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Town Meeting

Town meeting

Town meeting is a form of local government commonly practiced in the U.S. region of New England, but uncommon elsewhere in the United States. Despite the name "town," it can also apply to other governmental bodies, especially school districts. While the uses and laws vary from state to state, the general form is for residents of the town or school district to gather once a year and act as a legislative body, voting on operating budgets, laws and other matters for the community's operation over the following 12 months. Its usage in the English language can also cause confusion. The town meeting is both an event, as in "Freetown had its town meeting last Tuesday" and an entity, as in "Last Tuesday, Town Meeting decided to repave Howland Road." Starting with Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign in 1976, "town meeting" has also been used as a label for any moderated discussion group in which a large audience is invited, as in "John Kerry held a town meeting with voters to discuss issues in the upcoming election." To avoid confusion, this sort of event is often called a "town hall meeting."

Connecticut

Maine

In Maine, the town meeting system originates in the time before statehood, when Maine was a district of Massachusetts. Most cities and towns still operate under the town meeting form of government or a modified version of it. Maine annual town meetings traditionally have been held in March. Special town meetings also may be called from time to time. The executive agency of town government is an elected, part-time board. known as the Board of Selectmen or Select Board, having three, five or seven members. Between sessions the board of selectmen interprets the policy set at Town Meeting and is assigned numerous duties including: approving all town non-school expenditures, authorizing highway construction and repair, serving as town purchasing agent for non-school items, issuing licenses and overseeing the conduct of all town activities. Often the part-time selectmen also serve as town assessors, overseers of the poor as well as road commissioners. Generally, there are other elected town officers whose duties are specified in law. These may include clerk, assessors, tax collector, treasurer, school committee, constables, and others. In 1927, the town of Camden adopted a special charter and became the first Maine town to apply the manager concept to the town meeting-selectmen framework. Under this system, the manager is administrative head of town government, responsible to the select board for the administration of all departments under its control. The manager's duties include acting as purchasing agent, seeing that laws and ordinances are enforced, making appointments and removals, and fixing the compensation of appointees. (See also: Council-manager government) From 1927 to 1939, eleven other Maine towns adopted special act town meeting-selectmen-manager charters similar to the Camden charter. Today, 135 Maine towns have the town meeting-selectmen-manager system, while 209 use the town meeting-selectman system.

External links

- [http://www.umaine.edu/mcsc/Research/CivVal/MPM/Chap3.htm UMaine Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy]
- [http://www.memun.org/public/local_govt/government.htm Maine Municipal Association]

Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Constitution (in Amendment LXXXIX, which governs the respective powers of municipalities and the state legislature) makes a distinction between a "city form of government" and a "town form of government". In recent years, a number of communities have chosen to adopt a home-rule charter under this Amendment which specifies a city form of government while keeping the style "Town of X," calling their legislative bodies "Town Council," and so on. (The Constitution does not require any specific nomenclature.) In special legislation, these places are sometimes described as "the city called the Town of X". The Town Meeting form of government is a mandatory part of being considered a town under state law; cities do not have town meetings. However, as noted, the official style of a city or town is defined in its charter, and there is no legal barrier to cities calling themselves "town" or vice versa. As a result, not all of the municipalities that are called towns have Town Meeting. (Only communities with a population of at least 12,000 may adopt a city form of government.) Common practice distinguishes between a "town meeting" (with an article), which may refer to any such gathering, even if municipal business is not the subject, and "Town Meeting" (never an article), which always refers to the governing body of a town.

Two forms of Town Meeting government

article Freetown, Mass. annual town meeting warrant.]]

Open Town Meeting

- See main article, Open Town Meeting Open Town Meetings are required of Massachusetts towns with fewer than 6,000 residents and optional for those with 6,000 or more residents. The Board of Selectmen will call the town meeting by issuing the warrant, which is the list of items--known as articles--to be voted on, with descriptions of each article. The Moderator officiates the meeting by reading each article, explaining it, and making sure the rules of parliamentary procedure are followed. He/she interprets voice votes and counts other votes. The Finance Committee or Ways and Means Committee makes recommendations on articles dealing with money, and often drafts the proposed budget. The Town Clerk serves as the clerk of the meeting by recording its results. Town Counsel makes legal recommendations on all articles of the warrant, to ensure town meeting is acting lawfully. All registered voters are free to attend and vote on any and all articles.

Representative Town Meeting

See main article, Representative Town Meeting Massachusetts Towns having at least 6,000 residents may adopt a Representative Town Meeting system through the normal charter-change process. Representative Town Meetings function largely the same as an Open Town Meeting, except that not all registered voters can vote. The townspeople instead elect Town Meeting Members by precinct to represent them and to vote on the issues for them, much like a U.S. Representative votes on behalf of his/her constituents in Congress. Depending on population, a town may have anywhere from 45 to 240 Town Meeting Members. Framingham, the largest town in the state by population, has 216 representatives in Town Meeting, twelve from each precinct.

Annual Town Meetings

Annual Town Meetings are held in the spring, and may also be known as the Annual Budget Meeting. They are supposed be held between February 1 and May 31, but may be delayed until June 30. (Town fiscal years start on July 1.) At this meeting, the town takes care of any housecleaning it has left before the end of the current fiscal year, and prepares itself to enter the new fiscal year by approving a budget. It may also vote on non-budgetary issues on the warrant, including the town's general and zoning bylaws. An article may be placed on the warrant by the Selectmen, sometimes at the request of town departments, or by a petition signed by at least ten registered voters of the town.

Special Town Meetings

Special Town Meetings are held whenever necessary, usually to deal with financial or other pertinent issues that develop between Annual Town Meetings. They function the same as an Annual Town Meeting, only the number of signatures required on a petition rises to 100. While the Selectmen generally call such a meeting, voters may call one through petition, and the number of signatures required on a petition to call a Special Town Meeting is 200 or 20% of the registered voters, whichever number is lower. The Selectmen have 45 days from the date of receiving such a petition to hold a Special Town Meeting.

Joint/Regional Town Meetings

Joint Town Meetings are an extremely rare form of town meeting. When two or more towns share an operating budget for something, the governing body of that entity will typically issue each town an assessment for its operation. The town then includes its assessment as part of its budget. If Town Meeting in one town votes to approve its assessment based on the figures provided, and Town Meeting in another town votes a lesser figure than it was assessed, the disagreement becomes problematic. (For example, if X-town and Y-town run a high school together, and the total operating cost of the high school is $4,500,000, and X-town sends 51% of the school's students, X-town would be assessed $2,295,000 and Y-town would be assessed $2,205,000. An issue arises when X-town votes $2,295,000 and Y-town only votes $2,100,000.) If the issue cannot be resolved, the governing body may call a meeting of all registered voters from all towns involved: a Joint Town Meeting. The action of the Joint Town Meeting is binding for all involved communities. When three or more towns are involved, the name often changes from Joint Town Meeting to Regional Town Meeting.

