Instead of being all confused on why your answer was wrong, why not educate yourself? I'd like to see you take the time and look up some of the things that confused you like the Electoral College. I think you'd appreciate some of the things you're talking about much more.
What's even more ridiculous is that most college age students these days in the US have no idea what the Electoral College is, and yet they're allowed to vote...
@@malcolmdrake6137 I totally get what OP is talking about. It's frustrating to watch when people don't know about something you spend your life studying lol
The origin of the word college is Latin, meaning "gather together." The Electoral College gathers to elect presidents in the same way the College of Cardinals gathers to elect popes.
It's like this so more densely populated states votes don't sway the count in voting. So smaller populations don't get ignored. Although if we just had a different system or more candidates of various parties to choose from at the end. Or if we could vote for up to two presidents and whoever gets the majority vote wins. If we went by majority vote rather than a plurality. Or is it the other way around? Guys do we use a plurality vote or majority? I confuse the two.
@@rob5894 each elector has a district. There may be only 2 states that split their electoral votes, but the electoral college in each state still votes the same way.
@@adventuresinlaurenland 48 states and DC no longer use the district method. The number of electors is determined by House distracts but the Electors do not represent those districts. If they did what districts would the extra electors have?
Which is called the Miranda act based on a court case of the same name. And that's not part of the Constitution but a spin - off from the 5th Amendment, the right not to incriminate myself or to testify against myself or to create a double jeopardy: to be tried twice for the same crime. Also it comes a little from the 4th Amendment, to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure (need a warrant or probable cause) and to be secure in one's person, papers, and effects. The 4th amendment is a big deal. Supreme Court Chief Justice Louis Brandeis said to be left alone is one of our most cherished rights.
The Senate and the House of Representatives are two different houses under the Congress. We have a majority of Republicans in the senate and majority of Democrats in the house because they are two separate houses
@@johnp139 yes, the lower chamber is the House of Representatives and the upper chamber is the Senate. Joel and Lia, watch this: ua-cam.com/video/FFroMQlKiag/v-deo.html
They are confused because in the UK you vote For ONE PARTY, and the winners literally takes over every branch of government at once! The majority of the house of commons basically appoints the prime minister, and the p.m. choose the executive branch from members of the house (his own party, primarily.) The house of lords is not voted on at all, and has a complicated history. For, example, their are 21 seats reserved for Bishops in the Church of England! For these type of reasons the House of Lords power has been slowly diminished. So the government is control by the Prime Minister, his cabinet, and the House of Commons, all of which belong to the same party.
Congress has two houses. The house of representatives has 435 members with each state having a proportional number of representatives based on it's population. The senate (which is the second house) has 2 representatives per state regardless of population. For a law to be passed, it needs the approval of both houses of congress and the president, but the senate has the special power of filibuster. The senate has the ability to block any law if it doesn't have at least 60 votes in the senate. It was designed this way intentionally because the original founders of the country were worried that the few heavily populated states would bully the rural states, and at the time they were trying to convince the other british colonies to join together, so this was considered an acceptable compromise to get all 13 colonies united.
The reason the VP breaks the tie is because of checks and balances built into the Constitution. Each state the popular vote determines the electors. All but two states (Maine and Nebraska) have a winner take all policy. So for example in Texas if the popular vote of the state is for a Republican (as has been the case for the past 40 years) then all 38 (second most electoral votes in the country) of Texas' electoral votes goes to the Republican candidate. A Person needs 270 electoral votes to become President. The electors vote in December for the President and VP. They can change and vote for the other person, but dissenting electors are rare. If there is not one person with the absolute majority (which is 270) of the 538 electors then the U.S. House of Representatives will decide the election (see the 1824 Presidential elect aka the corrupt bargain for a time this happened). The number of Electors in a state is equal to the number of Senators and Representatives each state has with the addition of 3 electors for D.C. (since the people of D.C. have no Senators or a voting member of the House of Representatives), but the electors are not the same people in Congress (House and Senate), but rather chosen by the states. So a President can win the popular vote, but lose the electoral college. The electoral college was created for 2 reasons: 1) to guarantee that small populated states still have an impact on the election (without the electoral college candidates would just campaign to big cities and ignore small populations) and 2) to protect the country from the "tyranny of the majority" as James Madison (father of the Constitution) called it. When we adopted the Constitution we were replacing the first governing document of the new United States, the Articles of Confederation. In the AOC each state no matter the population had the same number of votes in regards to changing the government. So both the electoral college and the U.S. Senate were how they compromised to give smaller populated states a voice. The house of Representatives is the lower house of congress and it's number of members is based on the population in the state. The senate is the upper house of Congress with each state getting two senators. Often times, like now, they are controlled by different parties, but many times by the same party. Both have different powers and together pass legislation to be sent to the President for a signature or a veto. In the event of a veto the entire congress can override the veto with a 2/3 majority. Sorry this is so long. I teach American History.
Hopefully the Electoral College will soon be a thing of the past. With the technology of today, it’s an archaic system that is no longer necessary or relevant. As usual, this video was amusingly entertaining. Thanks!
The electoral college will never be dissolved, its part of what makes yhe democratic republic work and has nothing to do with vote counting. It makes the popular vote null so that L.A., NYC, Atlanta, Chicago, and Houston dont get to decide whats good for the entire country.
@@ghostlyMostly1 The EC was literally invented to protect the voting power of slave owners. For the last 4 years, the minority has ruled. It shows exactly why the rural counties should not choose the president.
Very cool. Filibusters used to be like this -- a senator could take the floor and keep it indefinitely as long as he could keep speaking. Now, however, they have devolved into just not doing anything on a bill unless 60 senators signal they will vote for it.
Who remembers Nancy Pelosi's filibuster in 2018? She was 77 years old. Spoke for 8 hours with no breaks at all, wearing stilettos. Whether you agree with her or not, that is impressive.
@@bobhager41 Mr Smith Goes to Washington; actually made in 1939. It was very best year for Hollywood films; Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Dark Victory, Goodbye Mr Chips, Stagecoach, The Women, Of Mice And Men, The Little Princess, Ninochka, Gunga Din, Young Mr. Lincoln, At The Circus, Hunchback of Notre Dame, It's A Wonderful Life, They Shall Have Music.
@@mackenziemorgan7054 not quite elected by state legislatures. The were supposed to represent state interests I know several people who absolutely believe that direct election of senators was a major mistake. Odd stuff people worry about
Lia quote for the ages: "The right to remain silent?! NO ONE does that in America" LOL -- I was kind of surprised you couldn't relate to the two different houses concept of our government, though, given the UK has the House of Commons and the House of Lords
I love how all your wrong answers make perfect sense for somebody who doesn't realize how little sense the American political system makes. You should at least know that the USA has a bicameral legislature (Senate and House of Representatives) just like Britain does with its House of Lords and House of Commons.
Yes, I've had someone say to think of the Senate akin to the House of Lords and the House as akin to the House of Commons. Not sure that's necessarily correct though
@@bndork It's kind of true since to an extent the parliament of the USA was modeled after that of Great Britain with both an upper and lower house. The main difference is that there are no hereditary peers or bishops in the Senate, unlike the House of Lords.
@@loosilu True and the party that controls the House can be different from the Senate, hence the potential for two different majorities of separate but equal influence . Another reason it probably seems confusing to Brits is that the president doesn't have to be of the same party as the one(s) that hold the majority in congress.
@@ivetterodriguez1994 yea except executive orders are only effective for the years the president is in office. It’s easy for the next president to get rid of those executive orders. A law is permanent and a lot harder to get rid of.
Third Division - Agreed. I am not and never have been a member of any political party. I vote my consciounce, but I vote. To my thought, the stickiest situation for our States to be in, is when one party, essentially, runs all branches of government. Which ever party holds the Presidency, I can live with that, and I have, over the past 70 years. What I really prefer to see, and it usually is, is that each party might control one House of Congress or the other, which tends to result in what you said (nothing gets done). Kidding, but what does get done, has been well argued and considered, which I believe is a benefit to our country, as it has been hammered out and we have come to some form of consensus. Better that way than ramshod, my thinking. As to the Supreme Court, I'm not nearly as worried as many can be, as to whether it has a liberal or conservative balance, both of which I've seen, there is something magical that happens when a Justice is approved for a lifetime apointment with no re-election considered. They tend to get down to their job, considering laws, or abuses of, as they pertain to the Constitution, no matter what theater their roots are from. If Congress or the President don't like it, they can try and pass a Constitutional ammendment, which as Prohibition and it's repeal, hopefully makes clear (as the double stain it was), would be my last reccomendation.
@@ivetterodriguez1994 - Agreed, but I don't think that was the point at issue. Maybe I'm wrong. I think you are right tho, as it is often used by 'perceived necessity', and maybe rightfully so. I think the US entry into WWII, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, was initially an Executive order, but it was eventually ratified by both Houses of Congress, as the best of them are. There may be necessity to it, until Congress can vote yea or nea, to give the President a means of making a crucial, immediate decision, in the best interest of the country. Is it ever abused? Not for me to say. Sometimes, it seems a manner by which a President can request certain Legislation from Congress, altho I would think there might be better ways to do that, but having never been President, what do I know?
22nd Amendment gives the President two terms plus two years. The extra years is if they take over in case a President has to leave office. If less than two years you get ten. If a President had more than two years left you get to finish the term and one more.
From Google: college definition, sense 2: "An organized group of professional people with particular aims, duties, and privileges." hence, the electoral college: an organised group of people whose duty it is to elect.
There are really 50 separate elections taking place - every state runs the election 🗳 and many have different rules. Also - for the presidency it is actually an indirect election as voters are actually choosing electoral delegates from their state who vote in the Electoral College, and each state gets a # of delegates based on their size
@@calvinpage4070 - based on the number of members the state has in the senate and house of representatives. It is not straight population distribution. The votes of people in less populated states have more "weight" than those in more populated states.
@@JulieStones and that makes any chance of ending the Electoral College very unlikely. It benefits small states/Republicans and it’s a big hurdle to pass a constitutional amendment.
The electoral college is confusing for many still. It is a combination of the number of senators and the number of house of representatives from each state. It was a compromise to prevent the states with the most population from dominating states with little population. The electors are party loyalist that pledge to vote the way the population voted now.
Right. Most states award all their electoral votes to the person who wins a plurality in that state's election. Maine and Nebraska, however, award two of their electoral votes on an at-large basis, and the rest based on who wins in each congressional district.
The whole "population" thing is exactly why it should be gotten rid of. Majority should rule, with respect to minority rights, but not allow backwardness and bigotry, which the EC contributes to every time.
@@jwb52z9 WHY? I don't want people in California or New York to dominate the country. They do get much more Electoral College votes based on their population which is represented by the number Congressional Districts in their state. If you don't like it, propose a Constitutional Amendment to change it. It will not pass in the foreseeable future though because the smaller states will not vote for it.
@@robertdendooven7258 Not just NY state and California, but in particular NYC and Los Angeles and San Fran. Does anyone really want just the voters in just those cities making our choices? Look at the choices they've made for themselves!
