Английский язык. Устный последовательный перевод. Учебное пособие
.pdf-the executive branch (the President)
-the legislative branch (the Congress)
-the judicial branch (the Supreme Court)
The first ten Constitutional Amendments (the Bill of Rights ) are about the fundamental rights of any American: the freedom of religion, speech, and the press, the right of peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government to correct wrongs, etc.
The first ten amendments were made almost at once in 1791. They are an extension of the original Constitution.
The FirstArticle of the Constitution provides for the establishment of the Congress, and defines its powers. The second does the samewiththePresident,andthereisalsoaprovisionforasystemof federalcourts.TheFifthArticlelaysdowntheprocedureforamendment, allowing either the states or Congress to take the initiative.
The President is elected every four years to a four-year term, no more than two full terms allowed. He is elected directly by votersandnotbythepartywiththemostRepresentativesandSenators. This means that the President can be from one party, and the majority of those in the House of Representatives or Senate ( or both) from another.
Within the Executive branch there are 13 departments---the head of each department is the Secretary--- and theAttorney General (concerned with legal questions). There are the departments of State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Resources, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, and Education. The Executive Office of the Presidency is set up to help carrying out in presidential decisions, anditincludestheWhiteHouse.TheVice-Presidenttakesthepowerif the Presidentdies.TheCongressisbasedonabicamerallegislature.Itis madeupoftheSenateandthe HouseofRepresentatives.TheSenatehas 100Senators,twofromeachstate.OnethirdoftheSenatorsareelectedev- erytwoyearsforsix-yeartermsofoffice.TheSenatorsrepresentallofthe
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people inastate.TheHouseofRepresentatives(representingthepeople) has 435 members. They are elected every two years for two-year terms. ThenumberofRepresentativesfromeachstateisbasedonitspopulation. ThereisnolimittothenumberoftermsaSenatororaRepresentativemay serve.
The third branch is the judicial branch or in other words The FederalJudiciary.ThemaininstrumentofthejudicialbranchistheSupreme Court. It determines whether or not the laws and acts of the other two branches are in accordance with the Constitution. The Supreme Court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices.
They are nominated by the President but must be approved by the Senate. Once approved, they hold office as Supreme Court Justices for life. The Supreme Court has the power of ’judicial review’: it can declare laws and actions of the federal,
state, and local governments unconstitutional.
Task 2. Consecutive interpreting skills
Answer the questions:
What is the form of government in the US? Who is the head of state?
What are the president’s powers?
Who represents the executive branch of power in the US? the legislative branch? the judicial branch?
Translate and explane the following words and word combinations: presidential republic; two-party legislative and electoral system; federal government; state government; the Supreme Court; the executive branch; Congress; the Senate; the House of Representatives; judicial power; the power is exercised by; federal courts; the US Constitution; the federal
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laws; the American Civil War; separation of powers; the wide scope of power; the federal entity; governing bodies; municipality; to grant sth (power); inherent powers; a provision of the Constitution; to be popularly elected; bicameral legislature; sanitary codes; health regulations; housing; boroughs; county (in the US) .
Interpret the recorded abstract (task number five on the disc).
UNIT 6. The Electoral Systems of
the UK and the US
Task 1. Background reading
Read the text
First-Past-the-Post What is First-Past-the-Post?
First-Past-the-Post (FPTP), the system currently used to elect members of the House of Commons, is renowned for its simplicity.
FPTPvoting takes place in single-member constituencies. To vote under FPTP, the voter simply puts a cross in a box next to one candidate. The candidate with the most votes in the constituency wins.All other votes count for nothing.
Also known as:
•Simple majority voting.
•Plurality voting.
•Furthest past the post.
•Winner-takes-all.
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FPTP is the second most widely used voting system in the world, after party lists. In crude terms, it is used in places that are, or once were, British colonies. Like America. The use of FPTP used to be even more widespread, but many countries that used to use it have since switched to something else. Of the many countries that use FPTP, the most commonly cited are the UK, the US, India and Canada.
Some arguments used in support of FPTP
•It's simple to understand and thus doesn't cost much to administer.
