Checks and Balances in the American Constitution
Checks and balances are a principle of government where different branches are empowered to operate independently with the aim of controlling each other’s possible excesses. This means that the branches are induced to share the power to monitor each other. Checks and balances are mainly applicable in constitutional governments, with the fundamental relationships mostly constituting tripartite governments working to not only check on each other but also complement each other (Owens, 2005). The United States is one example of a government with checks and balances involving legislative, executive and judicial branches.
There are other checks and balances in the American Constitution. One is the presidential veto of the legislation, which can be overridden by the congress’ two-thirds majority vote. The other is the executive and judicial impeachment by Congress. In this arrangement, Congress is the only arm of government with the powers to appropriate funds.
Additionally, the houses check each other on the possible abuse of power or any disproportionate action. In practice, Congress also has the powers to reverse the Supreme Court decisions that they deem inappropriate through the initiation of a constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court members and other executive members, who are presidential appointees, must be approved by the senate. It is also the role of the senate to approve treaties (Owens, 2005).
The legislative veto was prominently exercised in 1983 by the Congress. During this time, particular clauses in the laws gave the executive powers the authority to act in specific subjects where the majority of votes from both houses registered their disapproval of such actions.
The case involved the deportation of an alien, where the Supreme Court ruled against that legislative vetoes as being unconstitutional. This was after the House of Representatives voted to overturn the Justice Department’s decision to suspend the deportation of the alien. The Justice Department’s decision had adversely affected over 200 laws, which covered varied subjects, including the presidential executive orders on declaring war, deciding foreign aid, sanctioning sales of arms, and environmental protection among others (Manuel & Cammisa, 2019).
Despite the decision by the Supreme Court, Congress continued to exercise their powers, which include legislative veto powers. Today, checks and balances have gone through evolution from custom and constitutional convention to congressional committee system and investigative powers, including roles played by political parties and the influence of the president when initiating legislations.
The Origin of Checks and Balances
The framers of the United States constitution had a strong influence from the Montesquieu and William Blackstone, who had the original idea of checks and balances. The Constitution framers saw checks and balances, as the only way of securing individual liberty in the constitution. When the people had elected representatives to the assembly, John Adams, the American statesman and the second president of the United States started the debate by asking whether the powers of government, legislature, executive and judiciary should be under one body (Adams, 2009).
Adams argued that this approach would deny the people freedom and that the people would certainly be unhappy if the government was under one assembly. This would be articulately captured in his letter to Richard Henry Lee, where he stated:
“A legislative, an executive, and a judicial power comprehend the whole of what is meant and understood by government. It is by balancing each of these powers against the other two that the efforts in human nature towards tyranny can alone be checked and restrained and any degree of freedom preserved in the constitution” (Burleigh, 2011, p. 161).
Based on this view, the judicial review would be established and given the role of examining the actions of the legislative, executive, and administrative arms of government to ensure that every action is constitutional. Although this role was not expressly highlighted in the text of the Constitution, it became one of the most important aspects of the United States Constitution.
This separation of powers in the form of checks and balances originated from the Roman Empire. In the Roman Empire, the monarchy was represented by the consul, aristocracy by the senate and democracy by the people. This type of arrangement greatly influenced America’s system of separation of powers in the checks and balances system.
In the British system, the checks and balances operate in a modified separation of powers under parliamentary systems. In this form of checks and balances, parliament has the prerogative powers to adopt a no-confidence vote against a sitting government, or cabinet, which in turn leads to the dissolution of the parliament. The British Parliament has supreme powers with the ability to pass laws. These laws are not subject to any review by the courts for constitutionality, hence remain the ultimate legal ceiling for deciding cases. In France, the government operates under the Fifth Republic (1958).
They have a form of government where a Constitutional Council of nine members, who are appointees of the president, Senate, and National Assembly, reviews the constitutionality of legislation. The nine-member team has a term limit of nine years. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the formation is similar to that of the United States, where the parliamentary and federal systems checks on each other. They have the power to declare a law unconstitutional.
The Americans’ adoption of the “trias politica” is seen as one that was inspired by the social and political philosopher Montesquieu through his published “Spirit of the Laws.” This was considered one of the greatest historical works in the field of political theory and jurisprudence.
