When the Framers of the Constitution came together to create the form of government that we have today they created three branches that were independent and unique from each other but worked together to keep the Union running. These three branches are the Legislative Branch, made up of the two houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The second branch is the Executive Branch which consists of the President and Vice-President. The third branch, headed by the Supreme Court, is the Judicial Branch. The framers also wanted to make sure that the federal government’s three branches were all equal in power and had ways to ensure that balance stays in play so they implemented a system of checks and balances. The first of the three branches of government is the Legislative Branch of the government. The Legislative Branch is the law-making hand of the Federal Government. The leadership of the Legislative Branch is delegated to many different members of the two houses. The leader of the House of Representatives is the Speaker of the House. This person is voted into position by all members of the House on the first day of every congressional session. This person is then designated to reside over all committees and debates that take place inside of the House. Normally, however, the Speaker appoints those duties to other members of the current majority party. As Speaker of the House, whoever is appointed is also the true head of their party in the House even over the officially elected majority party leader. As such, the Speaker’s jobs have become very partisan as they push try to pass bills written by their party through congress. This is not the case when the President and Speaker are both in the same party, then the duty to try and pass bills is more in the hands of the President than the Speaker. The Speaker is also third in line of succession, only if both the President and Vice-President have lost their seat in office, i.e. by death or any other means that results in the loss of positon.i
While the Speaker of the House is the official leader of the House of Representatives, the official job of President of the Senate is given to the Vice-President of the United States. Due to the nature of his job, though, the Vice-President is not always capable of being able to preside over Senate matters. In order to deal with this problem, the Senate elects a President Pro Tempore of the Senate. Pro Tempore is Latin for “for the time being”, so he/she is assigned the Vice-Presidents duties while he/she is absent. While there is no official regulation on how the President Pro Tempore is elected, over the years the tradition of the Senate is to elect the longest serving senator to the seat. While it is the responsibility of the President Pro Tempore to reside over the affairs of the Senate, the Pro Tempore normally allows another head member of the senate or rising senator the job to rule over the debates in order for them to gain more experience in the Senate. While the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore are the leaders of the House of Representatives and Senate respectively, each of the individual parties elect a person to represent them in congress as Majority and Minority leaders. Whoever is the leader elected to the party with the most representatives in the House is considered to be the Majority while the Minority is the party with the least representatives. The job of the party leaders is to make sure that their agendas and bills are presented to the leader of the respected house of congress, while the Majority leader has many perks compared to the minority leader. One advantage that the Majority leader has is that he/she has the opportunity every time a new bill or action is passed through congress to address any concerns or propose any suggestions given by other members of the party. Even with this advantage the Majority and Minority leaders work very close with each other to try and ensure that