C. Separation of Powers

The delegates also limited the authority of the national government. First, they created three branches of government:

• a legislative branch to make laws

• an executive branch to carry out laws

• a judicial branch to interpret the laws and settle disputes

The Legislative Branch

At the federal level, the legislative branch of government is referred to as Congress. The US Congress is a bicameral legislature--meaning that it has two houses. The Congress consists of the upper house--the Senate and the lower house--the House of Representatives. Together, the Senate and House of Representatives have the following powers:

• • Most basically, to pass laws at the federal level

  • To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States

  • To borrow money 

  • To regulate international and interstate commerce (commerce between states)

  • To coin money

  • To establish lower courts (considered inferior to the US Supreme Court)

  • To declare war

  • To raise and support armies

  • To  impeach federal officials

Special Responsibilities and Roles of the Senate

• Serve as the jury in an impeachment trial 

  • The Senate sits as a High Court of Impeachment to consider evidence, hear witnesses, and vote to acquit or convict an impeachment President or elected official

• Ratify (approve) treaties

  • The Senate has the power to approve or reject treaties negotiated by the President, requiring a two-thirds majority vote to ratify a treaty and make it binding under US law; essentially, the Senate either "accepts" or "rejects" a treaty through their vote 

• Approve presidential appointments to the Supreme Court and lower federal courts

  • The President nominates someone for a vacancy on the Court and the Senate votes to confirm the nominee, which requires a simple majority. In this way, both the Executive and Legislative Branches of the federal government have a voice in the composition of the Supreme Court.

• Approve presidential appointments to the cabinet (heads of executive offices) 

  • Presidential appointments that require Senate confirmation are among the most senior leadership positions in the federal government. A simple majority vote is required from members of the Senate to confirm or reject presidential appointments to the cabinet.

Requirements to Serve in the Senate

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

ARTICLE I, SECTION 3, CLAUSE 3

Voters have elected their senators in the privacy of the voting booth since 1913 (The 17th Amendment provided for the direct election of senators). The framers of the Constitution, however, did not intend senators to be elected in this way, and included in Article I, section 3, "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote." The election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention established the precedent for state selection. The framers believed that in electing senators, state legislatures would cement their tie with the national government, which would increase the chances for ratifying the Constitution. They also expected that senators elected by state legislatures would be able to concentrate on the business at hand without pressure from the populace.

Special Roles and Responsibilities of the House of Representatives 

• Origination of spending bills

  • • Although the House and Senate can both introduce legislation, the authority to initiate tax increases or revenue expenditures rests with the HoR. Bills that perform either of these functions are first introduced in the House, although the Senate must approve such measures before they can be submitted to the President.

• Election of the President if the Electoral College fails to do so

  • • Another important power held by the House of Representatives involves the election of the President. In the event that a tie occurs in the Electoral College, members of the House are required to vote and decide the winner of the election. However, there is not a direct vote. Instead, each state is given one vote, no matter how many representatives it has.

• Charges of impeachment

  • • Impeachment of federal officials also begins in the House. Although it is the Senate that votes to convict or acquit, no President or federal judge can be removed from office without the House first voting to approve articles of impeachment (similar to an indictment in criminal law). The Senate then decides whether an official has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

A more in-depth explanation of the HoR's role in the impeachment process from the House of Representatives' Website

The House brings impeachment charges against federal officials as part of its oversight and investigatory responsibilities. Individual Members of the House can introduce impeachment resolutions like ordinary bills, or the House could initiate proceedings by passing a resolution authorizing an inquiry. The Committee on the Judiciary ordinarily has jurisdiction over impeachments, but special committees investigated charges before the Judiciary Committee was created in 1813. The committee then chooses whether to pursue articles of impeachment against the accused official and report them to the full House. If the articles are adopted (by simple majority vote), the House appoints Members by resolution to manage the ensuing Senate trial on its behalf. These managers act as prosecutors in the Senate and are usually members of the Judiciary Committee. The number of managers has varied across impeachment trials but has traditionally been an odd number. The partisan composition of managers has also varied depending on the nature of the impeachment, but the managers, by definition, always support the House’s impeachment action.

Requirements to Serve in the House of Representatives 

The Constitution placed notably few hurdles between ordinary citizens and becoming a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The founders wanted the House to be the legislative chamber closest to the people—the least restrictive on age, citizenship, and the only federal office at the time subject to frequent popular election. The Constitution requires that Members of the House be at least 25 years old, have been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and live in the state they represent (though not necessarily the same district)

The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the President of the United States.  The President is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress and, to that end, appoints the heads of the federal agencies, including the Cabinet. The Vice President is also part of the Executive Branch, ready to assume the Presidency should the need arise.

The Cabinet and independent federal agencies are responsible for the day-to-day enforcement and administration of federal laws. These departments and agencies have missions and responsibilities as widely divergent as those of the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency, the Social Security Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The heads of cabinet offices are called secretaries. They attend meetings with the President of the United States and provide insight and advice about important issues.

Chief Diplomat Example: President Woodrow Wilson attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles to end World War I.

Requirements to be President of the United States

Legal requirements for presidential candidates have remained the same since the year Washington accepted the presidency. As directed by the Constitution, a presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen of the United States, a resident for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older.

Terms of Service for the POTUS

Passed by Congress in 1947, and ratified by the states on February 27, 1951, the Twenty-Second Amendment limits an elected president to two terms in office, a total of eight years. However, it is possible for an individual to serve up to ten years as president.

The Judicial Branch

The judicial branch interprets the meaning of laws, applies laws to individual cases, and decides if laws violate the Constitution. It's comprised of the Supreme Court and other federal courts. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the nation.

Where the Executive and Legislative branches are elected by the people, members of the Judicial Branch are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the Judicial Branch, leaves Congress significant discretion to determine the shape and structure of the federal judiciary. Even the number of Supreme Court Justices is left to Congress — at times there have been as few as six, while the current number (nine, with one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices) has only been in place since 1869. The Constitution also grants Congress the power to establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court, and to that end Congress has established the United States district courts, which try most federal cases, and 13 United States courts of appeals, which review appealed district court cases.

The Supreme Court has jurisdiction, or the ability to decide cases, in the following instances:

• Settling disputes between the states or high-ranking government officials. These cases would go immediately before the Supreme Court and would not be heard by a lower federal court first

• Hearing appeals (a legal request to re-try the case at a higher level court) to review the decisions of lower courts.

The Supreme Court has the ability to choose which cases they will hear--they usually receive 7,000 to 8,000 appeals and only hear about 80 cases per year.

Checks and Balances

Then the delegates established a system of checks and balances to prevent any one branch from dominating the other two. The procedure the delegates established for electing the president reflected their fear of placing too much power in the hands of the people. Instead of choosing the president directly, each state would choose a number of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives that the state had in Congress. This group of electors chosen by the states, known as the electoral college, would then cast ballots for the presidential candidates.