Montesquieu’s work is seen as one that would later inspire both the Declaration of the Rights and the Constitution in the young United States under James Madison. This is because it was Montesquieu’s idea of the government as constituting executive, legislative, and judicial powers that would be adopted by the drafters of checks and balances. The system was based on the principle that the three powers should operate separately and independently to guarantee the liberty of the American people.
The genesis of checks and balances
As earlier stated, the concept of separation of powers was installed through the implementation of a series of checks and balances, which was incorporated into the United States Constitution. The goal was to ensure no single branch of government or person was too powerful to subvert the constitution.
This meant the constitution was put under the custody of three branches of government, namely legislative, executive and judicial systems. The drafters envisaged a scenario where without checks and balances it would be easy for an individual or a branch of government to exceed its bounds, perpetrate fraud, and engage in commissions and omissions errors.
In essence, the system of checks and balances was meant to act as some sort of control mechanism separating powers of the three branches of government. Practically, however, the power to take specific action was vested on one branch while the others were meant to verify the appropriateness and legality of the action.
As the founding father of the principles of checks and balances, James Madison had experienced it from personal level the dangers of one person or government having too many powers. This is what informed Madison’s remarks, “The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted” (Sidlow & Henschen, 2016, p. 42). The framers of the checks and balances believed that because it was the creation of government under the administration of humans over humans, there was the need to “first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself” (Welch, Gruhl, Rigdon, & Thomas, 2012, p. 31).
The founders believed that humans are naturally selfish, and always coveted to possess more property. They also believed that leaders would yearn for more powers to acquire material wealth at the expense of the people and that this aspect of humans could not be changed. As such, Madison would comment, “if men were angels, no government would be necessary” (Welch, Gruhl, Rigdon, & Thomas, 2012, p. 31). The framers decided that the only way to ensure the government-controlled itself was to develop a structure that would prevent anyone leader group of leaders, or factions of people from exercising power over more than a small part of it (Manuel & Cammisa, 2019). This is the reason why they fragmented the government into small units with different powers over each other, as reflected in the structures of federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances.
Federalism was the first step towards the division of power between the national government and the state governments. The United States government under the Articles of Confederation has been set in a manner that the state government wielded more powers. In this arrangement, the national government exercised only the powers granted by the state governments.
The founders of the constitution became unhappy with this arrangement, neither were they happy by the unitary system that the British government practiced during the colonial times. Thus, they arranged to have a unique system, with a strong national government and reasonably strong state governments to run concurrently.
This was the birth of the federal system of government, which was a compromise between the previous confederal and unitary systems. They had seen federalism as the best way to provide adequate power for the government function even as they check excessive power that could lead to tyranny.
The constitutional provisions delegated some powers to the national government even as others were reserved for the state governments. For example, foreign affairs roles, including those making treaties, declaration of war, and repelling of external attacks among others were bestowed on the national governments. Others were the authority to print currency and regulate interstate trades.
Taxation was tasked both on national and state governments. These provisions ensured the national government remained with more powers to deal with both domestic and foreign matters. However, authority over other matters such as those of the welfare of the people was handed over to the state governments. According to the Tenth Amendment, the powers not delegated to the national government were reserved for the state governments. This arrangement also guaranteed some reasonably strong state governments as well.
However, the generality and succinct nature of the Constitution’s language made it quite ambiguous. Although this made the document acceptable both to the proponents of the strong national government and supporters of strong state governments, it made it a bit vulnerable that it could be interpreted in favor of any side.
The next step was the Separation of powers, which was directed to the national government. This was the power to make, administer, and judge the laws would be split into three branches of legislative, executive, and judicial (Hamilton & Slutsky, 2017). To reinforce the principle of separation of powers, members of the three branches were selected through different means.
Representatives were elected by the people, senators were selected by the state legislatures, and the president selected by the Electoral College, whose members were selected by the states. In this arrangement, only federal judges were chosen by officials in the other branches. The President nominated the federal judges and the Senate vetted them for final confirmation. However, after their appointment, they were allowed to serve for their “good behavior”, hence served for life with full independence (Hamilton & Slutsky, 2017).
The design of the Senate was meant to act as a conservative brake on the House, largely because the selection of senators by the state legislatures and their longer-term was viewed as more trustworthy. However, Thomas Jefferson protested the establishment of a legislature with two houses, arguing that it would lead to a divided government (Welch, Gruhl, Rigdon, & Thomas, 2012).
