Политическая система США

On the political system of the United States of America

In the United States, politics functions within a framework of a constitutional federal republic and presidential system, with three distinct branches that share powers: the U. S. Congress which forms the legislative branch, a bicameral legislative body comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate; the executive branch, which is headed by the president of the United States, who serves as the country's head of state and government; and the judicial branch, composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, and which exercises judicial power. Each of the 50 individual state governments has the power to make laws within its jurisdiction that are not granted to the federal government nor denied to the states in the U. S. Constitution. Each state also has a constitution following the pattern of the federal constitution but differing in details. Each have three branches: an executive branch headed by a governor, a legislative body, and judicial branch. At the local level, governments are found in counties or county equivalents, and beneath them individual municipalities, townships, school districts, and special districts. Officials are popularly elected at the federal, state and local levels, with the major exception being the President, who is instead elected indirectly by the people through the Electoral College. U. S. politics is dominated by two parties, which since the American Civil War have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, although other parties have run candidates. Historically, the Democratic Party has generally supported left leaning policies, while the Republican Party has generally supported right leaning ones. Both parties have no formal central organization at the national level that controls membership, elected officials or political policies; thus, each party has traditionally had factions and individuals that deviated from party positions. Almost all public officials in America are elected from single member districts and win office by winning a plurality of votes cast (i. e. more than any other candidate, but not necessarily a majority). Suffrage is nearly universal for citizens 18 years of age and older, with the notable exception of registered felons in some states.

State governments have the power to make laws on all subjects that are not granted to the federal government nor denied to the states in the U. S. Constitution. These include education, family law, contract law, and most crimes. Unlike the federal government, which only has those powers granted to it in the Constitution, a state government has inherent powers allowing it to act unless limited by a provision of the state or national constitution. Like the federal government, state governments have three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The chief executive of a state is its popularly elected governor, who typically holds office for a four year term (although in some states the term is two years). Except for Nebraska, which has unicameral legislature, all states have a bicameral legislature, with the upper house usually called the Senate and the lower house called the House of Representatives, the Assembly or something similar. In most states, senators serve four year terms, and members of the lower house serve two year terms. The constitutions of the various states differ in some details but generally follow a pattern similar to that of the federal Constitution, including a statement of the rights of the people and a plan for organizing the government, and are generally more detailed. At the state and local level, the process of initiatives and referendums allow citizens to place new legislation on a popular ballot, or to place legislation that has recently been passed by a legislature on a ballot for a popular vote. Initiatives and referendums, along with recall elections and popular primary elections, are signature reforms of the Progressive Era; they are written into several state constitutions, particularly in the Western states, but not found at the federal level.

The county is the administrative subdivision of the state, authorized by state constitutions and statutes. The county equivalents in Louisiana are called parishes, while those in Alaska are called boroughs. The specific governmental powers of counties vary widely between the states. In some states, mainly in New England, they are primarily used as judicial districts. In other states, counties have broad powers in housing, education, transportation and recreation. County government has been eliminated throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island, and in parts of Massachusetts; while the Unorganized Borough area of Alaska (which makes up about a half of the area of the state) does not operated under a county level government at all. In areas that do not have any county governmental function and are simply a division of land, services are provided either by lower level townships or municipalities, or the state. Counties may contain a number of cities, towns, villages, or hamlets. Some cities—including Philadelphia, Honolulu, San Francisco, Nashville, and Denver—are consolidated city counties, where the municipality and the county have been merged into a unified, coterminous jurisdiction—that is to say, these counties consist in their entirety of a single municipality whose city government also operates as the county government. Some counties, such as Arlington County, Virginia, do not have any additional subdivisions. Some states contain independent cities that are not part of any county; although it may still function as if it was a consolidated city county, an independent city was legally separated from any county. Some municipalities are in multiple counties; New York City is uniquely partitioned into five boroughs that are each coterminous with a county. In most U. S. counties, one town or city is designated as the county seat, and this is where the county government offices are located and where the board of commissioners or supervisors meets. In small counties, boards are chosen by the county; in the larger ones, supervisors represent separate districts or townships. The board collects taxes for state and local governments; borrows and appropriates money; fixes the salaries of county employees; supervises elections; builds and maintains highways and bridges; and administers national, state, and county welfare programs. In very small counties, the executive and legislative power may lie entirely with a sole commissioner, who is assisted by boards to supervise taxes and elections.

