Conflict Between the Executive and Legislative Branches of Government

The concept of power is a divisive matter in the American political system, as the actors holding it are sometimes unable to impose it as a result of their limited authority to do so. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the national government depend on each-others point of view. Part of the Constitution was designed with the purpose of making it impossible for either of these three to become more powerful than the others. Each of them has the ability to check and balance the way that the other two function. In spite of the fact that this system was created with the intention of preventing power from being shared unequally in the country, it sometimes serves as a tool for political gridlock, considering that the judicial branches can debate in regard to a particular topic for unlimited amounts of time before actually reaching a conclusion regarding the respective issue.

The government of the United States of America has been around for over 2 centuries, in this time the original setup has been little altered. The government is composed of three individual branches: judicial, executive, and legislative branches. All three branches are held together using a system of checks and balances. While each branch has some kind of trump or has control over another branch, some branches are arguably more powerful than others. The main focus of this paper will be on where the executive branch stands power-wise. When our founding fathers first started building our nation from the dust, they had in mind a system of branches where no one branch was more powerful than the others. The decision of whether or not they hit

The president and the vice president are the only officials elected by the whole nation. The president is also head of state, as well as the chief executive of the government. The first reason why the executive branch is the most powerful is the power to persuade. The power to persuade alone is a huge reason why the president is powerful. What is even more powerful is who you persuade. The president tries to persuade three specific audiences: Washington D.C, party activists and office holders outside of Washington and the public. Persuasion is a huge deal because it gets people on your side, obviously. If the president can get the “right” people to go with his ideas, it creates a chain reaction. For example, in the movie “Lincoln”, Abraham Lincoln persuades people in office not really decided on what they feel about slavery. Same thing goes today. The president persuades three audiences and Washington is the most important. If the president has a bill that wants to get passed, he has to persuade the people of Washington to support him.

Moe and Howell point out that the Founders of the Constitution had agreed on an incomplete contract that does not explicitly state what decisions should be made under all current and future contingencies, but builds a governing structure consisting of the president, Congress, and the courts. It also shares powers among them, specifies procedures for public decision-making, and offers a framework of rules that allows leaders to make public decisions as well as handle any contingencies that may come up. The authors then explain that the three branches would fight with each other

The United States judicial branch to the general American public can seem insulated from politics, because of their adversarial system, that does not allow judges to choose their cases. The judicial branch unlike, their two counterparts, the legislative and executive at large rely on the respect of the American people and the heads of the two other branches. In appointing members of the federal judiciary, Presidents appoint members who resemble their political ideologies and their likelihood of confirmation in the Senate, the Senate confirms these members based on their performance on the litmus test and Senatorial courtesy. Courts, specifically the Supreme Court, make decisions based on the Constitution, but the legislative branch has the

Our initial question asks why the President is the dominant force in foreign policy making within the U.S. government? A corollary is to ask whether or not the President should be the dominant force in foreign policy. This is an ongoing debate and tension between the Executive and Legislative Branches. First, we should understand that, under our current President, there is strong opinion that he should not be the dominant force for foreign policy. There are at least two opposing points of view regarding the role of the President and foreign policy. If one favors the Executive Branch, one takes the position that the Executive is better able to respond quickly and efficiently to changing conditions in world politics. If one favors the Legislative Branch, one takes the position that the Legislative is better able to consider, review, deliberate, and debate various points of view before deciding what course of action would best serve the interests of the entire nation.

The powers of the president have long been debated in our country, starting at the founding and continuing to now. How much power should the president be given? How much is too much power? All these questions have been explored numerous times by numerous people. In our Constitution, the President is given expressed, inherent, and delegated powers. These powers have been used by Presidents in many different ways. The study of the way Presidents use these powers is explored in the book by Richard Neustadt: “Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan”. Neustadt discusses how modern presidents wield

All through the American history, the President's capacities have extended enormously from a constrained part doled out by the Founding Fathers to the official force and a more extensive impact over numerous territories. Being suspicious of giving the President an official force which may prompt an American dictator, the Founding Fathers permitted not very many particular president powers, in contrast with the real part of Congress, which was relied upon to be the predominant branch of the national government.

America and its balance of government branches haven’t always been orderly. Under the Articles of Confederation, the legislative branch held an overwhelming amount of power over the two other branches. Not only did this apply to branches, but also between states and localities. At the Constitutional Convention, the Framers examined the need of balance, and with that, separation of powers and checks and balances were formed.

In our newest Constitution, the Framers created three branches of government: Judicial, Legislative, and Executive. These branches were made to have each of their own powers, as to keep the others in check. This system with separation of powers and checks and balances has run our country for more than two-hundred years. One of the main problems facing the Framers in 1787 was where to assign leadership of the United States. In which branch should the power be vested in? Should one branch have more power than another? The division of power is still an issue that exists today. In this essay, I will look at the three branches of government, their power, and how the branches balance each other.

The founding fathers intended for a United States government to be run significantly through the legislative branch, and to encompass the majority of domestic and foreign matters of governance. However since 1789 the forces and imperatives of national security have been shaped foreign policy matters to be the focus and responsibility of the President and the Executive branch of government. Presidential actions of key Presidents such as George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan to manipulate the interoperations of the constitution regarding Presidential power have contributed to a gradual trend of presidential authority in the international arena steadily usurping congressional prerogatives, yet, the Presidency has not become an imperial power, because of checks and balances.

Therefore, it goes on to demonstrate how presidential powers have evolved since the times of President George Washington to President Barack Obama. Presidents have helped evolve presidential power by effectively utilizing executive orders and veto powers to support their own social and governing policies. The powers of the president have expanded and evolved largely due to executive orders, providing the potential for continued and more serious abuses of executive authority in the

In our lesson, we learned about two perspectives on presidential powers. The first was that of Richard Neustadt. He proposed the idea that the president has his power as persuasion; the president gets his way through bargaining and using other government officials to do the work. (Learning) The second is an idea from William Howell called power without persuasion. With this perspective, the president does not need to persuade and bargain because he can get what he wants with his powers alone (such as the presidential power of veto). (Learning)

It is undeniable that there are differences between the powers of the judicial branch in comparison with the powers granted to the legislative and executive branches. The obvious differences include the appointment, rather than election of justices and the lifetime tenure of justices. These differences appear to be in place to limit the political influence upon justices throughout their tenure. The American public, however, still expresses distrust in the Supreme Court and by a two-to-one margin, believe politics played too great a role in recent health care cases (Hamilton, 2012).

I believe that there are some areas where there is conflict. A couple of areas where there is conflict is the Executive and judicial branches. The powers are balanced out by the judicial and executive branch, some are unbalanced around the police, authority and army area.