How do popular federalism, checks and balances work toward limited government in the united states?

Question

very hard question in my homework

Answer 1

You should not be using Yahoo answers to do your homework and I shouldn't be helping you either.... geeze...

Checks and Balances places limits on each of the 3 branches. Example: Congress passes laws, but the president can veto those laws- so the president can check the congress (or the presidents power balances the power of congress). So, these checks and balances on each of the three branches ensures that no branch gets too strong. Federalism works toward limited government because it divides the power between the state government and the national government.

Please read your textbook... you can do this stuff!!! :)
AND you better go back tomorrow and mark these as the best answer and give me some points since I'm helping you get good grades on your HW... :)

Answer 2

Popular federalism is a thing of the past. The checks and balances thought to have been established by the framers of the Constitution overlooked a major shortcoming - and that is that there is no check on the Supreme Court. The House, Senate and Executive have some checks and balances (supermajority votes, pocket vetoes, etc.), but there is no check on a Supreme Court who can dictate social policy by majority rule of the court. The Supreme Court has, by judicial fiat, brought social changes into place without the need of a vote by elected representatives and is held accountable for these social engineering feats by no other branch of the government.

In the original framework of the Constitution you had 4 bodies to government. The House of Representatives, which was designed to protect the interests of the people against federal intrusion. The Senate - whose senators were chosen by the State Legislatures - were there to look out for the interests of the States and insure that the Federal government and populist ideas driven by mob mentality in the House did not override the power of the States. The President, or Executive Branch whose duty it was to enforcet the laws passed by the Congress and Senate. The 4th body was the Supreme Court whose job it was to rule on the constitutionality of any laws enacted by the other branches of government.

This form of republicanism was destroyed with the passage of the 17th Amendment whereby the State senators were elected by the people and not the State Legislatures. When the 17th Amendment was ratified, the States lost all their representation in the Senate and America went from being a Republic to become a complex democracy. The carefully crafted Checks and Balances went out with the passage of the 17th Amendment. The Supreme Court was, and still is an unchecked branch of US government.

This shortcoming - that of an unsupervised Supreme Court - was pointed out in one of the letters written by the Anti-Federalists before the Constitution was adopted. Unfortunately, for this nation, the almost prophetic pronouncements by the Anti-Federalists of what the court could do and become has come to pass. The Supreme Court has abused its station to uphold the Constitution and has chosen instead, the path of social engineering - i.e. making judge made laws that could and would not ever pass Congressional or Senatorial vote. With no branch of government to overturn the Court, the Court could, and has done, just what it wanted to -- despite what the Constitution said. The High Court still does it to this day which is why American society keeps changing according to how that Court decides it wants to shape the nation and its unlawfully created judge-made law.

Lay this is your teacher's lap and watch them run for the door. There is nothing untrue in what I have presented here. Too bad more Americans don't know it. It is REAL history!

Read the Anti-Federalist papers - available in the history section of Barnes & Noble.

End of lesson.

Answer 3

Basically, the three branches of the US Federal Government are designed to share powers in such a way that they wind up playing off each other so that no one branch has too much power. The President gets to enforce law, but he doesn't get to make it or interpret it. Congress gets to make law, but not enforce it or interpret it. The courts get to interpret law, but not make or enforce it. Furthermore, whereas Presidents and members of Congress can run for office directly, you can't run for office as a judge: they're appointed by the President and confirmed by Congress, which gives those two branches some influence over the judiciary branch. Unlike Presidents and members of Congress, once appointed and confirmed, judges serve for life and are very difficult to remove from office.

Each branch of the government has powers designed to keep the other ones in "check", hopefully reaching some kind of "balance".