Why The Framers Chose A Bicameral Legislature?

The limitations on and difficulties of passing laws are very, very important. The split legislature creates a more complicated maze through which laws must find their way before being passed. First, a law must be introduced in either the House of Representatives or the Senate, the former having sole power to introduce laws concerning revenue. After the law is introduced, it must be approved by the other house, who may agree with, amend, or discard the law. Once

In the “Virginia Plan vs. New Jersey Plan” both plans called for a strong national government with 3 branches which led to the Great Compromise. The Great Compromise provided for a bicameral congress. The bicameral structure wanted to accommodate both large and small states unlike the unicameral which only included the small vote.

A benefit of a bicameral legislature is that constituents get better representation through the House of Representatives. According to Document B, the House of Representatives is meant to be closer to its constituents while the Senate focuses on being the more deliberate chamber. Basically, House members specialists while Senators are

This plan was known as the Great Compromise that combined element of both Virginia’s and New Jersey’s plans to appease both the small and large states. The plan had 2 house legislatures, initially called the “lower house” and the “upper house” due to their location in the two story building that would house them. Besides, upper house is the senate with 2 members per state, whereas lower house is the House of Representatives, based on population. According to the plan, all states would have the same number of seats.

With a final decision of five to four, the states passed the Great Compromise and it was officially adopted in July 16, 1781. The Great Compromise proposed that the United States would have a bi-cameral legislature instead of an unicameral legislature. There would be two houses: an upper house known as The Senate, and a lower house as The House of Representatives. There would be two senators per state, which favored the equality that small states were longing for. The number of House of Representatives per state would depend on how populous the state was according to the decennial census, giving citizens in large states equal power to citizens of small states. Senators were to be appointed by the State legislatures and would have six-year terms. Whereas the members of The House of Representatives are elected by the public vote and have two-year terms.

Under the Constitution, legislation was bicameral, or divided into the House of Representatives and the Senate. Disadvantages of bicameral legislatures are the delay of the lawmaking process and the possibility to waste government resources. This was an effect of the Great Compromise of

Roger Sherman proposed a bicameral legislature with one house based on equal representation of the states and the other based on proportional representation.

Expressed Powers are those powers explicitly named in the Constitution. They grant the legislative branch a large amount of authority over American national policy, both domestic and foreign. The Constitution states that the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, imposts, duties, excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all imposts, duties, and excises shall be uniformed throughout the United States (Brady). There are a total of 27 expressed powers listed in the Constitution.

A bicameral legislature is the two houses that the government has. It’s historical is when the british bicameral at first but we changed it up a little bit, it’s practical is when the framers created a two chambered body to settle the conflict between New Jersey and Virginia in Pennsylvania in 1787, and it;s theoretical reason is that the framers liked a bicameral congress in order that one house might act as a survey to the other. There are 435 members in the house of representatives there terms are exactly 2 years, you must be 35 years of age, and a United States citizen for at least seven years and an inhabitant of the state he or she represents. There are 100 members in the senate, the terms are exactly 6 years for senate the qualifications to become a senator are that that must be at least thirty years of age, have been a citizen of the United States for nine years, and, when elected, be a resident of the State from which he or she .

As shown in document 4, the Great Compromise created a congress that is made up of two branches. One branch is the senate, and the other branch is the house of representatives. The Senate make all states have equal representation that allow two senators from each state. In the house of representatives, representation is based on the population of the states and the number of representatives varies between each

Self-interested majorities could easily get their way in votes and decision making if minorities are not given a voice. This would not be a true democracy because the group with a bigger voice made the decisions, not the people as a whole. James Madison believed that pluralism would solve the problem; if more groups had access to political power, then no one group could gain control over the rest. Another problem was the larger population of some states made representation in government disproportionate. The Virginia plan made it so the bigger, more populated states got a bigger voice in Congress. But the New Jersey plan gave each state one vote and handed more voice to the smaller, less populated states. Eventually, a committee was appointed to come up with a solution, or a compromise, to this problem. Rightly named The Great Compromise, this plan made Congress into two chambers: the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The Senate has two senators from every state, while the House of Representatives is composed of representatives based on the population of the state. This gave equal voice to the large states and the smaller states by making the large states predominantly represented in the House of Representatives while making the smaller states represented in the Senate. This allowed all states to be represented equally, regardless of

Bicameralism is a system in which the legislative branch is split into chambers (The Constitution). One chamber is the House of Representatives, which in total has 435 members to represent the 50 states populations individually. The other chamber would be the Senate, in which all 50 states each equally have 2 members to represent them, making up a total count of 100 members. The Congress, another name for the legislative branch, has this system for smaller states would have equal representation so states are more “involved”, whereas the House of Representatives are based off of population to represent its people. By having this system, it makes the process of a bill becoming an official law a long and painful process. Of course, having this long process can be a good thing for it acts as a giant filter for corrupt laws, but it has its cons. Even though this branch is in charge of writing federal laws to help protect its citizens and promote the general welfare, middle and lower class citizens do not have much of a say in the process of making these laws. For

Divided government describes a government where one party is in control of the executive branch while another party has control over the Senate and/or the House of Representatives (the two houses of the legislative branch, or Cogress). The presence of divided government effects the speed at which laws are passed. Research shows that a divided government decreases the production of laws by almost 30 percent. Research also shows that there is a 60-day time difference between the time it takes unified governments and divided governments to pass important bills (the maximum taking a divided government has been two years); two months is a pretty good amount of time when talking about a two-year congressional term. A divided

The two reasons why the framers created a bicameral system was for theoretical and practical purposes. The theoretical part of the bicameral system is because the framers wanted a sense of “checks and balances” which led them to believe that a unicameral legislative system may have a lot of power centralized in one institution. But by splitting the legislative into two separate parts formally called “the House” and “the Senate” respectively, the two legislatures would serve as checks against each other's powers, in theory it would prevent either one from amassing too much power. The practical part of the bicameral system is because the framers wanted a sense of practical politics. At the Constitutional Convention it included delegates from

Bicameral legislature is referring to a body of government that has two legislative houses or chambers. We have this for a historical, practical, and theoretical reason because “but a bicameral legislature provided the perfect opportunity for compromises- in fact, for the great compromises.” In the house of representatives, there are 435 members. The term is two years. The qualifications to be a member of the house are you must be twenty five, you must have been a citizen for at least seven years, and finally you must be at the time of the election of the state they represent.