Case study

In 2003, the communities of Freetown and Lakeville held their annual town meetings and voted on the budget for the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School District as part of those meetings. Freetown voters approved a budget that reduced their contribution by $100,000 from what the Regional School Committee asked for, thus requiring Lakeville to lower their contribution proportionally. Lakeville voters instead approved the amount the Regional School Committee asked for, which would require Freetown to go back and approve the extra $100,000. When the towns could not agree, the Regional School Committee, as governing body of the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School District, called a joint town meeting of voters from Freetown and Lakeville to agree on a single regional school budget. The meeting voted in favor of the amount originally requested, which required Freetown to give the additional $100,000 it had held back.
- [http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/08-03/08-08-03/a01lo005.htm Lakeville demands more Freetown funding] A newspaper article describing the joint town meeting.

External links

- [http://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/cistwn/twnidx.htm Citizen's Guide to Town Meetings] prepared by William Francis Galvin, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth.
- [http://town.freetown.ma.us/warrant/warrant.asp?WarrantID=17 An example] of a Special Town Meeting warrant.

New Hampshire

In New Hampshire, towns, cities, unincorporated places and villages and school districts have the option of two main types of annual meeting: Traditional meetings and ballot-voting meetings, known informally as "SB 2" or "Senate Bill 2." In each municipality, each political subdivision can choose their form meeting, irrespective of what the other has chosen.

Tradititional Town Meetings

Traditional Town Meetings, or Open Meetings, are held annually on the second Tuesday of March to choose town officers and the transaction of all other town business. Town selectmen are also permitted to call town meetings as warranted. Town meetings are prohibited, by state law, from being held on the biennial election day, which is typically held in November to elect county, state and national officials.

Official Ballot Referenda (SB 2)

The SB 2 form of government was instituted by the state legislature in 1995 because of concern that modern lifestyle made it hard for people to attend traditional meetings. Unlike traditional town meetings, residents who are unable to attend the meeting can vote in SB2 election by using an absentee ballot. Municipalities can switch from between traditional and SB2 meetings as they wish by a vote of 3/5 majority. Local political subdivision which have adopted SB 2 may change the date for local elections and the second session, by majority vote to the second Tuesday in March, the second Tuesday in April, or the second Tuesday in May. If a vote is taken to approve the change of the local elections, the date becomes effective in the following year. In the case of towns which have Open Meetings and the school district is governed by SB 2, towns can hold In 2002, according to the University of New Hampshire Center for Public Policy studies, 171 towns in New Hampshire had traditional town meeting, while 48 had SB 2. Another 15 municipalities, most of them incorporated cities, had no annual meeting. The study found that 102 school districts had traditional town meeting, 64 had SB2 meeting and 10 had no annual meeting. Because traditional-meeting communities tend to be smaller, only one-third of the state's population was governed by traditional town meetings in 2002, and only 22 percent by traditional school-district meetings.

Official Ballot Town Council

See main article, Town Council The Official Ballot Town Council is a variant form of the Town Council, in which certain items are to be placed on the ballot to be voted on by the registered voters. This process mimics the SB 2 process, except that the Town Council makes the determination of what items will go on the ballot.

Budgetary Town Meeting

The Budgetary Town Meeting is a variation of the Open Meeting, but only the annual town operating budget as presented by the governing body can be voted on by the registered voters. When a town charter provides for a Budgetary Town Meeting also must establish the procedures for the transfer of funds among various departments, funds, accounts and agencies as may be necessary during the year.

Representative Town Meeting

See main article, Representative Town Meeting State law also allows for a Representative Town Meeting, similar to that of a Town Council. Voters elect a small number of residents to act as the legislative body instead of them, however no town in the state has done so. Representative Town Meetings follow the same procedure and address the same issues as traditional town meetings, except they cannot consider matters which state law or the charter states must be placed on the official ballot of the town.

Moderator

Moderators are elected to two-year terms on even years in towns and are elected in city wards at every other city election. The moderator's duties include presiding over town meetings, regulating the business thereof, deciding questions of order, making public declarations of each vote passed, and prescribing rules of proceeding which may be altered by the town as need. The moderator also has the authority to postpone and reschedule the deliberative session or voting day of the meeting to another reasonable date, place, and time certain in the case of a weather emergency in which the moderator reasonably believes the roads to be hazardous or unsafe.

External links

- [http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/indexes/40.html NH RSA Chapter 40: Government of Town Meeting]
- [http://www.unh.edu/nhcpps/sb2at5.pdf N.H. Center for Public Policy Studies report on SB2]

Rhode Island

Vermont

All cities and towns in Vermont, except for South Burlington, are required by the terms of their charters to hold an annual town meeting, on Town Meeting Day (the first Tuesday in March). However, state law requires that all matters of consequence, including election of town officials and approval of town and district budgets, must be decided by Australian ballot. As a result, many towns actually hold their public meetings the Monday evening preceding Town Meeting Day, and reserve the official day itself for voting. Day-to-day operations of cities and towns are governed by a town council or selectboard, which is fully empowered to act on most issues, but all town budgets (and those of other independent taxing authorities) must be approved by plebiscite; explaining the board's budget request to the voters is the principal business of Town Meeting. Voters at Town Meeting may also vote on non-binding resolutions, and may place items on the ballot for the following year's meeting. Because all city and town charters are established by special legislation, there is no general requirement for municipalities to observe Town Meeting or to put their budgets to plebiscite. When the Town of South Burlington was re-chartered as the City of South Burlington in the 1950s, the new charter provided for city elections in April and required only budget increases of 10% or more per annum to be placed before voters. No other municipality has been granted such a charter by the legislature, and there is strong sentiment against making future exceptions. Employers in the state often give their employees time off, or at least give the employees the option of leaving early/coming in late, in order to attend their home town's Town Meeting. Universities often also give their students the day off from class so that they may go to Town Meeting to learn more about local issues and government. Category:Meetings Category:Government of the United States Category:Government of Maine Category:Government of New Hampshire Category:Government of Vermont Category:Government of Massachusetts Category:Government of Connecticut Category:Government of Rhode Island

Local government

Local governments are administrative offices of an area smaller than a state. The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or (where appropriate) federal government. In modern nations, local governments usually have less powers than national governments do. They usually have some power to raise taxes, though these may be limited by central legislation. In some countries local government is partly or wholly funded by subventions from central government taxation. The question of Municipal Autonomy - which powers the local government has, or should have, and why - is a key question of public administration and governance. The institutions of local government vary greatly between countries, and even where similar arrangements exist, the terminology often varies. Common names for local government entities include state, province, region, department, county, district, city, township, town, borough, parish, municipality, shire and village. However all these names are often used informally in countries where they do not describe a legal local government entity. Main articles on each country will usually contain some information about local government, or links to an article with fuller information. The rest of this article gives information or links for countries where a relatively full description is available.