Originally there was no limit to how many terms a president could serve. George Washington (the first US president) set the standard of only two terms. Every president afterwards followed in his footsteps. FDR is the only president to be elected more than two terms, he was elected a total of four terms. He was president during the Great depression and world war II. Sometime after his presidency the amendment limited the amount of terms the president could serve.
instigated by jealous Republicans, and now Trump wants more terms again. The ultimate irony. Thank God they did set a limit there; now, if only those jerks in Congress had limits on them. Nobody lived so long 200 years ago.
Is it any wonder? Civics is taught in very few schools these days. Most all high school graduates have no idea how our government works, how laws are made, etc. Can't decide if it's an embarrassment or just plain pathetic. I know what I'm talking about from first hand experience... I'm a retired public school teacher.
1. The Vice President doesn’t actually have many constitutionally given jobs. The role of VP is kind of seen as a joke, only recently has the VP been given more jobs by the President (Mike Pence as the coronavirus task force head, VP’s before him have done some stuff as well). The only real job the VP has is to preside over the Senate. Some may see it as corrupt, but it’s no different than having one more Senator who belongs to a party. Also, in the past, the VP didn’t spend too much time with the President. 3. Before the 22nd amendment was adopted, it was tradition to not run more than 2 terms because George Washington set that precedent (in reality he was tired and thought it was time to go). Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only President, and will ever be the only President to serve more than two terms (he served 3 terms and an unfinished 4th term because he died of a stroke). A few years later, the Senate passed the 22nd amendment saying a president cannot serve more than 2 terms (if a VP becomes president with less than 2 years left in a term, he can still run for two more terms so it means the max you can serve for is a day less than 10 years). 4. There are two votes in the US, the popular vote, and the electoral college vote. The popular vote doesn’t actually decide who becomes president, it just tells electors (the people who form the electoral college) who to vote for. They vote based on who their state voted for. The amount of electoral votes is based on the amount of Representatives (435) + the amount of Senators (100) + three electors for Washington D.C. (3) since the minimum electoral votes a state can have is 3 but they aren’t a state (it’s weird ik) = 538. 538 divided by 2 is 269 which means to get a majority vote, you must have 270 votes to win. With the way our system works, it’s possible a candidate can win the popular vote and lose the election. This was put into place to give less populous states more say and so not to create a mobocracy (rule of the mob). 6 & 7. The House and the Senate are two different bodies of Congress. The House is populated by how many people each state has (California had 52 representatives while Wyoming has 1), to balance this, since states with more population get more say and people in smaller states have less representation, the Senate was created which gives every state 2 Senators (California and Wyoming both have 2 Senators, like every other state).
@@stephaniemeekins7415 I didn’t have anything to say about it. It just asked how many votes to filibuster. Plus I have little knowledge on why the filibuster exists, how it works, etc
2 terms max, 8 years. George Washington set that- then, FDR came through said eff that “3 for me!” and within 10 years the 22nd amendment happened saying “Nay.” Fin.
@@travisbounds4746 Correct. He was elected four times (1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944) but unfortunately he died only a few weeks after his inauguration for the fourth term.
@@travisbounds4746 the 22nd Amendment was ratified AFTER FDR. It is actually less than 10 years, so a VP that becomes president with less than 2 years left to serve can be president for two additional terms.
To elaborate, it was tradition after George Washington set a precedent of two terms. He said two terms is enough. It wasn't law until the 22nd amendment, so FDR did nothing wrong. Also, he only went on to three and then four terms to take us out of the Great Depression and through World War II.
To answer the last two: The US Congress is broken into two halves: the Senate with 2 representatives from every state (currently majority Republican) and the House of Representatives with over 400 locally elected representatives (currently majority Democrat). The Congress is called the “legislative” branch, and they officially write the laws. The President/VP are the “executive” branch, and they officially enforce the laws. The reason the VP breaks a tie is because they’re from a different branch of government, so in theory they serve as a “check” on the powers of the other two branches (each branch has a way to “check” the power of the others; not mentioned previously is the judicial branch, whose role is to interpret the law).
@@lorenle8352 this is also true. I was mostly describing the logic behind the VP breaking the tie, not the how. But you are correct that probably the most significant responsibility as VP is to be the President of the Senate.
and don't forget that when the government was set up, the founding fathers STUPIDLY forgot about parties. In the original Constitution, the prez and the veep were chosen differently and thus could and did end up being from different parties, which led to a mess in government, causing so much trouble that the Constitution was CHANGED, i.e. AMENDED to fix that mess. Perhaps we should do some more amending.
The practice of the president and vice president (a running mate) running together started in 1864. The 12th amendment stipulates that the electors cast 1 vote for president and 1 vote for vice president. The 12th amendment has never been amended.
@@paulengstrom432 If they were willing to work together I would actually be totally down for a mixed party ticket. You see this sort of stuff all the time in other democracy's with what are known as "coalition governments". Essentially it forces the two parties to sit down and work out a compromise that they can both agree on, thus preventing two party deadlock.
Y'all crack me up!! No one would expect y'all to know these things, it would be a bonus if you did though. The answers to all these questions are easily found online. But don't feel bad, most Americans don't know the answers to them either. A long, and I mean a long, time ago, back when I was in high school we had to take American History and these things were taught in that class and if you couldn't pass the test at the end of the year, well, you had to take to class again, and again, until you could pass. That class is now an elective in most schools and isn't required to pass or graduate even. Things are total crap in the good ole USA right now and probably about to get worse.
The UK has bicameral legislative body too right? House of Commons and the House of Lords? We all had to take a Constitution test in 8th grade in order to graduate and this is what I remember from 2008. 1.The US has 2 chambers of congress. 2. The upper chamber of congress is the Senate and the lower chamber is the House of Representatives. 3.They must agree on a bill before it is sent to the president to be made a law. 4. The number of representatives that a state gets in the House is determined by a state’s population while every state gets two senators regardless of population. 5.Colloquially, the House or Representatives is just referred to as congress (or the House) while the Senate is just called the Senate, but congress could actually be used to refer to either the House or the Senate because it refers to both of them collectively as the bicameral legislative body. 6.The Vice President also holds the title of President of the Senate which is why She (referring to Kamala Harris) gets to break ties (ties rarely happen btw). The office of VP was not designed to be inherently powerful, but in this slight capacity as the gobetween for the legislative and executive branches, the VP wields ample power. Do a Chicago slang/accent video please and thank you!
We do have a bicameral system, but unlike the Senate, we don't vote for the House of Lords. It's made up of bishops who have held their seats for centuries, hereditary lords who inherit their seats, and life peers who are granted their seats by Queen, on the advice of the PM. So there's really only one majority that matters, the one in the House of Commons. If needs must the PM could just make hundreds of peers and give himself a majority in the Lords, which some have done, Cameron added 117 in his first year at Number 10.
OMG, y'all are so cute. The House of representatives, and the Senate are our two legislative houses of Congress. Every state gets two representatives in the Senate evenly, and the vice president settles a tie. In the House of Representatives, states get a different number of representatives based on population...all bills regarding federal funding must begin here. To pass a bill in Congress, it must both first pass the House and the Senate individually...then be ratified by the President. If the President vetos a bill, it takes a two thirds majority in the House of Representatives to over ride a veto.
The Senate is made up of 2 Senators from each state. The House of Representatives is made up of representatives from each state based on the states population (currently 435 members). Don't feel too bad over half of the us Americans would fail that quiz as well.
“Ballot selfies” were initially illegal, but now are a state by state issue. Some states allow them and others prohibit them. The purpose of prohibition is primarily for secrecy to protect against coercion and bribery.
In my state, you can get a preview of the ballot in PDF front and back if you put in your address in a KY search engine. They show if you are registered and what your precinct is (mine is D110. In the neighborhood I grew up in it was G113. Funny what you remember.) It also gives you a PDF of the current elected officials in office and a calendar of election events like when registrations of candidates are due and where to take them and a phone number. This is from the Board of Elections.
Hey Lia, you're hilarious. The right to remain silent (the 5th amendment) is to prevent the government from torturing you to confess against yourself during a criminal trial. Unfortunately, it does not work on public transportation.
Yes, the US citizenship test is for immigrants seeking to become a citizen. And yes, many natural born citizens could not pass this test because of the failure of the educational system to stress important real world understanding. I don't think voting should be trusted as a birthright anymore, but has to be earned. Too many ignorant/dumb people making decisions we all have to live with.
Funny how the different democracies are so different. and when they said "well the VP would be on the side of the president, so it couldn't be them that casts the deciding vote in the senate" I was like "well you'd THINK it would work like that, wouldn't you?" Also, given those choices for the term limit, it USED to be custom and precedent, and only a few presidents had over 2 terms. But that last one to have more than 2 was FDR, who had 4 (died before end of 4th), and since the 19th amendment was in the early 1900s (like 1919 I believe -it gave women the right to vote under the constitution). So therefore, you can kinda make an educated guess/use process of elimination to determine that the official term limit on presidents was set AFTER FDR, and also after the 19th amendment, so 22nd amendment. This is now basically an essay on term limits, but I figure there're probably a lot of brits who watched this video, so maybe my horrible horrible US Government class in highschool can actually benefit y'all.
You crack me up about our big load mouths!!!! Laughing do hard!!! We just love you Brits!!! You excite us inside and we are just over joyed talking to you Brits. So we come off load maybe. We are having party with you after the virus!!! If Biden wins we can all party!!!! Go Biden!!!!
It's the 22nd Amendment, NOT 22 years! A president is limited to 2 terms maximum (8 years). Ever since Franklin Roosevelt was elected to 4 terms ending in the 1940s.
Congress is made up of two houses, the Senate (100 members - 2 from every state) and the House of Representatives (435 members - number from each state determined by the current population of each). The electoral college is based on the number of House of Representatives from each state plus the two senators from each. The terms for senate are six years (staggered every two years with 1/3ish being up for election) and for House of Representatives two years. It was hilarious watching you try to answer these questions, but to be fair, I would do horribly if I were asked questions about the UK government. Well done, Lia, on knowing the first two amendments. As for the right to be silent, that is more for when you have been arrested/accused of something or have to give testimony, you can plead the fifth (remain silent on the grounds it may incriminate you) whether guilty or not (for example, someone under cover May want to plead the fifth so they don’t reveal their identity).
