A guide to American government
Know Your Government
Every American lives under several governments at once: the federal government, a state, and in most places a county, a city or town, a school district and other special districts. Many are also citizens of a tribal nation. This guide explains who does what at each level and how the levels fit together.
The levels at a glance
The Constitution divides power two ways. It splits the national government into three branches: Congress makes the laws, the president carries them out, and the courts decide cases. And it leaves to the states, or to the people, the powers it does not give the national government (the Tenth Amendment). Each state, in turn, creates its own local governments.
| Level | Makes the laws | Runs the government | Decides cases | How many |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal | Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives | The president, 15 executive departments and many agencies | The federal courts: the Supreme Court, 13 courts of appeals, 94 district courts | 1 |
| States | A legislature of two chambers (one in Nebraska) | A governor and, in most states, other officials elected statewide | A supreme court (two highest courts in Texas and Oklahoma), appeals courts and trial courts | 50 |
| Counties | A board of commissioners or supervisors, or a county council | The board itself, an administrator it appoints, or an elected county executive | State trial courts, usually organized county by county | 3,031 |
| Cities, towns and villages | A city council or board of aldermen, or a commission | A mayor, a manager the council appoints, or the commissioners | Municipal courts in many places | 19,491 |
| Towns and townships | A township board, or a town meeting of the voters | The board, or an elected select board | State courts | 16,214, in 20 states |
| School districts | An elected school board | A superintendent the board appoints | State courts | 12,546 |
| Special districts | A board of directors, trustees or commissioners | A general manager or executive director | State courts | 39,555 |
| Tribal nations | A tribal council, or a general council of all adult citizens | A chair, president, governor or principal chief | Tribal courts and peacemaking; Courts of Indian Offenses where a tribe has no court of its own | 575 |
In all, the Census Bureau counted 90,837 local governments in 2022. Its count for 2025, published in May 2026, is 91,438, mostly because of new special districts.
- How Congress worksThe Senate and the House: what each does, who runs them, how a bill becomes law, how districts are drawn, and who chairs each committee now.
- How the executive branch worksThe presidency, the Executive Office, the 15 departments and the independent agencies, and how to comment on a rule or ask for records.
- How the federal courts workThe Supreme Court, the courts of appeals and district courts, and the courts Congress has created outside Article III.
- How state governments workLegislatures, governors and the other officials states elect, executive councils, state courts, and what is on the 2026 ballot.
- How local governments workCounties, cities, towns and townships, school districts and special districts, and the laws that open their meetings and records.
- How tribal nations governSovereignty, tribal governments and courts, and who has jurisdiction in Indian country.
- How elections workWhen elections are held and who runs them, primaries and runoffs, campaign money, running for office, the count, and when winners take office.
Know Your Candidate shows who holds these offices now, each from the record that keeps it:
- Congress: every member, and everyone who has filed to run for their seats, on the profile grid and the partisan map.
- The federal government: the President, the Vice President, the Cabinet and every sitting federal judge, court by court.
- Each state's page: its members of Congress, its governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and secretary of state, its highest court, and its official voting pages.
- Every state legislature: each district on a map, and who represents it.
- Every county and local government: each state's counties, and the governments in each, by kind.
- Tribal governments: each one and its leader, as the Bureau of Indian Affairs lists them.
Sources: U.S. Constitution, Article I; U.S. Constitution, Article II; U.S. Constitution, Article III; U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment; U.S. Census Bureau: Government Organization Summary Report, 2022 and 2025; Bureau of Indian Affairs: Indian Entities Recognized (91 FR 4102, Jan. 30, 2026); Bureau of Indian Affairs: Tribal Leaders Directory
How the levels fit together
Checks within the federal government
Each branch can stop or undo some of what the others do. The main checks, and where the Constitution or the law provides them:
- Congress
- The president: can pass a bill again over the president's veto, by two-thirds of each chamber (Article I, Section 7).
- The president: decides what may be spent: no money leaves the Treasury unless Congress appropriates it (Article I, Section 9).
- The president: through the Senate, approves or rejects the president's treaties and nominees (Article II, Section 2).
