did restrictions exist? Educated men of the time did not believe in mass democracy in which every adult could vote. Even the Founders of the Constitution did not believe in the average person's ability to make wise voting decisions. In their view voting was best left to wealthy, white, property-owning males. As John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States, put it, "The people who own the country ought to govern it."

During the first half of the nineteenth century, state legislatures gradually abolished property and religious tests for voting. By the middle of the century the country had achieved universal white adult male suffrage.

The fight for woman's suffrage dates from the middle of the nineteenth century, but not until after World War I, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, was woman's suffrage on a nationwide basis put into effect.