Presidential Term Limits: Originally, there was no limit on presidential reelection. In 1796 however, George Washington chose not to seek a third term. This shocked and amazed people all over the world. King George III is said to have commented, "If he does that, he is the greatest man in the world." This set a precedent that stood for well over a hundred years. Not until 1940 did a President, Franklin Roosevelt, seek a third term. After Roosevelt was elected to a third, and then a fourth term in office, the Constitution was amended to limit Presidents to no more than two terms. Electoral College: No, a college is not necessarily an educational institution. What is the College of Heralds? A Place where people go to study heraldry? No, it's all the heralds, united collegially to decide who gets to put what on their coat of arms. So, the United States is a *federal* republic, a union of sovereign states, and it is those states, not the public at large, which elect the president. Each state gets to appoint a number of electors equal to their total number of Senators and Representatives, and those electors cast that state's votes for president. In practice, the electors are chosen by the popular vote of the people in the state, but, Constitutionally, the state legislature actually has full authority to decide how the electors will be chosen, or to choose them itself. In the early days of the republic, the state legislatures did the choosing. Popular election was gradually adopted beginning in the early 1800s. I think by 1820 all the states were doing it that way, but I could be wrong. More recently, in 2000, when the courts in Florida were interfering with the process, ordering recount after recount, not provided by law, in only two counties, the state legislature was preparing to exercise this power and appoint the electors when the Supreme Court finally ordered the state courts to stop. Ties in the Senate: Yes, the Vice President gets to break tie votes. It's actually the only power he has. When the Constitution was written, the Framers did not anticipate the formation of political parties and expected politics to be largely regional. Originally, the Vice President was the runner up in the presidential election. This proved to be unworkable though under the second President, John Adams, when he and his Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, proved to be bitter political enemies, because they were leaders of the two nascent political parties. Thus the Constitution was amended so that the Electors voted to elect both the President and Vice President, so that they would always be allies. Thus the system does give the President's party a slight advantage. Congressional majorities: The United States Congress, like the British Parliament, has two houses, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Unlike the Parliament however, the two houses have equal roles to play in the legislative process. These two bodies are elected separately. When you go to vote, you vote for Senator and for Representative (Member of Congress), hence, different boxes on the ballot. Thus, it is entirely possible, and not uncommon, for the two houses to have different majority parties, as they do right now. Multiple boxes on the ballot: I'm curious, don't you vote for local offices like mayor, city council, county supervisor, etc.?
Each office is elected separately from each other office that's why there are so many choices on the ballot. In addition there can be referenda on specific issues in your state, at least in some states. I'm not sure if it applies to all of them. It's possible to win the presidency while losing the popular vote. The Popular vote is how many votes the candidates receive nationwide. It has happened several times 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. The Presidential election is actually 50 different state elections and each state gets X number of electoral votes equal to it's representation in Congress. A candidate must get a majority of the Electoral votes cast to win, otherwise the presidency is decided in the House of Representatives. Smaller states effectively have more power, relative to their population because each state gets 2 Senators, while the House is apportioned by population with a minimum of 1 Congressman per state. Presidential elections are often decided by the results in a few close states. Those states will also get an inordinate number of political ads. I live in Central Florida, and couldn't watch anything on TV without seeing political ads (plural) in most commercial breaks. The right to remain silent is a thing, it's in the 5th Amendment. If you're accused of a crime in the United States, you cannot be forced to testify at your trial.
You have the House of Lords and House of Commons. We have Senate and House of Representatives. There are different people in each chamber. There can be different majorities because of that.
The UK is different in that they have to form coalitions to do anything in a lot of cases. They don't allow one group to just run over the other in the legislature.
The electoral college is made up of "electors" from each state. The number of electors is based off the number of senetors (2) plus however many representatives the state has in the House of Representatives (based on the state's population). So the number varies from state to state, for example, California has 55 electors while Alaska only has 3. During the presidential election, the population of each state votes separately. All the states electoral votes (usually) go to whatever candidate gets the most votes in the state. For example, Kentucky has 8 electoral votes. 67% of voters in Kentucky voted for Trump. Even though 33% voted for a different candidate, all 8 electoral votes go to Trump. Whichever candidate wins the majority of the electoral votes (which is 270) wins the election. So basically, as citizens, we don't vote for the president directly. Instead the states themselves vote through the electoral college. Our votes as citizens just determine who our state electors will vote for. This is why a candidate can win the popular vote but still lose the election. The purpose behind this system is in part keep balance between the voting power of each state. Without the electoral college, states with large populations (mainly on the coasts) like California, New York, or Texas would have almost all the power, leaving states like Kentucky, Montana, or Iowa no real say in the election. Though the electors usually take a pledge to base their vote off the will of their state's voters, electors are technically allowed to vote for whomever they wish, despite the will of the voters. So technically, our votes themselves don't actually hold the power to elect the president.
So to end the Filibuster in the Senate, what is called a "Supermajority" is needed. The Filibuster, a bastardization of the French word Flibutor means "Pirate" or to "take from, thief". The term is used as to describe a senator who, in an effort to stop a bill from being voted on, intercedes and claims Filibuster. Prior to some rule changes in the 1980s for the Federal government and is still the case in several state senates, a person who filibusters must literally stand and proceed to talk endlessly on the matter as to why the vote shouldn't happen. The supermajority requirement to end a filibuster is there to prevent one party or a majority from forcing through legislation that the minority party doesn't want. In other words, a large enough portion of the minority party must also support a bill before a filibuster can be ended. Congress is broken into two houses; the Senate and the House. The House is comprised of elected representatives based on population. They craft bills or laws which are then sent to the Senate. The senate is comprised of elected officials of which each state has two. The Senate is technically not supposed to craft their own legislation (by the Constitution, only bills can be crafted by the House and then presented to the Senate for consideration). If a bill passes both the House and Senate it is then sent to the President who will either sign it into law or veto it. If vetoed, the Senate can still ratify the law into effect with a supermajority vote. The Electoral College (college meaning a body of people not a school) is a byproduct of the reconstructionism post-Civil War. Prior to this, the people didn't actually elect the president, presidential candidates were chosen by their respective parties, and then government leadership voted on who to put into office. After the Civil War, this changed and in order to facilitate the election process during a time when there was no mass communication, and to satiate southern former slaveholding states (which were mostly rural and farm based, rather than industrialized and city based) the Electoral College was created. At the time it balanced out the elective powers (or more accurately tipped the scales towards conservative former slaveholding states). The Right to Remain Silent (more accurately; the right to not self incriminate) is part of the 4th Amendment, as is the right against unlawful searches and seizures of property, and the right not to house or quarter military and governmental officials (which by extension is the right that grants you soul propriety and ownership of your land). The Vice President does in fact break the tie on an equal split vote in the Senate. This too is a leftover from before people actually got to vote for the President and Vice President. For a time the President and Vice President didn't run together. Since both were appointed positions, you could end up with a President and Vice President that didn't share the same political ideology.
The Electoral College was created in Article II section 1, paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, of the U.S. Constitution, and ratified in 1788. Thus it was not a product of the Civil War nor reconstruction after the war. It was the twelfth amendment, ratified in 1804, that required the President and Vice-President to be elected on the same ticket, but adding the rule that if both were from the same state, that state's electoral votes could not go to them. What a formula for assassination! Each previously had hired a food taster for when they ate together. (Just joking.) One more note: the Constitution says the state legislators would choose how the electors were chosen, so for many years in many states the legislature just went ahead and chose. It was a political movement from voters themselves, voting out the old legislators and electing new ones who signed the pledge for popular vote for electors. That change was made in different states at different times. One more knee-slapper for you, if your sides aren't already hurting from laughter. Some, but not all, states have passed "faithful elector" laws, requiring electors to vote for the candidates they are pledged to, or face criminal prosecution. The last time I remember this happening was in 1968, I think, when an elector pledged to Huibert Humphrey actually cast an electoral-college vote for former New York City Mayor John Lindsay, making himself the butt of an obscure political joke in American history. Who cares, you ask. Well, state legislatures that passed a law year ago saying they themselves would no longer select the electors, but the voting population of the state would, could now repeal that law and take back the power. As I write this Biden has a slender majority of the popular votes in Pennsylvania. Regardless of the popular vote outcome, the Pennsylvania legislature (with its Republican majority) could repeal the popular vote law and certify Trump electors instead. Of course, it would be the end of the Republican party in Pennsylvania, but, staring into the face of four more years of a vindictive Trump, they'll walk the plank. I've had the privilege (and curse) of working for many years for companies that sent me overseas on business. Almost every trip I took, I'd be taken out for drinks at the end of the day and interrogated about the funhouse-mirror world of American politics and government. One can't hold it against them they don't understand; most Americans don't understand. I don't, really.
The UK Parliament is Commons and Lords; the US Congress is the House and Senate. The term limit for president is TWO terms (8 years total with a couple of exceptions for Presidents who serve part of someone else's term -- and then it is 10 years).
You are right about that. They only know that if you have a lot of money you can get through any college you want without ever actually having to go or take test yourself. And you can get into any political position you want. And make billions of dollars without having to work for it.
@@jwb52z9 you are correct, it used to be that way in every school. I think it was during Nam that it got lowered to 60% because of something to do with the Draft, it's been a while sense I learned about it in school so I might be a little off on the why. I think it was so it was easier to get in college and thus not able to be drafted?. Also, I'm fairly sure even a 72% was failing. If memory serves me correctly it was 6% per grade so 76% is ment to be the lowest for a passing grade. I had a few old school teachers that still used the "real" standard for grades, I know this because they explained it to us in class. lol
The standards for education have dropped precipitously since WWII but even more so since the 1970s when students entering college often needed to remediate reading, spelling and basic arithmetic courses. During the first half of the 20th century an eighth grade education was equivalent to today’s high school diploma and in order to enter college a student needed to have masters a foreign language.
There are 3 Branches of Government in America Executive, Legislative and Judicial Executive executes the laws, legislative makes the laws and Judicial interprets the law The president is the head of the Executive Branch. The people vote for the president but the States have Electoral votes based on population. Once the people’s votes have been counted in each state they delegate those electoral votes based on the votes. Most states are winner take all but a few aren’t. In an election, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes to be determined President. The Electoral College is the deciding factor. The States can send electors that are for the other party if there is evidence of voter fraud (which there very rarely, if ever, is because whether or not you voted is public record) The Legislative branch has 2 houses. The Senate and the House of Representatives. In the Senate each state gets 2 Senators so there is ALWAYS 100 senators. The House of Representatives is based on each states population (very much similar to the electoral college in that way) so the more populous the state the more House Reps it’s gets. For a law to get passed both the House and the Senate have to pass it and then the President has to sign it into law The Judicial branch is the Supreme Court. The President appoints (which is really more like a nomination) and then the Senate holds questioning and then decides to confirm or deny the nominee. This is really a super basic overview of each branch so if you have more questions feel free to ask ❤️
In Chicago, the public schools had a Constitution test in the eighth grade. (I think they still do.). If you failed you weren't allowed to graduate into high school, no matter how good your other grades. We agonized over studying for this test, and I have no doubt that like myself, every CPS high school freshman can ace Joel and Lia's little test.
1. "The vice president has the deciding tie-breaker vote" "Well that's just corrupt"- Agreed 2. The filibuster requirement of 60 votes is why the Democratic-controlled Senate wasn't able to pass a lot of legislation during Obama's presidency. The Republicans filibustered over and over and the Democrats didn't have enough of a majority to override it
The senate is the upper house the house is the lower house. Kinda like the House of Lords and House of Commons but the senate is elected. The president can server for 2 terms. This has been a custom since George Washington stepped down after his second term and was made law after FDR died in office during his 4th term. As for the electoral college it stems from the Latin definition of College meaning group much like in the Catholic Church the college of cardinals is not a school for cardinals but a meeting of all the church leaders that elects a new pope. Hopefully that helps! Love the channel and can’t wait for the ability to travel to the U.K. one day.