•It doesn't take very long to count all the votes and work out who's won, meaning results can be declared a handful of hours after polls close.
•The voter can clearly express a view on which party they think should form the next government.
•It tends to produce a two-party system, which in turn tends to produce single-party governments, which don't have to rely on support from other parties to pass legislation.
•There is a close geographical link between voters and their member of parliament.
•People are often fearful of change and slow to adapt, thus as we've got it now, so we may as well keep it.
Some arguments used against FPTP
•It encourages tactical voting, as voters vote not for the candidate they most prefer, but against the candidate they most dislike.
•FPTP in effect wastes huge numbers of votes, as votes cast in a constituency for losing candidates count for nothing. In 2005, 70 per cent of votes were wasted in this way
–that's over 19 million ballots.
•FPTP severely restricts voter choice. Parties are coalitions of many different viewpoints. If the preferred-party
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candidate in your constituency has views with which you don't agree, you don't have a means of saying so at the ballot box.
•Rather than allocating seats in line with actual support, FPTP rewards parties with 'lumpy' support, i.e. with just enough votes to win in each particular area. Thus, losing 4,000 votes in one area can be a good idea if it means you pick up 400 votes in another. With smaller parties, this works in favour of those with centralised support. For example, at the 2005 general election, the DUP won nine seats on 0.9 per cent of the vote, yet the Greens won no seats, despite polling almost 16,000 more votes than the DUP.
•FPTP rewards organised minorities, deals ineffectively with the most disliked parties, ignores (and thus fails to deal with) views that don't look like challenging at the polls and can make certain areas feel neglected by the big political parties. Until 2009 Euro Elections it was the only electoral system in the UK to have elected representatives from extremist parties. A party can be despised by 49 per cent of an electorate and still win.
•Encouraging two-party politics can be an advantage, but in a multi-party culture, third parties with significant support can be greatly disadvantaged. In the 1983 general election, the Liberal SDP alliance won 25 of the vote, but gained only 3 per cent of the seats.
•Because FPTP restricts a constituency's choice of candidates, representation of minorities and women suffers from 'most broadly acceptable candidate syndrome', where the 'safest' looking candidate is the most likely to be offered a chance to stand for election.
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Other things to consider
FPTP forces parties to become coalitions in themselves, rather than forming coalitions with other parties later. This is seen as a positive because it lets the voters know about the coalition before the vote. However, this can be seen as a negative, as it obscures what voters are actually voting for, as candidates from the same party can stand for radically different things, thus a voter has no way of expressing which side of the party they support.
Task 2. Background reading
Read the text
What Is Proportional Representation?
Proportional representation (PR) voting systems are used by most of the world’s major democracies. Under PR, representatives are elected from multi-seat districts in proportion to the number of votes received. PR assures that political parties or candidates will have the percent of legislative seats that reflects their public support. A party or candidate need not come in first to win seats.
In contrast, in the United States there are “winner-take-all” single seat districts, where votes going to a losing candidate are wasted, even if that candidate garners 49.9% of the vote. This leaves significant blocs of voters unrepresented. Voters sense this, and so often people do not vote for a candidate they like, but rather the one who realistically stands the best chance of winning.
WhatAre TheAdvantages of PR?
Greater voter turn-out (typically 70-90%) because there are more choices for voters—third, fourth, fifth parties and more from
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diverse perspectives including more women and minorities elected.
This leads to:
•more diverse representation
•cleaner campaigns run on the issues, not mud-slinging
•reduced effects of big money
“Winner-take-all” is still used in France, Great Britain, and a fewofBritain’sformercoloniesthatinheritedit:theUnitedStates, Canada, and India.
InApril 1994 SouthAfrica became the latest nation to switch to PR. In 1993 New Zealand, Japan, Russia and Mexico adopted a form of PR.
Has PR Been Tried In The U.S.?
Various forms of PR are used today to elect the city councils of various cities and counties inAlabama and Texas, the community school boards in New York City, the Democratic presidential primaries, various corporate boards, and the finalists for the Academy Awards.
So How Does PR Work?
