ith other nations, with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. The President also appoints, with Senate consent, diplomatic representatives, Supreme Court judges, and many other officials. Except impeachment, he also has the power to issue pardons and reprieves. Such pardons are not subject to confirmation by either house of Congress, or even to acceptance by the recipient. Another important power granted to the President is veto power over all bills, but Congress, as noted above, may override any veto except for a pocket veto by a two-thirds majority in each house. When the two houses of Congress cannot agree on a date for adjournment, the President may settle the dispute. Either house or both houses may be called into emergency session by the President.
The judicial power—the power to decide cases and controversies—is vested in the Supreme Court and inferior court established by Congress. The following are the powers of the Judiciary: the power to try federal cases and interpret the laws of the nation in those cases; the power to declare any law or executive act unconstitutional. The power granted to the courts to determine whether legislation is consistent with the Constitution is called judicial review. The concept of judicial review is not written into the Constitution, but was envisioned by many of the framers. The Supreme Court established a precedent for judicial review in Marbury v. Madison. The precedent established the principle that a court may strike down a law it deems unconstitutional.
3. Checks and Balances
The framers of the U.S. Constitution saw checks and balances as essential for the security of liberty under the Constitution. They believed that by balancing the powers of the three governmental branches, the efforts in human nature toward tyranny could be checked and restrained. John Adams praised the balanced government as the “most stupendous fabric of human invention.” In his A Defense of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (1787), he wrote, “In the mixed government we contend for, the ministers, at least of the executive power, are responsible for every instance of the exercise of it; and if they dispose of a single commission by corruption, they are responsible to a house of representatives, who may, by impeachment, make them responsible before a senate, where they may be accused, tried, condemned, and punished, by independent judges.” (Isaak 2004:103-104) So the system of checks and balances was established and became an important part of the U.S. Constitution. With checks and balances, each of the three branches of government can limit the powers of the others. This way, no one branch is too powerful. Each branch “checks” the powers of the other branches to make sure that the power is balanced between them. The major checks possessed by each branch are listed below.
- Can check the president in these ways:
- By refusing to pass a bill the president wants
- By passing a law over the president’s veto
- By using the impeachment powers to remove the president from office
- By refusing to approve a presidential appointment (Senate only)
- By refusing to ratify a treaty the president has signed (Senate only)
- Can check the federal courts in these ways:
- By changing the number and jurisdiction of the lower courts
- By using the impeachment powers to remove a judge from office
- By refusing to approve a person nominated to be a judge (Senate only)
- Can check Congress by vetoing a bill it has passed
- Can check the federal courts by nominating judges
- Can check Congress by declaring a law unconstitutional
- Can check the president by declaring actions by him or his subordinates to be unconstitutional or not authorized by law
By distributing the essential powers of the government among three separate but interdependent branches, the Constitutional framers ensured that the principal powers of the government, legislative, executive and judicial, were not concentrated in the hands of any single branch. Allocating governmental authority among three separate branche