Cities, town, and counties are granted specific powers by the state. In Virginia, counties and cities are separate units, independent of each other. However, towns are part of a county. Citizens of each county, town, or city elect representatives to govern them. A county has a board of supervisors. Towns or cities have mayors and councils to oversee the delivery of public services. Above these local district courts are the 13 courts of appeal. Lastly, at the highest level, the Supreme Court and its nine appointed justices serve as the highest court in the land.
As the arbiters determining the legality of pieces of legislation, the Supreme Court justices look to the Constitution, which is the highest law in the land, when hearing existing cases or when interpreting laws passed by the legislative branch. Both Supreme Court justices and judges of the courts of appeals and district courts serve for life and do not leave their posts unless they retire, die, or are impeached. This ensures that their decisions are not motivated by politics because they need to win an election.
The legislative branch is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Together, these two bodies form Congress. Congress is the only branch of the federal government that can enact laws, raise and appropriate funds, declare war, and impeach officials such as the president. Both chambers of Congress are directly elected by the people. While the population of each state determines its number of representatives, each state only gets two senators.
Furthermore, while senators vote according to the wishes of all of the people in their state, representatives vote according to will of the people in their districts. Representatives serve two-year terms, while senators serve six-year terms.
In order for bills to be enacted, they must first be introduced to the House or Senate, where they start by being considered by committees. Each level has different areas of responsibility, which can be identified based on geography and types of services. The federal government creates laws and manages programs and services that tend to affect the whole country, the provincial and territorial governments have powers to make decisions relating to areas of law that affect their province or territory directly, and the municipal governments are responsible for establishing by-laws and services that are administered in a specific city, town or village.
The municipal level from the Latin municipalis , meaning of a citizen of a free town. This is the level of government that is usually based in a city, town or district a municipality.
Municipal governments are responsible for areas such as libraries, parks, community water systems, local police, roadways and parking.
They receive authority for these areas from the provincial governments.
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