How Does Our Government Work Anyway?

In the wake of the election, I am making a firm commitment to become a more active, involved, and better-informed citizen. I will not be able to look myself in the mirror anymore if I don't, and more than that, I can't in good conscience complain about the current state of affairs if I've done nothing to advocate for what it is I actually want. To aid in this endeavor, a dear friend and colleague shared a great resource which has been going around the past couple weeks: "We're his problem now", a weekly call to action, which you can find here. I spent some time familiarizing myself with the document and have been following the steps indicated (this is my second week). 

However, as I was first reading the spreadsheet, I realized how much I've forgotten (and just plain don't know) about how our government works. The only thing I remember from my high school U.S. government class was my teacher telling us to "never be rude to a bureaucrat". While sage advice (which has definitely benefitted me over the years), I definitely needed a refresher. I did some very brief research, so if anyone else is in the same boat, here's a quick, dirty, and very basic outline of how our government works (comments/corrections welcome!):

There are 3 branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial.

1. The Legislative Branch includes the Senate and the House of Representatives, together known as Congress. They create and pass laws — I'm still unclear as to how these two work together, or what the different 'job descriptions' are of each. 

In the Senate, there's 2 senators per state. They have unlimited 6 year terms, meaning you can run for re-election forever (there's one Democratic Senator from Vermont who's been in there since 1975). In California, my Senators are Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (Boxer, who just retired, is being replaced by Kamala Harris). There's a Senate Majority Leader (Mitch McConnell) and a Senate Minority Leader (Harry Reid, incoming is Chuck Schumer, who Trump recently tweeted about). There's also tons of Senate Committees and Sub-committees. 

In the House, the representatives are awarded based on the population of the state. So California being the most populous state has 53 representatives. You can go to www.house.gov, and in the upper right corner, you enter in your zip code and it tells you which district you're in and who your Rep is. For my zip in California, I'm in the 18th district, and my Rep. is Anna Eshoo. Representatives have unlimited 2 year terms meaning they, too, can run for re-election forever. There's the Speaker of the House (Paul Ryan) and then the House Democratic Leader (Nancy Pelosi). If the house had a Democratic majority, then the Speaker would be a Dem and the House Republican Leader would (obviously) be a Republican. Like the Senate, there's tons of Committees and Sub-committees in the House as well.

Now, Senators and Representatives are our elected officials. That means that they work for us. If you visit the website of your Senator or your Representative, you'll find that it is relatively easy to contact them by email or even phone. One former congressional staffer says its much better and more effective to contact your elected official by phone. Some of them are also active on social media — another easy way to connect and stay informed, although again: not as effective as that phone call. 

One final thing on Congress: term limits is something that Trump said he would impose (one of the only things I actually agree with him on), but as with all of the things he's said, we'll see if that actually comes to pass...and based on what we've seen so far, it's not looking good. The Republicans tried to impose term limits in the mid 90's but the Supreme Court overthrew it, something related to the states not having the authority to impose decisions at the federal level. 

2. The Executive Branch carries out the law and includes the President, Vice President, Executive Office of the President (this includes the Chief of Staff, who once Trump takes office will be Reince Priebus, and I thiiink this is where Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist would fall organizationally speaking), and the Cabinet which is comprised of the heads of the following 15 executive departments:

Agriculture
Commerce
Defense
Education
Energy
Health and Human Services
Homeland Security
Housing and Urban Development
Interior
Justice
Labor
State
Transportation
Treasury
Veterans Affairs

All of the heads of these departments are referred to as "secretary of..." except for the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) who is referred to as the "Attorney General". The CIA is absent from this list (not included in the DOJ) — so not quite sure where they fall and who they answer to...

3. The Judicial Branch interprets the law and decides if laws violate the constitution. This branch includes all of the court systems, all the way up to the Supreme Court which has had an open seat since February of this year. Obama has so far been blocked in trying to appoint a new justice (surprise, surprise), so it looks like we'll likely have a Trump-appointed justice.  

That's as far as I got for now in understanding how our government works...how will you make it work for you??