The United States constitution begins with “We the people” when the people were in no way involved or even consulted in writing the document. The constitution was written by “framers” who were just ordinary people and not special or important people at all. “The people” were not involved on ratifying the constitution it was passed without the public having much of any say at all, which is pretty much the same today. The constitution is made out to seem like the people have somewhat of a say in the governing of the United States laws, yet it is written so that the government has unlimited powers and can basically do whatever they want, which has always been and continues to be the case. Venezuela on the other hand, has shown to progress and benefit from their present constitutional laws, created by their new leader. Prior to his election into office, Venezuela was an extremely corrupt country where the people didn’t seem to have much say about anything at all. Immediately upon his election into presidency, Chavez held a national referendum in which his people had the opportunity to decide if they wanted to draft a new constitution that would be based around his image of what he wanted the country to be like. In December of 1999 the new constitution passed under his rule which tremendously improved and continues to improve everything for the country of Venezuela.
The differences in the way in which the “constitutional” laws are carried out between the two countries couldn’t be more different. The United States government is comprised of three branches: the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches of government while Venezuela’s is comprised of the Legislative branch, the Office of the President, and the Judicial System of government. The branches vastly differ from each other in numerous ways. The United States Legislative branch of government (Congress) is composed of the Senate which includes 100 members (two from each state) and the House of Representatives which includes 435 representatives (divided among the states), note that none of the members in this branch are publicly elected yet this is the branch of government that makes the laws. On the other hand, although Venezuela also has a Legislative branch of government, they are governed under a unicameral Legislative system (whereas America is a bicameral system) which is called the National Assembly and is composed of 167 members of whom are publicly elected members, compared to the 535 members in the United States. The United States second branch of government is the Executive branch (the President and Vice President) which is the branch that carries out the laws. This form of government would be compared to Venezuela’s Office of the President. Lastly, the United States Judicial branch of government (Supreme Court) comprised of the Circuit Court of Appeals which has twelve courts throughout the United States, and the District Courts (91 trial courts throughout the U.S.) Venezuela’s judicial branch is a work in progress due to its corruption before Chavez came into office.
The many variations between the two systems lead me to believe that the Venezuelan government is a true model democracy because while the United States has remained the same since the creation of the constitution, Venezuela has shown significant progress in making alterations to their constitution by continuing to work on making their country better literally for and by the people. The fact that Chavez got his citizens involved (and kept them involved) in these changes right away makes it a democracy in it of itself. The American governments’ main interest is focused and based off of white male property owners and the constitution wasn’t written to better anybody other than the people that fit into that category, while Venezuela rewrote their laws to benefit their people.
