Any USA experts care to enlighten me?

[andrewducker]

What's the difference between the Senate and the House of Representatives?

This West Wing watcher would like to feel slightly less confused about how your government works...

Comments

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I forgot the most important part, from a political machination viewpoint -- the House can potentially turn over every two years, because every seat is up for re-election every two years. The Senate is staggered, so that at the most, 1/3 of the seats can have new warm bodies in them every two years. Since we only have two effective parties (grumble grumble), this can be really important at mid-term elections (halfway through a presidency).

Re: two parties

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

You actually think we have two effective parties? I'd say that we have two different groupings that take turns masquerading as each other and both are rather ineffective. Belonging to one or the other party used to mean something but that seemed to go away either in the late '70s or the '80s.

Re: two parties

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, we absolutely have two parties. One wants your wallet, the other wants your civil liberties :P

Re: two parties

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

It used to be that I could figure out which one you meant by each of those. But I could make a case for either of them being either now.
This all really hit home when the Republicans started extolling the virtues of deficit spending while the Democrats were crying for the need to be fiscally conservative.

Re: two parties

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

I didn't say they were always the same party!