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CHAPTER FOUR Study Chapter Summary ·
The Constitution is the rule book of
American politics. The great decisions and compromises of the founding were
really about the allocation of power among the branches of the government,
between the national and state governments, and between government and
citizens. ·
Congress is given broad lawmaking
responsibilities in the Constitution. It is composed of two houses, the House
of Representatives and the Senate, each with different qualifications, terms of
office, and constituencies. Having two houses of the legislature that are
constitutionally separated from the president means that more interests are
involved in policymaking and that it takes longer to get things done in the
United States than under a parliamentary system. ·
The president is elected indirectly by the
electoral college. Compared to the chief executive of parliamentary systems, the
U.S. president has less power. ·
The Supreme Court today has much greater
powers than those named in the Constitution. This expansion derives from the
adoption of the principle of judicial review, which gives the Court much more
power than its counterparts in most other democracies and also acts as a check
on the powers of the president, Congress, and the states. ·
The scheme of checks and balances prevents
any branch from overextending its own power. It grew out of the founders' fears
of placing too much trust in any single source. The system provides a great
deal of protection from abuses of power, but it also makes it difficult to get
things done. ·
The Constitution is ambiguous in defining
federalism, giving "reserved powers" to the states but providing a
"necessary and proper clause" that has allowed tremendous growth of
national powers. ·
Our understanding of federalism in the
United States has evolved from a belief in dual federalism, with distinct
policy responsibilities for the national and state governments, to the more
realistic cooperative federalism, in which the different levels share
responsibility in most domestic policy areas. ·
Alternatives to our federal arrangement are
unitary systems, which give all effective power to the central government, and confederal
systems, in which the individual states (or other subunits) have primary power.
The balance of power adopted between central and subnational governments
directly affects the national government's ability to act on large policy
problems and the subnational units' flexibility in responding to local
preferences. ·
The growth of national power can be traced
to the early decisions of Chief Justice John Marshall, the constitutional
consequences of the Civil War, the establishment of national supremacy in
economics with the New Deal, and new national responsibilities in protecting
citizens' rights that are associated with the civil rights movement. ·
Devolution has required new, and sometimes
difficult, agreements between state governments and their citizens. For the
most part, state institutions (legislature, courts, governor) have become
stronger and more efficient in the process. ·
Amending the Constitution—that is, changing
the basic rules of politics—is a two-step process of proposal by either
Congress or a constitutional convention followed by ratification by the states.
Of the thousands of amendments that have been suggested, only twenty-seven have
been adopted. The Constitution can also be unofficially changed through the
less formal and more controversial process of judicial interpretation. Learning Objectives After
reading this chapter, you should understand ·
what institutions the founders created to
perform the three main tasks of governing: making the laws, executing the laws,
and adjudicating the laws ·
the constitutional relationship among those
institutions ·
how the founders resolved constitutionally
the issue of relations between regional units (states, in our case) and
national government ·
the flexibility the founders built into the
Constitution to change with the times |
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