[ noun ] persons who make or amend or repeal laws <noun.group>
Legislature \Leg"is*la`ture\ (l[e^]j"[i^]s*l[=a]`t[-u]r; 135), n. [Cf. F. l['e]gislature.] The body of persons in a state or kingdom invested with power to make and repeal laws; a legislative body.
Without the concurrent consent of all three parts of the legislature, no law is, or can be, made. --Sir M. Hale.
Note: The legislature of Great Britain consists of the Lords and Commons, with the king or queen, whose sanction is necessary to every bill before it becomes a law. The legislatures of most of the United States consist of two houses or branches; but the sanction or consent of the governor is required to give their acts the force of law, or a concurrence of two thirds of the two houses after he has refused his sanction and assigned his objections.
Note: The legislatures of some of the more important states having constitutional government are as follows, the general name (or a translation of it) of the legislative body collectively being given under the heading legislature, or parliament: StateLegislature, or parliamentUpper House[colret]NameNumber of members -- how chosen or composed -- term of officeLower House[colret]NameNumber of members -- suffrage -- term of office
----------------------------------------------------------------- ArgentinaNational CongressSenate30 -- 2 from each provincew and 2 from capital -- 9 yearsHouse of Deputies120 (1 to 33,000) -- Manhood -- 4 years AustriaReichsrath BelgiumThe Chambers BrazilNational Congress ChileNational Congress DenmarkRigsdag FranceNational Assembly German EmpireImperial legislature *Great BritainParliamentHouse of LordsAbout 600House of CommonsAbout 670 -- 7 years, or until dissolution Greece HungaryOrz['a]g-gy["u]l['e]s ItalyParliament JapanImperial Diet MexicoCongress NetherlandsStates-General #NorwayStorthing PortugalCortes Geraes (general Assembly) PrussiaLandtagHerrenhausNo limit -- very various classes -- For different termsAbgeordnetenhaus433 -- Indirect election, general suffrage[sect] -- 5 years, or until dissolution SpainCortes SwedenDiet SwitzerlandBundesversammlung United StatesCongressSenate92(1908) -- 6 yearsHouse of Representatives391 (1908) -- 2 years. ---------------------------------------------------------------- *In the self-governing colonies of Great Britain the legislative body usually consists of two chambers, the names of the legislature and the chambers varying. Thus in Australia the Federal Parliament is composed of the Senate and the House of Commons, in New Zealand the General Assembly is composed of the Legislative Council and the House of Representatives, etc. #Members of the Storthing are chosen for three years by direct election by manhood suffrage, forty-one being elected from the towns and eighty-two from the rural districts. The Storthing on assembling divides into the Lagthing including one fourth and the Odelsthing including three fourths of the total membership of the Storthing. All new laws are laid first before the Odelsthing. If the two houses do not agree they vote in joint session, a majority of two thirds of those voting being necessary to a decision. [sect] While theoretically general, the suffrage is so classified as often practically to disfranchise those who are not property holders. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Government party officials said they would ask President Roh Tae-woo to veto the laws approved by the opposition-controlled legislature.
The agreements announced would increase the number of seats directly elected to the 1995-1999 legislatures from 18 to 20. There are 60 seats in legislature, which is chosen by the government and special interest groups.
But the opposition demanded that a multiparty interim legislature govern until elections are held. Voting is tentatively set for July.
Lithuanians rushed their new legislature into session to declare independence before Gorbachev could be elected to that post.
Iraq's Saddam Hussein made a major concession to autonomy-seeking Kurds by ruling that members of the Kurdish regional legislature no longer had to swear allegiance to his Baath party.
He served in the state legislature before being elected to Congress, and in 1964 was state chairman of Barry Goldwater's Republican presidential campaign.
The proposal largely duplicates an existing law passed by the state legislature, but if approved by voters on November 8 it will be much harder to repeal in the future.
Last month, the Senate voted to send a delegation of congressional staffers to Poland to assist its legislature, the Sejm, in democratic procedures.
Instead, he said he would withhold tax-exempt status until the state legislature approves certain changes in the way the company is governed.
The congress is much more loyal to Gorbachev and to the central government than te smaller Russian Supreme Soviet legislature, which Yeltsin easily controls.
A task force on economic reform will let the national legislature resolve policy differences between political rivals Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, a top official said Saturday.
He added that under the Soviet constitution, the Baltic republics have a right to secede, but only if they first hold referendums and then follow rules established by the national legislature.
If the newest King holiday bill is passed and signed by Gov. Rose Mofford, who called the legislature into special session to consider the measure, opponents would have 90 days to gather signatures to call a referendum.
The legislature's display of independence was particularly significant because it came on a package of emergency measures.
The source said that despite their small numbers, the presence of the opposition party members changed the atmosphere of the entire legislature.
The legislature is to address the strikers' principal demand, the return of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control, Mamedov said, speaking by telephone from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku.
MASSACHUSETTS (13): Liberal Democrats may be endangered elsewhere, but this state voted 54 percent for Dukakis, 66 percent for Sen. Edward Kennedy, returned two gay Democrats to the U.S. House and gave Democrats a 4-1 advantage in the legislature.
The bill should have clear sailing because both the legislature and the governor, Democrat Bob Casey, are strongly anti-abortion.
So they did the next best thing: They defeated Democratic members of the state legislature in wholesale fashion, giving Republicans control of both chambers for the first time in 20 years, with veto-proof majorities.
The sheriff sent out fancy invitations to the hanging, but the Colorado Supreme Court set the verdict aside on the grounds that the legislature had repealed the death penalty during the time Packer was a fugitive.
Ochirbat proposed the council as an alternative to the opposition's demand that the 370-member legislature resign and a multiparty legislature be set up until elections are held.
Ochirbat proposed the council as an alternative to the opposition's demand that the 370-member legislature resign and a multiparty legislature be set up until elections are held.
At one point, the state legislature offered to pay $20 million to ship the dirt by train to Nevada.
The nation has a bicameral legislature of Senate and House of Representatives.
British Gas had a special monopoly power created by the legislature.
In the national legislature, the moves against Ryzhkov were derailed for the day when the chairman, Anatoly Lukyanov, asked for a vote on whether to put the prime minister's resignation on the agenda.
The rollback package failed to gain the 41 votes necessary for passage, thus effectively ending the tax repeal drive until the Republican majorities take over both houses of the state legislature tomorrow.
Gorbachev may have a chance to regain the initiative in domestic affairs in an address he is scheduled to deliver on his trip to the two houses of the Soviet legislature sometime this week.
The song criticizes elderly lawmakers who have occupied about half of the seats in the legislature since 1949, when the Nationalist government lost a war to communist forces on mainland China and fled to Taiwan.
He pressed the legislature to approve a resolution strengthening the fight against a burgeoning crime rate.