musing on checks & balances

[eirias]

It occurred to me recently that something in our checks and balances system isn't particularly balanced. The executive branch exerts power over the judicial branch through appointing judges. The judicial branch exerts power over the legislative branch by overturning laws. But what power does the legislative branch hold over the executive branch? They have impeachments, and ... that's it. I mean, I guess that's a pretty big power, but it's much harder to exercise than the powers held by the other two branches. Should they have more?

I was thinking of this in the context of the history of presidential elections; I had thought that it was originally federal legislators from each state that picked the president. But no; that was only in the case of no majority in the EC (though Wikipedia suggests that the founders may have thought this would happen in most elections). Originally it was *state* legislators that picked electors, thereby influencing the vote. And that's not really the same.

Any structure-of-government nerds have thoughts on this?

Comments

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I don't love the idea of a federal marriage amendment, obviously, nor do I love pretty much /any/ amendment I've heard floated in recent years, but the thing is, I think that this part of the government is functioning exactly as designed. I'm not sure I'd want to give the Court the power to throw out bits of the constitution (oh, hush, nonnihil). I agree that it could get problematic, e.g., if amendments were proposed that made the Constitution conflict with itself, and I don't have an answer for that, other than to hope that the fact that it's actually pretty hard to amend the US Constitution will help.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm confident that none of the recently proposed federal amendments will ever pass (federal marriage amendment, flag-burning amendment, etc.), due to the difficulty of passing one. At the state level, however, it's a different story, but I'm sure each state has a slightly different arrangement of checks and balances.

What's your opinion on a line-item veto? Too much power to the executive branch? I go back and forth on that one.