Editing Legislature (section)

==Chambers==
[[File:Vista panorámica del Hemiciclo de sesiones del Congreso del Peru.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The [[Congress of the Republic of Peru]], the country's national legislature, meets in the [[Legislative Palace (Peru)|Legislative Palace]] in 2010.]]

A legislature may [[debate]] and [[vote]] upon [[Bill (proposed law)|bill]]s as a single unit, or it may be composed of multiple separate [[Deliberative assembly|assemblies]], called by various names including [[Chambers of parliament|''legislative chambers'']], [[Debate chamber|''debate chambers'']], and ''houses'', which debate and vote separately and have distinct powers. A legislature which operates as a single unit is [[Unicameralism|unicameral]], one divided into two chambers is [[Bicameralism|bicameral]], and one divided into three chambers is [[Tricameralism|tricameral]].
[[File:House of Commons Chamber 1.png|thumb|left|The British [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]], its lower house]]
In bicameral legislatures, one chamber is usually considered the [[upper house]], while the other is considered the [[lower house]]. The two types are not rigidly different, but members of upper houses tend to be indirectly elected or appointed rather than directly elected, tend to be allocated by [[administrative division]]s rather than by population, and tend to have longer terms than members of the lower house. In some systems, particularly [[parliamentary system]]s, the upper house has less power and tends to have a more advisory role, but in others, particularly [[Federation|federal]] [[presidential system]]s, the upper house has equal or even greater power. 
[[File:Deutscher Bundestag Plenarsaal Seitenansicht.jpg|left|thumb|The [[Germany|German]] [[Bundestag]], its theoretical lower house]]

In [[federation]]s, the upper house typically represents the federation's component states. This is also the case with the supranational legislature of the [[European Union]]. The upper house may either contain the delegates of state governments{{spaced ndash}}as in the European Union and in Germany and, [[Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|before 1913, in the United States]]{{spaced ndash}}or be elected according to a formula that grants equal representation to states with smaller populations, as is the case in Australia and the United States since 1913.
[[File:Senate panorama.jpg|right|upright=1.8|thumb|The [[Australian Senate]], its upper house]]

[[Tricameral]] legislatures are rare; the [[Massachusetts Governor's Council]] still exists, but the most recent national example existed in the waning years of White-minority rule in [[South Africa]]. [[Tetracameralism|Tetracameral]] legislatures no longer exist, but they were previously used in Scandinavia. The only legislature with a number of chambers bigger than four was the [[Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia]]; initially established as a Pentacameral body in 1963, it was turned into a hexacameral body in 1967.