Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here.
Speaker 1: If you're a person who is not a hardcore political junkie,
Speaker 1: you may find yourself bewildered by how the three main
Speaker 1: parts of the US government continually seem to be butting
Speaker 1: heads instead of working together on solutions to the nation's problems.
Speaker 1: But the government was structured in three parts for reasons.
Speaker 1: The three branches are the executive branch, which includes the president,
Speaker 1: their cabinet, and the agencies that they control. The legislative branch,
Speaker 1: consisting of the two houses of Congress, which are the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives and the Senate, and the judicial branch,
Speaker 1: which includes the Supreme Court and all of the nation's
Speaker 1: federal and state courts. In the abstract, here's how the
Speaker 1: system sort of works. The President might press Congress to
Speaker 1: pass legislation non sum issue that he made a campaign
Speaker 1: promise to when act. After lots of arguing and finagling,
Speaker 1: the legislators pass a bill, which sometimes turns out to
Speaker 1: be very different from what the president asked for. If
Speaker 1: he doesn't veto the bill, he may issue a signing
Speaker 1: statement that spells out how the federal agencies that he
Speaker 1: controls are going to enforce the law in a different
Speaker 1: way than Congress intended. Then other executive branch employees draw
Speaker 1: up regulations for how to enforce the law, and it
Speaker 1: takes effect. Congressional committees may hold hearings to scrutinize what
Speaker 1: the executive branch is doing, and to top it all off,
Speaker 1: the US Supreme Court might step in and smack down
Speaker 1: both the President and Congress by ruling that some part
Speaker 1: of the law is unconstitutional, forcing them to essentially start over.
Speaker 1: As wild as it may seem, that's how the nation's
Speaker 1: founders actually intended the system to work, because they didn't
Speaker 1: want any one part of the government to have too
Speaker 1: much power. To that end, they filled the US Constitution
Speaker 1: with checks and balances that each branch could impose upon
Speaker 1: the others. The idea was that those three branches eventually
Speaker 1: would hammer out compromises that everyone could live with. Of course,
Speaker 1: the idea of having three branches of a government check
Speaker 1: each other isn't an American invention. The founders, including James Madison,
Speaker 1: the future president who was the lead author of the
Speaker 1: US Constitution, were influenced by ideas all the way from antiquity,
Speaker 1: like Aristotle's politics all the way through John Locke, the
Speaker 1: late seventeenth century British philosopher, But the most prominent influence
Speaker 1: may have been French philosopher Baron de Montenescu, author of
Speaker 1: the seventeen forty eight treatise The Spirit of the Laws,
Speaker 1: who described what should distinguish a self governing republic from
Speaker 1: monarchies and despotic countries. The republican government, he believed, needed
Speaker 1: to have and independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches in
Speaker 1: order to prevent one another from abusing their various powers.
Speaker 1: But the system devised by the founders, which is described
Speaker 1: in Articles one, two, and three of the US Constitution,
Speaker 1: wasn't quite as cotton dried as Montenescue's. Instead, they allowed
Speaker 1: some overlap for the article. This episode is based on
Speaker 1: How Stuffworks. Spoke via email back in twenty twenty with
Speaker 1: Nicholas Mosvik, who at the time was a senior fellow
Speaker 1: at the National Constitution Center, a museum and civil education
Speaker 1: organization in Philadelphia. He said the easiest examples are in
Speaker 1: the Senate and Article two. The Senate clearly holds executive
Speaker 1: functions as they perform a role in advice and consent
Speaker 1: for treaties, the appointment of judges and executive officers. The
Speaker 1: president holds a veto power, which gives an a role
Speaker 1: in legislation and the power to give advice to Congress,
Speaker 1: but typically in the form of a state of the
Speaker 1: Union and recommendations on legislation. To make things more complicated,
Speaker 1: some of the president's powers aren't precisely spelled out in
Speaker 1: the Constitution. For example, both executive orders and signing statements
Speaker 1: are more modern inventions derived from implied language in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: The concept of how the three branches work together or
Speaker 1: against each other has indeed evolved over the centuries as
Speaker 1: new circumstances have presented new situations. For example, during the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, all three branches of government were involved in
Speaker 1: creating and delineating the boundaries of a number of administrative
Speaker 1: bodies surrounding industrialization, the First World War, the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: and the New Deal. There's a concept called the non
Speaker 1: delegation doctrine that states that a branch of the government
Speaker 1: can't delegate its powers to another group. But during that
Speaker 1: time in the nineteen thirties, the government created a number
Speaker 1: of national agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration and
Speaker 1: the Securities and Exchange Commission to help monitor and regulate
Speaker 1: the developing realities of our society. Amosfik said the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court was heavily involved in the nineteen thirties in determining
Speaker 1: the boundaries of what we call delegation, the granting of
Speaker 1: one branch's powers to an independent body or as part
Speaker 1: of the executive branch. Some delegations were initially struck down
Speaker 1: under the non delegation doctrine. Scholars debate whether or not
Speaker 1: the non delegation doctrine flows from the understanding of the founders,
Speaker 1: but the idea is simply that Congress cannot delegate its
Speaker 1: core power from the vesting clause to make all laws
Speaker 1: to another body, any more than it can grant non
Speaker 1: Article three courts, Article three powers or jurisdiction. This, too,
Speaker 1: is where recent questions about removal of directors of administrative
Speaker 1: agencies by the President comes from. It too, is a
Speaker 1: separation of powers question, but one that flows from modern
Speaker 1: innovations that the founders could not entirely envision. However, the
Speaker 1: checks and balances baked into the three branch system have
Speaker 1: prevented abuses of power in modern situations. Houstuff Works also
Speaker 1: spoke via email with Bruce Peabody, a professor of government
Speaker 1: in politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He said one of
Speaker 1: the classic examples is the push and pull associated with
Speaker 1: the congressional investigation into the Nixon campaign's trespass and bugging
Speaker 1: of the Watergate building and the Democratic National Committee's headquarters.
