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If you watch the news, you’ll hear words like Congress and Parliament used seemingly interchangeably, as if the only difference were location. In the United States, it’s Congress; in the United Kingdom and many other parts of the world, it’s Parliament. To be fair – both legislative bodies make laws. But that’s about where the similarities end.
Congress – A Function of Checks and Balances
One of the reasons the United States is a constitutional republic rather than a democracy is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. And the structure of Congress is a feature of that function.
In this form of legislature, there’s a strict separation of powers. In a country with a congressional setup, voters choose their representatives, who serve a fixed term and can’t dissolve their own legislative body. Voters separately choose their executive leader (typically a president) who also serves a fixed term. There are ways to remove elected officials, but it’s quite difficult for a reason. Also, individual lawmakers have more freedom in their decisions.
In the United States, specifically, the people of each district in each state choose their member of the House of Representatives through direct election. The two senators for each state were originally chosen by the state legislatures and thus served as the voices of the states just as the representatives were the voices of the people. That all changed, however, in 1913 with the Seventeenth Amendment to the US Constitution, making the Senate yet another popularly elected body.
But the people vote for the president and other executives separately, and they have to remain separate. An exception to this is that the vice president serves as president of the Senate. But even then, the VP gets to vote only when there’s a tie. In the United States – and in other countries that have this setup – each chamber of Congress might be ruled by a different party, and the presidency could be held by either or even technically a different one altogether.
Parliament – A More Streamlined, Less Restricted Path
The United Kingdom has Parliament rather than Congress – and it’s different. In the UK, the House of Commons is the primary legislative body that debates issues and makes laws. Members of Parliament are elected by the people to this lower house. The House of Lords, on the other hand, is made up of people appointed for life by the monarch, leaders in the Church of England, and, in some cases, people who inherited their titles. They share the responsibility of making laws and often amending legislation passed by the Commons.
The executive, the prime minister, is generally chosen from the House of Commons and therefore is a member of the majority party, which in this system controls both the legislature and the executive, making the passage of laws much easier for the party in power.
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several other former British colonies also have their own parliaments, which choose their prime minister from their own ranks. Each of these nations also has the British monarch as their king or queen, though independently of the British crown. Should the UK decide to do away with the monarchy, King Charles III would cease to be the king of England, but he’d still be the king of those other countries. Ireland has a parliamentary system but does not recognize the monarchy. Japan has a parliamentary system with a prime minister.
While these executives rise from the ranks of the majority party in the legislature, they can also be removed easily with a vote of “no confidence.” As well, the prime minister can disband the lower house of Parliament and force what’s called snap elections to replace it.
The parliamentary system may sound like it brings more political unity, and, in that regard, it does bring a greater stability in passing laws and avoiding government gridlock over disagreements. But prime ministers can be replaced, and so can the entire lower house. It’s quite sensitive to the political mood and therefore fragile. In some countries with many political parties, such as Italy and Israel, prime ministers and cabinets can change as frequently as every few months.
Congress insulates the executive and the legislative alike from that kind of systemic collapse. But the same independence that protects them means those lawmakers are more prone to long stretches of no progress as arguments can’t be resolved by simply replacing opponents as easily or as often. Want a different representative, senator, or president? Election Day is your best chance.