There are many different types of PR, because it is a flexible system that may be adapted to the situation of any city, state or nation. Here are a few of the most common:
• List System — by far the most widely used form of PR. The voter selects one party and its slate of candidates to represent them. Party slates can be either “closed” or “open,” allowing voters to indicate a preference for individual candidates. If a party receives 30% of the vote, they receive 30% of the seats in the legislature, 10% of the vote receives 10% of the seats, and so on. A minimum share of the votes can be required to earn representation; typically a 5% threshold is used. This type of PR is ideal for large legislatures on state and national levels.
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•Mixed Member System (MM)—This PR hybrid elects half the legislature from single-seat, “winner-take-all” districts and the other half by the List System. Mixed-member smoothly combines geographic, ideological and proportional representation.
•Preference Voting (PV)—the voter simply ranks
candidates in an order of preference (1,2,3,4, etc…). Once a voter’s first choice is elected or eliminated, excess votes are “transferred” to subsequent preferences until all positions are filled. Voters can vote for their favorite candidate(s), knowing that if that candidate doesn’t receive enough votes their vote will “transfer” to their next preference. With preference voting, every vote counts and very few votes are wasted. Preference voting is ideal for non-partisan elections like city councils. This method is also called “Single Transferrable Vote” or “STV”.
What About The President?
There are several ways for electing officials such as president, mayor, or governor than what we use today:
•Majority preference voting (MPV)—related to preference voting. Like preference voting, the voter simply ranks candidates in an order of preference. The candidate with the least number of first place votes is eliminated, and their votes are “transferred” to their 2nd choice until a candidate has a majority.
•Approval—Voters are allowed to vote for all candidates they approve. For example, Bush-Yes Perot-No Clin- ton-Yes. The candidate with the highest number of “yes” votes wins.
•Condorcet’s Method — Like preference voting and majority preference voting, the voter simply ranks candi-
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dates in an order of preference (ex. 1. Perot 2. Clinton 3. Bush). Unlike majority preference voting though, several two-way races are simulated using the ballots, determining who would win a Perot/Clinton race, who would win a Perot/Bush race, and who would win a Bush/Clinton race. The
one who wins all of the pairwise elections wins.
Task 3. Background reading
Read the text about the elections in the UK and give
Russian equivalents to the underlined expressions
When Parliament is dissolved every seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant and a general election is held. Each constituency in the UK elects one MP (Member of Parliament) to a seat in the House of Commons. The political party that wins a majority of seats in the House of Commons usually forms the Government.
How often are general elections held?
General elections are held at least every five years although not all Parliaments run for the whole five year period.
How does it work?
MPs are elected from a choice of candidates by a simple majority system in which each person casts one vote. The candidate with the most votes then becomes the MP for that constituency.
Candidates may be from a political party registered with the Electoral Commission or they may stand as an ‘Independent’ rather than represent a registered party.
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Where do people vote?
Most voting takes place in polling stations but anyone eligible to vote can apply for a postal vote. British citizens living abroad are also entitled to a postal vote as long as they have been living abroad for less than 15 years
By-elections
Aby-electiontakesplacewhenaseatintheHouseofCommons becomesvacantbetweengeneralelections.Ifthereareseveralvacant seats then a number of by-elections can take place on the same day.
Reasons forby-elections
Aseat becomes vacant during the lifetime of a Parliament either when an MP resigns from Parliament, for example to take up a job which by law cannot be done by an MP, or because an MPhas died. The law also allows a seat to be declared vacant because of a Member’s bankruptcy, mental illness or conviction for a serious criminal offence. A by-election does not automatically take place if an MP changes political party. Until a new MPis elected, constituency mattersareusuallyhandledbyanMPofthesamepartyinaneighbouring constituency.
‘Moving theWrit’
Traditionally the Chief Whip of the political party whose MP held the vacant seat will begin the procedure for a by-election. This is known as ‘moving the Writ’and takes the form of a motion in the House of Commons.
By-election timetable
AnewWritisusuallymovedwithinthreemonthsofthevacancy occurring.Therehavebeenafewinstancesofseatsremainingvacant longerthansixmonthsbeforeaby-electionwascalled,andseatshave alsobeenleftvacanttowardstheendofaParliamenttobefilledatthe general election instead.
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