What does it take to run for and serve in the state legislature?

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The Senate is the upper house of the two systems of legislature in the US, and together with the House of Representatives, forms the US congress. Each state in the United States is represented by two Senators; without any regard to population or size and their roles are clearly stipulated in the constitution in article one.

The chambers of the senate is established in Washington, D.C., where Senators meet in the north wing while House of representatives meet in the same building but in the south wing.

The senate has special powers that include giving consent to treaties, confirmation of high profile public jobs like secretaries of the cabinet, military chiefs, and federal judges while at the same time it conducts trials of officers of the federal government who have been indicted by the house. The senate has high status and makes important deliberations than the House of Representatives.

According to the constitution, a candidate intending to contest for a senate seat has to meet the following three conditions: must be thirty years and above, should have been a citizen of the United States for a period of not less than nine years and the candidate should have stayed in the state in which he or she is intending to represent.

The issue of age and citizenship is given much emphasis and Wrights justifies it by arguing out that this position requires maturity in character and wealth of information.

The senate is the only body that comes up with the qualifications of the position of a senator and closely monitors aspiring candidates to make sure that they meet the requirements.

Another impediment to the aspiring candidates is the 14^th amendment of the constitution which disqualifies candidates who were state officers and had taken oath of allegiance to the constitution but were later engaged in rebellious activities or helped enemies of the US.

There are challenges that candidates for senator positions face when contesting for elections. Fraud is an expected challenge to candidates running for elective posts. Even though the Washington has embraced electronic voting machines, instances of fraud can still occur due to tampering of the machines which has been proven by computer scientists.

It is necessary that parallel testing be done prior to elections to curb any election fraud. Another big challenge for a candidate is competition from other candidates. For you to run for the elections, you need to adequately prepare to counter competition from other candidates by coming up with an agenda that has not been addressed in the state.

For instance in Washington State, the biggest concern to be addressed is environmental pollution. It therefore follows that a candidate aspiring to contest should have issues affecting the electorate at heart. Another possible election challenge for a candidate is violations of election laws.

A candidate must thoroughly learn the electoral process to avoid instances of disqualification. When elected to office, a senator should overcome individualism and bipartisanship in the senate and instead address issues with an open mind (Wright, 101).

Upon assuming office as a senator, candidates should have the following roles in mind as preparation for the office of the senator: they should be well informed of senate issues which imply that they should extract information from fellow members of the senate, his or her staff and various organizations, groups and constituents of the state of Washington.

During recess, the senator should conduct several trips across the state meeting local people and getting to understand their needs and concerns. At other occasions, the senator should visit other states to borrow ideas that work well with them. As a senator, one should ensure that he or she is chosen to serve in committees that they feel they have influence.

Upon being given responsibilities in a particular committee, they should come up with ideas that help people and change the society in a positive way. For this case, a senator of Washington State should explore on ideas that can resolve pollution of the environment and global warming.

In summary, the role of a senator include introducing and discussing legislations, process information from different sources, be in contact with committees that can push legislative goals as well as remaining in contact with the people of Washington.

The position of a senator is critical to a state because senators make important decisions both locally and nationally. As the leaders struggle to manage their time and allocating resources within the counties, they should select correct teams to work with.

As a leader, one cannot work alone and it is necessary to form a group of people with common interests whom you can work with to achieve your targets. Having the right people surrounding the leader would enable the senator set the right priorities for his electorate while at the same time the leader should set the right priorities in order to select the correct team to work with.

As a leader one should be able to examine the past in order to discover the reasons for success and failures. As a senator, one should be able to make decisions independently, listen carefully and exercise common sense when making decisions. Conviction is of essence to a leader.

As a senator, you should care for the needs of the people despite their class and political orientation. They should respond to the concerns of people with a lot of understanding though they should not drift away from their convictions. For one to hold the office of the senator, it calls for courage and commitment and consistency in making the right decisions even in the face of criticism.

Allocating resources can be a very difficult task especially because not everybody can be satisfied with your criteria.

Although it is difficult to list benefits of one system of allocation, the following methods are normally used do allocate resources: bargaining whereby the particular people in need of the resources can argue out their cases and be considered, resources can allocated using voting procedures, economy of the market with respect to the market price can be used as a factor to allocate resources, through bidding, prioritization, demand and allocation by chance.

Senators use these techniques to allocate resources therefore I would advice a candidate to consider all this essential means of allocating resources. As much as management of resource allocation is important in distributing resources in the state, a Senator should manage time properly.

This is an important aspect of the job to make sure that he or she attends all functions of the senate as well as find time to mingle with the electorate to get first hand information of the issues and demands of the people.

Works Cited

Wright, Ralph. Inside statehouse: Lessons from the speaker. US, Washington: CQ Press, 2005.

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What does it take to run for and serve in the state legislature?

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