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Unit 4 – Legislative Branch Vocabulary Key Words

1. Term – the specified length of time served by elected officials in their elected offices. 2. Session – the regular period of time during which a legislative body conducts business. 3. Apportioned – distribution of seats in a legislative body among electoral districts. 4. Reapportioned – redistribution of political representation on the basis of population changes, usually after a census. 5. Constituents – all persons represented by a legislator or other elected officeholder. 6. Commerce power – exclusive power of Congress to regulate interstate and foreign trade. 7. Impeach – formal charge (accusation of misconduct) brought against a public official by the lower house in a legislative body; trial, and removal upon conviction, occurs in the upper house. 8. Eminent domain – power of a government to take private property for a public use. 9. Speaker of the House – The presiding officer of the House of Representatives, chosen by and from the majority party in the House. 10. President of the Senate – the presiding officer of a senate; in Congress, the Vice president of the United States; in a State’s legislature, either the lieutenant governor or a senator. 11. President pro tempore – the member of the , or of the upper house of a State’s legislature, chosen to preside in the absence of the president of the Senate. 12. leader – members of the House and Senate picked to carry out party decisions and steer legislative action to meet party goals. 13. Whip – assistants to the floor leaders, responsible for monitoring and marshalling votes. 14. Party caucus – a meeting of the party leaders and/or members to conduct party business. 15. Committee chairman – member who heads a standing committee in a legislative body. 16. Seniority rule – unwritten rule in both houses of Congress, that the top posts in each chamber will (with rare exception) be held by ‘ranking members’ (those with the longest records of service, applied most strictly to committee chairmanships) 17. Standing committee – permanent committee in a legislative body to which bills in a specified subject‐matter area are referred. 18. Joint committee – legislative committee composed of members of both houses. 19. Conference committee – temporary joint committee created to reconcile any differences between the two houses’ versions of a bill. 20. Bill – a proposal presented to a legislative body for possible enactment as a law. 21. Resolution – measure relating to the internal business of one house in a legislature, or expressing that chamber’s opinion on some matter, without the force of law. 22. Rider – provision, unlikely to pass on its own merit, added to an important bill certain to pass so that it will ‘ride’ through the legislative process. 23. – a procedure to bring a bill to the floor of the legislative body when a committee has refused to report on it. 24. Subcommittee – division of existing committee that is formed to address specific issues. 25. Committee of the Whole – a committee that consists of an entire legislative body; used for a procedure in which a legislative body expedites its business by resolving itself into a committee of itself. 26. Quorum – least number of members who must be present for a legislative body to conduct business. 27. Filibuster – various tactics (usually prolonged floor debate) aimed at defeating a bill in a legislative body by preventing a final vote on it; often associated with the US Senate. 28. – procedure that may be used to limit or end floor debate in a legislative body.

29. – chief executive’s power to reject a bill passed by a legislature; literally (Latin) ‘I forbid’. 30. Pocket veto – type of veto a chief executive may use after a legislature had adjourned; it is applied when the chief executive does not formally sign or reject a bill within the time period allowed to do so.