The three branches of government have different responsibilities that intertwine and have developed over time. Through the learning curve, laws, policies, and the articles have changed in order to improve the country and make the nation more united. The rights of citizens became an important aspect to show equality, even if total equality has not been achieved yet. Although each branch of government has alternate responsibilities, the system of checks and balances works towards keeping each branch in place. However, through these developments, corruptness has taken place in the government and has prevented beneficial change from impacting the society. Due to this, there is ambivalence involving the necessity of the Congress. Change and learning …show more content…
are necessary in order to improve the government and strengthen the nation as one. While the three branches have overlapping roles, each branch is responsible for a specific task in our government. This is due to the separation of powers, which divided the power among three branches so that not one had single control. The legislative branch is made up of the House of Representatives and Senate. The House has 435 members, representing each of the fifty states based on population. The Senate contains 100 members, two from each state. Together, they make up Congress, which creates laws and votes on bills, while working hand in hand with the president and Supreme Court. The executive branch compromises of the president, vice president, and Cabinet. In order to be president, there is a set of qualifications which include being a U.S. citizen, residency for fourteen years, and at least 35 years of age. While the legislative branch creates laws, the executive branch applies them and enforces them. The president has the power to veto bills, but it can be overridden by Congress if they get ⅔ votes in both the Senate and House. The judicial branch is mainly the Supreme Court, which interprets the meaning of laws and declares whether or not they are constitutional. They are the most powerful court in the United States. The federal judges of the court are appointed for life, and can only be removed by death or impeachment. This contrasts with the other branches because the president is elected every four years, Senate elected every six years, and House every two years. While each branch has different powers, they all overlap in certain areas. Although government has evolved a lot over time, the separation of powers has always been a strong continuity throughout the years. The legislative branch was the first to be created by the Constitution and was given the power to make laws, declare war, and approve/reject presidential appointments. A debate arose about the number of representatives each state should receive, and whether it should be equal or pertain to population. The Great Compromise of 1787 solved this issue by creating a bicameral legislature which had an equal amount of senators per state, and representatives based on population. With the executive branch, the separation of powers became essential because the people did not want another all powerful king. Due to this, they created the rule of separation of powers in order to ensure that each branch had an equal amount of power. This gave the president limited abilities, such as: appointing judges to the Supreme Court and being the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The judicial branch has changed in terms of the powers they possess; they have the ability to check the power of the executive and legislative branches along with unifying the country by settling debates among states. This is otherwise known as the system of checks and balances, which gives each branch the authority to check how much power each branch possesses. The judicial review was also created after the Marbury v. Madison case and gives the court the power to determine whether or not a legislative law is constitutional. All of these changes were due to the efforts of trying to improve the branches while maintaining an equal amount of authority throughout the government. The Constitution had better results than the original Articles of Confederation, but it was apparent there were some changes that needed to be made. The Constitution did not list certain individual rights to the people, so James Madison set out to draft the Bill of Rights. Although Madison had drafted an original twelve rights, two failed to achieve approval by a few states. The Bill of Rights then included ten amendments after approval that granted rights to the citizens of the United States of America. These amendments list rights such as freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and more. As time went on, more amendments were added to ensure safety and provide appropriate more rights and regulations to the people. A few of these new amendments included women’s suffrage, abolishing slavery and the voting age being lowered to eighteen and as well as not being based on race. These new amendments were as important as the initial ones because they granted rights, equality, and privilege to a majority of the people. The whole Bill of Rights provides protection to the people and helps unify them by supporting the people and applying limitations to the government. All three branches were important in helping the Bill of Rights come to light because they were all necessary for it to get approved. In order to make an amendment, the legislative branch, Congress, initially proposes the idea. It must be proposed by Congress with a ⅔ vote from the House and Senate, or a constitutional convention. Once the amendment is ratified, it immediately becomes part of the constitution. The Supreme Court works to protect these rights and enforce them. The constitution itself limits the power of the executive branch. Without the three branches, the rights granted to citizens would be a lot more difficult to obtain and maintain. Although government is perceived to be an essential part for order and regulations, there are instances where the government is exhibits corruptness that hints at the ineffectiveness of it.
