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Every state except for Nebraska has a bicameral legislature, meaning it comprises two chambers. The unicameral Nebraska Legislature is commonly called the "Senate", and its members are officially called "Senators". In the majority of states (26), the state legislature is simply called "Legislature".
A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or be subject to the direct control of the federal government. This relationship may be defined by a ...
A state can be distinguished from a government. The state is the organization while the government is the particular group of people, the administrative bureaucracy that controls the state apparatus at a given time. [50] [51] [52] That is, governments are the means through which state power is employed.
The primary function of any legislature is to create laws. State legislatures also approve budget for state government. They may establish government agencies, set their policies, and approve their budgets. For instance, a state legislature could establish an agency to manage environmental conservation efforts within that state.
A popular model of the State proposed by minarchists is known as the night-watchman state, in which the only governmental functions are to protect citizens from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud as defined by property laws, limiting it to three institutions: the military, the police, and courts.
The U.S. government being a federal government, officials are elected at the federal (national), state and local levels. All members of Congress , and the offices at the state and local levels are directly elected, but the president is elected indirectly, by an Electoral College whose electors represent their state and are elected by popular vote.
A state that continuously maintains a single-party government within a (nominally) multiparty system possesses a dominant-party system. In a (nondemocratic) one-party system a single ruling party has the (more-or-less) exclusive right to form the government, and the formation of other parties may be obstructed or illegal.
There is also local government, consisting of counties, cities, special districts, and school districts, as well as government entities and offices that operate independently on a constitutional, statutory, or common law basis. The state also allows direct participation of the electorate by initiative, referendum, recall and ratification.