Municipal governments are organized local governments authorized in state constitutions and statutes, established to provide general government for a defined area, generally corresponding to a population center rather than one of a set of areas into which a county is divided. The category includes those governments designated as cities, boroughs (except in Alaska), towns (except in Minnesota and Wisconsin), and villages. This concept corresponds roughly to the "incorporated places" that are recognized in by the U. S. Census Bureau, although the Census Bureau excludes New England towns from their statistics for this category, and the count of municipal governments excludes places that are governmentally inactive. About 28 percent of Americans live in cities of 100,000 or more population. Types of city governments vary widely across the nation. Almost all have a central council, elected by the voters, and an executive officer, assisted by various department heads, to manage the city's affairs. Cities in the West and South usually have nonpartisan local politics. There are three general types of municipal government: the mayor council, the commission, and the council manager. These are the pure forms; many cities have developed a combination of two or three of them.

This is the oldest form of city government in the United States and, until the beginning of the 20th century, was used by nearly all American cities. Its structure is like that of the state and national governments, with an elected mayor as chief of the executive branch and an elected council that represents the various neighborhoods forming the legislative branch. The mayor appoints heads of city departments and other officials (sometimes with the approval of the council), has the power to veto over ordinances (the laws of the city), and often is responsible for preparing the city's budget. The council passes city ordinances, sets the tax rate on property, and apportions money among the various city departments. As cities have grown, council seats have usually come to represent more than a single neighborhood.

This combines both the legislative and executive functions in one group of officials, usually three or more in number, elected city wide. Each commissioner supervises the work of one or more city departments. Commissioners also set policies and rules by which the city is operated. One is named chairperson of the body and is often called the mayor, although their power is equivalent to that of the other commissioners.

The city manager is a response to the increasing complexity of urban problems that need management ability not often possessed by elected public officials. The answer has been to entrust most of the executive powers, including law enforcement and provision of services, to a highly trained and experienced professional city manager. The council manager plan has been adopted by a large number of cities. Under this plan, a small, elected council makes the city ordinances and sets policy, but hires a paid administrator, also called a city manager, to carry out its decisions. The manager draws up the city budget and supervises most of the departments. Usually, there is no set term; the manager serves as long as the council is satisfied with their work.

Some states contain unincorporated areas, which are areas of land not governed by any local authorities below that at the county level. Residents of unincorporated areas only need to pay taxes to the county, state and federal governments as opposed to the municipal government as well. A notable example of this is Paradise, Nevada, an unincorporated area where many of the casinos commonly associated with Las Vegas are situated.

In addition to general purpose government entities legislating at the state, county, and city level, special purpose areas may exist as well, provide one or more specific services that are not being supplied by other existing governments. School districts are organized local entities providing public elementary and secondary education which, under state law, have sufficient administrative and fiscal autonomy to qualify as separate governments. Special districts are authorized by state law to provide designated functions as established in the district's charter or other founding document, and with sufficient administrative and fiscal autonomy to qualify as separate governments; known by a variety of titles, including districts, authorities, boards, commissions, etc., as specified in the enabling state legislation.

Who has the right to vote in the United States is regulated by the Constitution and federal and state laws. Suffrage is nearly universal for citizens 18 years of age and older. Voting rights are sometimes restricted as a result of felony conviction, depending on the state. The District, and other U. S. holdings like Puerto Rico and Guam, do not have the right to choose any political figure outside their respective areas and can only elect a non voting delegate to serve in the House of Representatives. All states and the District of Columbia contribute to the electoral vote for president.

Successful participation, especially in federal elections, often requires large amounts of money, especially for television advertising. This money can be very difficult to raise by appeals to a mass base, although appeals for small donations over the Internet have been successful. Opponents of campaign finance laws allege they interfere with the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. Even when laws are upheld, the complication of compliance with the First Amendment requires careful and cautious drafting of legislation, leading to laws that are still fairly limited in scope, especially in comparison to those of other developed democracies such as the United Kingdom, France or Canada.

