Checks of Power Key

  Example:  The President is charged with being responsible for a break-in at the opposing party’s headquarters. 

The Legislative branch will impeach the President.

1. Congress and the President approve a law that would prevent certain minorities from receiving tax exemptions which others are entitled to receive. 

Judicial branch rules the law unconstitutional.

2. A young man convicted by the courts of being responsible for the deaths of thousands “during a wartime situation” has appealed his prison sentence to the Supreme Court.  The court denied the motion to reverse the decision.  There is a great deal of public support on his behalf.  Executive branch pardons criminal.
3. A federal judge has been accused of “accepting large donations of stock certificates” from companies who have received some rather favorable rulings from him in the past. 

Legislative branch impeaches the judge.

4. Because one party has an overwhelming majority in both houses, the majority party has decided to pass “mass legislation” to help the party goals. 

Executive branch vetos bill

5. The President is tired of the hundreds of bills that have crossed his desk for action during the past two years.  He decides in a moment of rage that he will “veto all bills, regardless of their nature, in the future.”  Legislative branch overrides veto (2/3^rd majority).
6. The President makes a treaty with North Korea in which the United States defense expenditures for the coming year are cut in half.  Legislative branch does NOT approve treaty.
7. Three days before Congress is scheduled to adjourn, its members decide to deluge the President with huge numbers of “approved legislation” in the hope that he will hastily sign them into law without careful consideration. 

Executive branch does not sign. (bills die).

8. Scenario: The Supreme Court, which has been “leaning far too much toward the liberal” for the likes of the President, loses two of its members – one by death and the other through retirement. Who would address this issue?

 Executive branch appoints two new justices.

9. There is an associate justice serving on the Supreme Court who is 88 years old.  He is seldom able to attend sessions of the court because of illness; when he is there he seems to have lost that edge that earned him a spot on the court so many years ago.  He is, in fact, becoming senile.  Legislative branch impeaches the judge.