If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.
You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

Checks and Balances in United States Government (redirected from Checks and Balances in American Government)

Page history last edited by Matt Seastrand 11 months, 3 weeks ago

Topics on this page

Image from The New York Times (February 16, 2017)

Federalism

Separation of Powers

Legislative Branch
Judicial Branch
Executive Branch

Checks and Balances

Republican Government or Representative Democracy

Popular Sovereignty

House of Representatives

The Presidency

The Pardon Power of the President

Net Worth of American Politicians

Special Topic page for Money in American Politics

History of Women, African Americans and LBGTQ Legislators

Focus Question: What are examples of separation of powers, checks and balances and other key constitutional principles in the governments of the United States and the state of Massachusetts?

Federalism

Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes Federalism as "the theory or advocacy of federal political orders, where final authority is divided between sub-units and a center.

Unlike a unitary state, sovereignty is constitutionally split between at least two territorial levels so that units at each level have final authority and can act independently of the others in some area. Citizens thus have political obligations to two authorities.

For more, link to Federalism.

Click on the following link to view the text of each of the Federalist Papers.

Crash Course video about Federalism.

Click here to see a short 1953 film describing all the Presidents of the United States from Washington to Eisenhower.

Here are some worksheets to help students understand Federalism

The System of Checks and Balances

The American government includes an elaborate system of checks and balances to ensure that no one branch has too much power of the other branches.

As James Madison wrote in Federalist Number 51, "the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments [the Federal government and the governments of the several states], and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments [the executive, the legislative, and the judicial]."

Paul M Johnson, a political scientist at Auburn University offers the following examples:

The two houses of Congress may finally agree on a compromise to pass or repeal a law, but the President can veto it.

President and Congress can agree on passing a law, but if the federal judiciary declares it to be unconstitutional the courts will refuse to treat the law as valid or enforceable.

The courts can issue orders and injunctions for particular individuals to act or refrain from acting in particular ways, including public officials, but the power of the law enforcement agencies in the executive branch is needed to enforce them if the individuals in question decide to disobey.

The Congress cannot control the way a judge will rule in a particular case before him, but Congress has the power to define and redefine the jurisdiction of the various federal courts.

The President has general supervision of the conduct of foreign policy and military policy, but his treaties must be ratified by the Senate before they enter into force, and only Congress can appropriate public money to pay for such things as the raising of an army or the dispensing of foreign aid.

The United States government is divided into three separate branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. This was designed so that the power could not be concentrated in the hands of the few. In order to ensure that the power remained divided, a system of checks and balances was put into place.

The Legislative branch has the following checks and balances:

On the Judicial branch:

Senate approves justices
The House can impeach justices
The Senate tries impeached justices
Congress can create amendments
Congress can set jurisdiction for courts
Congress can alter the size of the Supreme Court

On the Executive branch:

House can impeach a President
Senate tries impeached an President
If there is no electoral majority, the House chooses the President and the Senate chooses the Vice President
Congress can override a Presidential veto with a 2/3 vote in the House and Senate
Senate approves departmental appointments, treaties, and ambassadors
Congress has to approve replacements to the Vice President
Congress declares war
Congress can tax
The President is required to make "State of the Union" addresses

The two different houses of Congress also have checks and balances on each other

Bills must be passed by each house before becoming law
Revenue bills must start in the House
There has to be consent from the other house before a house adjourns for more than three days
All journals from each house are required to be published

The Judicial branch has the following checks and balances:

On the Legislative branch:

Judicial Review
Compensation is not allowed to decrease
Judicial seats are held on good behavior

On the Executive branch:

Judicial Review
During impeachment trials, the Chief Justice is President of the Senate

The Executive branch has the following checks and balances:

On the Legislative branch:

The President has the power to veto
The Vice President is the President of the Senate
The President is the Commander in Chief of the military
Recess appointments

The President can make appointments of senior federal officials while the Senate is in recess

The President can call the House and Senate into emergency sessions
When the houses do not agree on adjournment, the President has the power to force it
Compensation is not allowed to decrease

On the Judicial branch:

The President can appoint justices
The President has pardon power

On the Executive branch:

The Vice President and the Cabinet has the power to vote the President is incapable of performing his duties

Learning plan on creating your own Law https://www.graphite.org/lesson-plans/how-a-bill-becomes-a-law-create-your-own-board-game

To learn more about the branches of the government and their respective powers, go to Ben's Guide to U.S. Government. Click here for a video explaining the Separation of Powers

Click here for a link to several lesson plans on the concept of the separation of powers, provided by the National Constitution Center.

