Upper house

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An upper house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.

1 Common characteristics
2 Powers
3 Election or appointment
4 Abolition
5 Titles of upper houses
- 5.1 Common Terms
- 5.2 Unique titles
6 See also

Common characteristics

An upper house is usually distinct from the lower house in at least one of a number of ways. Upper houses are frequently:

Given less power than the lower house, with special reservations.
Composed of members selected in a manner other than by popular election, such as peers or nobles.
Used to represent the states of a federation.
Smaller than the lower house.
Elected for longer terms than those of the lower house (If elected; if composed of peers or nobles, they generally sit for the duration of their life or sanity, whichever is shorter).
Elected in portions for staggered terms, rather than all at once.
'Houses of review', in that they cannot start legislation, only consider the lower houses'. Also, they may not be able to outright veto legislation.
In presidential systems, the upper house usually has the sole power to try impeachments against the executive following enabling resolutions passed by the lower house.

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Powers

In parliamentary systems the upper house is frequently seen as an advisory or "revising" chamber, for this reason its powers of direct action are often blunted or totally nonexistent in some of these ways:
- It usually has no control over the executive branch.
- It cannot outright veto or block legislation.
- It cannot start legislation.
- It cannot block or modify supply (Though see the Australian Constitutional Crisis of 1975 for an example of an upper house blocking supply).

It is the role of a revising chamber to scrutinise legislation that may have been drafted over-hastily in the lower house, and to suggest amendments that the lower house may nevertheless reject if it wishes to. An example: The British House of Lords, which under the Parliament Acts may not stop, but only delay bills. It is sometimes seen as having a special role of safeguarding the Constitution of the United Kingdom and important civil liberties against ill-considered change. By delaying but not vetoing legislation, an upper house may nevertheless defeat legislation: by giving the lower house the opportunity to reconsider, by preventing it from having sufficient time for a bill in the legislative schedule, or simply by embarrassing the other chamber into abandoning an unpopular measure.

In presidential systems, the upper house is frequently given other powers to compensate for its restrictions:
- It usually has to sign off on appointments the executive makes to the cabinet and other offices.
- It frequently has the sole authority to ratify or denounce foreign treaties.

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Election or appointment

Many upper houses are not directly elected, but appointed: either by the head of government or in some other way. This is usually intended to produce a house of experts or otherwise distinguished citizens, who would not be returned in an election. For example, members of the Canadian Senate are appointed by the monarch on the direction of the prime minister. In these systems, the seats are sometimes hereditary, as was the case in the British House of Lords (until 1998), and the Japanese House of Peers (until this house was abolished in 1947).

However, it is also common that the upper house consist of delegates who are indirectly elected by state governments - for example, in the German Bundesrat. Also, the upper house of many nations is directly elected, but in different proportions to the lower house - for example, the Senates of Australia and The United States have a fixed number of elected representatives from each state, regardless of the population.

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Abolition

Many jurisdictions, such as Denmark, Sweden, Venezuela, New Zealand, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and New Brunswick, once possessed upper houses but abolished them, to adopt unicameral systems. Newfoundland had a Legislative Council prior to joining Canada, as did Ontario when it was Upper Canada. The Australian state of Queensland also once had a legislative council before abolishing it, but all other Australian states continue to have bicameral systems. Nebraska is the only state in the United States to have a unicameral legislature, which it achieved when it abolished its lower house in 1934.