By: Emily Gothard, Anita Foo, Audrie Corral

Make laws Has two parts, House of Representatives and Senate House of Representatives has 435 members Senate has 100 members Legislative branch needs a majority vote to pass the law on A senator serves 6 years

A representative serves 2 years Amount of representatives is based on population Speaker of the house is the head of the house To be a representative a person must be 25 years old, has been a citizen of the United Stated for 7 years, and when elected, must be an inhabitant of that state in which he/she is chosen

They can override a veto Impeach the president The legislative branch approves federal judges Can impeach federal judges The first three articles of the United States Constitution detail and discuss specific powers reserved to the three branches of government

Iraq made a new election law. The law passed with 141 votes Original date of the election, January 16, was changed to around late January The explanatory message includes a count of government representation: 325 parliament seats—310 for the provinces and 15 compensational seats Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has hailed the passage of a law that calls for elections seen as critical to U.S. plans to withdraw troops. It was passed in late 2009 To watch video of Barack Obama talking about election law click here To watch video of Barack Obama talking about election law click here

If the Legislative branch was not provided by the Constitution, then our country would become very chaotic. For example, one of the powers of the Legislative branch is to approve the President’s appointments for the Supreme Court justices. Without the Legislative branch, the president could appoint anyone to be a judge and no one could do anything about it. One of these judges could be someone who is easily bribed. If so, then the President could pay this judge to vote that a law is constitutional when it really is not. Also, if a President is doing something very illegal and everybody knows it, no one can impeach them because that used to be the Legislative branch’s job. When nobody stops the president from doing illegal things, then that President could become a dictator and do whatever he wanted to without anybody stopping him. Then perhaps we would become like Egypt. In addition, we would have no laws. This is because the legislative branch makes the laws. Also, if we had no laws then life would be full of people who would do anything. For example, they might drink and drive. Then, one of us could get killed and the person drinking and driving would not get in trouble.

The new election law that happened in Iraq could happen in our country. In the U.S., the Legislative Branch needs a majority of votes for the law to be passed. The new election law in Iraq needed more votes from the people of parliament before it to be passed. The law passed with 141 votes. The Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hailed the passage of a law that calls for elections. In America, the legislative branch makes the laws and President Barack Obama can either veto or approve it.

The United States Senate Seal The United States House of Representatives Seal