Australia

As a federal country, Australia has a number of States and Territories with wide ranging powers, and a lower tier of Local Governments. These arrangements are described in the articles Australian States and Territories and Local Government in Australia

India

France

According to its constitution, France has 3 levels of local government : 22 Régions and 4 Régions d'outre-mer (Réunion, Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana). 96 départements and 4 départements d'outre-mer (Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana). There are 36 679 municipalities(in French: Communes). However, intercommunalities are now a level of government between municipalities and departements. Corsica and Paris (both a commune and a département) are local government sui generis.

Germany

As a federal country, Germany is divided into a number of states (Länder in German), which used to have wide powers, but whose main remaining power today (2004) is their ability to veto federal laws through their Bundesrat representation. The system of local government is described in the article on States of Germany.

Japan

Since the Meiji restoration, Japan has had a simple and clear local government system. First, Japan is divided into 47 prefectures. Each prefecture comprises cities, villages and towns. In Hokkaido, Nagasaki and Okinawa, there are branches of the prefectural government sometimes referred to as "Subprefectures".

New Zealand

New Zealand has two tiers of authorities. The top tier comprises the regional councils. The second tier is the territorial authorities consisting of city councils, district councils and one island council. Five territorial authorities are unitary authorities, that is they also perform the functions of a regional council.

Philippines

For a description of the arrangements in force, see the section on Regions and Provinces in the article on the Philippines. [Institute of Development Management and Governance] [http://www.geocities.com/idmguplb]

United Kingdom

Main article: Local government in the United Kingdom The system of local government is different in the four countries of the United Kingdom.

England

The most complex system is in England, the result of numerous attempts at reform and reorganisation over the centuries. Above the level considered here is the European Union, the United Kingdom and whatever government offices may exist for England as a whole. England currently has no elected officials responsible solely for the entire country. The top level of local government within England is now the region. There are nine regions including Greater London, which in some ways is a unique case. Each region has a government office and assorted other institutions. Regions appear to have been introduced in their present form around 1994 and the policy of the current administration is to increase their power, including the introduction of elected assemblies where desired. The layers of government below the regions are mixed. Traditional counties still exist, although in the 1990s some of the districts within the counties became separate unitary authorities and a few counties have been disbanded completely. There are also metropolitan districts in some areas which are similar to unitary authorities. In Greater London there are London boroughs which are a similar concept. Counties are further divided into districts (also known as boroughs in some areas). Districts are divided into wards for electoral purposes. Districts may also contain parishes and town council areas with a small administration of their own. Other area classifications are also in use, such as health service and Lord-Lieutenant areas. See also: Ceremonial counties of England, Districts of England, Administrative counties of England, Subdivisions of England, UK topics

Wales

Wales has a uniform system of unitary authorities, referred to as counties or county boroughs. There are also communities, equivalent to parishes.

Scotland

Local government in Scotland is arranged on the lines of unitary authorities, with the nation divided into 32 council areas.

United States

Local government of the United States refers to the governments at the city, town, village, or civil township level in the United States of America. In the more general sense, local government also refers to state government, regional government, and county government.

New England

:This article is about the region in the United States of America. For other uses, see New England (disambiguation). New England (disambiguation) The New England region of the United States is located in the northeastern corner of the country. Boston is its business and cultural center and its most populous city. The region is made up of the following states:
- Connecticut
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- Rhode Island
- Vermont New England is the most well-defined region of the United States, with more uniformity and more shared heritage than other regions of the country. But, while there is cultural and historical uniformity throughout the whole region, Northern and Southern New England differ in the fact that the former is more rural whereas the latter is very urban. This difference has always existed, however, even when the region was young, and thus does not imply a growing or changing trend, but rather the result of historical population patterns. Western and Eastern New England share similar differences, with the former not only being much more rural, but also usually lacking the Boston accent that typifies the region in the eyes of outsiders. While some parts of Western New England closely border metropolitan New York City, they are still historically, and, for the most part, culturally part of New England. Together, the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions are generally referred to as the Northeastern region of the United States.

History

The indigenous peoples of New England

New England has long been inhabited by Algonquian-speaking native peoples, including the Abenaki, the Penobscot, the Wampanoag, and many others. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans such as Giovanni Verrazano, Jacques Cartier and John Cabot (known as Giovanni Caboto before being based in England) charted the New England coast. They referred to the region as Norumbega, named for a fabulous native city that was supposed to exist there. See also: List of place names in New England of aboriginal origin.

Early European settlement (1610s-1630s)

List of place names in New England of aboriginal origin while its interior is rendered New Belgium, New Netherland and Irocoisia]] The name New England dates to the earliest days of European settlement: in 1616 Captain John Smith described the area in a pamphlet "New England." The name was officially sanctioned in 1620 by the grant of King James I to the Plymouth Council for New England. The region was subsequently divided through further grants, including the 1629 royal grant of "Hampshire" which was issued for "makeing a Plantation & establishing of a Colony or Colonyes in the Countrey called or knowen by ye name of New England in America."

The New England Confederation (1630s-1650s)

Following the Pequot War in 1637, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the New England Confederation. The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense against the Dutch in the New Netherland colony to the south and the French in New France to the north, as well as to enforce the return of runaway slaves. The confederation had a council comprising two delegates from each of the four colonies, but it had no formal enforcement powers and relied on the individual colonies to voluntarily follow council decisions. The confederation disintegrated in the 1650s when the powerful Massachusetts Bay Colony refused to follow decisions of the confederation council regarding the conflict with the Dutch. King Philip's War (1675-1676), the bloodiest Indian war of the early colonial period, had a devastating effect on the colonies of southern New England, but effectively ended the power and influence of the Indians in the region.

The Dominion of New England (1686-1689)

In 1686, King James II, concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, in particular their open flouting of the Navigation Acts, decreed the Dominion of New England, an administrative union comprising all the New England colonies. Two years later, the provinces of New York and New Jersey, which had been acquired from the Dutch, were added. The union, imposed from the outside, was highly unpopular among the colonists. In 1687, when the Connecticut Colony refused to follow a decision of the dominion governor Edmund Andros, he sent an armed contigent to seize the colony's charter, which the colonists, according to popular legend, hid inside the Charter Oak tree. Andros' efforts to unify the colonial defenses met little success and the dominion ceased after only three years, after the removal of King James II in the Glorious Revolution in 1689.

Modern New England (1689-present)

Glorious Revolution The colonies were not formally united again until 1776, when they became part of the United States; however, especially in the 18th century and the early 19th century, New England was still considered to be a very distinct region of the country, as it is today. During the War of 1812, there was talk of secession from the Union, as New England merchants opposed the war with Great Britain. Aside from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, or "New Scotland", New England is the only North American region to inherit the name of a kingdom in the British Isles. New England has largely preserved its regional character, especially in its historic sites. Its name is a reminder of the past, as many of the original English-Americans have migrated further west.

