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A legislature is a type of representative Deliberative Assembly with the power to adopt Law s. Legislatures are known by many names, the most common are ''parliament'' and '''''congress''''', although these terms also have more specific meanings. The main job of the legislature is to make laws. In Parliamentary System s of Government , the legislature is formally supreme and Appoint s the Executive . In Presidential System s 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 Tax es and adopt the Budget and other Money Bill s. CHAMBERS The primary component of a legislature is one or more ''chambers'' or ''houses'': assemblies that Debate and Vote upon Bill s. A legislature with only one house is called Unicameral . A Bicameral legislature possesses two separate chambers, usually described as an upper house and a lower house, which may differ in duties, powers, and the methods used for the selection of members. Much rarer have been Tricameral legislatures; the most recent existed in the waning years of White-minority Rule in South Africa . In most Parliamentary System s, the lower house is the more 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 Federation s 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 United States before 1913, or be elected according to a formula that grants equal representation to states with smaller populations, as is the case today in Australia and the United States . LIST OF TITLES OF LEGISLATURES National
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