- The president and the courts: can impeach and remove the president, judges and other officers (Article I, Sections 2 and 3; Article II, Section 4).
- The courts: creates the lower courts and sets the number of justices by law (Article III, Section 1; 28 U.S.C. 1).
- The president
- Congress: can veto a bill (Article I, Section 7).
- The courts: nominates the justices and the other Article III judges, who take office only with the Senate's consent (Article II, Section 2).
- The courts: can pardon federal offenses, except in cases of impeachment (Article II, Section 2).
- The courts
- Congress: can set aside a law that conflicts with the Constitution, a power the Supreme Court asserted in Marbury v. Madison (1803).
- The president: can set aside an official act that rests neither on the Constitution nor on a law (Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 1952).
The federal government and the states
Federal law made under the Constitution overrides conflicting state law (Article VI). But the federal government has only the powers the Constitution grants, and it may not order state officers to carry out federal programs (Printz v. United States, 1997). Instead, Congress often attaches conditions to money it offers the states, for highways, schools or health care. The Supreme Court has set limits on those conditions too (South Dakota v. Dole, 1987; NFIB v. Sebelius, 2012).
Two court systems
A state's courts
- Supreme courtThe court of last resort on state law. Texas and Oklahoma have two: one for civil cases, one for criminal.
- Intermediate appeals courtsIn most states. Hear appeals from the trial courts.
- Trial courtsFelonies and larger civil cases.
- Courts of limited jurisdictionMisdemeanors, traffic cases and small claims.
The federal courts
- The Supreme CourtNine justices. Chooses the cases it hears.
- Courts of appealsThirteen. Hear appeals from the district courts.
- District courtsNinety-four trial courts.
- Magistrate judges and bankruptcy courtsPart of the district courts.
- Up either ladder: a losing party can usually appeal to the court above; a highest court mostly chooses the appeals it hears.
- Across to the Supreme Court: a state's highest court's decision on a question of federal law can be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, by a petition for a writ of certiorari that the Court may grant or refuse.
- Across to federal court: a civil case filed in a state court that could have been filed in a federal one can be removed to the federal district court (28 U.S.C. 1441).
State courts have the final word on what state law means. The U.S. Supreme Court may review a state court decision that turns on federal law, but not one that rests on an adequate and independent ground in state law: one that would stand on state law alone, whatever the answer to the federal question (Michigan v. Long, 1983). A civil case filed in state court can be moved (“removed”) to federal court if it could have been filed there in the first place: because it arises under federal law, for example, or is between citizens of different states (28 U.S.C. 1441). A criminal case can be removed only in narrow circumstances, chiefly when the defendant is a federal officer (28 U.S.C. 1442).
States and their local governments
Local governments are created by their state and have only the powers it gives them. Under Dillon's Rule, named for an Iowa judge's 1868 opinion, a local government may exercise only the powers granted to it expressly, those necessarily or fairly implied in them, and those essential to its purposes. Many states instead give some or all of their cities and counties home rule: the power to act on local matters without specific permission. Either way, the legislature can limit or override local ordinances, and state law generally prevails on matters of statewide concern. More on local governments.
Executive power is divided inside most states too: the attorney general, secretary of state and other officials are often elected separately from the governor, and may belong to a different party (state governments). County sheriffs and prosecutors, elected in most states, enforce state law inside and outside city limits alike.
Tribal nations
Tribal nations are neither states nor parts of states. They deal with the federal government government-to-government, and criminal jurisdiction in Indian country (reservations and other Indian lands, as federal law defines them) is divided among tribal, federal and state governments by statutes and court decisions. Who has jurisdiction.
Sources: U.S. Constitution, Article I; U.S. Constitution, Article II; U.S. Constitution, Article III; U.S. Constitution, Article VI; 28 U.S.C. 1 (the Supreme Court); Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803); Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952); Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997); South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987); NFIB v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012); Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983); 28 U.S.C. 1441 (removal of civil actions); 28 U.S.C. 1442 (removal: federal officers); U.S. Courts: Court Role and Structure; National League of Cities: Cities 101, Delegation of Power; National Association of Counties: County Government Primer (2024); 18 U.S.C. 1151 (Indian country defined)