In this aspect, there was the possibility of one political party controlling both elected branches, as another party winning the presidency. This division has been common throughout the United States’ history, especially since the emergence of Democratic and Republican parties in 1856. This prompted the addition of another element of Madison’s concept of separation of powers: The checks and balances.
Checks and balances were established to prevent the concentration of power. Madison argued that “ambitions must be made to counteract ambition”, hence the decision to give each branch some authority over the others (Bailey, 2015, p. 21). This arrangement ensured that if one branch abused its powers, the others could use the checks to put the offender into the task of taking responsibility. In this model, the American government would be comprised of the legislative branch whose role was to enact the laws, the executive tasked with implementation and enforcement of the laws, and the judiciary to interpret the laws in reference to the Constitution in case there is a legal controversy between the other branches or the people.
How checks and balances worked in the past
As earlier explained, checks and balances were established to prevent the concentration of powers in one hand or on a group of people. In Madison’s view, “the greater security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments by others…” (Welch et al., 2012, p. 32). Based on this assertion, each branch was given some authority over the others such that if one branch abused power, others would use their constitutional power to prevent it.
Checks and balances complicated the government’s functional abilities, because rather than having a simple separation of powers, the American system became a complex, and to some extent, a contradictory constitutional arrangement. While the system of separation of powers gave each branch its own sphere of authority, the checks and balance system gives each branch to watch over other branches, and question their actions if they deem it unconstitutional or illegal.
For instance, separation of powers gave the congress powers to make the laws, but checks and balances the president has the authority to veto them and courts can rule such actions unconstitutional. In this arrangement, all three branches, directly and indirectly, play a role in the process of legislation calls it “a government of separated institutions competing for shared powers” (Mettenheim, 1997, p. 23).
However, a number of scholars have argued that the practice of separation of powers, and that of checks and balances was never practiced as such (Owens, 2005; Jones, 2000). Instead, it was a government of separated institutions sharing powers. This was well captured in the often-repeated statement by Dwight D. Eisenhower, “I am part of the legislative process” to remind other branches of his veto powers as the 34th President of the United States (Mettenheim, 1997, p. 23).
With this form of arrangement comprised of federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances, conflicts abounded. This arrangement invited several parts of government that would struggle against each other, hence limit any one branch’s ability to dominate the rest. They envisaged a balanced government, where the national and state governments would represent different interests. The House would represent the common people while the senate would represent both the wealthy people and the small states.
The president would represent all the people, as the Supreme Court represented the Constitution. In their own wisdom, they anticipated that although the branches would struggle for more power, none could accumulate enough powers to dominate other branches. That is, each branch would have to compromise or cede some powers and accept policies in favor of the interests of all parties or the majority’s interests.
Nevertheless, it was noted that there were numerous elements of undemocratic clauses in the early Constitution with its checks and balances components. Some of the undemocratic features included those that denied some Americans the right to participate in the government, and some Americans could not receive equal treatment from the government.
First, even though there were checks and balances, the constitution did not have clauses that forbid slavery. The Congress was not allowed to bring to an end slave trade for over two decades. In fact, the Three-Fifths Compromise institutionalized slavery even further by increasing the political powers of slaveholders (Henricks, 2017).
Moreover, the Constitution did not guarantee a section of society the right to vote. This gave states the freehold authority to exclude African Americans, Native Americans, women and other minorities from voting. In fact, some years would see certain states excluding white men who did not own property and those who never belonged to any established church from voting (Henricks, 2017). The founders created the Electoral College to prevent the people from choosing the president.
The changes and transformation of checks and balances
Checks and balances have faced a lot of tests since its enactment into the Constitution centuries ago. It started with President Franklin Roosevelt when checks and balances faced one of its greatest challenges in 1937. During this time, Roosevelt audaciously attempted to pack the Supreme Court with libel justices.
After reelection win for the second term in 1936 by a big margin, Roosevelt faced one big challenge against the judicial review. The latter threatened to undo some of Roosevelt’s major policy achievements through the judicial powers in checks and balances. Between 1935 and 1936, a conservative majority in the Court did away with many significant acts of Congress, including those that dealt with the National Recovery Administration, the centerpiece of Roosevelt’s New Deal (Rofe, 2007).