One case this can be seen in is the broken branch. Congress is referred to as the broken branch due to decisions based on personal benefit rather than the interest of the people. Rather than abiding by the necessary checks and balances system, Congress simply succumbs to the needs of the executive branch. This creates a conundrum because instead of Congress being an individual agent, they are showing preference to the executive branch by refusing to point out flaws in the government’s infrastructure. This corruptness suggests that Congress is becoming an unnecessary aspect of the government. However, Mark Foley states that “If Congress fails, democracy fails,” which implies that Congress is necessary for the government to succeed. In order for this to improve, the corruptness in Congress needs to be solved so that disorder does not resume. Some people may say that Congress is “sick” rather than broken, but this claim is proved false by the multiple instances politicians have shown more care for personal benefit, like money, rather than the greater good of the nation. One example of this can be seen by the statement saying Steve Mnuchin and his wife used government money to travel to see the solar eclipse. This action was simply a gambit in order to use government money for personal gain. This provides proof that corrupt politicians use the government for themselves, which enforces the fact that broken branch (Congress) indeed participates in skullduggery, is in need of change, and may prove to be unnecessary in the
future. In conclusion, the three branches of government have an equal balance of power that helps them make decisions and improve the wellbeing of the nation. This has evolved over time in order to benefit the people and make the government more productive as a whole. Though the separation of powers and system of checks and balances were put in palace to ensure that no one branch has total authority, corruptness has still taken place in Congress. Congress is also known as the broken branch, which has prevented positive change from occurring. This needs to be resolved because Congress is necessary for the success of democracy and learning from these mistakes will help the government evolve in a beneficial manner.
In conclusion this is why tyranny and federalism, separation of power, checks and balances and big and small states all mean that they are important to know also the branches are a big part especially in the separation of
Monitoring and sanctions are the more costly of oversight functions and the least likely to be used; they also do not ensure that the noncompliance problem will end. (McCubbins, Noll and Weingast 1987) This follows with McCubbins and Schwartz who theorize that members of congress do not neglect monitoring and their oversight functions but that they prefer the fire-alarm policing in which citizens tend to alert them to problems because it allows them to also do their legislative work (1984). Monitoring along with its economic costs also has political costs if an action that an agency takes in its noncompliance creates a new political interest then by sanctioning them members can incur political costs that would not have otherwise been present with proper anticipation and prevention. (McCubbins, Noll and Weingast 1987) Anticipatory prevention of noncompliance is a form of latent control that congress can exercise that is more effective; Calvert, McCubbins and Weingast develop a theory that includes this finding, “Latent oversight is, by definition, never observed; but its role in implementing political control over the agency is in principle just as important as that of active control (Calvert, McCubbins and Weingast, 1989).” This often occurs when the agent fears sanction in the case of this theory developed the veto, this point would
Checks and Balances. Checks and balances is a system that is a part of out U.S. Constitution. This system was put in to place so that no part of government would have too much power. The three branches: judicial, legislative and executive are constantly granting and checking the other branches actions, this is to make sure no one person can gain an excessive amount of control in government. For example according to ," the legislative branch is in charge of making laws. The executive branch can veto the law, thus making it harder for the legislative branch to pass the law. The judicial branch may also say that the law is unconstitutional and thus make sure it is not a law.The legislative branch can also remove a president or judge that is not doing his/her job properly. The executive branch appoints judges and the legislative branch approves the choice of the executive branch. Again, the branches check and balance each other so that no one branch has too much power".
As seen quite often in the Obama administration, legislation gets stuck and lost in Congress due to the polarization of the parties in recent years. In Obama’s case, he has frequently threatened to go around the House and Senate if they could not reach an agreement or would shoot down his plans. Cato’s Pilon points out, however, that the hurdles of Congress are no mistake. Pilot states that the framer’s of the Constitution knew what they were doing, and this was intended to keep the checks and balances as well as accountability to the public (Lyons,
September 17, 1787, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; during the heat of summer, in a stuffy assembly room of Independence Hall, a group of delegates gathered. After four months of closed-door quorums, a four page, hand written document was signed by thirty-nine attendees of the Constitutional Convention. This document, has come to be considered, by many, the framework to the greatest form of government every known; the Constitution of the United States. One of the first of its kind, the Constitution laid out the frame work for the government we know today. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people; constructed of three branches; each branch charged with their own responsibilities. Article one established the Congress or Legislative branch, which would be charged with legislative powers. Article two created the Executive branch, providing chief executive powers to a president, who would act in the capacity of Commander in Chief of the Country’s military forces. The President of the United States also acts as head of state to foreign nations and may establish treaties and foreign policies. Additionally, the President and the departments within the Executive branch were established as the arm of government that is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress. Thirdly, under Article three of the Constitution, the Judicial branch was established, and consequently afforded the duty of interpreting the laws, determining the constitutionality of the laws, and apply it to individual cases. The separation of powers is paramount to the system of checks and balances among the three branches; however, although separate they must support the functions of the others. Because of this, the Legislative an...
