Encyclopedia > Political divisions of the United States

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The political units and divisions of the United States include:

The 50 states (4 of these being officially styled as Commonwealths), which are typically divided into counties and townships, andincorporated cities, towns, villages, and other types of municipalities, and other autonomous or subordinate public authorities and institutions. With the exception of the original 13, each state was admitted to the Union at a specific time by an act of the U.S. Congress.

The District of Columbia, which constitutes the city of Washington, the Capital of the United States. Although the District of Columbia is not a state and does not send Senators or voting Representatives to Congress, residents can vote in presidential elections and are represented in the Electoral College.

Indian reservations are given quasi-independent status. While every reservation is part of a state, and residents vote as residents of the state in which they reside and do pay federal taxes, the reservations are exempt from many state and local laws. The ambiguous nature of their status has both created opportunities (such as gambling in states that normally disallow it) and challenges (such as the unwillingness of some companies to open up shop in a territory where they are not certain what laws will apply to them).

Territories of the United States may be incorporated (part of the United States proper) or unincorporated (known variously as "possessions", "overseas territories" or "commonwealths") Territories may also be organized (with self-government explicitly granted by an Organic Act of the U.S. Congress) or unorganized (without such direct authorization of self-government). 31 of the current 50 states were organized incorporated territories before their admission to the Union. Since 1959, the United States has had only one incorporated territory (Palmyra Atoll), but maintains control of several unincorporated territories, both organized and unorganized.

The federal union, which constitutes the United States as a collective of the several states, and as it exercises exclusive jurisdiction over the military installations, and American embassies and consulates located in foreign countries; and until the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973 had jurisdiction over the local affairs of the District of Columbia.

Such quasi-political divisions as conservation districts and school districts, which are usually just special, geographically designated subordinate public authorities.

Recognized bodies, such as homeowners associations, which fulfill government functions, and have since been bound by subsequent court decisions to certain restrictions normally applying to local governments.

Altogether, there are an estimated 85,000 extant political entities in the United States. Political units and divisions of the United States are a subset of the total United States territory.

Political units and system of operation

The primary political unit of the United States after the federal union is the state. Technically and legally, states are not "divisions" created from the United States, but units that compose the US, because the United States and the several states that constitute it operate with a system of parallel sovereignty. According to numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the several states and the United States (that is, the federal state which is coextensive with the 50 several states and the District of Columbia) are sovereign jurisdictions. The sovereignty of the United States is strictly limited to the terms of the United States Constitution, whereas the sovereignty of each individual state is unlimited, except in two respects: 1. The sovereignty and powers that each state has transferred to the United States via the United States Constitution, and 2. The provisions of its own constitution, which usually (but not always) sets certain parameters for the exercise of the state's sovereignty.

Most states decentralize the administration of their sovereign powers, typically in three tiers but always employing at least two tiers and sometimes more than three tiers. The first tier of decentralization is always the statewide tier, constituted of agencies that operate under direct control of the principal organs of state government - such as bureaus of vital statistics, and departments of motor vehicles or public health. The second tier is always the county (called a borough in Alaska and a parish in Louisiana), which is an administrative division of the state. It may also be more than that (e.g., a metropolitan municipality), but it is always an administrative division of the state. The third tier commonly found in many states, especially the Midwest, is the township, which is an administrative division of a county.

Basically, counties exist to provide general local support of state government activities, such as collection of property tax revenues (counties almost never have their own power to tax), but without providing most of the services one associates with municipalities, because counties are usually too big for that purpose. That is where the township comes in, to provide further localized services to the public in areas that are not part of a municipality.

In some states, such as Michigan, state universities are constitutionally autonomous jurisdictions, possessed of a special status somewhat equivalent to that of metropolitan municipality. That is, as bodies corporate, they operate as though they were municipalities but their autonomy from most legislative and executive control makes them equally comparable to administrative divisions of the state, equal or superior to counties.

In some states, cities operate independently of townships. Some cities (and all cities in Virginia) operate outside of the jurisdiction of any county. Cities, which are sometimes called towns, differ from counties and townships in that they are not administrative divisions of the state. Instead, they are semi-autonomous municipal corporations that are recognized by the state. In essence, the city as municipal corporation is the modern form of the ancient city-state, a sovereign entity that exists today only in the forms of Monaco, San Marino,Singapore, and the Vatican City.

Divisions of the federal state include, first, the District of Columbia, which contains the United States Capitol Building - the seat of the Government of the United States (in contrast to most other countries, where the seat of government is the principal official residence of the president, monarch, or other head of state - as with Buckingham Palace in United Kingdom, Rideau Hall in Canada, and Áras na hUachtarán in Ireland). The United States Congress exercises exclusive jurisdiction over this and all other lands owned by the federal government.

Notwithstanding four states officially call themselves "commonwealth" (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky), which go back to their original founding charters and constitutions. In the federal context, the term 'commonwealth' means an intermediate status between 'territory' and 'state' - both in the sense of "independent state" and "U.S. state", but such does not apply to the four states that are commonwealths by their own state constitutions. At the Federal level, there is really no distinction, and the term is more of an archaism than one of any true import. However, Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas Islands are territories which are commonwealths associated with the United States. They might someday advance to statehood, or they might become independent - as did thePhilippines in 1946, after it was a commonwealth of the United States for many years. A territory - whether "organized" and "unorganized" has significantly fewer rights in the grand scheme of things than a commonwealth (let alone a state), but it ranks at least a notch above "possessions" such as Wake Island, which has no permanent population and thus does not require even a simple territorial government.

Federal oversight of United States territory

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 627