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By The RepresentUs Team November 3, 2025 |
What are checks and balances?
The Framers of the United States Constitution, while living under the rule of British Kings, saw firsthand how dangerous it was to concentrate the government powers of passing laws, enforcing laws, and issuing rulings in a single entity.
So when they set out to draft the Constitution and establish our system of government, they wanted to ensure that no part of the government could amass enough power to endanger the freedoms of individuals.
What they came up with is what we know as "separation of powers” or “checks and balances”.
Articles I, II, and III of the U.S. Constitution establish our federal government and create three distinct branches of government: Legislative (Congress), Executive (President), and Judicial (Supreme Court & lower courts).
Each branch has a level of independence and unique authority, and each branch is granted powers so that they can keep the other branches from becoming too powerful or overstepping the authority granted to them by the Constitution.
"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
– James Madison, “The Father of the Constitution” writing in Federalist Papers No. 47
The Framers saw the separation of powers as such a fundamental part of the Constitution and so essential to protecting liberty, that they made the Constitution deliberately difficult to change. While it is possible to change the Constitution, doing so requires approval from two-thirds of both houses of Congress (or two-thirds of the states proposing an amendment) and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
This high bar for change reflects the Framers’ belief that the Constitution and separation of powers should serve as a permanent safeguard against government overreach.
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How the Legislative Branch checks the Executive and Judicial Branches
Here are some of the main ways:
Legislative checks on Executive
- Controls funding for Executive actions
- Approves presidential nominees for positions in the government
- Can override presidential vetoes and impeach the president
- Provides oversight of and funding for Executive agencies
Legislative checks on Judicial
- Confirms federal judges and Supreme Court Justices
- Can impeach and remove judges
- Writes the laws for judicial interpretation
Some ways the Executive Branch checks the Legislative and Judicial Branches
Executive checks on Legislative
- Can veto bills passed by Congress
- Can call special sessions of Congress
- Vice President casts the tie-breaking vote in the Senate
Executive checks on Judicial
- Nominates federal judges and Supreme Court Justices
- Issuing pardons to nullify convictions
- Responsible for enforcing judicial rulings
How the Judicial Branch checks the Executive and Legislative Branches
Judicial checks on Legislative
- Can declare laws passed by Congress unconstitutional
- Interprets laws passed by Congress
Judicial checks on Executive
- Can declare Executive actions unconstitutional
- Interprets Executive orders
Is our system of checks and balances in danger?
Since the beginning of his second term, we’ve seen the Trump administration and its allies work to remove checks on their power and overstep their authority.
The Constitution grants Congress power over issues like the federal budget, trade and tariffs, and military and troop deployment. Yet we’ve seen this administration sidestep Congress with executive orders to take action on these matters by deploying troops to American cities without authorization or consent, using loopholes like “pocket rescissions” to cancel spending that Congress had previously approved, and issuing tariffs on its own without input from Congress.
Instead of acting as a check on Executive power, our Members of Congress have been:
- Rubberstamping his agenda
- Approving his handpicked loyalists for judgeships
- Enriching themselves with stock trading
- Refusing to defend the liberties the Constitution grants us
- Sitting on the sidelines while Trump acts more like a king than a president and pushes actions that make life harder and more expensive for you and your family.
How do we preserve our system of checks and balances?
Congress is the people’s branch, they are the part of government that’s closest to us, and are supposed to represent us and our interests.
We need Congress to step up and do their job. That’s why we’ve started the Congressional Courage Campaign to demand Members of Congress:
- Hold the Executive Branch accountable for corruption and abuses of power
- Uphold and defend the Constitution by taking back control of federal budgets, tariffs, and other powers that the Constitution has granted to Congress and Congress alone
- Represent their constituents, not their pocketbooks, not the president, not special interests
Learn more and get involved here >