Unlike in many other countries, the major political parties in America have no strong central organization that determines party positions and policies, rewards loyal members and officials or expels rebels. A party committee or convention may endorse a candidate for office, but the determination of who will be the party's candidate in the general election is usually done in primaries open to voters who register as Democrats or Republicans. Furthermore, elected officials who fail to "toe the party line" because of constituent opposition to it, and "cross the aisle" to vote with the opposition, have (relatively) little to fear from their party. Parties have state or federal committees that act as hubs for fundraising and campaigning, (See, Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee) and separate campaign committees which work to elect candidates at a specific level, but do not direct candidates or their campaigns. In presidential elections, the party's candidate serves as the de facto party leader, whose popularity or lack thereof helps or hinders candidates further down the ballot. Midterm election are usually regarded as a referendum on the sitting president's performance. Some (Lee Drutman, Daniel J. Hopkins writing before 2018) argue that in the 21st century, along with becoming overly partisan, America politics has become overly focused on national issues and "nationalized", so that even local offices, formerly dealing with local issues now often mention the presidential election.

Despite the constitution's First Amendment Establishment Clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion "), religious groups (primarily Christian groups for historical and demographic reasons) have often become political pressure groups and parts of political coalitions. This influence has often translated into the passing of laws related to morality and personal conduct. State alcohol and gambling laws, for example, have been found to be more restrictive in states with a higher percentage of conservative Protestant Christians. These dealt with land grants, commercial subsidies, taxation, the oversight of roads, poor relief, taverns, and schools. Courts, (private lawsuits were very common) also provided Americans with experience in public affairs and law, and gave interest groups such as
merchants, landlords, petty farmers, artisans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Germans, Scotch Irish, Yankees, Yorkers, etc. control over matters left to the royal court, aristocratic families and the established church in Great Britain. Finally, Americans were interested in the political values of Republicanism, which celebrated equal rights, civic virtue, and abhorred corruption, luxury, and aristocracy.

At the time of the United States' founding, the economy was predominantly one of agriculture and small private businesses, and state governments left welfare issues to private or local initiative. As in the UK and other industrialized countries, laissez faire ideology was largely discredited during the Great Depression. Between the 1930s and 1970s, fiscal policy was characterized by the Keynesian consensus. After the "Reagan revolution" in the early 1980s, laissez faire ideology once more became a powerful force in American politics. While the American welfare state expanded more than threefold after WWII, it held at 20% of GDP from the late 1970s to late 1980s. In the 21st century, modern American liberalism, and modern American conservatism are engaged in a continuous political battle, characterized by what The Economist describes as "greater divisiveness [and] close, but bitterly fought elections." Since 2016, the United States has been recognized as a flawed democracy in the Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, partially due to increased political polarization. According to the V Dem Democracy indices the United States were 2023 the 27th most electoral democratic country and 3rd most participatory democracy in the world. In foreign affairs, the United States generally pursued a noninterventionist policy of "avoiding foreign entanglements" before World War II. After the war, when America became a superpower, for many decades the country embraced internationalism, seeking allies to contain Communism and foster economic cooperation.

The United States Constitution never formally addressed the issue of political parties, primarily because the Founding Fathers—Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington—opposed them as domestic political factions leading to domestic conflict and stagnation. Nevertheless, the beginnings of the American two party system emerged from Washington's immediate circle of advisers, including Hamilton and Madison. By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, with those holding the same views banding together. The followers of Alexander Hamilton (the "Federalist") favored a strong central government that would support the interests of commerce and industry. The followers of Thomas Jefferson, ("Democratic Republicans") preferred a decentralized agrarian republic. By 1828, the Federalists had disappeared as an organization, replaced first by the National Republican Party and then by the Whigs, while the Democratic Republicans evolved into the Democrats led by Andrew Jackson, and known for celebrating "the common (white) man" and the expansion of suffrage to most of them. In the 1850s, it was the Whigs' turn to disappear, undone by the issue of whether slavery should be allowed to expand into the country's new territories in the West. The Whigs were eventually replaced by the Republican Party which opposed slavery expansion and whose first successful candidate for the presidency was Abraham Lincoln.