Politics

The early European settlers of New England were English Protestants fleeing religious persecution. This, however, did not prevent them from establishing colonies where religion was legislated to an extreme, and where those who deviated from the established doctrine were persecuted greatly.

Town meetings in New England

A derivative of meetings held by church elders, town meetings were an integral part of governance and remain so today in towns across New England. At such meetings, any citizen of the town may discuss issues of the day with other members of the community, and vote on them. This is the most direct democracy in the United States today, and the form of dialogue has been adopted under certain circumstances elsewhere. Such a strong democratic tradition was even apparent in the early 19th century, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America that: In New England, where education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, where society has acquired age and stability enough to enable it to form principles and hold fixed habits, the common people are accustomed to respect intellectual and moral superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. In New England, consequently, the democracy makes a more judicious choice than it does elsewhere.

New England and political thought

Democracy in America spirit that, in many ways, is still alive and well in New England today.]] In the colonial period and the early time of the republic, New England leaders like John Hancock, John Adams, and Samuel Adams joined those in Philadelphia and Virginia to direct the country. At the time of the Civil War, New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest combined against slavery, eventually ending the practice in the United States. Henry David Thoreau, one of New England's most iconic thinkers, made the case for civil disobedience, libertarianism, and even had some anarchist tendencies; this spirit is still alive in the Free State Project and occasional discussions of secession. New England led the rest of the country in abolishing the death penalty for crimes like robbery and burglary in the 19th century. In the 20th century, the region remained a source of political thought and intellectual ferment in the nation, eventually becoming the forefront of the civil rights issue of same sex marriage, with Vermont being the first state to allow civil unions between same sex couples, and Massachusetts being the first state to allow marriage between same sex couples. As of 2005, Connecticut now also allows for civil unions. While well known for its liberal tendencies, the region still has a history similar to the rest of the country. Puritan New England, of course, was highly intolerant of any deviation from the strict social norms. Arguments against slavery, at first, were not moral, but economic, since owning slaves was expensive and not very useful in the northern climate. During the civil rights era, Boston brewed with tension over school busing to end de facto segregation of its public schools. Despite these examples, the region is still known as one of the more liberal regions of the United States.

Contemporary New England politics

Today, the dominant party in New England is the Democratic Party, though most states have a significant Republican electorate, especially New Hampshire and Maine which are both represented in the U.S. Senate by two Republicans. As of the 2004 elections, Maine is the only state that has its governorship and legislature controlled by one party (the Democrats). In the 2000 presidential election, Democratic candidate Al Gore carried all of the New England states except for New Hampshire, and in 2004, John Kerry, a native New Englander himself, carried all six New England states for the Democrats. New Hampshire and Connecticut are the only New England states with capital punishment, although New Hampshire currently has no person on death row and has not had an execution since 1939. Connecticut last had an execution in 2005, the first in New England in forty-five years.

Education

Higher education

2005.]] New England contains some of the oldest and most renowned institutions of higher learning in the United States. The first such institution, Harvard, was founded at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1636. According to US News and World Report, 8 of the nation's top-50 universities and 13 of its top-50 liberal arts colleges are located in New England. These include Amherst College, Bates College, Boston College, Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Brown University, Colby College, Connecticut College, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, College of the Holy Cross, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Middlebury College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Trinity College, Tufts University, Wesleyan University, Wellesley College, Wheaton College, Williams College, and Yale University. A number of the graduates settle in the region after school, providing the area with a well-educated population and one of its most valuable resources.

Public and private education

In terms of public education, many New England states spend higher than the national average on their students and schools. Massachusetts and Connecticut, for instance, have some of the best and highest-rated public schools in the United States. The state of Massachusetts, on average, is consistently ranked as one of the most educated states in the country. A recent government-funded survey of the 50 states ranked Massachusetts as number one in public education. The renowned Boston Latin School is the oldest public high school in America. In addition, New England is also home to many of the United States' most prominent independent schools (also known as private schools), such as Roxbury Latin and Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, St. Paul's School and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. The concept of the elite "New England prep school" and the "preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the region's image, especially when viewed from the rest of the United States. Culturally, education is considered to be very important, especially in the more-populated, more-urban states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Population

In 1910, 6,552,681 people lived in New England. Today, the total population of New England is 13,922,517. If New England were one state, the population would rank 5th in the nation, behind Florida. The total area in this scenario (181,440 sq km) would rank 20th behind North Dakota.

Regional population layout

North Dakota As some of the original English New England settlers migrated westward, immigrants from Canada, Ireland, Italy, and eastern Europe moved into the region. Massachusetts in particular has the highest concentration of persons of Irish heritage in the country. Rhode Island has the highest concentration of Italians (percentage-wise). Today, although the region has attracted quite a few Jewish and Asian-American residents, it remains one of the whitest parts of the nation and has a smaller proportion of African-Americans and Hispanic Americans than much of the country. Connecticut (which is adjacent to New York City) and Massachusetts (which has Boston) have higher minority populations than the rest of New England, while Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine are largely populated with people of European descent. New England still retains a large English population, especially in the more rural areas. The region has remained consistently openminded towards other backgrounds however, a tradition which has continued from the abolitionist days of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner.

Southern New England

The bulk of the region's population is concentrated in southern New England, which contains Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The most populous state is Massachusetts, whose population is centered mostly around its political and cultural capital, Boston; whereas Western Massachusetts is less densely populated and more spread out. The resulting effect is a minor cultural divide between urban New Englanders, typically Bostonians, and rural New Englanders, who hail from western Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Coastal New England

The coastline is more urban than western New England, which is typically rural, even in urban states like Massachusetts. These characteristics of the region's population are due mainly to historical factors; the original colonists settled mostly on the coastline of Massachusetts Bay. The only state without access to the Atlantic Ocean, Vermont, is also the least-populated. After nearly 400 years, the region still maintains, for the most part, its historical population layout. New England's coast is dotted with urban centers, such as Portland, Portsmouth, Boston, Providence, New Haven, and Bridgeport, as well as smaller cities, like Newburyport, Gloucester, and New London. The smaller fishing towns, like Gloucester, are popular tourist attractions, as they tend to retain their historical character, and often have colorful pasts. Cape Cod, also a popular tourist attraction, is lined with sandy beaches and dotted with bed and breakfasts. The rocky coast of Maine is best known for its lobster. New Hampshire, which has the smallest coastline of all of the coastal New England states, is home to Hampton Beach, also frequented by visitors to the region.