Speaker 1: Congress rightfully investigated the president pushed back, claiming that the
Speaker 1: White House recordings which implicated the president were covered under
Speaker 1: the legal protection of executive privilege, and the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: helped navigate the dispute, ultimately ruling that the president did
Speaker 1: have the unwritten constitutional power of the executive privilege, but
Speaker 1: noting that it was not an unlimited power, and setting
Speaker 1: out some of the rules for its use. In the
Speaker 1: process of this dramatic example of checks and balances, each
Speaker 1: branch arguably served its own political and institutional interests as
Speaker 1: well as the nations, but the three branch system isn't
Speaker 1: some machine that can just run on autopilot. In order
Speaker 1: for the democracy to work, the people in the three
Speaker 1: branches need to have personal qualities that go beyond the
Speaker 1: architecture of the system. In recent years, we've seen the
Speaker 1: system become less effective in working out conflicts and taking
Speaker 1: effective action. The increasingly acrimonious stalemate over the nation's immigration
Speaker 1: policy is a prime example. Peabody said, I would probably
Speaker 1: attribute our logjam and chronic inaction most directly to hyperactive partisanship.
Speaker 1: But yes, this development is tied up with a decline
Speaker 1: in our belief in Republican virtue, a somewhat old fashioned
Speaker 1: idea that our leaders should be expected to act for
Speaker 1: the public good a not just personal interest, and that
Speaker 1: they should achieve honor while serving in government. Political science
Speaker 1: scholars have identified basic norms that are necessary for enabling
Speaker 1: our government to function. One of those key principles, Peabody explains,
Speaker 1: is mutual toleration. The idea of accepting your political opponents
Speaker 1: is legitimate even if you've eminently disagree with them. The
Speaker 1: keyword here is mutual, as all parties must act in
Speaker 1: good faith in order for the system to work. Another
Speaker 1: important ingredient is forbearance, which basically means that you self
Speaker 1: impose limits on how far you'll go in using your
Speaker 1: powers of government to advance your interests and those of
Speaker 1: the political party to which you belong. Even outside of
Speaker 1: our current circumstances, America's three branch system is highly susceptible
Speaker 1: to developing imbalances, in part because the founders chose to
Speaker 1: create a strong chief executive in the president. That leader
Speaker 1: has brought authority and can't easily be removed from power
Speaker 1: before their four years are up. In the UK, by contrast,
Speaker 1: political conflict can lead to Parliament calling an early election
Speaker 1: that can lead to the Prime Minister being kicked out
Speaker 1: of power. To exacerbate this problem, over the years, we've
Speaker 1: seen a gradual expansion of presidential power. Peabody said that
Speaker 1: the US government has become increasingly president centric for a
Speaker 1: variety of reasons, from changes in our media environment and
Speaker 1: political campaigns that focus on candidates rather than ideas, to
Speaker 1: the growth of what sometimes called the administrative state, that is,
Speaker 1: the vast and permanent bureaucracy of executive branch agencies. Peaboddy
Speaker 1: said this, combined with both parties post FDR success in
Speaker 1: placing their candidates in the White House and the close
Speaker 1: competitiveness of many presidential races, have made both Democrats and
Speaker 1: Republicans complicit an increasing executive power. Both the Trump and
Speaker 1: Obama administrations illustrate that we look to our chief executive
Speaker 1: to solve problems and wheeled authority when Congress isn't able
Speaker 1: to cooperate, lead, or assert itself. Taking immigration as an example,
Speaker 1: after years of infighting in Congress, a President Obama in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen decided to issue an executive order deferring the
Speaker 1: deportation of so called dreamers, meaning children who entered the
Speaker 1: US illegally with their parents and grew up here. The
Speaker 1: program is called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival or DACA.
Speaker 1: The constitutionality of Obama's executive order was challenged, but ultimately
Speaker 1: upheld in a narrow five to four decision by the
Speaker 1: US Supreme Court in June of twenty twenty. In the meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Obama tried to expand DAKA, but then the Trump administration
Speaker 1: canceled the expansion and tried to dismantle DACA altogether. Then
Speaker 1: President Biden administered another executive order reinstating it. That order
Speaker 1: has also been challenged and is now making its way
Speaker 1: back up through the courts. But even so, the three
Speaker 1: branch system has an amazing amount of resilience. The Constitution
Speaker 1: still enables Congress and the courts to push back against
Speaker 1: presidential power and vice versa. Congress has a lot of
Speaker 1: what's called power of the purse, a meaning they can
Speaker 1: direct or redirect policy through funding and when. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, the Supreme Court ruled the presidents have immunity
Speaker 1: from crimes they commit during official actions. The Biden administration
Speaker 1: called for a constitutional amendment preventing that immunity and suggested
Speaker 1: term limits for Supreme Court justices. The system is certainly
Speaker 1: strained in these our hyperpartisan times, but it seems to
Speaker 1: still be plodding along. We hear it. Brainstuff encourage you
Speaker 1: to do your part. Educate yourself on local issues and elections,
Speaker 1: and vote in those between term times. Local and state
Speaker 1: appointments can have a huge impact on our lives and
Speaker 1: on policies going all the way up to national issues.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article what are the
Speaker 1: three branches of US Government and how do they work together?
Speaker 1: On how Stuffworks dot Com? Written by Patrick J. Kaiger.
Speaker 1: Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.