In the past century, people continued to express an increasingly discontent view of Congress especially true when one looks back before the Clinton Impeachment debacle As the size of the nation and the number of congressman have grown, the congress has come under attack by both public influences and congressman themselves. Yet looking at one congressman's relationship with his or her constituents, it would be hard to believe that this is the branch of government that has come under suspect. In “If Ralph Nader says congress is 'The broken branch,' how come we love our congressman so much?” author Richard F. Fenno, Jr., provides insight into this view and why, through congress coming under fire, constituents still feel positively about there congressmen. Although congress is often criticized, its fine tuned functioning is essential in checking the power of congress without hindering the making of legislation.
The United States of America is one of the most powerful nation-states in the world today. The framers of the American Constitution spent a great deal of time and effort into making sure this power wasn’t too centralized in one aspect of the government. They created three branches of government to help maintain a checks and balance system. In this paper I will discuss these three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, for both the state and federal level.
Power is the main influence on Congress members. Without power there would not be a need of money, people wanting the best career for reasons other than to be successful, and Republican and Democratic parties who dominate all parties who have other views. Power is great or marked ability to do or act, strength, might, force. A certain member or party who has a lot of force in Congress can persuade other Congress men or women to vote for what they are told. The people who are tricked into schemes tend to be young members or those seeking approval and power themselves. These plans and wishes for control can cause loss of confidence and criticism of government, not only Congress. If members are found guilty of pressuring, paying money, among other things they can be brought to trial. In the end, this costs the country money to hold a trial that will most likely go to supreme court who have enough trials to take care of. Not all Congress members play mind games and vote for what they believe is best for the public good. The hard part is voting for who you believe is the best fit to make those decisions.
...ilities of Congress is that minorities and factions exist: dissent takes place, not disagreements. Verbal brawls take place rather than actual argumentation, and that is what kills democracy. That is why things never get done.
Congress has helped develop the Presidency as we know it today. This is because Congress argues over proposals and legislation proposed by the President. They are a major determent in whether bills turn into laws. But it’s not easy. One reason for this is because there are many powerful groups out there who argue about what should be discussed such as air pollution with the EPA or jobs.
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 legislative and today rivals the legislative in a much closer political battle. Today both branches have major factors that contribute to their power, but on the whole the legislative remains the lastingly dominant branch.
Throughout history, there have typically been shifts from harmony to conflict between the three branches of American government. The framers of the Constitution created the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government in order to form a system of checks and balances to prevent a single area of the government from becoming too powerful. This system of checks and balances has been accompanied by vast amounts of discord throughout its existence. The shifts in interbranch relations can be seen through Congressional deference prior to and during the beginning of the Vietnam War, Congressional resurgence after the Vietnam War, and a shift back to Congressional deference following the attacks of 9/11.
In the American political system, Congress plays a vital role. Whether it concerns legislation, finances and taxes, or investigation, Congress is a necessary entity for politics. With rules and regulations, Congress can effectively pass legislation that betters the United States. However, sometimes, Congress fails to answer and provide remedy to pressing issues that the United States face, which results in the failure of Congress enacting legislation regarding the most debatable and critical issues. Usually, congressional gridlock occurs when different parties are dominant in the House of Representatives and Senate, and the Houses do not come to conclusions on the issues.
In our countries government, Congress plays a major role in decision making. They’re primary role is to pass laws. These laws start off as bills. Bills can only be introduced by members of Congress. Although these bills only come from Congressman, there are many people who influence these bills. Such as the president, regular citizens, offices in the executive branch, and many others. The bills right off the bat do not have a very good chance of passage. Only one out of every ten bills even gets any attention at all. This is because they must go through many tests and hearings before they even have a chance of landing on the president’s desk. These steps in a bill becoming a law are very important, and make sure that all bills passed into law are the best of the best.
The most well-known technique is called lobbying which is the “attempt to influence policy by persuading public officials to favor or oppose action.” In the US, 50% of ex-legislators become lobbyists in large interest groups. Many interest groups claim responsibility for policies and election outcomes, to impress and encourage the joining of new members, regardless of whether their lobbying made the difference. Sizable amounts that groups spend to lobbying Congress can easily overshadow the more important issue of what they received for their money.