You guys are so funny! Congress consists of the Senate, with two senators from each state, and the House of Representatives, with representatives based on the populations of each state. They are two separate entities. I love your videos! I love ALL things British!
Yes, the VP breaks tie votes in the house-this doesn't happen often. In terms of the electoral college, the term college from late 14c., means an organized association of persons invested with certain powers and rights or engaged in some common duty or pursuit. While every citizen casts a vote, we actually do not use popular vote to pick the president. The electoral college (albeit with a checkered past in aiding slavery) is supposed to ensure that those less populated areas of the country have a say in the president pick as a opposed to the heavily populated coastal areas always making the call. Typically, the states electoral vote will go the way of majority vote take all for the particular candidate. This is primarily where the terms red and blue states comes from.
The U.S. has a bicameral legislature, so the House of Representatives is one house, and the Senate is the other. It's not exactly like the House of Commons and House of Lords, because the Senate is voted on my popular vote, but it's similar. The Electoral College (whose name comes from the fact that "college" used to be a formal term for a convention or conference) elects the president. This is how Trump won in 2016 despite losing the popular vote by about 3 million votes - because each state is awarded a certain number of electors _roughly_ based on population, though it's not truly proportional, meaning votes in some states are worth more than votes in others in a de facto sense.
I looked up a british grading scale for school and I’ve never been more surprised in my life 😂 I would’ve been a straight A student all throughout school. I had no idea!
We have a system Of checks and balances so the executive branch is the president and the legislative is the House of Representatives and the senate ..the judicial is the Supreme Court
Don’t feel bad guys. There aren’t many naturally born Americans who can answer these questions as well. That’s probably a very sad fact to have to say.
The president can only serve a maximum of two 4 year terms, not 22 years :) And, the Senate and the House are separate so that is how each party can have a majority at the same time. For example, the Republicans could have the majority in the Senate while the Democrats have the majority in the House.
These two are so adorable. United States presidents are paid a nice amount but anyone running for that office has so much money already that they dont care about the salary - they want that seat for the prestige and power. AND hopefully because they love America, want to uphold our constitution...oh and there is that thing about being the leader of the free world
One of the Vice President’s duties is to preside over the Senate and therefore he is the President of the Senate. A filibuster is when someone gets up and makes a speech for hours and hours to delay a specific vote from taking place.
It use to be only tradition to only serve 2 terms as president. Washington himself set up the tradition, but Franklin Roosevelt was elected 4 times and they decided to limit it after that
Each state gets 2 senators, but the number of seats they get in the house is completely dependent on the population of that state, which is how Republicans can have a majority in the Senate & Democrats in the house
"How can you have a majority Democrat in one and majority Republican in another?" Welcome to American politics... As you already know, in parliamentary systems like your constitutional monarchy in the UK, whoever is the majority party after an election (or, as is the case currently, whoever can form a coalition of parties with the most seats), IS the government. They pick the prime minister and other government ministers and they can pretty much do whatever they want while they are in charge of the country. Meanwhile, the American system is pretty much designed to try to blunt the power of different parts of the government. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and the President are elected separately, and each can end up being controlled by different political parties. Thus for the last two years, the House of Representatives has been controlled by Democrats while the Senate and White House (Trump) have been controlled by Republicans. Of course, each party's goal is to control both houses of Congress and the presidency, but of late that only happens sporadically.
The Senate being made up of two reps from each state is likely to end in a tie at some point and the Vice President is the tie breaker because he is the leader of the senate much like a Chairperson is in charge of a board of directors and often gets the tie breaking vote.
Ok here's a really basic American political lesson for you 2 jokers: The senate and the House of Representatives are 2 separate yet equal bodies. Together they make up the congress. Each state gets 2 senators now matter how big or small the state is. Senators get 6 year terms because they "represent the state". So, there's a total of 100 senators (2 for each state, 50 states). Republicans currently control that majority. The House of Representatives, or just the House for short, is based on how big the state is. For instance, California, the biggest state people-wise gets 53 representatives (sometimes they're just called congressmen or congresswomen). Wyoming, the smallest state people-wise just gets 1 representative. Each state is divided into districts. Currently each district is roughly 750,000 people. That Representative represents that district. So, whatever district you live in, you only get to vote for that 1 representative. Of course, in a state like Wyoming, literally the whole state is the district. Wyoming doesn't even have 750,000 people but they still get the minimum of 1 representative. There are a total of 435 representatives/districts in the country. They only get 2 year terms because they "represent the people". The democrats currently hold the majority in the House. In order for a bill, or a law to pass, the House has to pass it, the Senate has to pass it, and the President has to sign it. The electoral college is the system how we choose the President. In each state, you just add up how many House reps they have plus their 2 senators and that's how many electoral votes they get. Whichever candidate gets the most popular votes within that states gets all the electoral votes of that state. Thusly, every state is it's own separate battlefield in the presidential election. And the candidate that gets over half the electoral votes wins the presidency. So, California gets 55 electoral votes, Wyoming gets 3 electoral votes (that's the minimum a state can have). My home state of Missouri has 8 representatives/districts and 2 senators so we get 10 electoral votes. Also, the city of Washington D.C., the capital of the country, gets 3 electoral votes but it gets no senators or reps because it's not technically a state. So, there's a total of 435 reps, 100 senators, and 3 additional electoral votes for DC. That makes a total of 538 electoral votes (if you add that together. 435 +100 + 3 = 538). Over half of that is 270 or more electoral votes (in the electoral college, and no, it's not a school!). So, that's why as soon as Biden got 270 or more electoral votes it was over. Well, unless you're like Trump and think this was really all a fake mirage and didn't really happen. Get it now? See? It's a piece of cake!
Watching this video makes me want so desperately to sit with these two and explain it all. Sadly though, most Americans probably couldn't score as well as they did.......
Life is pretty serious right now when you have your life and human rights at stake... I get that we should be positive and take a step forward in a positive direction. However, that isn’t how America is right now. We are fighting for our lives and human rights in general. I would love to be positive and happy go lucky but it’s just too serious right now to even contemplate it. Right now I could lose basic healthcare where I would have to pay $100+ for a simple doctors appt when I just have to pay $45 right now...among other things
People like Joel and Lia, especially when young, never experience anything like what the US goes through endlessly. They live in basically an idyllic culture, for the most part, and so they never get into the kind of insanity the US does.
*If you'd like to tip us to help support the running of our channel (but please don't feel obliged):* www.ko-fi.com/joelandlia
You guys have alot to learn lol it would be cool though if you guys had dual citizenship with the UK and the US.
UA-cam should just pay you more, why should we be responsible to pay your wages!!!
@@johnp139 You are enjoying their content. Why should they donate it to you?
You guys have anything like ICE in the UK?
Instead of being all confused on why your answer was wrong, why not educate yourself? I'd like to see you take the time and look up some of the things that confused you like the Electoral College. I think you'd appreciate some of the things you're talking about much more.
“Has every president been to the electoral college?” Had me dying 🤣🤣🤣
Me too!!!
This was my favorite response! Lol
Haha I was literally about to comment the same thing, but then I saw yours and liked instead :)
I knew a guy who applied for a student loan to attend the electoral college. He was denied.
What's even more ridiculous is that most college age students these days in the US have no idea what the Electoral College is, and yet they're allowed to vote...
"Have all the presidents been to Electoral College?" 😂
I wish.
Maybe Joel and Lia are onto something here...
I wonder what the mascot of the Electoral College football team would be? 🤔😂 “The Counts”, perhaps
Well.........technically yes.....lol. At least the Electoral college has been involved with every president.....so.....kind of. :D
@@darlenashaw785 yes
They need to go to political college!!!!
"The right to remain silent. Pssh, no one does that in America." You made me laugh so hard my sister came in to make sure I was ok lmao
I laughed pretty hard too.
I loved them saying that about us!!!
🤣😂🤣😂
I plead the fif
Reminds me of the comedian Ron White- "I had the right to remain silent, but I did not have the ability." #drunkaf
This was so hard to watch as a political science major 😂😂😂
I guess you thought people would care what your "major' was...
@@malcolmdrake6137 I'm dying Hahahaha!!! The sass in this comment! Love it!
@@malcolmdrake6137 did you even watch the video? i'm curious
@@malcolmdrake6137 I totally get what OP is talking about. It's frustrating to watch when people don't know about something you spend your life studying lol
Lol, I'm an Environmental Studies major but I'm taking a political science class this semester and this video made me cringe too at some points.
The origin of the word college is Latin, meaning "gather together." The Electoral College gathers to elect presidents in the same way the College of Cardinals gathers to elect popes.
Ah yes and the people in the electoral college are suppose to cast their vote based on who the voters in their district voted for.
It's like this so more densely populated states votes don't sway the count in voting. So smaller populations don't get ignored. Although if we just had a different system or more candidates of various parties to choose from at the end. Or if we could vote for up to two presidents and whoever gets the majority vote wins. If we went by majority vote rather than a plurality. Or is it the other way around?
Guys do we use a plurality vote or majority? I confuse the two.
@@PandaBear62573 Not districts (except for two states) but the whole state.
@@rob5894 each elector has a district. There may be only 2 states that split their electoral votes, but the electoral college in each state still votes the same way.
@@adventuresinlaurenland 48 states and DC no longer use the district method. The number of electors is determined by House distracts but the Electors do not represent those districts. If they did what districts would the extra electors have?
"No one in America remains silent." 😆😂🤣. Well done. I give you both A-stars.
I especially like how spontaneously honest she was saying it.
That was a five star comment
Which is called the Miranda act based on a court case of the same name.
And that's not part of the Constitution but a spin - off from the 5th Amendment, the right not to incriminate myself or to testify against myself or to create a double jeopardy: to be tried twice for the same crime.
Also it comes a little from the 4th Amendment, to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure (need a warrant or probable cause) and to be secure in one's person, papers, and effects. The 4th amendment is a big deal. Supreme Court Chief Justice Louis Brandeis said to be left alone is one of our most cherished rights.
The Senate and the House of Representatives are two different houses under the Congress. We have a majority of Republicans in the senate and majority of Democrats in the house because they are two separate houses
Right, it’s like the House of Commons and the House of Lords!
@@johnp139 yes, the lower chamber is the House of Representatives and the upper chamber is the Senate. Joel and Lia, watch this: ua-cam.com/video/FFroMQlKiag/v-deo.html
They are confused because in the UK you vote For ONE PARTY, and the winners literally takes over every branch of government at once!
The majority of the house of commons basically appoints the prime minister, and the p.m. choose the executive branch from members of the house (his own party, primarily.) The house of lords is not voted on at all, and has a complicated history. For, example, their are 21 seats reserved for Bishops in the Church of England!
For these type of reasons the House of Lords power has been slowly diminished.
So the government is control by the Prime Minister, his cabinet, and the House of Commons, all of which belong to the same party.
