Unicameral System

One camera. One source. One. Uni. Think: Orwellian Big Brother-driven government with one lens.

A unicameral system is where a government has one legislative body. In the U.S., we've got two: the House of Representatives and the Senate, both which make up Congress, the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government. That makes the U.S. bicameral.

Unicameral systems are more common. Almost two-thirds of governments have them. Smaller countries almost always have unicameral systems, while larger ones might have unicameral or bicameral.

The U.S. is huuuuggeee, so...bicameral kinda makes sense. The whole reason the U.S. is bicameral in the first place is that some people thought each state should have equal representation (like the Senate) while others thought it should be based on population (like the House).

Denmark, Hungary, Serbia, and Sweden are all winging it unicameral style. Actually, Greece, New Zealand, and Peru decided bicameral wasn't for them and switched to a unicameral system.

If you're American, you might be confused how a unicameral system gets voted in. Is it like the House, or the Senate? Well, neither really. For a lot of unicameral systems, seats are assigned proportionately to votes. So if the MotherBoy Party wins 30% of the vote, they'll get about 30% of the seats. A seat could be approximately 5% (or some other percentage) of the total votes, for instance. That would give the MotherBoy Party 6 seats in the legislature. For most bills in a unicameral system, a simple majority vote is what passes them.

If it sounds crazy...it is. Not the system, but the floor where the magic is made. Check out Britain's legislature compared to the U.S.'s. One is a yelling match and the other a snoozefest.

The main pro of a bicameral system is more checks and balances...but the con is, of course, the potential for nothing to get passed. Gridlock. That makes the pro of unicameral getting things done...and the con the potential lack of checks and balances.