Politics of the United States


In the United States, politics functions within a framework of a constitutional federal democratic republic with a presidential system. The three distinct branches share powers: Congress, which forms the legislative branch, a bicameral legislative body comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate; the executive branch, which is headed by the president of the United States, who serves as the country's head of state and government; and the judicial branch, composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, and which exercises judicial power.
Each of the 50 individual state governments has the power to make laws within its jurisdiction that are not granted to the federal government nor denied to the states in the U.S. Constitution. Each state also has a constitution following the pattern of the federal constitution but differing in details. Each has three branches: an executive branch headed by a governor, a legislative body, and a judicial branch. At the local level, governments are found in counties or county-equivalents, and beneath them individual municipalities, county, townships, school districts, and special districts.
Officials are popularly elected at the federal, state and local levels, with the major exception being the president, who is instead elected indirectly by the people through the Electoral College. American politics is dominated by two parties which since the American Civil War have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, although other parties have run candidates. Since the mid-20th century, the Democratic Party has generally supported left-leaning policies, while the Republican Party has generally supported right-leaning ones. Both parties have no formal central organization at the national level that controls membership, elected officials or political policies; thus, each party has traditionally had factions and individuals that deviated from party positions. Almost all public officials in America are elected from single-member districts and win office by winning a plurality of votes cast. Suffrage is nearly universal for citizens 18 years of age and older, with the notable exception of registered felons in some states.

Federal government

The United States is a constitutional federal republic, in which the president, Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.
The federal government is divided into three branches, as per the specific terms articulated in the U.S. Constitution:
  • The executive branch is headed by the president and is independent of the legislature.
  • Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives.
  • The judicial branch, composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, exercises judicial power. The judiciary's function is to interpret the United States Constitution and federal laws and regulations. This includes resolving disputes between the executive and legislative branches.
The federal government's layout is explained in the Constitution. Two political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, have dominated American politics since the American Civil War, although other parties have existed.
There are major differences between the political system of the United States and that of many other developed countries, including:
  • an upper legislative house, with far more power than is found in equivalent bodies in most other countries;
  • a Supreme Court that also has a wider scope of power than is found in most countries;
  • a separation of powers between the legislature and the executive; and
  • a political landscape dominated by only two main parties. The United States is one of the world's only developed countries where all additional parties have minimal or nonexistent influence and almost no representation at the national and state level. Causes for this mainly focus on the plurality-based first-past-the-post voting system, used in most elections, which encourages strategic voting and discourages vote splitting. This also results in both major parties having multiple internal factions.
The federal entity created by the U.S. Constitution is the dominant feature of the American governmental system, as citizens are also subject to a state government and various units of local government.

State government

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

Local government

The United States Census Bureau conducts the Census of Governments every five years, categorizing four types of local governmental jurisdictions below the level of the state:
  1. County governments
  2. Town or township governments
  3. Municipal governments
  4. Special-purpose local governments, including both school districts and other special districts
In 2010, there were 89,500 total local governments, including 3,033 counties, 19,492 municipalities, 16,500 townships, 13,000 school districts, and 37,000 other special districts. Local governments directly serve the needs of the people, providing everything from police and fire protection to sanitary codes, health regulations, education, public transportation, and housing. Typically local elections are nonpartisan — local activists suspend their party affiliations when campaigning and governing.

County government

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

Town or township governments

Town or township governments are organized local governments authorized in the state constitutions and statutes of 20 Northeastern and Midwestern states, established as minor civil divisions to provide general government for a geographic subdivision of a county where there is no municipality.
In New York, Wisconsin and New England, these county subdivisions are called towns.
In many other states, the term town does not have any specific meaning; it is simply an informal term applied to populated places. Moreover, in some states, the term town is equivalent to how civil townships are used in other states.
Like counties, the specific responsibilities to townships vary based on each state. Many states grant townships some governmental powers, making them civil townships, either independently or as a part of the county government. In others, survey townships are non-governmental. Towns in the six New England states and townships in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are included in this category by the Census Bureau, despite the fact that they are legally municipal corporations, since their structure has no necessary relation to concentration of population, which is typical of municipalities elsewhere in the United States. In particular, towns in New England have considerably more power than most townships elsewhere and often function as legally equivalent to cities, typically exercising the full range of powers that are divided between counties, townships, and cities in other states.
Township functions are generally overseen by a governing board, whose name also varies from state to state.