Congress has two houses. The house of representatives has 435 members with each state having a proportional number of representatives based on it's population. The senate (which is the second house) has 2 representatives per state regardless of population. For a law to be passed, it needs the approval of both houses of congress and the president, but the senate has the special power of filibuster. The senate has the ability to block any law if it doesn't have at least 60 votes in the senate. It was designed this way intentionally because the original founders of the country were worried that the few heavily populated states would bully the rural states, and at the time they were trying to convince the other british colonies to join together, so this was considered an acceptable compromise to get all 13 colonies united.
Sad performance on that one since UK also has a bi-cameral legislature
The reason the VP breaks the tie is because of checks and balances built into the Constitution.
Each state the popular vote determines the electors. All but two states (Maine and Nebraska) have a winner take all policy. So for example in Texas if the popular vote of the state is for a Republican (as has been the case for the past 40 years) then all 38 (second most electoral votes in the country) of Texas' electoral votes goes to the Republican candidate. A Person needs 270 electoral votes to become President. The electors vote in December for the President and VP. They can change and vote for the other person, but dissenting electors are rare. If there is not one person with the absolute majority (which is 270) of the 538 electors then the U.S. House of Representatives will decide the election (see the 1824 Presidential elect aka the corrupt bargain for a time this happened). The number of Electors in a state is equal to the number of Senators and Representatives each state has with the addition of 3 electors for D.C. (since the people of D.C. have no Senators or a voting member of the House of Representatives), but the electors are not the same people in Congress (House and Senate), but rather chosen by the states. So a President can win the popular vote, but lose the electoral college. The electoral college was created for 2 reasons: 1) to guarantee that small populated states still have an impact on the election (without the electoral college candidates would just campaign to big cities and ignore small populations) and 2) to protect the country from the "tyranny of the majority" as James Madison (father of the Constitution) called it.
When we adopted the Constitution we were replacing the first governing document of the new United States, the Articles of Confederation. In the AOC each state no matter the population had the same number of votes in regards to changing the government. So both the electoral college and the U.S. Senate were how they compromised to give smaller populated states a voice.
The house of Representatives is the lower house of congress and it's number of members is based on the population in the state. The senate is the upper house of Congress with each state getting two senators. Often times, like now, they are controlled by different parties, but many times by the same party. Both have different powers and together pass legislation to be sent to the President for a signature or a veto. In the event of a veto the entire congress can override the veto with a 2/3 majority.
Sorry this is so long. I teach American History.
Ironically, to Lia's point, the opposite of remaining silent is a filibuster.
Don’t worry, most Americans don’t understand the Electoral College system either. Lol!
Some of us do. Its not difficult.
@@ghostlyMostly1 I understand it, but it is definitely difficult! lol
Hopefully the Electoral College will soon be a thing of the past. With the technology of today, it’s an archaic system that is no longer necessary or relevant. As usual, this video was amusingly entertaining. Thanks!
The electoral college will never be dissolved, its part of what makes yhe democratic republic work and has nothing to do with vote counting. It makes the popular vote null so that L.A., NYC, Atlanta, Chicago, and Houston dont get to decide whats good for the entire country.
@@ghostlyMostly1 The EC was literally invented to protect the voting power of slave owners. For the last 4 years, the minority has ruled. It shows exactly why the rural counties should not choose the president.
For an epic example of a filibuster watch "Mr Smith Goes to Washington" or Google filibuster and the movie title and watch the scene.
Very cool. Filibusters used to be like this -- a senator could take the floor and keep it indefinitely as long as he could keep speaking. Now, however, they have devolved into just not doing anything on a bill unless 60 senators signal they will vote for it.
Who remembers Nancy Pelosi's filibuster in 2018? She was 77 years old. Spoke for 8 hours with no breaks at all, wearing stilettos. Whether you agree with her or not, that is impressive.
Great movie made in the 40's
Yes, one of my favorite movies. Frank Capra directed. If you really want to understand US politics
@@bobhager41 Mr Smith Goes to Washington; actually made in 1939. It was very best year for Hollywood films; Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Dark Victory, Goodbye Mr Chips, Stagecoach, The Women, Of Mice And Men, The Little Princess, Ninochka, Gunga Din, Young Mr. Lincoln, At The Circus, Hunchback of Notre Dame, It's A Wonderful Life, They Shall Have Music.
The House of Commons is like our House of Representatives and the House of Lords is like our Senate. Closest examples I could think of.
Very good, I had forgotten about the House of Lords.
Lords is appointed and has little power but what they do have is usually annoying.
@@RossM3838 It's the opposite here, the Senate has far more power than the House of Representatives
@@RossM3838 the Senate used to be appointed by state governors.
@@mackenziemorgan7054 not quite elected by state legislatures. The were supposed to represent state interests I know several people who absolutely believe that direct election of senators was a major mistake. Odd stuff people worry about
Lia quote for the ages: "The right to remain silent?! NO ONE does that in America" LOL -- I was kind of surprised you couldn't relate to the two different houses concept of our government, though, given the UK has the House of Commons and the House of Lords
I think they pretend to be dumb.lol
@Sagina And can some of our fellow Americans even answer the same set of questions about our own political system?!
@@WhiteTiger333 prolly not.
They were an embarrsement to my nation. We have filibustering here and there's loads of stuff they should know anyway.
@@TonyFisherPuzzles Obviously, they are not politically aware.
I love how all your wrong answers make perfect sense for somebody who doesn't realize how little sense the American political system makes. You should at least know that the USA has a bicameral legislature (Senate and House of Representatives) just like Britain does with its House of Lords and House of Commons.
Yes, I've had someone say to think of the Senate akin to the House of Lords and the House as akin to the House of Commons. Not sure that's necessarily correct though
@@bndork It's kind of true since to an extent the parliament of the USA was modeled after that of Great Britain with both an upper and lower house. The main difference is that there are no hereditary peers or bishops in the Senate, unlike the House of Lords.
@@bndork Unfortunately our Senate has far more power!
@@loosilu True and the party that controls the House can be different from the Senate, hence the potential for two different majorities of separate but equal influence . Another reason it probably seems confusing to Brits is that the president doesn't have to be of the same party as the one(s) that hold the majority in congress.
@@loosilu Why is that unfortunate?
"How can you have majority democrat and majority republican" My first thought was how else is the government going to make sure nothing gets done.
Preach!
Executive action is the exception that many presidents are guilty of using out of lack of patience and perceived necessity.
@@ivetterodriguez1994 yea except executive orders are only effective for the years the president is in office. It’s easy for the next president to get rid of those executive orders. A law is permanent and a lot harder to get rid of.
Third Division - Agreed. I am not and never have been a member of any political party. I vote my consciounce, but I vote. To my thought, the stickiest situation for our States to be in, is when one party, essentially, runs all branches of government. Which ever party holds the Presidency, I can live with that, and I have, over the past 70 years.
What I really prefer to see, and it usually is, is that each party might control one House of Congress or the other, which tends to result in what you said (nothing gets done). Kidding, but what does get done, has been well argued and considered, which I believe is a benefit to our country, as it has been hammered out and we have come to some form of consensus. Better that way than ramshod, my thinking.
As to the Supreme Court, I'm not nearly as worried as many can be, as to whether it has a liberal or conservative balance, both of which I've seen, there is something magical that happens when a Justice is approved for a lifetime apointment with no re-election considered. They tend to get down to their job, considering laws, or abuses of, as they pertain to the Constitution, no matter what theater their roots are from. If Congress or the President don't like it, they can try and pass a Constitutional ammendment, which as Prohibition and it's repeal, hopefully makes clear (as the double stain it was), would be my last reccomendation.
@@ivetterodriguez1994 - Agreed, but I don't think that was the point at issue. Maybe I'm wrong. I think you are right tho, as it is often used by 'perceived necessity', and maybe rightfully so. I think the US entry into WWII, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, was initially an Executive order, but it was eventually ratified by both Houses of Congress, as the best of them are.
There may be necessity to it, until Congress can vote yea or nea, to give the President a means of making a crucial, immediate decision, in the best interest of the country. Is it ever abused? Not for me to say. Sometimes, it seems a manner by which a President can request certain Legislation from Congress, altho I would think there might be better ways to do that, but having never been President, what do I know?
22nd Amendment gives the President two terms plus two years. The extra years is if they take over in case a President has to leave office. If less than two years you get ten. If a President had more than two years left you get to finish the term and one more.
From Google: college definition, sense 2:
"An organized group of professional people with particular aims, duties, and privileges."
hence, the electoral college: an organised group of people whose duty it is to elect.
There are really 50 separate elections taking place - every state runs the election 🗳 and many have different rules.
Also - for the presidency it is actually an indirect election as voters are actually choosing electoral delegates from their state who vote in the Electoral College, and each state gets a # of delegates based on their size
The number of delegates is based on the population of the state
@@calvinpage4070 - based on the number of members the state has in the senate and house of representatives. It is not straight population distribution. The votes of people in less populated states have more "weight" than those in more populated states.
Thanks for clearing that up
@@JulieStones and that makes any chance of ending the Electoral College very unlikely. It benefits small states/Republicans and it’s a big hurdle to pass a constitutional amendment.
51, Washington DC.
The electoral college is confusing for many still. It is a combination of the number of senators and the number of house of representatives from each state. It was a compromise to prevent the states with the most population from dominating states with little population. The electors are party loyalist that pledge to vote the way the population voted now.
Right. Most states award all their electoral votes to the person who wins a plurality in that state's election. Maine and Nebraska, however, award two of their electoral votes on an at-large basis, and the rest based on who wins in each congressional district.
The whole "population" thing is exactly why it should be gotten rid of. Majority should rule, with respect to minority rights, but not allow backwardness and bigotry, which the EC contributes to every time.
@@jwb52z9 WHY? I don't want people in California or New York to dominate the country. They do get much more Electoral College votes based on their population which is represented by the number Congressional Districts in their state. If you don't like it, propose a Constitutional Amendment to change it. It will not pass in the foreseeable future though because the smaller states will not vote for it.
@@robertdendooven7258 Not just NY state and California, but in particular NYC and Los Angeles and San Fran. Does anyone really want just the voters in just those cities making our choices? Look at the choices they've made for themselves!
archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/07/16/the_brilliance_of_the_electoral_college/
excellent explanation
“Has every president been to the electoral college?” I think I broke a rib laughing when I heard this,lol.
We have the right to remain silent but not the ability
We only have the right to remain silent when we're under arrest.
@@davidrichards6509 it was a joke
Originally there was no limit to how many terms a president could serve. George Washington (the first US president) set the standard of only two terms. Every president afterwards followed in his footsteps. FDR is the only president to be elected more than two terms, he was elected a total of four terms. He was president during the Great depression and world war II. Sometime after his presidency the amendment limited the amount of terms the president could serve.
instigated by jealous Republicans, and now Trump wants more terms again. The ultimate irony. Thank God they did set a limit there; now, if only those jerks in Congress had limits on them. Nobody lived so long 200 years ago.
A lot of this was cringe to watch as an American, but I can assure you that there are plenty of Americans that don't know any of this information.