Urban New England

Cape Cod neighborhood, with Cambridge on the northern bank of the Charles River.]] Three of the four most densely populated states in the United States are in New England. In order, the four most densely populated states are: New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Indeed, southern New England forms an integral part of the BosWash megalopolis, a conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to Washington, D.C. The largest cities by population in New England are: Greater Boston: approx. 5,800,000
- Boston, Massachusetts: 589,141
- Cambridge, Massachusetts: 101,355
- Lynn, Massachusetts: 88,025
- Quincy, Massachusetts: 88,025
- Newton, Massachusetts: 83,829
- Somerville, Massachusetts: 77,478
- Brookline, Massachusetts: 57,107 Brookline, Massachusetts Providence, Rhode Island: 173,618 Worcester, Massachusetts: 172,648 Springfield, Massachusetts: 152,082 Hartford, Connecticut: 141,578 Bridgeport, Connecticut: 139,529 New Haven, Connecticut: 123,626 Stamford, Connecticut: 117,083 Waterbury, Connecticut: 107,271 Manchester, New Hampshire: 107,006 Lowell, Massachusetts: 105,167

Regional nomenclature

A person from New England is known as a New Englander. Sometimes, they are also referred to as Yankees, although this term has grown to refer to the people of the greater region of the northeastern United States.

Culture

See Cuisine of New England

Historico-cultural roots

The first European colonists of New England were focused on maritime affairs such as whaling and fishing, rather than more continental inclinations such as surplus farming. As the oldest of the American regions, New England has developed a distinct cuisine, dialect, architecture, and government. New England cuisine is known for its emphasis on seafood and dairy; clam chowder, lobster, and other products of the sea are among some of the region's most popular foods.

New England's unique culture

Despite a changing population, much of the original spirit of the region remains. It can be seen in the simple, woodframe houses and quaint white church steeples that are features of many small towns, and in the traditional lighthouses that dot the Atlantic coast. New England is also well known for its mercurial weather and its crisp chill. (Mark Twain is quoted as saying "If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.") For its vibrant colored foliage in autumn, the region is a popular tourist destination. As a whole, New England tends to be progressive in its politics, although somewhat Puritan in its personal mores. Due to the fact that so many recent European immigrants live in the region and due to the influence of the many universities, the region often shows a greater receptivity to European ideas and culture than the rest of the country. The region has remained consistently openminded towards other backgrounds, a tradition which has continued from the abolitionist days of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner to the region's recent controversial legal battle in regarding relationships between homosexual couples. As of 2005, Massachusetts permits same sex marriages, and Vermont and Connecticut allow for civil unions between gay couples. Although New England has always been one of the more socially progressive regions of the United States, its internal cultural and social battles have always been somewhat paradoxical. Its fervent abolitionism, for instance, was often met with intense racism on the part of the recently-immigrated Irish segment of its population, which resented the control of native born Protestants over the region, and often competed economically with African-Americans. It was Alexis de Tocqueville who noted, in 1835, that New England was the only region of the United States at the time to have properly separated religion from its government, an ironic mixture of the region's heavy Puritan heritage and strong tradition of direct democracy.

Social life in New England

Bars and pubs, especially those with Irish themes, are popular social venues. Closer to Boston, musicians from Ireland often tour pubs, playing traditional Irish folk music, usually with a singer, a fiddler, and a guitarist. In the rural parts of the region, people socialize through typical common activities such as church, sports, and town government.

The continuing European influence

The overall feeling of the region can be described as decidedly European, with the region's colonial past still alive and thriving through tourism, the hundreds of historic sites that dot the region, and the rich cultural traditions that have endured and developed over centuries. Long-time and native residents are typically knowledgeable of the history of the region, and proud of it, as well. The often-parodied dialect of the region is most commonly known as Boston English, although, in reality, this accent is reserved mostly for the coasts of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine. It is the result of an incomplete transition from 17th century British English, which the standard American dialect imitates, and modern British English. There are also other regional accents as well, such as the Cape Cod Brahmin accent, which is also often heavily parodied.

Intraregional cultural differences

While Boston is typically viewed as the region's cultural center, the extent to which it influences the rest of New England is debatable. Perhaps as a result of the "Hub of the Universe" mentality that is demonstrated by many Bostonians, people from Massachusetts may sometimes have a tendency to over-emphasize the importance of the role that their state and city play in New England. People from the northern parts of the region, such as northern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, as well as the southwestern part of the region, such as Fairfield County, Connecticut, may have divergent views with regard to the cultural influence of Boston, with some rejecting its influence entirely. Much of southwestern Connecticut, for example, is considered a part of metropolitan New York City. Boston, however, certainly only exemplifies, for the most part, the gritty culture of urban New England; therefore, to say that its sphere of influence does not encompass all of New England.

Economy

In the twentieth century, most of New England's traditional industries have relocated to states or foreign countries where goods can be made more cheaply. In more than a few factory towns, skilled workers have been left without jobs. Largely around Boston in the ring of Route 128, the gap has been partly filled by high technology industries, in particular biotech. Education, high technology, financial services, tourism, and medicine, continue to drive the local economy. In the southwestern Connecticut counties of Fairfield and New Haven the economy is more closely associated with New York City, and the economy is more often viewed as an extension of the New York Metropolitan Area. For years many residents of southwestern Connecticut have crossed the state line each day to work in Manhattan. More recently, New Yorkers have begun to travel into Connecticut as part of a reverse commute to many of the job centers developed in the suburbs. The GDP of New England is approximately $649 billion; per capita it is $45,786

Literature

New England has always received a great deal of attention from American writers like Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, John Updike, John Irving and Arthur Miller. Largely on the strength of local writers like Thoreau, Boston, Massachusetts was for some years the center of the U.S. publishing industry, before being overtaken by New York in the middle of the nineteenth century. Boston remains the home of publishers Houghton Mifflin and Pearson Education, among others, as well as the literary magazine The Atlantic Monthly. New England is also the setting for most of the gothic horror stories of H.P. Lovecraft, most probably because he lived his life in Providence, Rhode Island. Real New England towns such as Ipswich, Newburyport, Rowley, and Marblehead are given fictional names such as Dunwich, Arkham, Innsmouth, Kingsport, and Miskatonic and then featured quite often in his stories. More recently, author Stephen King has also used the small towns of the New England state of Maine as the setting for much of his horror fiction, with much of the action taking place in or near the fictional town of Castle Rock. Modern author Rick Moody has set many of his works in southern New England, focusing on wealthy families of suburban Connecticut's Gold Coast and their battles with addiction and anomie. The novel Ethan Frome was written in 1911 by Edith Wharton. It is set in turn-of-the-century New England, in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Like much literature of the region, it plays off themes of isolation and hopelessness.

