Question

Describe an example of how a system of checks and balances might work in the bicameral structure between the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Answer 1

The Bicameral System is the system that describes a two-house legislative system. It was originated in England and the US adopted it as a way to representation problem.

The checks and balances system still works in a bicameral system because each house has its own powers within the system. For example, only the House has the power to criminally indict the president and other officials but the Senate has the power to review the case. The House has the power to decide presidential elections if there is no majority. The Senate has the power to confirm the appointment of more than a thousand executive officers and has the possibility of ratifying treaties.

Answer 2

constitutional law: Unicameral and bicameral legislatures

A central feature of any constitution is the organization of the legislature. It may be a unicameral body with one chamber or a bicameral body with two chambers. Unicameral legislatures are typical in small countries with unitary systems of government (e.g., Denmark, Sweden,…

United States

United States: The Constitutional Convention

…a compromise plan for a bicameral legislature—one house with representation based on population and one with equal representation for all states—was approved in mid-July. Though neither plan prevailed, the new national government in its final form was endowed with broad powers that made it indisputably national and superior.…

Original copy of the U.S. Constitution, housed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Constitution of the United States of America: Constitutional Convention

…to be known, created a bicameral legislature with a Senate, in which all states would be equally represented, and a House of Representatives, in which representation would be apportioned on the basis of a state’s free population plus three-fifths of its slave population. (The inclusion of the slave population was…

United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., the meeting place of the U.S. Congress.

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It consists of two houses: the Senate, in which each state, regardless of its size, is represented by two senators, and the House of Representatives (see Representatives, House of), to which members are elected on the basis of population. Among the express powers of Congress as defined in…

London: Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

Parliament

Parliament, (from Old French: parlement; Latin: parliamentum) the original legislative assembly of England, Scotland, or Ireland and successively of Great Britain and the United Kingdom; legislatures in some countries that were once British colonies are also known as parliaments.…