Roosevelt would later in 1937 ask Congress to bestow in him the powers to appoint an additional justice for any member of the Court who had reached the age of 70 but did not retire. The request could expand the Court to have up to 15 justices. The proposal was the beginning of the never-ending battle of the three branches of government that is seen to date.
Many Supreme Court justices even considered resigning to protest the proposal just in case the plan had gone through. At the end of it all, Chief Justice Charles Hughes opposed the proposal by writing an open letter to the Senate against granting the president such a request (Abbott, 2011). Additionally, one of the older justices resigned, which allowed Roosevelt to replace him. This replacement shifted the balance on the Court, which narrowly averted a constitutional crisis because the checks and balances system remained intact despite the threats to its survival.
The enactment of the War Powers Act vs. Presidential Veto.
In November 1973, Congress passed the War Powers, which technically overrode the presidential veto to declare war unchecked. President Richard Nixon opposed the move by Congress, terming it an “unconstitutional and dangerous” check on his duties as commander-in-chief (Nuechterlein, 2019, p.49). Created in the wake of the Korean War and the much-contested Vietnam War, mandated the president to first consult with Congress when deciding to deploy American troops to any war.
The legislatures had the 60 days grace period to declare war or authorize the deployment of the U.S. soldiers. If they failed to act during this period then the American troops would be sent back home. The main purpose of the War Powers Act was to give legislatures powers to check on the increasing powers that the White House had on war declarations. The latter was seen as making some war declarations that were deemed unnecessary and costly to Americans. This was after President Harry Truman, JF. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon had each mounted the undeclared conflict during the Vietnam War (Nuechterlein, 2019).
After the passing of the War Powers Act, controversies about the act would continue when in 1981, President Ronald Reagan decided to deploy American troops to El Salvador. His actions raised concerns because he neither consulted nor submitted a report to Congress.
Years later, President Bill Clinton would go against the act by his continued bombing of Kosovo even after the 60-day grace period had elapsed. President Barack Obama would also extend the controversy when in 2011 he initiated military action in Libya without seeking authorization from Congress. During Bill Clinton’s reign, the House of Representatives’ attempts to repeal the Act through amendment of many of its components was narrowly defeated, living the Act intact.
State of Emergency Declaration
The challenge with checks and balances was also experienced with the presidential powers to declare a state of emergency. The first test happened when President Harry Truman declared a state of emergency in December 1950. As the first state of emergency, Truman never sought approval from Congress. In 1976, Congress would pass the National Emergencies Act, which would formally grant them the powers to check the President’s powers to declare national emergencies. The Act was enacted in wake of the Watergate Scandal, and it included the requirement to have the states of emergency expire after a year unless renewed.
Since 1976 after the passing of the National Emergencies Act, there have been nearly 60 states of emergencies declared by different presidents. In these moments, presidents had the powers over many components of the nation including land use, military, public health and immigration among others.
The state of emergencies can only be stopped if both the Senate and the House of Representatives vote to veto it or if the matter is declared unconstitutional by the courts. The most recent one was when President Donald Trump declared the State of Emergency on February 15, 2019, with the aim of obtaining funds to implement his border wall with Mexico
President Trump declared, “The current situation at the southern border presents border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency” (Dycus, Banks, Hansen, & Vladeck, 2019).
How checks and balances work today
In the arrangements with three branches of government- legislative, executive, and judicial, the framers of the constitution had visualized a stable federal government with separation of powers with checks and balances (Manuel & Cammisa, 2019). In the Federalist Paper No. 51 published in 1788, Madison described the principle, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicial in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny” (Hudson, 2012, p. 13).
In both theories and practice, each branch of the United States government is under checks by others, hence creating a “watch-over-each-other” kind of relationship. For example, the President heads the executive branch and has the veto powers to decline or reject laws passed by Congress.
On another dimension, Congress has the powers to override the Presidential vetoes with a two-thirds vote from both the Senate and the House of Representatives. On a similar breadth, the Supreme Court, which is the judicial branch, has powers to nullify any Congress-passed laws if they deem it unconstitutional. But the powers of the Supreme Court are also curtailed because he or she must be an appointee of the President with approval from the Senate.