Notable New Englanders

All of the following people were born in New England or spent a significant portion of their life in New England, making them a well-known figure in the region. Some of them, like Robert Frost, who was actually born in California, emigrated to New England and are now considered to be icons of the region. All of them exemplify some aspect of the region in one way or another.
- John Adams
- John Quincy Adams
- Samuel Adams
- Some members of Aerosmith
- Trey Anastasio
- Susan B. Anthony
- Crispus Attucks
- Clara Barton
- Katharine Lee Bates
- Bill Belichick
- Lizzie Borden
- Amar Bose
- Edward Brooke
- Bobby Brown
- Dan Brown
- Charles Bulfinch
- James J. "Whitey" Bulger
- William "Billy" Bulger
- Leonard Bernstein
- George Herbert Walker Bush
- George W. Bush
- David Byrne
- Calvin Coolidge
- John Singleton Copley
- Norm Crosby
- E.E. Cummings
- Richard Cardinal Cushing
- Dick Dale
- Howard Dean
- Emily Dickinson
- Ronnie James Dio
- Frederick Douglass
- Rachel Dratch
- Michael Dukakis
- Mary Dyer
- Kevin Eastman
- Jonathan Edwards
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Patrick Ewing
- Bobby Farrelly
- Peter Farrelly
- Doug Flutie
- John Ford
- Benjamin Franklin
- Robert Frost
- Richard Buckminster Fuller
- Robert Goulet
- Spalding Gray
- Anthony Michael Hall
- Elizabeth Hasselbeck
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- Winslow Homer
- John Irving
- Edward "Ted" Kennedy
- Ethel Kennedy
- John F. Kennedy
- Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
- Patrick J. Kennedy
- Robert Kennedy
- Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
- Rosemary Kennedy
- John Kerry
- Stephen King
- King Philip
- Jack Kerouac
- Stephen King
- Peter Laird
- Denis Leary
- Jay Leno
- Joseph Lieberman
- Robert Lowell
- H.P. Lovecraft
- Rowland Hussey Macy
- Aimee Mann
- Massasoit
- Cotton Mather
- Will McDonough
- Seth Meyers
- Mandy Moore
- Ephraim Morse
- James Naismith
- New Kids On The Block
- Leonard Nimoy
- Conan O'Brien
- Ric Ocasek
- Ken Olsen
- Tip O'Neill
- Theodore Parker
- George Patton
- Joe Perry
- Franklin Pierce
- Sylvia Plath
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Amy Poehler
- Josiah Quincy
- Sumner Redstone
- Paul Revere
- Jonathan Richman
- Adam Sandler
- Anne Sexton
- Daniel Shays
- Alan B. Shepard, Jr.
- William James Sidis
- Sarah Silverman
- Carly Simon
- Olympia Snowe
- Squanto
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Louis Sullivan
- Donna Summer
- James Taylor
- Paul Tsongas
- Henry David Thoreau
- Steven Tyler
- John Updike
- Claus von Bülow
- Sunny von Bülow
- Mark Wahlberg
- Barbara Walters
- Daniel Webster
- William "Bill" Weld
- Eli Whitney
- John Greenleaf Whittier
- Alicia Witt
- Peter Wolf
- James Woods
- My Chemical Romance
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Good Charlotte

Major Professional Sports Teams

Informal polling, along with a general consensus among the sports media, indicates that baseball is the most-watched sport in New England, with the Boston Red Sox being the region's most popular sports franchise and the region's focal point of conversation throughout the summer. Even Red Sox players have noted the feeling of affection and ownership the entire New England region has towards the team. Nearly every major town in the region carries the Red Sox through the town radio station. The 2004 World Series victory by the Red Sox, the first since 1918, inspired widespread euphoria throughout the region, and three million people attended the team's victory parade in Boston. The recent success of the New England Patriots, a team that has won three of the past four Super Bowls, has sparked a renewed interest in football. It should be noted that in the parts of southwestern Connecticut that are close to New York City, there are an abundance of New York Yankees and New York Mets fans, who are often self-identified as suburban New Yorkers. Additionally, until the team relocated to Washington for the start of the 2005 season, the Montreal Expos received some fan support in northern New England. Up until 13 April 1997, Hartford also had its own major hockey team, the Hartford Whalers. Originally known as the New England Whalers, they changed their name to the Hartford Whalers in 1979 after leaving the WHA for the NHL, hoping to carve a niche market in Hartford. In 1997 the Whalers left Hartford for Raleigh, North Carolina (amid much controversy), where they became the Hurricanes. In 1999, the New England Patriots also flirted with the idea of moving to Hartford, in exchange for what three NFL franchise owners called "the greatest financial deal any NFL owner has ever received". The package, announced by then Connecticut Governer John Rowland, included, according to the Boston Globe: total costs of building a new stadium, training facility and highways; $175 million to owner Robert Kraft if he failed to sell out premium seats as well as $200 million or more over 30 years for stadium improvements and renovations. The state further offered to waive property taxes on the stadium and adjacent hotel and entertainment pavilion, which Kraft would have built. The deal fell through after Massachusetts offered a far less generous offer of $70 million for infrastructure work. Many in Connecticut felt this was a deliberate ploy on the part of Mr. Kraft, a ruse to find public funds in Massachusetts, enabling the Patriots to remain in Foxboro. Fallout from Kraft's backpedaling on the deal resulted in a few Hartford area media outlets dropping coverage of Patriots football for several years and many lost fans from Connecticut. Below is a list of the major professional sports teams in New England:
- Baseball: Boston Red Sox
- Football: New England Patriots
- Basketball:
- Boston Celtics
- Connecticut Sun
- Hockey: Boston Bruins
- Soccer: New England Revolution

References

U.S. Census Bureau. [http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf "Census Regions and Divisions of the United States"] (PDF). Retrieved May 11, 2005.

External links

- [http://newenglandtowns.org/ Historic Descriptions of New England Cities and Towns]
- [http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm Historic USGS Maps of New England & NY]
- [http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/colonies_of_ne_1643.html New England Articles of Confederation]
- [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states/mass01.htm Charter of New England]
- [http://www.discovernewengland.org/ Discover New England]
- [http://www.negc.org/ New England Governors Conference]
- [http://www.midcoast.com/~martucci/flags/NEFlag.html Flag of New England]
- [http://www.boston.com Boston.com]
- [http://www.newengland.com NewEngland.com]
- [http://www.newenglandpride.blogspot.com/ New England Pride] Category:Regions of the United States Category:Thirteen Colonies ko:뉴잉글랜드 ja:ニューイングランド

Town

There is no universal, standard definition of the word town. This is mostly due to the evolution of the English language as an amalgamation of words from many other languages. "City" and "village" came into English from Latin via French. "Town" and "borough" (also "burrow," "burgh," "bury," etc.) are native English and Scottish words.

Etymology of the word and use around the world

In Old English and Old Scots, "Town" (or "toun," "ton," etc.) originally meant a fortified municipality, whereas a borough was not fortified. But that distinction did not last long, and "Edina Burgh" or "Edinburgh" - modernly called a "city" - was a fortified "town" from its founding. In American English, a town is usually a municipal corporation that is smaller than a city but larger than a village. In some cases, "town" is an alternate name for "city" or "village" (especially a larger village). Sometimes, the word "town" is short for "township." In general, towns can be differentiated from townships, villages, or hamlets on the basis of their economic character, in that most of a town's population will tend to derive their living from manufacturing industry, commerce, and public service rather than primary industry such as agriculture or related activities. A place's population size is not a reliable determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, a large village might contain several times as many people as a small town. The modern phenomena of extensive suburban growth, satellite urban development, and migration of city-dwellers to villages have further complicated the definition of towns, creating communities urban in their economic and cultural characteristics but lacking other characteristics of urban localities. Some forms of non-rural settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural, but have at best a questionable claim to be called a town. The distinction between a town and a city similarly depends on the approach adopted: a city may strictly be an administrative entity which has been granted that designation by law, but in informal usage, the term is also used to denote an urban locality of a particular size or importance: whereas a medieval city may have possessed as few as 10,000 inhabitants, today some consider an urban place of fewer than 100,000 as a town, even though there are many officially designated cities that are very much smaller than that.