😂😂 their answers and reasoning 😂. The electoral answer killed me.
Is it any wonder? Civics is taught in very few schools these days. Most all high school graduates have no idea how our government works, how laws are made, etc. Can't decide if it's an embarrassment or just plain pathetic. I know what I'm talking about from first hand experience... I'm a retired public school teacher.
1. The Vice President doesn’t actually have many constitutionally given jobs. The role of VP is kind of seen as a joke, only recently has the VP been given more jobs by the President (Mike Pence as the coronavirus task force head, VP’s before him have done some stuff as well). The only real job the VP has is to preside over the Senate. Some may see it as corrupt, but it’s no different than having one more Senator who belongs to a party. Also, in the past, the VP didn’t spend too much time with the President.
3. Before the 22nd amendment was adopted, it was tradition to not run more than 2 terms because George Washington set that precedent (in reality he was tired and thought it was time to go). Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only President, and will ever be the only President to serve more than two terms (he served 3 terms and an unfinished 4th term because he died of a stroke). A few years later, the Senate passed the 22nd amendment saying a president cannot serve more than 2 terms (if a VP becomes president with less than 2 years left in a term, he can still run for two more terms so it means the max you can serve for is a day less than 10 years).
4. There are two votes in the US, the popular vote, and the electoral college vote. The popular vote doesn’t actually decide who becomes president, it just tells electors (the people who form the electoral college) who to vote for. They vote based on who their state voted for. The amount of electoral votes is based on the amount of Representatives (435) + the amount of Senators (100) + three electors for Washington D.C. (3) since the minimum electoral votes a state can have is 3 but they aren’t a state (it’s weird ik) = 538. 538 divided by 2 is 269 which means to get a majority vote, you must have 270 votes to win. With the way our system works, it’s possible a candidate can win the popular vote and lose the election. This was put into place to give less populous states more say and so not to create a mobocracy (rule of the mob).
6 & 7. The House and the Senate are two different bodies of Congress. The House is populated by how many people each state has (California had 52 representatives while Wyoming has 1), to balance this, since states with more population get more say and people in smaller states have less representation, the Senate was created which gives every state 2 Senators (California and Wyoming both have 2 Senators, like every other state).
This is great but where's point two?
@@stephaniemeekins7415 I didn’t have anything to say about it. It just asked how many votes to filibuster. Plus I have little knowledge on why the filibuster exists, how it works, etc
All I know after all this voting stress, we all need more Joel and Lia.
They sure enjoy what they’re doing... Right now I’m feeling “light of heart.” Haven’t felt like this in over FOUR years!
2 terms max, 8 years. George Washington set that- then, FDR came through said eff that “3 for me!” and within 10 years the 22nd amendment happened saying “Nay.”
Fin.
FDR had 4 terms
@@travisbounds4746 Correct. He was elected four times (1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944) but unfortunately he died only a few weeks after his inauguration for the fourth term.
@@travisbounds4746 the 22nd Amendment was ratified AFTER FDR. It is actually less than 10 years, so a VP that becomes president with less than 2 years left to serve can be president for two additional terms.
To elaborate, it was tradition after George Washington set a precedent of two terms. He said two terms is enough. It wasn't law until the 22nd amendment, so FDR did nothing wrong. Also, he only went on to three and then four terms to take us out of the Great Depression and through World War II.
FDR was a war president, it was a little different.
🇨🇦 You two are a scream. LMAF! Keep up the great work. It keeps us happy. 💚
To answer the last two: The US Congress is broken into two halves: the Senate with 2 representatives from every state (currently majority Republican) and the House of Representatives with over 400 locally elected representatives (currently majority Democrat). The Congress is called the “legislative” branch, and they officially write the laws. The President/VP are the “executive” branch, and they officially enforce the laws. The reason the VP breaks a tie is because they’re from a different branch of government, so in theory they serve as a “check” on the powers of the other two branches (each branch has a way to “check” the power of the others; not mentioned previously is the judicial branch, whose role is to interpret the law).
The VP is the President of the Senate and that is in place in case he (or she 😏) needs to break a tie.
@@lorenle8352 this is also true. I was mostly describing the logic behind the VP breaking the tie, not the how. But you are correct that probably the most significant responsibility as VP is to be the President of the Senate.
and don't forget that when the government was set up, the founding fathers STUPIDLY forgot about parties. In the original Constitution, the prez and the veep were chosen differently and thus could and did end up being from different parties, which led to a mess in government, causing so much trouble that the Constitution was CHANGED, i.e. AMENDED to fix that mess. Perhaps we should do some more amending.
The practice of the president and vice president (a running mate) running together started in 1864. The 12th amendment stipulates that the electors cast 1 vote for president and 1 vote for vice president. The 12th amendment has never been amended.
@@paulengstrom432 If they were willing to work together I would actually be totally down for a mixed party ticket. You see this sort of stuff all the time in other democracy's with what are known as "coalition governments". Essentially it forces the two parties to sit down and work out a compromise that they can both agree on, thus preventing two party deadlock.
Queen Elizabeth I got a vote for mayor in my city about 20 years ago. It actually made the news. (Yes, Elizabeth I.)
The Senate and The House of Representatives are our 2 legislative bodies. You have 2 houses in Parliament also.
If you graduate from the Electoral College after four years, you get a sticker. 🇺🇸
🤣
Y'all crack me up!! No one would expect y'all to know these things, it would be a bonus if you did though. The answers to all these questions are easily found online. But don't feel bad, most Americans don't know the answers to them either. A long, and I mean a long, time ago, back when I was in high school we had to take American History and these things were taught in that class and if you couldn't pass the test at the end of the year, well, you had to take to class again, and again, until you could pass. That class is now an elective in most schools and isn't required to pass or graduate even. Things are total crap in the good ole USA right now and probably about to get worse.
The UK has bicameral legislative body too right? House of Commons and the House of Lords? We all had to take a Constitution test in 8th grade in order to graduate and this is what I remember from 2008.
1.The US has 2 chambers of congress.
2. The upper chamber of congress is the Senate and the lower chamber is the House of Representatives.
3.They must agree on a bill before it is sent to the president to be made a law.
4. The number of representatives that a state gets in the House is determined by a state’s population while every state gets two senators regardless of population.
5.Colloquially, the House or Representatives is just referred to as congress (or the House) while the Senate is just called the Senate, but congress could actually be used to refer to either the House or the Senate because it refers to both of them collectively as the bicameral legislative body.
6.The Vice President also holds the title of President of the Senate which is why She (referring to Kamala Harris) gets to break ties (ties rarely happen btw). The office of VP was not designed to be inherently powerful, but in this slight capacity as the gobetween for the legislative and executive branches, the VP wields ample power.
Do a Chicago slang/accent video please and thank you!
We do have a bicameral system, but unlike the Senate, we don't vote for the House of Lords. It's made up of bishops who have held their seats for centuries, hereditary lords who inherit their seats, and life peers who are granted their seats by Queen, on the advice of the PM. So there's really only one majority that matters, the one in the House of Commons. If needs must the PM could just make hundreds of peers and give himself a majority in the Lords, which some have done, Cameron added 117 in his first year at Number 10.
OMG, y'all are so cute. The House of representatives, and the Senate are our two legislative houses of Congress. Every state gets two representatives in the Senate evenly, and the vice president settles a tie. In the House of Representatives, states get a different number of representatives based on population...all bills regarding federal funding must begin here. To pass a bill in Congress, it must both first pass the House and the Senate individually...then be ratified by the President. If the President vetos a bill, it takes a two thirds majority in the House of Representatives to over ride a veto.
actually, Both houses have to override the veto.
The Senate is made up of 2 Senators from each state. The House of Representatives is made up of representatives from each state based on the states population (currently 435 members). Don't feel too bad over half of the us Americans would fail that quiz as well.
“Ballot selfies” were initially illegal, but now are a state by state issue. Some states allow them and others prohibit them. The purpose of prohibition is primarily for secrecy to protect against coercion and bribery.
In my state, you can get a preview of the ballot in PDF front and back if you put in your address in a KY search engine. They show if you are registered and what your precinct is (mine is D110. In the neighborhood I grew up in it was G113. Funny what you remember.)
It also gives you a PDF of the current elected officials in office and a calendar of election events like when registrations of candidates are due and where to take them and a phone number. This is from the Board of Elections.
In Alabama they had signs up everywhere saying not to have your phones out when you go into the voting room.
You guys are hilarious, this is why I watch.
Hey Lia, you're hilarious. The right to remain silent (the 5th amendment) is to prevent the government from torturing you to confess against yourself during a criminal trial. Unfortunately, it does not work on public transportation.
The Senate & House of Representatives are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS 🤣🤣🤣 together they make up the US Congress.
Try taking the US citizenship test. That will be more interesting as a lot of naturalized citizens cannot answer the questions. LOL
I think you mean naturally born citizens. A naturalized citizen is an immigrant that becomes a US Citizen by passing the test.
@@sopdox Yes that is what I meant. Thanks! :)
Yes, the US citizenship test is for immigrants seeking to become a citizen. And yes, many natural born citizens could not pass this test because of the failure of the educational system to stress important real world understanding. I don't think voting should be trusted as a birthright anymore, but has to be earned. Too many ignorant/dumb people making decisions we all have to live with.
I think they took one of these before? 🤷♀️
@@loboheeler the schools are going to hell. don't they teach CIVICS anymore? I am embarrassed and ashamed how little people know about this today.
“We need to go to the electoral college to get trained.” Literally the funniest comment ever! 😂
Waiting on Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona & Nevada.. PA puts Biden @ 273 Electoral votes. Mr. President-Elect.... 🙏🙏☘️
"Are we gonna have like crisps and stuff?"😂
Funny how the different democracies are so different. and when they said "well the VP would be on the side of the president, so it couldn't be them that casts the deciding vote in the senate" I was like "well you'd THINK it would work like that, wouldn't you?" Also, given those choices for the term limit, it USED to be custom and precedent, and only a few presidents had over 2 terms. But that last one to have more than 2 was FDR, who had 4 (died before end of 4th), and since the 19th amendment was in the early 1900s (like 1919 I believe -it gave women the right to vote under the constitution). So therefore, you can kinda make an educated guess/use process of elimination to determine that the official term limit on presidents was set AFTER FDR, and also after the 19th amendment, so 22nd amendment. This is now basically an essay on term limits, but I figure there're probably a lot of brits who watched this video, so maybe my horrible horrible US Government class in highschool can actually benefit y'all.
Well, the first thing to remember is we are not a democracy. We're a Republic.
This is the cutest thing I’ve seen lately. I wouldn’t be able to answer questions about British politics! Love you two
Clearly 2 Brits who don't understand British politics either! 😛
US House ~ House of Commons
US Senate ~ House of Lords
“Have all of the Presidents been to Electoral College?”
You made me spit out my coffee @ 5:04 That caustic wit is soooo British. Love it!
This is more entertaining than watching the slow drip presidential results coming in.
You crack me up about our big load mouths!!!! Laughing do hard!!! We just love you Brits!!! You excite us inside and we are just over joyed talking to you Brits. So we come off load maybe.
