This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Lower House is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008) |
| Legislature |
|---|
|
This series is part of |
| Politics Portal · |
A lower house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house.
Despite its theoretical position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide the lower house has come to wield more power. The supremacy of the lower house usually arises from special restrictions placed (either explicitly by legislation or implicitly by convention) on the powers of the upper house, which often can only delay rather than veto legislation or has less control over money bills. Under parliamentary systems it is usually the lower house alone that designates the head of government or prime minister, and may remove them through a vote of no confidence. There are exceptions to this however, such as the Prime Minister of Japan, who is formally selected with the approval of both houses of the Diet. A legislature composed of only one house is described as unicameral.
Contents |
Common attributes
In comparison with the upper house, lower houses frequently display certain characteristics:
- Given greater power, usually based on restrictions against the upper house.
- Directly elected (apportionment is usually based on population).
- Given more members.
- Elected more often, and all at once.
- Given total or original control over budget and monetary laws.
- Able to override the upper house in some ways.
- In a presidential system, given the sole power to impeach the executive (the upper house then has to try the impeachment).
Titles of lower houses
Common names
Many lower houses are named in the following manner: House/Chamber of Representatives/the People/Commons/Deputies.
- Chamber of Deputies
- Chamber of Representatives
- House of Assembly
- House of Commons
- House of Representatives
- Legislative Assembly
- National Assembly (hence also Bundestag, German for federal assembly)
Less common titles
- Congress of Deputies - Spain
- Dáil Éireann - Republic of Ireland
- House of Keys - Isle of Man
- Lok Sabha (House of the People) - India
- National Council - Switzerland, Austria
- Sejm - Poland and Seimas - Lithuania
- State Duma (Государственная Дума - Gosudarstvennaya Duma) - Russia
- Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber) - Netherlands
- Odelsting (Lower house in name only) Norway
See also
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 25 September 2008, at 10:22.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Lower House".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.