How Do the Three Branches of the U.S. Government Work (Or Not Work) Together?

their cabinet, and the agencies that they control. The legislative branch, consisting of the two houses of Congress, which are the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the judicial branch, which includes the Supreme Court and all of the nation's federal and state courts. In the abstract, here's how the system sort of works. The President might press Congress to pass legislation non sum issue that he made a campaign

promise to when act. After lots of arguing and finagling, the legislators pass a bill, which sometimes turns out to be very different from what the president asked for. If he doesn't veto the bill, he may issue a signing statement that spells out how the federal agencies that he controls are going to enforce the law in a different way than Congress intended. Then other executive branch employees draw up regulations for how to enforce the law, and it

takes effect. Congressional committees may hold hearings to scrutinize what the executive branch is doing, and to top it all off, the US Supreme Court might step in and smack down both the President and Congress by ruling that some part of the law is unconstitutional, forcing them to essentially start over. As wild as it may seem, that's how the nation's founders actually intended the system to work, because they didn't want any one part of the government to have too

much power. To that end, they filled the US Constitution with checks and balances that each branch could impose upon the others. The idea was that those three branches eventually would hammer out compromises that everyone could live with. Of course, the idea of having three branches of a government check

each other isn't an American invention. The founders, including James Madison, the future president who was the lead author of the US Constitution, were influenced by ideas all the way from antiquity, like Aristotle's politics all the way through John Locke, the late seventeenth century British philosopher, But the most prominent influence may have been French philosopher Baron de Montenescu, author of the seventeen forty eight treatise The Spirit of the Laws,

who described what should distinguish a self governing republic from monarchies and despotic countries. The republican government, he believed, needed to have and independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches in order to prevent one another from abusing their various powers. But the system devised by the founders, which is described in Articles one, two, and three of the US Constitution, wasn't quite as cotton dried as Montenescue's. Instead, they allowed

some overlap for the article. This episode is based on How Stuffworks. Spoke via email back in twenty twenty with Nicholas Mosvik, who at the time was a senior fellow at the National Constitution Center, a museum and civil education organization in Philadelphia. He said the easiest examples are in the Senate and Article two. The Senate clearly holds executive functions as they perform a role in advice and consent

for treaties, the appointment of judges and executive officers. The president holds a veto power, which gives an a role in legislation and the power to give advice to Congress, but typically in the form of a state of the Union and recommendations on legislation. To make things more complicated, some of the president's powers aren't precisely spelled out in

the Constitution. For example, both executive orders and signing statements are more modern inventions derived from implied language in the Constitution. The concept of how the three branches work together or against each other has indeed evolved over the centuries as

new circumstances have presented new situations. For example, during the nineteen thirties, all three branches of government were involved in creating and delineating the boundaries of a number of administrative bodies surrounding industrialization, the First World War, the Great Depression, and the New Deal. There's a concept called the non delegation doctrine that states that a branch of the government

can't delegate its powers to another group. But during that time in the nineteen thirties, the government created a number of national agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission to help monitor and regulate the developing realities of our society. Amosfik said the Supreme Court was heavily involved in the nineteen thirties in determining the boundaries of what we call delegation, the granting of one branch's powers to an independent body or as part

of the executive branch. Some delegations were initially struck down under the non delegation doctrine. Scholars debate whether or not the non delegation doctrine flows from the understanding of the founders, but the idea is simply that Congress cannot delegate its core power from the vesting clause to make all laws to another body, any more than it can grant non

Article three courts, Article three powers or jurisdiction. This, too, is where recent questions about removal of directors of administrative agencies by the President comes from. It too, is a separation of powers question, but one that flows from modern innovations that the founders could not entirely envision. However, the checks and balances baked into the three branch system have

prevented abuses of power in modern situations. Houstuff Works also spoke via email with Bruce Peabody, a professor of government in politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He said one of the classic examples is the push and pull associated with the congressional investigation into the Nixon campaign's trespass and bugging of the Watergate building and the Democratic National Committee's headquarters.

