Congress and Parliament have many differences including the meaning of their names, Congress meaning "a coming together" and Parliament "to talk." Both consisting of members representing their local districts, the way in which these members are selected are far different from one another. In Britain, local committees of national political parties select the members of parliament and the voters choose between national parties. In the United States, a person would have to run in a primary to get on the election ballot and the voters choose based on more so on personality rather than political party. The actual political party has little to do with this process even though the candidates will describe themselves with a party label. Once in office a Member of Parliament is limited to voting to support or to not support the government. In a Parliamentary system the party that holds the most seats will choose a Prime Minister.
That party will remain in power as long as they follow their leader or until the next election. The U.S. Congress is separated from the executive branch and in turn do not select the President. Members of Congress fell less of an obligation to vote with their party than do members of Parliament because the political parties hold less power over their futures. While the principal work done in Parliament is debating, Congress represents the people and takes action.
So does parliment!
Parliment does represnt the people and take action.All local M.Ps hold meetings open to the public to disscuss the bills they want to put forward.
I agree that the focus is on voting for a party, meaning that people vote on pricipals, not who has the most dazzaling personality (hopefully!) another issue is accountability- almost all debates can be watched by members of the public from the viewing gallery or on a special cable channel we have. We also have "Priministers Question time" a half hour programme brodcast live on the BBC, where M.Ps can ask the PM any question ( they are not always ones he wants to answer!) im not sure if you have that in the US. It would be interesting to find out actually.......
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