What is the responsibilities of the national Legislative Branch?

Answer 1

The National (Federal) Legislative Branch would be Congress. Their job is to create laws. Laws start in the house, then go to the senate if passed. Once passed in the Senate, the bill goes to the president to sign or veto.

One minor note on the above: only appropriations (spending) bills must start in the House. Such bills must originate in the House, and then be sent to the Senate. All other bills can start in either portion. In reality, what happens is that slightly different bills on the same topic are introduced in each chamber separately. If they both pass, a conference is set up, during which differences are reconciled. This "reconciled" bill is then sent back to both chambers, where it is (usually) passed again with a simple voice vote.

In addition to passing laws, the other major job of the Legislative Branch (Congress) is to perform what is known as the "Advise and Consent" duty. This is a power of the Senate. It consists of requiring a majority of the Senate to approve of any appointment by the Executive Branch to certain Executive and Judicial posts. It also must approve of any treaties that the Executive negotiates.

Another power of Congress is to Declare War. Only Congress has this power; while the Executive branch prosecutes (directs) the war, only Congress can declare that a state of war exists (and, by inference, declare that a war is over).

Finally, a seldom-used (but very important) power is the power of Impeachment. This power is used to remove members of the Executive or Judicial branch who have committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" (the exact meaning of which is still up for debate). Functionally, this power is there to allow the Legislature to remove those appointed members of the government who are acting in a manner which severely compromises the government's ability to function.