Congress rightfully investigated the president pushed back, claiming that the White House recordings which implicated the president were covered under the legal protection of executive privilege, and the Supreme Court helped navigate the dispute, ultimately ruling that the president did have the unwritten constitutional power of the executive privilege, but noting that it was not an unlimited power, and setting

out some of the rules for its use. In the process of this dramatic example of checks and balances, each branch arguably served its own political and institutional interests as well as the nations, but the three branch system isn't some machine that can just run on autopilot. In order for the democracy to work, the people in the three branches need to have personal qualities that go beyond the

architecture of the system. In recent years, we've seen the system become less effective in working out conflicts and taking effective action. The increasingly acrimonious stalemate over the nation's immigration policy is a prime example. Peabody said, I would probably attribute our logjam and chronic inaction most directly to hyperactive partisanship.

But yes, this development is tied up with a decline in our belief in Republican virtue, a somewhat old fashioned idea that our leaders should be expected to act for the public good a not just personal interest, and that they should achieve honor while serving in government. Political science scholars have identified basic norms that are necessary for enabling our government to function. One of those key principles, Peabody explains,

is mutual toleration. The idea of accepting your political opponents is legitimate even if you've eminently disagree with them. The keyword here is mutual, as all parties must act in good faith in order for the system to work. Another important ingredient is forbearance, which basically means that you self impose limits on how far you'll go in using your powers of government to advance your interests and those of

the political party to which you belong. Even outside of our current circumstances, America's three branch system is highly susceptible to developing imbalances, in part because the founders chose to create a strong chief executive in the president. That leader has brought authority and can't easily be removed from power before their four years are up. In the UK, by contrast, political conflict can lead to Parliament calling an early election that can lead to the Prime Minister being kicked out

of power. To exacerbate this problem, over the years, we've seen a gradual expansion of presidential power. Peabody said that the US government has become increasingly president centric for a variety of reasons, from changes in our media environment and political campaigns that focus on candidates rather than ideas, to the growth of what sometimes called the administrative state, that is,

the vast and permanent bureaucracy of executive branch agencies. Peaboddy said this, combined with both parties post FDR success in placing their candidates in the White House and the close competitiveness of many presidential races, have made both Democrats and Republicans complicit an increasing executive power. Both the Trump and Obama administrations illustrate that we look to our chief executive to solve problems and wheeled authority when Congress isn't able

to cooperate, lead, or assert itself. Taking immigration as an example, after years of infighting in Congress, a President Obama in twenty fourteen decided to issue an executive order deferring the deportation of so called dreamers, meaning children who entered the US illegally with their parents and grew up here. The program is called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival or DACA.

The constitutionality of Obama's executive order was challenged, but ultimately upheld in a narrow five to four decision by the US Supreme Court in June of twenty twenty. In the meanwhile, Obama tried to expand DAKA, but then the Trump administration canceled the expansion and tried to dismantle DACA altogether. Then President Biden administered another executive order reinstating it. That order has also been challenged and is now making its way back up through the courts. But even so, the three

branch system has an amazing amount of resilience. The Constitution still enables Congress and the courts to push back against presidential power and vice versa. Congress has a lot of what's called power of the purse, a meaning they can direct or redirect policy through funding and when. In twenty twenty four, the Supreme Court ruled the presidents have immunity

from crimes they commit during official actions. The Biden administration called for a constitutional amendment preventing that immunity and suggested term limits for Supreme Court justices. The system is certainly strained in these our hyperpartisan times, but it seems to still be plodding along. We hear it. Brainstuff encourage you to do your part. Educate yourself on local issues and elections,

and vote in those between term times. Local and state appointments can have a huge impact on our lives and on policies going all the way up to national issues. Today's episode is based on the article what are the three branches of US Government and how do they work together? On how Stuffworks dot Com? Written by Patrick J. Kaiger. Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks

dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.