Hannah Guzman
Professor Maxwell
Political Science 2
9 October 2014
The Legislative Branch and Citizen Interaction The Legislative Branch is composed of the House of Representatives, and the Senate, together they are the two key components that make up the Legislative Branch and form the United States Congress. Congress, allots the Legislative Branch many important duties, most important and well known obligation The Legislative Branch has is creating laws, the laws are drawn up, deliberated about, and voted on in Congress. The Legislative Branch plays apart in our everyday lives in our citizen interactions. Considering that The Legislative Branch is responsible for a majority of the laws composed, the Legislative Branch is who decides how citizens will live their everyday lives. The laws put into place by the Legislative Branch are, for the most part, to protect us and help retain our civil liberties. The law making process is not one that takes place overnight, extensive preparation goes into writing up the bills so that soon may or may not become laws. The bill must then be presented to a committee, at this point it is up to the committee to vote on the bill, the committee can then choose to: amend, accept ,or reject the bill entirely. Depending on which way the committee votes depicts whether or not the bill will become a law. TheLegislative Branch goes through this extensive process, in order to pass these laws, one can only come to the conclusion that the ones writing up the bills have the civilians best interest in mind. Civilians have a way of overseeing the efforts in which the Legislative Branch goes through in order to maintain our civil liberties. An important role of the Legislative Brach is the fact that The Legislative Branch is put in place in order for the president not to exceed power, if a president does not agree with a law or does not want the law to pass the president has the authority to veto the law, The Legislative Branch has the power to override the presidents veto if two-thirds of both The House of Representatives, and The Senate are in agreement. This allows laws not to be a one sided decision, meaning that the presidents opinion on how a laws should be handles is not the sole opinion that is taken into consideration, for the most part political parties do not always agree on the ways laws or policies should be handled. By the Legislative Branch having the opportunity to override a veto brings justice in the way laws are handled and brings a form of fairness to each political party getting a voice in what will happen with the laws. Along with developing new laws The Legislative Branch also handles many other areas that affect citizen interaction, such as; declares war, regulates interstate and foreign commerce and controls spending policies and taxing. All of these aspects that The Legislative Branch handles affects citizens in America, for example, taxing and spending policies, citizens rely on The Legislative Branch to use taxation
