ABSTRACT
The U.S. Congress is a type of legislature. In general, a legislature can be de-ned as a deliberative council that has the authority to make and repeal laws. In representative democracies, ordinary citizens elect legislators to represent them. ere are two general types of legislatures in representative democracies: (1) parliamentary systems in which the majority party in the legislature selects its leader to be chief executive, as in the British Parliament and prime minister; and (2) presidential systems in which citizens independently elect representatives in the legislature and the chief executive, as in the U.S. Congress and president.