In the a nutshell, the executive branch checks and balances on the legislative branch include powers to veto laws passed by Congress, propose new laws to Congress, Submits the Federal Budget to the House of Representatives, and appoint federal officials, whose duties are to execute and enforce laws (Manuel & Cammisa, 2019).
The executive branch checks and balances on the judicial branch include roles such as the nomination of judges to the Supreme Court, the nomination of judges to the federal court system, and the presidential powers to pardon or grant amnesty to persons convicted of crimes. However, presidential vetoes can be overridden by Congress with a two-thirds vote from both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senate can also use the two-thirds rule to reject proposed treaties, and nomination of federal officials and judges.
Congress can also impeach and remove the President or any other executive member. In this format, House serves as the prosecution, while the senate becomes the jury. On its role to check on the Judicial branch, the legislative branch has the powers to create lower courts, reject presidential nominees to the federal courts and Supreme Court, amend the Constitution to reverse decisions of the Supreme Court, and ability to impeach the judges of the lower federal courts.
The Judicial branch checks on the executive branch through judicial review to rule laws they deem unconstitutional. The judicial branch also checks on the legislative branch through the powers to rule presidential actions unconstitutional, and use the judicial review powers to rule treaties unconstitutional.
In short, there is a general agreement that the executive branch has had some expanded powers since the 19th century, consequently disrupting the original intentions of the framers of checks and balances. Some of the concerns are the presidential vetoes, which can be overridden by Congress.
Similarly, the ability of Congress to thwart presidential appointments and judicial determinations has also created a lot of controversies. On the expanded powers of the executive, some have questioned the president’s powers to issue executive orders to federal agencies without seeking approval from Congress. This is because executive orders are not expressly stated in the United States Constitution, but instead implied by Article II. In Article II, it is stated that the president “shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
The president’s executive orders can only direct the government to make some policy changes, but they neither have the mandate to create new laws nor powers to appropriate funds from the treasury.
Nevertheless, checks and balances system has served the original purpose as intended by the framers by ensuring that the three branches of the United States government balance their roles and powers.
The Current Events in Washington
Over the years the Executive has been accused of attempting to expand its powers over legislative and judicial branches beyond the limits provided to them by the constitution. After the end of the Civil War, the executive branch has always sought to expand its constitutional scope in many ways. This is specifically on the role of the president as the Commander-in-Chief, and other powers such as his roles in issuing executive orders, declaration of local and national emergencies, granting and revocation of security classifications, presidential pardons, presidential bill signing statements and executive privileges (Manuel & Cammisa, 2019).
Some have also argued that there are more checks on the powers legislative branch enjoys than over the other branches of executive and judicial branches. For instance, both the executive and judicial branches have the powers to override or nullify the laws passed by the legislative branch.
President Donald Trump has relentlessly taken actions that are deemed to diminish the checks and balances system. For the last three years since he came to power, a number of actions have been taken from the White House that many critics believe are a direct assault on the checks and balances principle.
There are those who believe that President Trump has been consistently installing Imperial Presidency. This is because of the series of decisions and actions that seem to infringe on the roles of the legislative branch of the government under Article I of the Constitution. For example, issues that have been raised are related to taxing, borrowing and spending money, sanctioning acts of war and regulating commerce among others.
According to Manuel & Cammisa (2019), President Trump is just advancing what has been going on covertly for the last half-century, which is the erosion of checks and balances principles in favor of the executive at the expense of judicial and legislative branches.
In particular, President Trump has disregarded the powers granted to the legislative branch by the checks and balances provisions in the Constitution on many occasions. For instance, it is the prerogative role of the legislative branch to determine what funds should be drawn from the treasury and for what purpose (Manuel & Cammisa, 2019).
This violation of the funding provided is part of the articles of impeachment that included the allegations of bribery attempts, which involved the withholding of funds that Congress had already appropriated to be given to Ukraine to help them defend themselves against the Russian incursion. This is similar to President Trump’s decision to divert funds meant for the United States military base in the U.S. and Europe to instead accomplish his campaign promise of building the Mexican border. This was one of the most egregious actions based on the fact that Congress had explicitly refused to approve the wall construction on many occasions.