We are having party with you after the virus!!! If Biden wins we can all party!!!! Go Biden!!!!
Why did I know these?? I'm not even American!
I'd get out more if it wasn't for lockdown 🤣
It's the 22nd Amendment, NOT 22 years! A president is limited to 2 terms maximum (8 years).
Ever since Franklin Roosevelt was elected to 4 terms ending in the 1940s.
the election has been going on for four
days😭
I truly can't wait til it's over.
Remember 2000?
@@loosilu Don’t remind me😭😭😭
@@loosilu Yes. Hanging chad.
Congress is made up of two houses, the Senate (100 members - 2 from every state) and the House of Representatives (435 members - number from each state determined by the current population of each). The electoral college is based on the number of House of Representatives from each state plus the two senators from each. The terms for senate are six years (staggered every two years with 1/3ish being up for election) and for House of Representatives two years.
It was hilarious watching you try to answer these questions, but to be fair, I would do horribly if I were asked questions about the UK government. Well done, Lia, on knowing the first two amendments. As for the right to be silent, that is more for when you have been arrested/accused of something or have to give testimony, you can plead the fifth (remain silent on the grounds it may incriminate you) whether guilty or not (for example, someone under cover May want to plead the fifth so they don’t reveal their identity).
“Have all the presidents been to electoral college?” I AM HOWLING LAUGHING. Can’t wait to see the end when you get the answer. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
🤣🤣
Presidential Term Limits: Originally, there was no limit on presidential reelection. In 1796 however, George Washington chose not to seek a third term. This shocked and amazed people all over the world. King George III is said to have commented, "If he does that, he is the greatest man in the world." This set a precedent that stood for well over a hundred years. Not until 1940 did a President, Franklin Roosevelt, seek a third term. After Roosevelt was elected to a third, and then a fourth term in office, the Constitution was amended to limit Presidents to no more than two terms.
Electoral College: No, a college is not necessarily an educational institution. What is the College of Heralds? A Place where people go to study heraldry? No, it's all the heralds, united collegially to decide who gets to put what on their coat of arms. So, the United States is a *federal* republic, a union of sovereign states, and it is those states, not the public at large, which elect the president. Each state gets to appoint a number of electors equal to their total number of Senators and Representatives, and those electors cast that state's votes for president. In practice, the electors are chosen by the popular vote of the people in the state, but, Constitutionally, the state legislature actually has full authority to decide how the electors will be chosen, or to choose them itself. In the early days of the republic, the state legislatures did the choosing. Popular election was gradually adopted beginning in the early 1800s. I think by 1820 all the states were doing it that way, but I could be wrong. More recently, in 2000, when the courts in Florida were interfering with the process, ordering recount after recount, not provided by law, in only two counties, the state legislature was preparing to exercise this power and appoint the electors when the Supreme Court finally ordered the state courts to stop.
Ties in the Senate: Yes, the Vice President gets to break tie votes. It's actually the only power he has. When the Constitution was written, the Framers did not anticipate the formation of political parties and expected politics to be largely regional. Originally, the Vice President was the runner up in the presidential election. This proved to be unworkable though under the second President, John Adams, when he and his Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, proved to be bitter political enemies, because they were leaders of the two nascent political parties. Thus the Constitution was amended so that the Electors voted to elect both the President and Vice President, so that they would always be allies. Thus the system does give the President's party a slight advantage.
Congressional majorities: The United States Congress, like the British Parliament, has two houses, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Unlike the Parliament however, the two houses have equal roles to play in the legislative process. These two bodies are elected separately. When you go to vote, you vote for Senator and for Representative (Member of Congress), hence, different boxes on the ballot. Thus, it is entirely possible, and not uncommon, for the two houses to have different majority parties, as they do right now.
Multiple boxes on the ballot: I'm curious, don't you vote for local offices like mayor, city council, county supervisor, etc.?
I just wish we said "filly buster" like you two ;o) hehe
It sound like a completely different word that way lol
House of Representatives = House of commons while the Senate = House of Lords when comparing USA to UK politics.
The right to remain silent means the right to not say anything if you have been accused or put on trial
it is the Fifth amendment, hence "taking the fifth"
Each office is elected separately from each other office that's why there are so many choices on the ballot. In addition there can be referenda on specific issues in your state, at least in some states. I'm not sure if it applies to all of them.
It's possible to win the presidency while losing the popular vote. The Popular vote is how many votes the candidates receive nationwide. It has happened several times 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. The Presidential election is actually 50 different state elections and each state gets X number of electoral votes equal to it's representation in Congress. A candidate must get a majority of the Electoral votes cast to win, otherwise the presidency is decided in the House of Representatives. Smaller states effectively have more power, relative to their population because each state gets 2 Senators, while the House is apportioned by population with a minimum of 1 Congressman per state. Presidential elections are often decided by the results in a few close states. Those states will also get an inordinate number of political ads. I live in Central Florida, and couldn't watch anything on TV without seeing political ads (plural) in most commercial breaks.
The right to remain silent is a thing, it's in the 5th Amendment. If you're accused of a crime in the United States, you cannot be forced to testify at your trial.
You have the House of Lords and House of Commons. We have Senate and House of
Representatives. There are different people in each chamber. There can be different majorities because of that.
Lords has nowhere near the power of the Senate.
The UK is different in that they have to form coalitions to do anything in a lot of cases. They don't allow one group to just run over the other in the legislature.
@@jwb52z9 We have only two parties, which makes coalitions very different!
I just meant the fact that you have two separate parts and so do we.
The electoral college is made up of "electors" from each state. The number of electors is based off the number of senetors (2) plus however many representatives the state has in the House of Representatives (based on the state's population). So the number varies from state to state, for example, California has 55 electors while Alaska only has 3.
During the presidential election, the population of each state votes separately. All the states electoral votes (usually) go to whatever candidate gets the most votes in the state. For example, Kentucky has 8 electoral votes. 67% of voters in Kentucky voted for Trump. Even though 33% voted for a different candidate, all 8 electoral votes go to Trump. Whichever candidate wins the majority of the electoral votes (which is 270) wins the election. So basically, as citizens, we don't vote for the president directly. Instead the states themselves vote through the electoral college. Our votes as citizens just determine who our state electors will vote for. This is why a candidate can win the popular vote but still lose the election. The purpose behind this system is in part keep balance between the voting power of each state. Without the electoral college, states with large populations (mainly on the coasts) like California, New York, or Texas would have almost all the power, leaving states like Kentucky, Montana, or Iowa no real say in the election.
Though the electors usually take a pledge to base their vote off the will of their state's voters, electors are technically allowed to vote for whomever they wish, despite the will of the voters. So technically, our votes themselves don't actually hold the power to elect the president.
So to end the Filibuster in the Senate, what is called a "Supermajority" is needed. The Filibuster, a bastardization of the French word Flibutor means "Pirate" or to "take from, thief". The term is used as to describe a senator who, in an effort to stop a bill from being voted on, intercedes and claims Filibuster. Prior to some rule changes in the 1980s for the Federal government and is still the case in several state senates, a person who filibusters must literally stand and proceed to talk endlessly on the matter as to why the vote shouldn't happen. The supermajority requirement to end a filibuster is there to prevent one party or a majority from forcing through legislation that the minority party doesn't want. In other words, a large enough portion of the minority party must also support a bill before a filibuster can be ended.
Congress is broken into two houses; the Senate and the House. The House is comprised of elected representatives based on population. They craft bills or laws which are then sent to the Senate. The senate is comprised of elected officials of which each state has two. The Senate is technically not supposed to craft their own legislation (by the Constitution, only bills can be crafted by the House and then presented to the Senate for consideration). If a bill passes both the House and Senate it is then sent to the President who will either sign it into law or veto it. If vetoed, the Senate can still ratify the law into effect with a supermajority vote.
The Electoral College (college meaning a body of people not a school) is a byproduct of the reconstructionism post-Civil War. Prior to this, the people didn't actually elect the president, presidential candidates were chosen by their respective parties, and then government leadership voted on who to put into office. After the Civil War, this changed and in order to facilitate the election process during a time when there was no mass communication, and to satiate southern former slaveholding states (which were mostly rural and farm based, rather than industrialized and city based) the Electoral College was created. At the time it balanced out the elective powers (or more accurately tipped the scales towards conservative former slaveholding states).
The Right to Remain Silent (more accurately; the right to not self incriminate) is part of the 4th Amendment, as is the right against unlawful searches and seizures of property, and the right not to house or quarter military and governmental officials (which by extension is the right that grants you soul propriety and ownership of your land).
The Vice President does in fact break the tie on an equal split vote in the Senate. This too is a leftover from before people actually got to vote for the President and Vice President. For a time the President and Vice President didn't run together. Since both were appointed positions, you could end up with a President and Vice President that didn't share the same political ideology.
Spot on
The Electoral College was created in Article II section 1, paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, of the U.S. Constitution, and ratified in 1788. Thus it was not a product of the Civil War nor reconstruction after the war. It was the twelfth amendment, ratified in 1804, that required the President and Vice-President to be elected on the same ticket, but adding the rule that if both were from the same state, that state's electoral votes could not go to them. What a formula for assassination! Each previously had hired a food taster for when they ate together. (Just joking.) One more note: the Constitution says the state legislators would choose how the electors were chosen, so for many years in many states the legislature just went ahead and chose. It was a political movement from voters themselves, voting out the old legislators and electing new ones who signed the pledge for popular vote for electors. That change was made in different states at different times. One more knee-slapper for you, if your sides aren't already hurting from laughter. Some, but not all, states have passed "faithful elector" laws, requiring electors to vote for the candidates they are pledged to, or face criminal prosecution. The last time I remember this happening was in 1968, I think, when an elector pledged to Huibert Humphrey actually cast an electoral-college vote for former New York City Mayor John Lindsay, making himself the butt of an obscure political joke in American history.
Who cares, you ask. Well, state legislatures that passed a law year ago saying they themselves would no longer select the electors, but the voting population of the state would, could now repeal that law and take back the power. As I write this Biden has a slender majority of the popular votes in Pennsylvania. Regardless of the popular vote outcome, the Pennsylvania legislature (with its Republican majority) could repeal the popular vote law and certify Trump electors instead. Of course, it would be the end of the Republican party in Pennsylvania, but, staring into the face of four more years of a vindictive Trump, they'll walk the plank.
I've had the privilege (and curse) of working for many years for companies that sent me overseas on business. Almost every trip I took, I'd be taken out for drinks at the end of the day and interrogated about the funhouse-mirror world of American politics and government. One can't hold it against them they don't understand; most Americans don't understand. I don't, really.
Good work! However way too long for this forum. I am trying to wind down when watching these two.
@@teduzzle6449 Not in its current form it wasn't. The electoral college as described in Article II is vastly different than what it is now.
The UK Parliament is Commons and Lords; the US Congress is the House and Senate.
The term limit for president is TWO terms (8 years total with a couple of exceptions for Presidents who serve part of someone else's term -- and then it is 10 years).