For more, see Separation of Powers.

All Federal Branches, Smithsonian

Flag of the Speaker of the House of Representatives

Flag of the Speaker of the House of Representatives

The White House has a site describing the three branches

Lesson Plans on Government from the Library of Congress

Documents and their meaning from the National Archives

Legislative Branch

State (Massachusetts)

U.S. Census Bureau has activities exploring states

The official flag of the United States Senate

The official flag of the United States Senate.

Federal Judiciary

Federal Courts have a site with educational activities

Crash Course video about checks and balances.

Click on the following link for the Powers of Congress.

Check out a debate in congress between Senators John McCain (R) and Dick Durbin (D)

School House Rock "I'm Just a Bill"

Click here for a fun game about checks and balances.

For more information on the executive branch, see How the President Works from the website, How Stuff Works.

For more about checks and balances, see here (Checks and Balances).

The Impact of the Iroquois Nation on The U.S. Government

Republican Government or Representative Democracy

Democracy in America primarily takes the form of a republican form of government or a representative democracy. Unlike a direct democracy where the people decide every issue (for example, a New England town meeting), in a representative system, the people allow their democratically elected representatives (members of Congress and state legislatures as well as the President and state governors) to make political decisions and choices.

Lesson plan packet for high school for representative democracy.

Popular Sovereignty

As the Ohio Historical Society has noted: popular sovereignty is a political term that simply means that the “people are the rulers.” The concept of rule by the people is central to the American system of government. Issues and questions of national, state and local importance are decided democratically by the will of the people as expressed by their votes in elections. Here is an article from the New York Times that explains popular sovereignty.

House of Representatives

external image Flag_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives.png
Click here for the 10 (really 12) Most Important Things to Know about the House of Representatives.

Click here for Oral History of the House of Representatives, a collection of interviews with former House staff members.

Click here for a live feed of the House of Representatives when it is in session.

Image of Mount Rushmore stamp, 3-cents, 1952 issue

Smithsonian National Postal Museum/Public Domain

The Presidency

Presidential Powers: An Introduction, from Exploring Constitutional Conflicts

Does the President Have Too Much Power? Aberbeen (Washington) School District

The American Presidency Project

The State of Union Address

Ten Facts about the State of the Union Address, Council on Foreign Relations (January 23, 2019)

Anxiety is Growing in Congress Over How Much a President Can Wield, NPR (March 12, 2019)

Is the Presidency Too Powerful? Podcast from the National Constitution Center (February 21, 2019)

Executive Orders by American Presidents

The Presidency Smithsonian

President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the United States Congress

in the Chamber of the House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., Feb. 12, 2013

Republicans Now Are More Open to the Idea of Expanding Presidential Power, Pew Research Center (August 7, 2019)

Among the public, 66% said "it would be too risky to give U.S. Presidents more power to deal directly with many of the nation's problems"

The Pardon Power of the President

Article 2, Section 2: The President is given the "power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment"

The power is limited to federal crimes, not state offenses or civil suits

Pardon Information and Instructions, Department of Justice

Memorial statue depicting the Whiskey Rebellion, located on Main Street in Washington, Pennsylvania

Why U.S. Presidents Can Pardon Anyone, CNBC (June 6, 2018)

The Long History of Presidential Pardons in the U. S., NPR (March 13, 2019)

How Presidential Pardons Work, How Stuff Works

The power originated with English kings who could overturn any sentence

George Washington issued the first pardon in 1794 to Pennsylvania farmers who participated in the Whiskey Rebellion

Franklin Roosevelt issued the most pardons, 3687 in 3 terms; Harry Truman (2044); Bill Clinton (456); George H. W. Bush (77)

Pardon Powers in the States

50-State Comparison: Characteristics of Pardon Authorities, Restoration of Rights Project (2020)

Net Worth of Members of Congress

For information on the Net Worth of Members of Congress, see Personal Finances from the OpenSecrets website of the Center for Responsive Politics. Data made available under the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.

Median net worth in 2012 was $1,008,767.

Democrats had higher median net worth ($1.04 million) than republicans ($1 million).

Net worth of Senators ($2.7 million); House members ($896,000).

As of 2014 the average net worth of American politicians was $301,000 while the median for all Americans was $45,000. These numbers show the difference between the government and the people they serve.