How the US government works

The House of Representatives has 435 voting members apportioned among the states by population and redrawn every ten years after the census. Every seat is contested every two years, which makes the House the more responsive chamber and also the more volatile one. It holds the exclusive power to originate revenue bills and to impeach.

The Senate has 100 members, two per state regardless of population, serving six-year terms with roughly a third up for election every two years. It confirms presidential appointments including federal judges, ratifies treaties by two-thirds vote, and tries impeachments.

Equal state representation means Wyoming's roughly 587,000 residents and California's 39 million each get two senators. That was the compromise that made ratification possible in 1787, and it has become substantially more consequential as population has concentrated.

The filibuster is not in the Constitution — it emerged from Senate rules — but it now shapes almost everything. In practice most legislation requires 60 votes to end debate rather than a simple majority of 51. Budget reconciliation is the main exception, allowing certain fiscal legislation to pass with a simple majority, which is why so much major policy arrives attached to a budget bill.

Judicial and executive nominations were exempted from the filibuster in 2013 and 2017, which is why judges are confirmed on party-line votes while legislation stalls.

The President is head of state and head of government, commander-in-chief, and head of an executive branch employing around two million civilian federal workers across fifteen cabinet departments and dozens of independent agencies.

Presidential power is narrower than it appears and broader than the text suggests. The President cannot make law, cannot appropriate money, and cannot compel Congress to act. But the executive branch writes the regulations that implement statutes, and that rulemaking power is enormous — the Code of Federal Regulations runs to hundreds of volumes.

Executive orders direct the executive branch and have the force of law within it, but they cannot exceed existing statutory or constitutional authority and can be reversed by the next president with a signature. That reversibility is why so much American policy oscillates between administrations.

The Senate must confirm cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, federal judges and thousands of other appointments. A president whose party does not control the Senate can find an administration substantially unstaffed.

Impeachment by the House requires a simple majority; removal by the Senate requires two-thirds. Three presidents have been impeached and none removed.

Americans do not elect the president directly. Each state is allotted electors equal to its total congressional delegation — its House seats plus two senators — with DC given three under the Twenty-third Amendment, for 538 in total. A candidate needs 270.

Forty-eight states and DC award all their electors to the statewide winner. Maine and Nebraska split theirs by congressional district. That winner-take-all convention is state law, not constitutional requirement, and could be changed by states individually.

Because small states get a minimum of three electors regardless of population, and because winner-take-all concentrates the contest in a handful of closely divided states, presidential campaigns focus overwhelmingly on perhaps seven states while ignoring the other forty-three.

A candidate can win the presidency while losing the national popular vote, which has happened five times — in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016.

Reform proposals include the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among states to award electors to the national popular vote winner, which takes effect only if states totaling 270 electoral votes join.

The federal judiciary has three main levels: 94 district courts where federal cases begin, 13 circuit courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court. Federal judges are nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and hold office for life during good behavior.

Judicial review — the power to strike down laws as unconstitutional — is not in the Constitution's text. The Supreme Court asserted it in Marbury v. Madison in 1803, and it has been accepted ever since. It gives the courts a role in American policymaking with few parallels among democracies.

The Supreme Court hears roughly 60 to 70 cases a year out of several thousand petitions, choosing them itself. Four justices must agree to hear a case; five are needed to decide it.

Lifetime tenure with no mandatory retirement means each vacancy is unpredictable and politically enormous. Justices appointed in their forties or fifties can serve for three decades or more, and a president's judicial appointments routinely outlast their policies.

Federal courts handle federal law, constitutional questions, and disputes between citizens of different states above a value threshold. The vast majority of American litigation — landlord-tenant, most criminal cases, family law, personal injury — happens in state courts.

Elections are administered by states and, in practice, by more than 8,000 local election jurisdictions. There is no national election authority, no national voter roll, and no uniform ballot. Registration deadlines, early voting, mail voting, voter ID requirements and felony disenfranchisement all vary by state.

Voting is not compulsory. Turnout in presidential years typically runs around 60 to 66 percent of eligible voters — high by recent American standards, low compared with countries that have compulsory voting or automatic registration.

Federal elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Presidential elections every four years, House elections every two, Senate seats staggered so a third are contested each cycle.

Congressional district boundaries are redrawn every ten years, mostly by state legislatures. Where one party controls that process it can draw maps favoring itself — gerrymandering — and the Supreme Court held in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering claims are not justiciable in federal court, leaving the remedy to state courts and independent commissions.

Primaries determine each party's nominee and vary enormously by state: open, closed, semi-closed, caucuses, or ranked-choice in a few states.