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Constitutional & Contract Law

Checks and balances in the US government: Why we need them and how they work

In the United States government there are three branches of government. There is the executive branch, judicial branch and legislative branch. Each branch has a checks and balance system, meaning no one branch can have complete control of the government. The legislative branch checks on the executive branch by having the power to impeach, overturn the president's veto with 2/3 of vote from both houses, the Senate can also reject proposed treaties as long as they have 2/3 approval and the power to declare war. The legislative also has checks on the judicial branch with the following the Senates has the power to approve, impeach or remove federal judges from the bench, the power to commence constitutional amendments and set jurisdiction courts. The executive branch checks on the legislative are the following: having veto power and the Vice president is the president of the Senate. The executive branch has the ability to appoint judges, has the power to pardon convicted criminals and grant amnesty. The judicial branch checks the legislative by having judicial review and compensation that can't be diminished. The checks on the executive are judicial review and the Chief justice sit as president of the Senate during presidential impeachment process. The checks and balance system is used to create a separation of power. The separations of power is to "protect democracy and tyranny." The system ideally doesn't allow one part of the government to have complete rule. You would think that everyone would approve of this type of democracy. Professors Charles M Hardin disagrees with the separation of powers, "regardless of whether it accomplished this end, it also slow down the process of governing promoting executive dictatorship and unaccountability". I do believe that because the government does have a lot of checks and balance it does take longer for laws to be past, declare war as a results making the process slower. Slowing down isn't always a bad thing. Why do we need to rush through just to get a law passed or to declare war? It might be a good idea to sit back for a minute and make sure that we are making the decision that's right for this nation. "No matter what demarcated government follows there always be a complete separation of power or lack of separation of power."

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