Three Branches of Government and the System of Checks and Balances

By: Elizabeth Archer

ED 205 on-line section

Main Slide About the Author Resources Three branches of governmen

t Judicial Branch Legislative Branch House of Representatives House of Representatives (pic

tures) Senate Senate (pictures) Executive Branch

Executive Branch (pictures) System of Checks & Balances Federalism Checks and Balances Checks and Balances

(pictures) Checks and Balances

(overview) Video Clip Concept Map

Resources www.socialstudentshelp.com www.whitehouse.gov/government/judg.html www.youtube.com

• My Name is Elizabeth Archer, I am currently a sophomore at Grand Valley. My major is social studies and one day I wish to be a high school teacher and then possibly a college or university professor. I am very family oriented, I have one brother who is sophomore in high school and we hang out a lot when I am, which isn’t very often. I also have four cats named Emma, Oliver, Peanut, and Tiger.

Judicial Branch

Consists of the Courts: Supreme Court, Courts of Appeal, and the District Courts

Supreme Court is the highest court in the land The number of justices is determined by congress and since

1869 there have been one chief justice and 8 associate justices Judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the

Senate Their job is to interpret the laws The justices are appointed by the President and confirmed in

by the Senate The judges that are appointed serve life terms, or until they

voluntarily resign or retire

Legislative Branch The Congress

House of Representatives Senate

Congress approves presidential nominations and controls the budget

Congress’s job is to make the laws for the country

House of Representatives The house has 435 seats which are filled

with representatives of each state, the number of reps. A state is allowed to have depends on the population of that state

The representatives are elected for 2 year terms and must be at least 25 years of age

House of Representatives

Chamber of the House

Senate The Senate confirms the presidential judge

nominations There are 100 seats in the Senate, 2 for

each state regardless of population They are elected for 6 year terms and must

be at least 30 years of age Every two years 1/3 of the Senate is up for

re-election

Senate

Chamber of the Senate

Executive Branch Consists of the President of the United States, currently

George W. Bush is the 43rd President, the cabinet, and other independent agencies

The job of this branch is to enforce and carry out the laws

The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces

The president must be a natural born citizen of the United States, at least 35 years of age, a resident in the United States for at least 14 years and is elected for a four year term and can only serve two terms

Executive Branch

White House

George W. Bush : 43rd United States President

This system was put in place by the founding fathers, they wanted to avoid tyranny so they set up two systems, one was federalism and the other was the policy of checks and balances

Federalism Federalism was put in

place by the founding fathers and was set up to balance the power of the national government and state governments so that the national government couldn’t get too powerful

Checks and Balances The whole concept of this idea

is separation of powers, it was based off the philosophy of Baron de Montesquieu

This system divided the government into three branches and have them all different powers in order to prevent on branch from gaining too much power

Each of the three branches have powers over the other two branches and can check on them to make sure they are doing their job properly

Check and Balances

Checks and Balances Legislative Branch

Has the power to override a presidential veto Has the power to impeach the president and

appoint/remove federal judges Executive Branch

Power to veto bills passed by Congress Appoints Federal Judges

Judicial Branch Can declare the presidents actions to be unconstitutional Can declare laws passed by the congress to be

unconstitutional

Now here is a short video clip to help you understand a little more about what the Legislative Branch does and the checks the President has on them…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ

Concept Map