The Sejm, officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate, so-called as an assembly of the senior and therefore considered wiser and more experienced members of the society or ruling class. However the Roman Senate was not the ancestor or predecessor of modern parliamentarism in any sense, because the Roman senate was not a de jure legislative body.
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often have a different title. The terms congressman/congresswoman or deputy are equivalent terms used in other jurisdictions. The term parliamentarian is also sometimes used for members of parliament, but this may also be used to refer to unelected government officials with specific roles in a parliament and other expert advisers on parliamentary procedure such as the Senate parliamentarian in the United States. The term is also used to the characteristic of performing the duties of a member of a legislature, for example: "The two party leaders often disagreed on issues, but both were excellent parliamentarians and cooperated to get many good things done."
Bicameralism is a type of legislature that is divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single group. As of 2022, roughly 40% of the world's national legislatures are bicameral, while unicameralism represents 60% nationally and much more at the subnational level.
Unicameralism is a type of legislature consisting of one house or assembly that legislates and votes as one. Unicameralism has become an increasingly common type of legislature, making up nearly 60% of all national legislatures and an even greater share of subnational legislatures.
The Federal Council is the upper house of the Austrian Parliament, representing the nine States of Austria at the federal level. As part of a bicameral legislature alongside the National Council, it can be compared with an upper house or a senate. In fact, however, it is far less powerful than the National Council: although it has to approve every new law decided for by this lower chamber, the latter can – in most cases – overrule the Federal Council's refusal to approve.
The North German Confederation was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state that existed from July 1867 to December 1870. A milestone of the German Unification, it was the earliest continual legal predecessor of the modern German nation-state known today as the Federal Republic of Germany.
Cisleithania, officially The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council, was the northern and western part of Austria-Hungary, the Dual Monarchy created in the Compromise of 1867—Transleithania. This name for the region was a common, but unofficial one.
The Austrian Parliament is the bicameral federal legislature of Austria. It consists of two chambers – the National Council and the Federal Council. In specific cases, both houses convene as the Federal Assembly. The legislature meets in the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna.
The Landeshauptmann or Landeshauptfrau is the chairman of a state government and the supreme official of an Austrian state and the Italian autonomous provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino. His or her function is equivalent to that of a minister-president or premier. Until 1933 the term was also used in Prussia for the head of government of a province, in the modern-day states of Germany the counterpart to Landeshauptmann is the Ministerpräsident (minister-president).
The German Progress Party was the first modern political party in Germany, founded by liberal members of the Prussian House of Representatives in 1861 in opposition to Minister President Otto von Bismarck.
The Prussian House of Lords in Berlin was the upper house of the Landtag of Prussia, the parliament of Prussia from 1850 to 1918. Together with the lower house, the House of Representatives, it formed the Prussian bicameral legislature. The building is now used as the seat of the German Bundesrat.
In contrast to unicameralism, and bicameralism, multicameralism is the condition in which a legislature is divided into more than two deliberative assemblies, which are commonly called "chambers" or "houses". This usually includes tricameralism with three chambers, but can also describe a system with any amount more. The word "multicameral" can also relate in other ways to its literal meaning of "many chambered" with use in science or biology.
The Landtag of Prussia was the representative assembly of the Kingdom of Prussia implemented in 1849, a bicameral legislature consisting of the upper House of Lords (Herrenhaus) and the lower House of Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus). After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–19 the Landtag diet continued as the parliament of the Free State of Prussia between 1921 and 1934, when it was abolished by the Nazi regime.
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often called a "Senate". In some countries, the House of Representatives is the sole chamber of a unicameral legislature.
The German Empire was a proto-state which attempted, but ultimately failed, to unify the German states within the German Confederation to create a German nation-state. It was created in the spring of 1848 during the German revolutions by the Frankfurt National Assembly. The parliament elected Archduke John of Austria as its provisional head of state with the title 'Imperial Regent'. On 28 March 1849, its constitution was implemented and the parliament elected the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to be the constitutional monarch of the empire with the title 'Emperor of the Germans'. However, he turned the position down. The empire came to an end in December 1849 when the Central German Government was replaced by a Federal Central Commission.
The Landstände or Landtage were the various territorial estates or diets in the Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, as opposed to their respective territorial lords.
As Vienna, the capital of Austria is both a city and a state, the 100 members of the Municipal Council (Gemeinderat) of the city of Vienna also act as members of the Landtag of the state of Vienna. Members serve for five years.
The Provisional Law and Second Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich were two laws enacted by the German government of Adolf Hitler to expand its control over the seventeen German states (länder). The Provisional (First) Law dissolved all the sitting landtage, except for that of Prussia, and reconstituted them in accordance with the results of the recent parliamentary election of 5 March 1933, which had given the Nazi Party and its coalition partner, the German National People's Party (DNVP), a majority of the Reichstag seats. The Second Law established the new powerful position of Reichsstatthalter appointed by the central government to effectively take control of each state administration. The effect of these laws was to undermine the power and influence of all political parties other than the Nazis and the DNVP, and to move Germany significantly away from being a federal republic and put it on a path to becoming a unitary state.