The highlights of the dilution of the checks and balances component of the constitution were even worse when President Trump instructed government officials to ignore subpoenas from the committee of the House of Representatives. The committee required the government officials to testify and volunteer data for the purpose of accomplishing its legislative role. The president claimed, “Absolute immunity” for himself and those of his former and present staff in government agencies both insider and outside White House. This action led to the other article of impeachment advanced in the House, which was based on the obstruction of Congress by the executive.
While President Trump has not explicitly resorted to preventing his close associates to testify, every action shows a person who is determined to strip Congress of his legislative roles as stipulated in the Constitution. These actions could only mean one thing: preventing Congress from exposing him, which may lead to unfavorable publicity.
Ironically, Congress has really struggled to retain its power to declare war and other core mandates that the executive seems to overstep its mandate. In practice, the last two decades have seen matters to do with foreign policy and war solely being dealt with by the executive branch of government. For example, recently, President Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani only after notifying Russia, Israel, and Republican leaders in the two houses. This means that the president chose to bypass the role of the legislative branch.
The current state of the checks and balances provided in the constitution and action by the executive suggests that the legislative authority has been seized by the executive branch of government. This systematic move has continuously undermined the watchdog role of each of the three branches as envisaged by the framers of the constitution, thus exposing American citizens to the accumulated tyrannical authority of the executive wing of the government.
As some have argued, President Trump is simply the crest of a long-term trend that has been with Americans for decades. These have been evident in the past few years by the differences in ideologies between the three branches of government (Samuilov, 2019). When President Obama was faced with the gridlock that barred his legislative proposals from passing the two houses in the first two years into the presidency, he resorted to executive orders to allow him to accomplish his objectives.
Republicans protested President Obama’s moves, arguing that he was going beyond his mandate as a president. Interestingly, courts successfully nullified some of his decisions. However, some of President Obama’s appointees to major regulatory agencies continued to follow up and implement some of the policies that he supported, despite being rejected by the legislative branch.
The dramatic nature with which President Trump has taken into reversing many of Obama’s executive orders has exposed partisan differences between Republicans and Democrats. As has been the trend, Obama’s success with executive orders and regulatory initiatives are being reversed faster than they came. Despite having enjoyed majority support in both houses in his first two years, Trump has systematically and speedily issued executive orders to reverse almost every progress Obama made with his executive orders.
Trump has made numerous appointments in the regulatory bodies and given them tasks to modify and abolish rules their predecessors installed. The other alarming trend of Trump’s regime is the frequent appointment of heads of departments and agencies under the “acting” capacity. This strategy has helped him prevent the senate from subjecting the chosen appointees into explaining their actions or seeking the Senate’s authority in certain actions. Ironically, Republicans who protested Obama’s executive orders are currently silent on President Trump’s executive orders.
To make matters worse for the legislative branch, the Senate has been under the GOP control. As such, they have been reluctant to reassert its authority by setting a firm limit on the period one should serve on an interim basis after appointment to the action capacity. The consequence is that political appointees who are responsible for many functions of the government are not answerable to anyone except the White House, diminishing the role of checks and balances clauses in the Constitution (Samuilov, 2019). The outcome is the imbalance in checks and balances, which has massively tilted in favor of the executive, hence losing its original meaning as envisioned by the framers of the constitution.
Conclusion
The framers of the American Constitution envisaged a situation where power concentrated in one person or a group of people would lead to possible excesses with the leadership of the United States. They saw checks and balances, as the only way the constitution would secure individual liberty. This prompted them to create checks and balances clauses that would ensure the three branches of government- the executive, legislative and judicial, checked on each other to bring balance while executing their duties.
Giving each branch some authority over the other worked well to control the excesses of the government. Although checks and balances complicated the government’s functional abilities, it protected the American people’s liberty. One of the most prominent impacts of checks and balances would come during the Franklin Roosevelt presidency. When Roosevelt audaciously attempted to pack the Supreme Court with libel justice after his reelection in 1936 by a big margin, it was the Supreme Court’s checks and balances powers that saved the situation.
However, over the last few decades checks and balances principles have faced massive challenges of defacing by successive regimes from the 1970s. In specific is the use of executive orders by president that has peaked in President Donald Trump’s government. Before Trump, there was President Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barrack Obama whose use of executive powers to make declarations was massively criticized (Samuilov, 2019). In other words, Checks and Balances have tilted to favor the executive branch of the government than legislative and judicial branches.
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