In pre colonial and post revolutionary American times, voters went to the polls and publicly stated which candidate they supported, rather than voting secretly, which was considered "cowardly" and "underhanded". The practice was dangerous enough that in "the middle decades of the nineteenth century," several dozen (89) were killed in Election Day riots. 1868: Citizenship was guaranteed to all persons born or naturalized in the United States by the Fourteenth Amendment, although Jim Crow laws prevented most African Americans from voting. 1920: Women are guaranteed the right to vote in all US states by the Nineteenth Amendment. 1964 66: Civil Rights laws and Supreme Court rulings eliminate tax payment and wealth requirements and protect voter registration and voting for racial minorities. 1971: Adults aged 18 through 20 are granted the right to vote by the Twenty sixth Amendment.

Observations of historical trends and current governmental demographics have raised concerns about the equity of political representation in the United States. In particular, scholars have noted that levels of descriptive representation—which refers to when political representatives share demographic backgrounds or characteristics with their constituents—do not match the racial and gender makeup of the US. Descriptive representation is noted to be beneficial because of its symbolic representative benefits as a source of emotional identification with one's representatives. Furthermore, descriptive representation can lead to more substantive and functional representation, as well as greater institutional power, which can result in minority constituents having both representatives with matching policy views and power in the political system. Serving as a congressional committee chair is considered to be a good example of this relationship, as chairs control which issues are addressed by committees, especially through hearings that bring substantial attention to certain issues. Other minority groups, such as the LGBTQ community, have also been disadvantaged by an absence of equitable representation—especially since scholars have noted their gradual shift from originally being perceived as more of a moral political issue to being considered an actual constituency. Political representation is also an essential part of making sure that citizens have faith that representatives, political institutions, and democracy take their interests into account.

Although African Americans have begun to continually win more elected positions and increase their overall political representation, they still lack proportional representation across a variety of different levels of government. Some estimates indicate that most gains for African Americans—and other minorities in general—have not occurred at higher levels of government, but rather at sub levels in federal and state governments. Despite also constituting 15% of the population in at least a quarter of House districts, Latino representation in Congress has not correspondingly increased. Despite structural efforts to limit their political representation, some states with large Native American populations have higher levels of representation. South Dakota has a Native population of about 9% with multiple federally recognized tribal nations, and it has been used as a case study of representation. Studies of bills relating to LGBT rights in state legislatures have provided a more nuanced analysis. Pro LGBT bills tend to be introduced in higher numbers when more LGBT representatives are elected to state legislatures, which may also indicate an increased likelihood of substantive representation. and Democracy Index (The Economist) — "show an erosion of American democracy since 2016".

The US doesn't recommend its own political system to its allies creating new constitutions. Democratic backsliding concerns have led to some academics on the other hand to warn that thanks in part to the rulings of the Supreme Court that exacerbated the flaws in these ancient institutions, the U. S. is already a one party state, and no longer meets the minimum requirements to be considered a democracy.

With an implementation of term limits and holding elections for Supreme Court justices, the United States could solve the contentious battle for when Supreme Court members unexpectedly die. Packing the Supreme Court proposals would fade away if an election was going to decide the outcome. Thirty three states already elect their state supreme courts. William Watkins Jr., a constitutional scholar from the Independent Institute on National Public Radio, stated his proposal for 8 to 10 year one time term limits, he also said justices are supposed to be like umpires calling balls and strikes in the game but are acting more like coaches tinkering with starting lineups, and calling hit and runs. Local district attorneys and county sheriffs are elected and so could Supreme Court justices. The United States Senate used to be appointed by state legislatures before the 17th Amendment was passed in 1913 for them to be elected. A second constitutional convention of the states to amend the Constitution could be a way for this reform to proceed.

Term limits for members of Congress was a movement that gained a lot of traction in the early 1990s. 23 State Governments passed legislation that term limited US Congress representatives from each respective state. The Supreme Court decision U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton in 1995 invalidated the term limit legislation found in those 23 states. Newt Gingrich's Contract with America promised legislation in the first 100 days for a constitutional amendment for term limits. However, the Term Limits Constitutional Amendment bill did not pass the 2/3 majority to move the bill forward and only passed with a simple majority of 227–204. It would have limited the House and Senate to 12 years total, six terms in the House, and two terms in the Senate. Today, U. S. Term Limits campaigns for 34 states to call for a Convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution to create a Term Limits amendment.