Australia

In Australia, the status of a town is formally applied in only a few states. Most states do define cities, and towns are commonly understood to be those centres of population not formally declared to be cities and usually with a population in excess of about 250 people. The creation and delimitation of Local Government Areas is the responsibility of the state and territory Governments. In all states and the Northern Territory each incorporated area has an official status. The various LGA status types currently in use are:
- New South Wales: Cities (C) and Areas (A)
- Victoria: Cities (C), Rural Cities (RC), Boroughs (B) and Shires (S)
- Queensland: Cities (C), Shires (S), Towns (T) and Island Councils (IC)
- South Australia: Cities (C), Rural Cities (RC), Municipalities/Municipal Councils (M), District Councils (DC), Regional Councils (RegC) and Aboriginal Councils (AC)
- Western Australia: Cities (C), Towns (T) and Shires (S)
- Tasmania: Cities (C) and Municipalities (M)
- Northern Territory: Cities (C), Towns (T), Community Government Councils (CGC) and Shires (S).

Reference

- [http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/9f0b5791ed98061fca256f1900128409?OpenDocument Australian Bureau of Statistics: Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) 2005]

England and Wales

In England and Wales, the status of a city is reserved for places that have a Royal Charter entitling them to the name, traditionally associated with the possession of a cathedral. Some large municipalities are legally boroughs but not cities, whereas some cities are quite small — St. David's for instance. It is often thought that towns with bishops' seats rank automatically as cities: however, Chelmsford remains a town despite being the seat of the Diocese of Chelmsford. St. Asaph, which is the seat of the Diocese of St. Asaph, is another such town. Within Greater London, there are two cities, each with its own cathedral - the City of London (St. Paul's Cathedral; Anglican) and the City of Westminster (Westminster Cathedral; also Anglican). Historically, a town was generally distinguished from a village by having a regular market or fair. Not all towns were boroughs. There are some English villages (e.g. Kidlington, Oxfordshire) larger than some small towns (e.g. Middleham, North Yorkshire). The word town can also be used as a general term for urban areas, including cities. In this usage, a city is a type of town — a large one, with a certain status. For example, London is a city, but is sometimes referred to as "London town" (the "City of London" is the nucleus informally known as the "Square Mile"). Also, going from the suburbs to central London is to "go into town".

Germany

Germans do not differentiate between city and town. The German word for both is "Stadt" as it is in many other languages that do not make any difference between the Anglo-Saxon concepts. A town with more than 100,000 inhabitants is called a Großstadt, which is the most adequate equivalence for city.

The United States

City of London In the United States of America, the meaning of the term town varies from state to state. In some states, a town is an incorporated municipality, that is, one with a charter received from the state, similar to a city. Typically, municipalities are classed as cities, towns or boroughs, or villages in decreasing order of size, although not all states have all three levels. Many states do not use the term "town" for incorporated municipalities. In some states, for example Wisconsin, "town" is used in the same way that civil township is used in elsewhere. In other states, such as Michigan, the term "town" has no official meaning and is simply used informally to refer to a populated place, whether incorporated or not. In the six New England states, a town is a municipality, and in these states, in practice a more important unit than the county. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, in fact, counties only exist as map divisions and have no legal functions; in the other four states, counties are primarily judicial districts, with other functions primarily in New Hampshire and Vermont. In all six, towns perform functions that in most states would be county functions. The defining feature of a New England town, as opposed to a city, is that a town meeting and a board of selectmen serve as the main form of government for a town, while cities are run by a mayor and a city council. For example, Brookline, Massachusetts is a town, even though it is fairly urban, because of its form of government. In New York, a town is similarly a subdivision of the county, but with less importance than in New England. Of some importance is the fact that, in New York, a town provides a closer level of governance than its enclosing county, providing almost all municipal services to unincorporated areas, called hamlets and selected services to incorporated areas, called villages. In New York, a town typically contains a number of such hamlets and villages. However, due to the independent nature of Incorporated Villages, they may exist in two towns or even two counties. Everyone in New York State who does not live in an Indian reservation or a city lives in a town and possibly in one of the town's hamlets or villages. (Some other states have similar entities called townships.) In New York, "town" is essentially short for "township." In Virginia, a town is an incorporated municipality similar to a city (though with a smaller required minimum population), but while cities are by Virginia law independent of counties, towns are contained within a county. In California (where the term "village" is not used), "town" is simply another word for "city" (especially a "general law city", as distinct from a "charter city").

External links

- [http://www.open-site.org/Regional Open-Site Regional] — Contains information about towns in numerous countries. als:Stadt ja:村落 simple:Town

Legislative body

A legislature is a governmental deliberative assembly with the power to adopt laws. Legislatures are known by many names, including: parliament, congress, diet and national assembly. Important part of the US In parliamentary systems of government, the legislature is formally supreme and appoints the executive. In presidential systems of government, the legislature is considered a power branch which is equal to, and independent of, the executive. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise taxes and adopt the budget and other money bills. The consent of the legislature is also often required to ratify treaties and declare war.

Chambers

The primary component of a legislature is one or more chambers or houses: assemblies that debate and vote upon bills. Most legislatures are either bicameral or unicameral:
- A unicameral legislature is the simplest kind of law-making body and has only one house.
- A bicameral legislature possesses two separate chambers, usually described as an upper house and a lower house, which may differ in duties, powers, and methods for the selection of members. In most parliamentary systems, the lower house is the most powerful house while the upper house is merely a chamber of advice or review!!!! However in presidential systems the powers of the two houses are often similar or equal. In federations it is typical for the upper house to represent the component states. For this purpose the upper house may either contain the delegates of state governments, as is the case of Germany and was the case in the pre-19 century United States, or to be elected according to a formula that grants disproportionate representation to smaller states, as is the case today in Australia and the United States. Historically, as well as bicameral and unicameral bodies, there have also been rare instances of tricameral legislatures. Many legislatures are said to include not just one or more houses but also the head of state. This is because in most systems it is necessary that, after being approved by the house or houses of the legislature, a bill receive the assent of the head of state before it can become law. This may be the case even if, as is the case in many parliamentary systems, the assent of the head of state is merely a formality and will not be withheld. It is also common, however, for the head of state not to be considered a formal part of the legislature, even if they have the power to veto laws. The British Parliament formally consists of the Crown, and two houses; similarly, the Irish Oireachtas consists officially of the President and two houses. In contrast, the United States Congress consists only of its two houses and does not officially include the US president, despite the fact that he wields a veto.

