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Monday, June 22, 2020

US Legislature: Senate and House of Representative

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Aditi Mohta
Aditi Mohta
North America

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Article Contributor(s)

Aditi Mohta

Article Title

US Legislature: Senate and House of Representative

Publisher

Global Views 360

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

URL

The US Capitol, Washington

The US Capitol, Washington | Source: Gryffindor via Wikimedia

US Congress

Congress of the United States, the legislature of the United States of America is established under the Constitution of 1789. It is structurally separate from the executive and judicial branches of the government. The United States Senate is the upper House of the United States Congress, and the House of Representatives is the lower House of the United States Congress. Together, both these houses make up the legislature of the United States. Although the two chambers are separate for the most part, the House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process, and the legislation cannot be acted without the consent of both chambers. Congress must assemble at least once in a year and must agree on the date of convening and adjourning. The decided time for convening, according to the Twentieth Amendment, is January 3. The House and the Senate vote the date for adjournment. Congress must also come together in a joint session to count the electoral votes for the President and the Vice President. 

United States Senate 

The United States Senate, the upper House of the United States Congress, was established in 1789 under the Constitution. Each state elects two senators for six years. One-third of the Senate membership expires every two years. It is hence also nicknamed as “the house that never dies”. The role of the Senate is to provide equal representation to each state regardless of their size and population. Washington, D.C. houses the chamber of the United States Senate. Election to the Senate was indirect up till 1913 and changed to direct election by the Seventeenth Amendment. The Senate shares responsibility with the House of Representatives for law-making within the United States of America. 

The Senate has exclusive powers which are not granted to the House of Representative. The powers include the authority to consent to treaties before giving it for consent, confirming the appointment of -- Cabinet secretaries, federal judges and executives, military officers, regulatory officials, ambassadors, and other federal uniformed officers. The Senate is also responsible for trying federal officials that have been impeached by the House.

The qualifications for Senators are as follows:

  1. They must be at least 30 years old. 
  2. They must have the citizenship of the United States of America for at least nine years.
  3. They must be an inhabitant of the state they are representing. 

House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is the lower House of the United States Congress which was established in 1789 by the Constitution of the United States. It shares equal responsibilities of law-making with the Senate. The House is designed to give a voice to people of every local voting region of America. Members of the House stand for reelection every two years. Each state is split into districts and each district votes for one representative. The number of districts depends on the population of each state. The candidate with the most number of votes wins the seat in the House, and the party with the most number of seats takes control.

The primary responsibility of the House is to pass federal legislation that affects the whole country. For the bill to become a law the Senate has to agree and the United States President has to finally sign it. The House, like the Senate, has special powers too. These include the power to initiate revenue bills, to impeach officials, and to elect the President in case there is no majority in the Electoral College.

The House is organised in the committee system, under which the membership is divided into specialised committees like committees for holding hearings, preparing bills for the consideration of the entire House, and regulating the House procedure. The member of the majority party chairs these committees. Almost all bills are first referred to the respective committee. There are approximately 20 permanent committees, each having subcommittees. 

The qualifications for members of the House are:

  1. They must be at least 25 years of age.
  2. They must be a U.S. citizen for at least seven years. 
  3. They do not need to reside in the constituency that he represents.

Articles that were referred to:

  1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/the-legislative-branch/#:~:text=The%20Senate%20maintains%20several%20powers,confirmation%20of%20the%20Vice%20President.
  2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Representatives-United-States-government
  3. https://www.congress.gov/help/learn-about-the-legislative-process/how-our-laws-are-made
  4. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-politicalscience/chapter/the-nature-and-function-of-congress/

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February 4, 2021 5:00 PM

Stonewall Riots: A Pillar In The Movement For American LGBTQIA+ Rights

The Stonewall Riots are globally remembered as the cornerstone of Pride Month, and rightfully so. Fifty-one years ago, a routine police raid on Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York turned into an upheaval against homophobic society, laws, and policing.

In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a police raid— often conducted on secret or private bars that exclusively served LGBTQIA+ patrons— turned its head on the New York Police Department.

The Stonewall riot in 1969 | Source: David via Flickr

Some accounts say that the pivotal moment came when few of the lesbians who were brutally shoved into a police wagon showed resistance. In response, the crowd lit up in anger and resistance. Instead of running away to save themselves, the patrons fought back, even leading to the police barricading themselves within the bar itself as they waited for backup.

The Stonewall riot in 1969 | Source: David via Flickr

News of the clash spread and more people gathered, throwing anything they could find: nickels, garbage cans, broken bottles, and yes, bricks too, though ‘the first brick’ may have been more myth than real. Eventually, it took the fire department and a riot squad to quell the riots on the first night.

Defiant, Stonewall reopened the next evening, and the confrontation between police and community members continued for the rest of the week, drawing hundreds and upto thousands of community members. A total of twenty one protestors were arrested over the week, with the majority being arrested on the first night itself.

It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly led to the Stonewall riots, or the status that it earned in present-day Pride and LGTBQ+ liberation movements. The movement for LGTBQ+ rights existed before Stonewall (if relatively subdued relative to what came after), and so did the concept of ‘Pride,’ in the form of ‘Personal Rights in Defense and Education’ (PRIDE) that went on to become the Advocate magazine.

Stonewall wasn’t even the first time the community clashed with the police. It has been postulated that the act of naming, “the first to be called the first,” and the decision of organizers to commemorate its anniversary in the form of ‘Christopher Street Liberation Day’ contributed largely to Stonewall becoming a permanent and popular fixture in LGBTQIA+ history and collective memory.  

Regardless of the contributing factors, the cultural impact of Stonewall on American and Western LGBTQIA+ communities was immediate and intense. It became the epicentre of a louder, more radical movement. The community had tried it the ‘respectable’ way through organisations such as Mattachine, but it didn’t get them anywhere.

The number of LGTBQ+ focused organisations and magazines soared after Stonewall, going from around two dozen to four hundred. These included radical organisations such as the Gay Liberation Front and Radicalesbians.

The year after Stonewall, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who were present at the riots and are considered transgender icons, created the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which focused on struggles of drag queens and trans and gender-non-conforming youth who often lived on the streets.

Stonewall Inn as it existed no longer stands, but the new Stonewall Inn in the same street and the park across it have been recently declared as a historic national monument.

The old Stonewall was not a luxurious bar in terms of drinks or furnishings. It was not a place frequented by upper or middle class, white, cisgender gay men. Being a dance bar whose patrons included working class or homeless LGBTQIA+ people and drag queens, it was often looked down upon. All of that changed in one week, and the spirit that shone in Stonewall that night continues to resonate and be celebrated in the hearts of all LGBTQIA+ people.

In light of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and the rioting that happened alongside, many LGBTQIA+ people on social media have responded to criticism by reminding people of Stonewall, and how the “first Pride” was a riot led by Black and Latin transgender women, gender non-conforming youth, and other LGBTQIA+ people of colour, the very people whose history and resistance has often been white-washed, diminished, or erased altogether.

As said by Martin Luther King Jr., “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

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