Separation of Powers

When the Founding Fathers considered all of the problems associated with all forms of government, they found that the only way to protect the citizens from tyranny was to break up the normal power that governments wield.

There are three basic powers that governments have:

1. The Power to Make Laws.
2. The Power to Execute Laws.
3. The Power to Judge Laws.


The Founders set each function to different groups.

Make Laws (Legislative Branch) :
The ability to make laws was given to the Legislature. The Founders determined that just allowing one vote per state would not be totally fair to the Larger States, so they established a legislative body represented by two votes per state in the Senate and then had representatives based upon population in a state by having a House of Representatives and between them they would make the laws. Thus we have 50 States that have 100 Senators and 50 States that have 435 Representatives.

The House of Representatives is currently set at 435, but can be changed by Congress. To also address the problem of having people elected for life at the one extreme and having them elected for only one year at the other, the Founders decided to have the House seek elections every two years, while the Senate is for six years. Thus the House is said to be more responsive to the citizens while the Senate can be more stable by having longer terms.

Originally the Senate was elected by the State Legislators, which I believe was the better method because that makes it more responsive to our State needs and the State legislatures know who is doing the best job. As it is now, we elect the best-advertised person instead of the best person.

Execute Laws (Executive Branch) :
The President is charged with enforcing or executing the laws that Congress passes. He is also in charge of the Military as Commander-in-Chief. The power of the President is limited by only being able to carry out laws enacted and also by the budget when he is acting during wartime. He does not have any powers that are not spelled out in the Constitution.

The Executive Branch has been guilty in my opinion of grabbing legislative power by what is called “Executive Orders.”

Judge Laws (Judicial Branch):
The Judicial branch of our government is supposed to narrowly determine if laws made by congress are constitutional and to determine if cases brought to them are otherwise lawful. They were supposed to just vote “Yes or No”, and if the vote was “No”, then it was up to Congress to rewrite the law to make it right.

We have seen this branch of the Government be able to essentially write laws by way of instead of just saying that the law did not meet Constitutional Standards, they would issue findings that “explained how the law in question did not meet the standards” which by making an Abortion law unconstitutional and then explaining how the Constitution protected Abortion” it had the effect of writing new law by saying the Constitution had “implied protection” for abortion. This in turn allows abortion by default instead of by legislation.

Judge Alito had a quandary. There are over 100 cases that have ignored precedence and this means that Judges have been allowed to be “open minded”, but at the same time some at the hearings wanted Alito to admit that he should not have an open mind when it came to Abortion by declaring it to be “settled law.” The Constitution was never meant to be a “living document” when it came to the Judicial branch, only the Legislative branch. The Supreme Court is to narrowly apply the interpretation of the Constitution.

But, as you can see, we have the Executive and Judicial Branches making laws. This is eroding our Constitution protections from loss of freedom.

That is, in my humble opinion.