Competences

The power of legislatures varies widely from country to country. Rubber stamp legislature is a derogatory name for a legislature that has no real power but simply approves, by unanimous or near unanimous votes, bills put before it by other institutions. For example, the legislatures of many Communist states were often derided as mere 'rubber stamps' for decisions of the ruling party. The term is not usually used to describe legislatures of parliamentary systems. Although the final draft of legislation introduced by the government almost always passes, these legislatures are generally not labelled "rubber stamps" because legislators are involved in the drafting and amendment of bills.

List of titles of legislatures

National
- Parliament
- Congress
- Diet
- National Assembly

- Althing — Iceland
- Assembleia da República — Portugal
- Bundestag — Germany
- Cortes Generales — Spain
- Eduskunta or Riksdag — Finland
- Federal Assembly — Russia, Switzerland
- Folketing — Denmark
- Knesset — Israel
- Legislative Yuan — Republic of China/Taiwan
- Majles Al-Ummah — Kuwait
- Oireachtas — Republic of Ireland
- Riigikogu — Estonia
- Riksdag — Sweden
- Rajya Sabha/Lok Sabha — India
- Sabor — Croatia
- Saeima — Latvia
- Seimas — Lithuania
- Sejm — Poland
- Skupština — Serbia and Montenegro
- Estates-General or Staten Generaal — Netherlands
- Storting — Norway
- Tynwald — Isle of Man
- Verkhovna Rada — Ukraine Historical
- States-General
- Dáil — Irish Republic (1919-1922)
- Volkskammer — East Germany (1949-1990) State
- List of state legislatures of the United States — United States
- Landtag — Germany, Austria

Jimmy Carter

:For the submarine, see USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23). James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) an American politician, was the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981), and 83rd Governor of Georgia (1971–1975). Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Carter's presidency was marked by retrenchment, after the disappointing agony that had been the Vietnam War, and economic stagflation churning at home. He was elected over Republican Gerald Ford, in large part because of the public's resentment that Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Even then the election was very close. Some of Carter's major accomplishments consisted of the creation of a national energy policy and the consolidation of governmental agencies, resulting in two new cabinet departments, the United States Department of Energy and the United States Department of Education. Carter also successfully deregulated the trucking and airline industries and enacted strong legislation on environmental protection, through the expansion of the national park service in Alaska. In foreign affairs, Carter's accomplishments consisted of the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the creation of full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and the negotiation of the SALT II Treaty. One of the greatest contributors to Carter's political downfall came in November of 1979 when a pro-U.S. monarchy was toppled by the 1979 Iranian Revolution and dozens of American hostages were taken inside the American embassy by Islamic fundamentalist revolutionaries after Carter gave sanctuary to exiled dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. With the international outrage at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later the same year, Carter appeared impotent, as America saw its influence declining abroad. The Iran prisoners were released as Ronald Reagan was being sworn in as president, after defeating Carter in a landslide. Carter faced interest rates reaching their highest levels since World War II, and the administration froze domestic oil prices in response to rising prices from OPEC. The Misery Index, Carter's own invention of economic well-being, rose 50% in four years. Despite Carter's own Democratic Party controlling both Houses of Congress, and the White House his administration failed to reform the tax system, and to reduce the size of the government bureaucracy, as he promised during the 1976 campaign, or to pass the Martin Luther King holiday. In the decades since he left office, Carter took a role as an international mediator and has used his position as a former U.S. president to further many charitable causes. In 1982, he founded the Carter Center as a forum for issues related to democracy and human rights. He has also traveled extensively to monitor elections, conduct peace negotiations, and establish relief efforts. In 2002, Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize for his "efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." In recent years (2003-2005), Carter has continued his decades-long active involvement with the charity Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for the needy[http://www.habitat.org/how/carter.aspx]. He can actually be found participating in the construction of these houses. For these reasons he has become widely known as 'Americas best ex-President'.

Early years

Born the oldest of four children to James Earl Carter and Bessie Lillian Gordy in the Southwest Georgia town of Plains, he was the first president born in a hospital. Young Carter was a gifted student from an early age, who always had a fondness for reading. By the time he attended Plains High School, he was also a star in basketball and football. He was greatly influenced by one of his high school teachers, Julia Coleman. Ms. Coleman was handicapped by polio. She had encouraged young Jimmy to read War and Peace; he was disappointed to find that there were no cowboys or Indians in the book. Carter mentioned his beloved teacher in his inaugural address as an example of someone who beat overwhelming odds. Carter had three siblings, all of them younger. His younger brother, Billy (1937-1988), caused some political problems for him during his administration. Carter's sister, Gloria (1926-1990), was low-key and was famous for collecting and riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles. His youngest sister, Ruth (1929-1983), became a well-known Christian evangelist. He grew up in nearby Archery. He attended Georgia Southwestern College, Georgia Institute of Technology, and he studied nuclear physics at Union College, and received a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946, the same year he married Rosalynn Smith. Carter was a very gifted student, and finished 59th out of his Academy class of 820. Vietnam POW and war hero, Jeremiah Denton, was one of Carter's classmates. They are considered members of the class of 1947, as their class would have graduated in 1947, except that the program had been temporarily compressed. Carter served on submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. He was later selected by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover for the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine program, where he became a qualified nuclear engineer. Rickover was a demanding officer, and Carter was greatly influenced by him. Carter later said that next to his parents, Admiral Rickover had had the greatest influence on him. There was a story he often told of being interviewed by the Admiral. He was asked about his rank in his class at the Naval Academy. Carter said "Sir, I graduated 59th out of a class of 820". Rickover only asked "Did you always do your best?" Carter was forced to admit he had not, and the Admiral asked why. Carter later used this as the theme of his presidential campaign, and as the title of his first book, "Why Not The Best?" He even mentioned Admiral Rickover in his inaugural address. Carter loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations. Upon the death of his father in 1953, however, Carter resigned from the Navy, and established a peanut farming business in Plains, where he was involved in a farming accident which left him with a permanently bent finger. From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to Christianity, serving as a Sunday School teacher throughout his political career. Even as President, Carter prayed several times a day, and professed that Jesus Christ was the driving force in his life. Carter had been greatly influenced by a sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-14.htm] After World War II, he and Rosalynn started a family. They had three sons, (John William, born in 1947; James Earl III, born in 1950; and Donnel Jeffrey, born in 1952), and a daughter (Amy Lynn, late in life, in 1967).

Early political career

Carter started his career by serving on the Plains school board. In the 1960's, he served three terms in the Georgia State Senate. His 1962 election, which followed the end of Georgia's County Unit System per the Supreme Court case of Gray v. Sanders, was chronicled in his book Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. The election included corruption from the sheriff of one of the counties in Jimmy's district. This included people voting in alphabetical order and dead people voting. In his 1970 campaign, Carter was elected governor on a pro-