How Do Checks And Balances Affect The Three Branches Of Government

Most of the specifications for the executive branch in the Constitution, other than how he is to be elected, have to deal with the interactions between Congress and the President. The president can (fill in the blank) but only if (this part) of Congress approves. The powers of the president have been interpreted widely so that he has more power than I believe the Framers intended. They wanted him to be able to check Congress with veto power and be the head of the military. However, I think that presidents nowadays have too much power. They are active in trying force their policy agenda through Congress, manage foreign relations, and act as the administrative head of the entire nation. The textbook lays it out well in, "The vast size of the executive branch and the number and complexity of decisions that must be made each day pose a challenge for the White House.” (316) In order to deal with the stresses put on the executive branch, there are thousands of employees that work to give the president the information that he needs to make decisions. He has advisors, cabinet members, legislative liaisons; the list goes on and on, but he is the person who actually gets to make all of the choices. The President is limited in some ways and given more power in other ways by the structure laid out for him in the Constitution, and evolved to be what it is now.

The concept of power is a divisive matter in the American political system, as the actors holding it are sometimes unable to impose it as a result of their limited authority to do so. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the national government depend on each-others point of view. Part of the Constitution was designed with the purpose of making it impossible for either of these three to become more powerful than the others. Each of them has the ability to check and balance the way that the other two function. In spite of the fact that this system was created with the intention of preventing power from being shared unequally in the country, it sometimes serves as a tool for political gridlock, considering that the judicial branches can debate in regard to a particular topic for unlimited amounts of time before actually reaching a conclusion regarding the respective issue.

The government of the United States of America has been around for over 2 centuries, in this time the original setup has been little altered. The government is composed of three individual branches: judicial, executive, and legislative branches. All three branches are held together using a system of checks and balances. While each branch has some kind of trump or has control over another branch, some branches are arguably more powerful than others. The main focus of this paper will be on where the executive branch stands power-wise. When our founding fathers first started building our nation from the dust, they had in mind a system of branches where no one branch was more powerful than the others. The decision of whether or not they hit

When a president is sworn into office, he or she takes on a multitude of titles. One of the many titles the president is issued is the role of Chief in Legislator. This means that the president plays a crucial part in the legislative process or lawmaking. This title holds much authority in the eyes of Americans (Hoffman & Howard, 1317). Though this title does not give the president absolute authority, it does grant him or her strong jurisdiction in the legislature. The framers of the Constitution did not want America to be a monarchy the way they were when under the rule of England. As a result, the framers purposefully outlined the president’s limited power in the constitution, creating a democratic

If the President is suspected of unlawful acts, he can be impeached, or tried by the Senate for misusing his power. The Senate has the sole power to try all impeachments. If he is found guilty, he can be punished but his sentence can be no more than being thrown out of office and being forbidden to hold any government office. Furthermore, if the President wants to spend money, his request must pass through Congress, since it has control over spending. Lastly, Congress can re-pass a bill that was vetoed by the President. Congress also has checks and balances against itself. The President can veto a bill from Congress, and although Congress can override a veto, obtaining a two-thirds vote to do so is very difficult. Public speeches by the President may also concern the public with an issue, putting pressure on Congress to act upon it. The Judicial branch exerts control over the other two by deciding whether or not actions made by the President or Congress, i.e., laws are constitutional.

To begin, the judicial branch has the power of ruling and presidential action or law unconstitutional. The other branches does not have the ability to decide if the president's actions are unconstitutional. The decisions of the supreme court are final meaning even if they are the president and their breaking the laws or they do something that breaks the constitution,the supreme court can rule against them. This is something neither the executive or legislative branch has the power to do. The president has to go through the judicial branch to rule super important things that may affect all of America. An example would be, the

In the article, “Unilateral Action and Presidential Power: A Theory,” Terry M. Moe and William G. Howell, two political science instructors from Stanford University, investigate a source of presidential power, which is the president’s capability to act individually and make his own law, that has been unacknowledged yet essential to presidential leadership that it defines how the modern presidency is distinctively modern. The authors’ purpose in the article is to outline a theory of this feature of presidential power by arguing that the president’s powers of unilateral action, which is developed from the ambiguity of the contract, are strengths in American politics since they are not mentioned in the constitution. They also claim that presidents push the ambiguity of the contract to make their powers grow and that Congress and the courts would not be able to stop them (Moe and Howell, 1999, p. 1-3).

The presidential power expanded because of the need for quick response to events and situations, such as 9/11 in addition to the fact that the constitution is not really specific on the subject.

The president is the leader of the executive branch. We can’t fully understand what the president is capable of unless we recall that he is held primarily accountable for, the ethics, loyalty, efficiency, and responsiveness to the american whishes. Both the congress and the constitution gave power to the president and rely solely on him to guide

American politics is often defined by a continuing power conflict between the executive and the legislative branches of the government. This struggle for political power between the two stronger branches of the three is inherent in the Constitution, itself. The concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances ensure that the branches of government will remain in conflict and provide a balance that keeps the entire government under control. As it was first established, the executive branch was much smaller and weaker than as we know it today. Consequently, the legislative branch was unquestionably dominant. Over the course of history, the executive branch grew in both size and power to the point where it occasionally overtook the

The division of powers into three branches makes it impossible for any one person or group to single handedly control every aspect of it. The three different powers, judicial, legislative, and executive, divide the powers equally among them. Since its separated into three powers, no power has total control of the country(Doc. 1). None of the powers can take actions without before asking the two other powers about it. This limits the president’s abilities to take the decisions he wants for the country. It also upholds the judicial branch to pass laws without the consent of the Executive and Legislative branches. Due to this system, for a branch to be able to convey ideas for the nation it needs the supermajority of the

People may feel that our president in executive branch may have too much power but in reality he does not, all of the three powers are equal in power. It is obvious the president was not given enough power in the Constitution to overpower the other branches . The president's authority to lead the nation is limited by checks and balances that were added by the framers of the Constitution. Without approval by Congress, the president can't get legislation passed. Without the support of the Supreme Court, the president's actions can be deemed illegal. The President is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress and, appoints the justices

In the admittedly short life time of the Presidential branch its occupants have taken massive strides in empowering and strengthening their office. At times a case could be made that the executive has aspired to too much; threating essential American political values, such is the case of President Franklin Roosevelt who secured a third term of office ignoring precedent and tradition. However, evidence would suggest that for any significant step a president takes towards increasing their power; often results in an equal and opposite reaction. That is not to say that our presidents are weak, in actuality we see that our presidents have significantly increased their power to wage war

In this paper we will compare the formal and informal powers if the President and we will explore how and why the Presidential powers have increased over time. The history of the Presidency is an account of aggrandizement; one envisions, today, a President with far reaching power, however, when looking at the Constitution alone we find a President with significant limits. Is the President of the United States the most powerful person in the world or merely a helpless giant?

The limits of power on the executive branch are continuously growing and expanding, because presidents have continued to push the boundaries to accomplish their own goals for the nation.