To be fair..... I don't think our politicians even know how American politics work! 🤣
Also, over here anything under 60% is failing. 😉
You are right about that. They only know that if you have a lot of money you can get through any college you want without ever actually having to go or take test yourself. And you can get into any political position you want. And make billions of dollars without having to work for it.
When I went to school, anything under 70 percent was failing. Of course, my school used number grades.
@@jwb52z9 you are correct, it used to be that way in every school. I think it was during Nam that it got lowered to 60% because of something to do with the Draft, it's been a while sense I learned about it in school so I might be a little off on the why. I think it was so it was easier to get in college and thus not able to be drafted?.
Also, I'm fairly sure even a 72% was failing. If memory serves me correctly it was 6% per grade so 76% is ment to be the lowest for a passing grade. I had a few old school teachers that still used the "real" standard for grades, I know this because they explained it to us in class. lol
The standards for education have dropped precipitously since WWII but even more so since the 1970s when students entering college often needed to remediate reading, spelling and basic arithmetic courses. During the first half of the 20th century an eighth grade education was equivalent to today’s high school diploma and in order to enter college a student needed to have masters a foreign language.
There are 3 Branches of Government in America
Executive, Legislative and Judicial
Executive executes the laws, legislative makes the laws and Judicial interprets the law
The president is the head of the Executive Branch. The people vote for the president but the States have Electoral votes based on population. Once the people’s votes have been counted in each state they delegate those electoral votes based on the votes. Most states are winner take all but a few aren’t. In an election, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes to be determined President. The Electoral College is the deciding factor. The States can send electors that are for the other party if there is evidence of voter fraud (which there very rarely, if ever, is because whether or not you voted is public record)
The Legislative branch has 2 houses. The Senate and the House of Representatives. In the Senate each state gets 2 Senators so there is ALWAYS 100 senators. The House of Representatives is based on each states population (very much similar to the electoral college in that way) so the more populous the state the more House Reps it’s gets.
For a law to get passed both the House and the Senate have to pass it and then the President has to sign it into law
The Judicial branch is the Supreme Court. The President appoints (which is really more like a nomination) and then the Senate holds questioning and then decides to confirm or deny the nominee.
This is really a super basic overview of each branch so if you have more questions feel free to ask ❤️
Congress has two houses/branches with the Senate being more stuffy than the House of Representatives.
Loved this! I also love how I immediately whispered to myself that they failed with 3/8 and you both were like....weeee passed yay. Lol 😂
This is an excellent corrective for us self-obsessed election watchers. Thanks for the comic relief!
In Chicago, the public schools had a Constitution test in the eighth grade. (I think they still do.). If you failed you weren't allowed to graduate into high school, no matter how good your other grades. We agonized over studying for this test, and I have no doubt that like myself, every CPS high school freshman can ace Joel and Lia's little test.
1. "The vice president has the deciding tie-breaker vote" "Well that's just corrupt"- Agreed
2. The filibuster requirement of 60 votes is why the Democratic-controlled Senate wasn't able to pass a lot of legislation during Obama's presidency. The Republicans filibustered over and over and the Democrats didn't have enough of a majority to override it
But really, how is it corrupt? Who should be the tie-breaker that would make it NOT corrupt?
They didn't even get to explaining Speaker of the House.
@CHRISTIINA TORRES , okay, that makes more sense.
The senate is the upper house the house is the lower house. Kinda like the House of Lords and House of Commons but the senate is elected. The president can server for 2 terms. This has been a custom since George Washington stepped down after his second term and was made law after FDR died in office during his 4th term. As for the electoral college it stems from the Latin definition of College meaning group much like in the Catholic Church the college of cardinals is not a school for cardinals but a meeting of all the church leaders that elects a new pope. Hopefully that helps! Love the channel and can’t wait for the ability to travel to the U.K. one day.
I wish Trump would’ve went to an actual Electoral College.. I wish the Electoral College was an actual college ugh lol
You guys are so funny! Congress consists of the Senate, with two senators from each state, and the House of Representatives, with representatives based on the populations of each state. They are two separate entities. I love your videos! I love ALL things British!
It is crazy I am becoming hopeful we will vote the crazy out today
You're still here!
@@jrooksable I am and happy
Yes, the VP breaks tie votes in the house-this doesn't happen often. In terms of the electoral college, the term college from late 14c., means an organized association of persons invested with certain powers and rights or engaged in some common duty or pursuit. While every citizen casts a vote, we actually do not use popular vote to pick the president. The electoral college (albeit with a checkered past in aiding slavery) is supposed to ensure that those less populated areas of the country have a say in the president pick as a opposed to the heavily populated coastal areas always making the call. Typically, the states electoral vote will go the way of majority vote take all for the particular candidate. This is primarily where the terms red and blue states comes from.
The U.S. has a bicameral legislature, so the House of Representatives is one house, and the Senate is the other. It's not exactly like the House of Commons and House of Lords, because the Senate is voted on my popular vote, but it's similar.
The Electoral College (whose name comes from the fact that "college" used to be a formal term for a convention or conference) elects the president. This is how Trump won in 2016 despite losing the popular vote by about 3 million votes - because each state is awarded a certain number of electors _roughly_ based on population, though it's not truly proportional, meaning votes in some states are worth more than votes in others in a de facto sense.
I looked up a british grading scale for school and I’ve never been more surprised in my life 😂 I would’ve been a straight A student all throughout school. I had no idea!
Yall are just too funny. Thanks for bringing me joy. Wont get any good sleep until this election is done!!
We have a system
Of checks and balances so the executive branch is the president and the legislative is the House of Representatives and the senate ..the judicial is the Supreme Court
Don’t feel bad guys. There aren’t many naturally born Americans who can answer these questions as well. That’s probably a very sad fact to have to say.
BAA-HA-HA-HAAA! "Have all the presidents been to electoral college?" Too funny!!
The president can only serve a maximum of two 4 year terms, not 22 years :) And, the Senate and the House are separate so that is how each party can have a majority at the same time. For example, the Republicans could have the majority in the Senate while the Democrats have the majority in the House.
These two are so adorable. United States presidents are paid a nice amount but anyone running for that office has so much money already that they dont care about the salary - they want that seat for the prestige and power. AND hopefully because they love America, want to uphold our constitution...oh and there is that thing about being the leader of the free world
One of the Vice President’s duties is to preside over the Senate and therefore he is the President of the Senate. A filibuster is when someone gets up and makes a speech for hours and hours to delay a specific vote from taking place.
🤣😂🤣😂 Can’t comment because I’m laughing too hard!!
It use to be only tradition to only serve 2 terms as president. Washington himself set up the tradition, but Franklin Roosevelt was elected 4 times and they decided to limit it after that
Each state gets 2 senators, but the number of seats they get in the house is completely dependent on the population of that state, which is how Republicans can have a majority in the Senate & Democrats in the house
Awesome! I was very impressed at the fact that you definitely know the first and second amendments (rights). 😊❤
The 22nd Amendment limits anyone from being elected for more than two terms, either consecutively or otherwise.
Write in candidates sometimes win. Usually it’s a well known politician who lost a primary but sometimes a true independent wins by write in.
"How can you have a majority Democrat in one and majority Republican in another?" Welcome to American politics...
As you already know, in parliamentary systems like your constitutional monarchy in the UK, whoever is the majority party after an election (or, as is the case currently, whoever can form a coalition of parties with the most seats), IS the government. They pick the prime minister and other government ministers and they can pretty much do whatever they want while they are in charge of the country.
Meanwhile, the American system is pretty much designed to try to blunt the power of different parts of the government. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and the President are elected separately, and each can end up being controlled by different political parties. Thus for the last two years, the House of Representatives has been controlled by Democrats while the Senate and White House (Trump) have been controlled by Republicans.
Of course, each party's goal is to control both houses of Congress and the presidency, but of late that only happens sporadically.
you guys gave me a good belly laugh watching this. The reasons you gave for all the wrong answers was funny.
The Senate being made up of two reps from each state is likely to end in a tie at some point and the Vice President is the tie breaker because he is the leader of the senate much like a Chairperson is in charge of a board of directors and often gets the tie breaking vote.
Watch the school house rocks video on the 3 branches and how a bill becomes a law and you'll be all caught up
Ok here's a really basic American political lesson for you 2 jokers: The senate and the House of Representatives are 2 separate yet equal bodies. Together they make up the congress. Each state gets 2 senators now matter how big or small the state is. Senators get 6 year terms because they "represent the state". So, there's a total of 100 senators (2 for each state, 50 states). Republicans currently control that majority. The House of Representatives, or just the House for short, is based on how big the state is. For instance, California, the biggest state people-wise gets 53 representatives (sometimes they're just called congressmen or congresswomen). Wyoming, the smallest state people-wise just gets 1 representative. Each state is divided into districts. Currently each district is roughly 750,000 people. That Representative represents that district. So, whatever district you live in, you only get to vote for that 1 representative. Of course, in a state like Wyoming, literally the whole state is the district. Wyoming doesn't even have 750,000 people but they still get the minimum of 1 representative. There are a total of 435 representatives/districts in the country. They only get 2 year terms because they "represent the people". The democrats currently hold the majority in the House. In order for a bill, or a law to pass, the House has to pass it, the Senate has to pass it, and the President has to sign it.
The electoral college is the system how we choose the President. In each state, you just add up how many House reps they have plus their 2 senators and that's how many electoral votes they get. Whichever candidate gets the most popular votes within that states gets all the electoral votes of that state. Thusly, every state is it's own separate battlefield in the presidential election. And the candidate that gets over half the electoral votes wins the presidency. So, California gets 55 electoral votes, Wyoming gets 3 electoral votes (that's the minimum a state can have). My home state of Missouri has 8 representatives/districts and 2 senators so we get 10 electoral votes.
Also, the city of Washington D.C., the capital of the country, gets 3 electoral votes but it gets no senators or reps because it's not technically a state. So, there's a total of 435 reps, 100 senators, and 3 additional electoral votes for DC. That makes a total of 538 electoral votes (if you add that together. 435 +100 + 3 = 538). Over half of that is 270 or more electoral votes (in the electoral college, and no, it's not a school!). So, that's why as soon as Biden got 270 or more electoral votes it was over. Well, unless you're like Trump and think this was really all a fake mirage and didn't really happen.
Get it now? See? It's a piece of cake!
The Senate is basically considered the "upper" body of Congress.
Lia got one right go for question number 5 first amendment question.
Watching this video makes me want so desperately to sit with these two and explain it all. Sadly though, most Americans probably couldn't score as well as they did.......
Life is pretty serious right now when you have your life and human rights at stake...
I get that we should be positive and take a step forward in a positive direction. However, that isn’t how America is right now. We are fighting for our lives and human rights in general. I would love to be positive and happy go lucky but it’s just too serious right now to even contemplate it. Right now I could lose basic healthcare where I would have to pay $100+ for a simple doctors appt when I just have to pay $45 right now...among other things
People like Joel and Lia, especially when young, never experience anything like what the US goes through endlessly. They live in basically an idyllic culture, for the most part, and so they never get into the kind of insanity the US does.