Checks & Balances, How the Three Branches Share the Power

The branches are made to share the power so that no one person controls all the power. You can also say that they check and balance each other. Here are some examples of the different branches checking and balancing each other:

Legislative & Executive

• The President appoints Supreme Court Justices but Congress has to approve them
• The President appoints Cabinet Members but Congress has to approve them
• The Executive Branch makes treaties but Congress has to approve them
• The President is in charge of the military but only Congress can declare war
• The President can veto ( block/make them not laws) laws but Congress can override his veto with a 2/3 majority (why 2/3?)

Executive & Judicial

• The Executive Branch can sign laws but the Judicial branch can rule them unconstitutional

Judicial & Legislative

• Congress writes laws, but the Supreme Court can rule them unconstitutional
• Congress can impeach a Supreme Court Justice

As I think that you can see this country was deisgned so that no one person has all of the power.

Electoral Collage

We live in the United States of America which is a democracy. We elect our President, there's no king or queen. What if I told you that technically the people don't actually elect our President. Here's how we elect the President. We use the electoral collage system. It is based on each state and the majority of that state. Each state has a different amount of voters that vote for what the majority is in each state. It's kind of like the House of Representatives because each state's amount is based on population.

This is a map of the election of 2008. States that Obama won are blue and states that McCain won are blue.

In order to become President you need to get a majority of the electoral votes cast. In the election of 1824 there were 4 candidates Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William Crawford. Jackson had the most popular and electoral votes, but none of them won the majority of electoral votes so it went to the House of Representatives. The House picked Adams. A weird thing about this system is that you don't need to have the most popular votes to win the election. On many occasions the President had less popular votes then their opponent. We have a very strange system of electing our President. Do you think that our system for electing the President is weird?

The United States Flag

The flag of our country has changed more frequently then almost any other country in the world! The first U.S. flag had 13 stripes (just like today's flag) and 13 stars in a ring to represent the states.

The original United States flag

Every time (a) new state(s) entered the Union the flag was changed so that each star on the state represented a star on the flag. Today's flag has 50 stars, one for every state. If a 51st state joins the union then there will be alternating rows of 7 and 8. When the U.S. flag is folded correctly it usually has 13 folds, in a triangle shape with three stars showing. Our flag is made up of the same colors as the British flag.

I think that our flag's history is very interesting because it's changed so much. What do you think?

The Judicial Branch

The Judicial Branch is made up of the SUPREME COURT and the lower courts. The Judicial Branch interprets the law. The Supreme Court is made up of 9 Justices (a.k.a. Judges) including a Chief Justice. There are federal courts and state courts. Here is a diagram of the courts:

I'm not going to talk about the state courts since they're not part of the federal government. Let's say that I went to the federal court. First I'd go tho the district court which would be the Northern California District Court. Let's say that the court ruled in favor of me but it was appealed, so then we'd go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Circuit Courts of Appeals were made to reduce the workload of the Supreme Court. If it was appealed again it would go to the United States Supreme Court. What ever the Supreme Court says goes. Here are some of the powers of the Supreme Court:

1. The Supreme Court interprets the law, ex: when a case is presented the Supreme Court can rule whatever they think is right and what they think goes with the Constitution
2. The Supreme Court can determine if something is unconstitutional (goes against the constitution)

The Judicial Branch is very powerful because they can say anything is unconstitutional and none of the other branches can stop them.

The Executive Branch

The Executive Branch of government is very important, it consists of the President, the VICE PRESIDENT, the Cabinet and a TONS of workers. Here's a little bit on the Cabinet:
the Cabinet originally consisted of four departments, War, State, Treasury, and Attorney General. Over the years different departments have been added. Today there are 15 departments:

1. Agriculture
2. Commerce
3. Defense
4. Education
5. Energy
6. Heath
7. Human Services
8. Homeland Security
9. Housing and Urban Development
10. Interior
11. Labor
12. State
13. Transportation
14. Veterans Affairs
15. Attorney General

The President lives and works in the White House. Some of the powers of the President are:

1. The President is Commander-in-Chief of the military (he is in charge of the military)
2. The President has the power to sign laws
3. The President can veto laws (Congress can override him by a 2/3 majority)
4. The President makes treaties or other trade agreements (Congress must approve them)
5. The President submits Supreme Court Justices to Congress, to be approved
6. The President submits Cabinet members to Congress, to be approved

The Vice President is elected with the President, but before the 12 Amendment of 1804 the Vice President was the runner-up of the to the President. During John Adams's turm Thomas Jefferson was Vice President, that was the only time that a President and Vice President were of opposing parties (Adams was a Federalist and Jefferson was a Democratic-Rebublician). If the President dies or resigns the Vice President takes over. The Vice President also can break a tie in the Senate.

The Legislative Branch

The Legislative Branch is made up of CONGRESS which is divided into two parts, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Congress is elected by people in their state. The House of Representatives is based on population, for example Louisiana has 7 representatives and New York has 29 representatives. No matter what the population of each state is they all have two senators. For example Louisiana and New York both have two Senators.

You might be thinking well what does the Legislative Branch/Congress do. Here's what they do:

1. Congress writes laws
2. Congress declares war
3. Congress impeaches a government official (like the President or a Supreme Court Justice)
4. Congress approves treaties
5. Congress admits new states to the union
6. Congress can propose amendments to the Constitution
7. Congress can block the Presidents Veto
8. Congress approves Supreme Court Justices
9. Congress approves Cabinet members

As you can see the Legislative Branch has a lot of important jobs.

The Three Branches of Government

There are three branches of government in our country, the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch. Each Branch of government has different powers which share the control equally (or are supposed to) so that no one person is in charge. For example, the President (head of the Executive Branch) appoints justices to the Supreme Court, but Congress has to approve them.