POL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Connecticut Compromise, Bicameralism, Gerrymandering

• School: University of Miami
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL 201
• Professor: Thompson

Document Summary

The legislative branch is the first branch of the national government. 2 pages of the constitution are about the congress. It was assumed that it would be the most important, most powerful branch. There is more info about congress in the constitution than anything else. Legislative branch is in charge of making national laws- not state or local. We originally had a unicameral legislature in the first constitution. Why/how did we adopt a bicameral legislature?- connecticut compromise (the great compromise) the states were very competitive with each other. They wanted to make sure that some states were not being taken advantage of and that everyone was treated fairly. The constitution says that a state government gets no more than 1 house member for every 30,000 people- state no more than 1 house member for every 30,000 . The house got bigger as the population got bigger. How does a state know how many people they have?- the census.