I need some help with civics

[zzentar]

I know this is a nasty topic to bring up, but there are a lot of smart people here;

This is the way I learned it:

3 branches of government and each is a check and balance on the other;

Branch #1

congress is made of 2 houses

why?

well when the US was itty bitty we had a bunch of itty bitty states (NE States), then we started to get great big states. So to make everyone happy and equal we split the diff, you get two senators for your state in one house and a representative for the population of your area in your state in the other house.

By the way, I personally disagree with this now. It was meant so that a person from a region would travel to Washington and vote how the region wanted. We all know that is no longer the case.

Congress drafts bills and sends them to president to get signed. Once signed it is now a law of the land.

Branch #2

The President

He looks at bills that are sent to him and decides if this is good or bad. If good he signs, if bad he vetoes and sends back to Congress. Congress can FU to Pres and overturn his veto if 2/3 agree


Branch #3

The Supreme Court

In my opinion the only branch that should be non political, non regional, non anything....
Their only job is to make sure that laws that come from the other branches, agree with the constitution.

This is no longer the case, now the Supreme Court and the President make more laws than Congress.

I am not eloquent, so I found someone to say this better:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0

[Androidpk]

So what exactly do you need help with?

[zzentar]

when did president get to make laws? and when did supreme court get to change laws?

[Gelston]

The Supreme Court doesn't "make" any laws at all. The President doesn't make laws either. He issues executive orders, which have to jive with pre existing laws and, of course, be constitutional.

[Androidpk]

It has been interpreted, by some, that under article II of the constitution that the president can make executive orders under certain conditions. And the supreme court has always been able to rule a law unconstitutional. That is basically their main function.

[zzentar]

It has been interpreted, by some, that under article II of the constitution that the president can make executive orders under certain conditions. And the supreme court has always been able to rule a law unconstitutional. That is basically their main function.

Supreme court has only one, 1, job. They are tasked to make sure that laws, passed by congress and signed by the President are in line with the Constitution of the U.S.

[Androidpk]

Supreme court has only one, 1, job. They are tasked to make sure that laws, passed by congress and signed by the President are in line with the Constitution of the U.S.

Not just that. They also check the constitutionality of presidential actions as well as state laws.

[Warriorbird]

Judicial review has existed since Marbury vs. Madison. Without it the Court would not be an equal branch of government. Our America would not be our America and might not exist.

[zzentar]

As I said I am no scholar but I think I said this but maybe not so well:

The supreme court has this job and this job only;

Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with judicial review power may invalidate government laws and decisions that are incompatible with a higher authority, such as the terms of a written constitution.

[Warriorbird]

As I said I am no scholar but I think I said this but maybe not so well:

The supreme court has this job and this job only;

Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with judicial review power may invalidate government laws and decisions that are incompatible with a higher authority, such as the terms of a written constitution.

The court's power is to interpret the law. If you defang the court like you want you work to destroy the very fabric of our nation and undermine the rule of law.

If activist judges bother you, vote in Presidents who won't appoint them.

In your eyes I'm sure Marshall would be an activist too, the very Judge who got the Court this power. Judges have had political parties from the beginning as well.

[Gelston]

Hell, I'd say I trust in the Judicial branch more than the other two by a long shot.

[Androidpk]

Rule of law has already been undermined in this country.

[Haldrik]

The alternative to judicial review is the civil code found in Europe and Louisiana. They have no precedent and rule soley based on the laws. But I believe they are trying to add some precedent tools. (Note this is not the only difference, but its a major one.)

The President can also make laws besides executive orders which is generally coined "Administrative Law." Administrative law exists because Congress passed legislation which set up agencies under the presidents control.

There are valid arguments that this type of rule making is unconstitutional and should be stricken because all law making is supposed to come from Congress. However, this will never be overturned because it would literally unravel the entire political structure of our government. It would take something akin to a civil war for something this massive to occur.

[Parkbandit]

Hell, I'd say I trust in the Judicial branch more than the other two by a long shot.

That's only because it currently slants slightly right. Imagine if 2 of the more conservative justices were to leave and replaced with far left ones. I doubt you would trust the Court as much as you do currently.

[crb]

The Supreme Court doesn't "make" any laws at all. The President doesn't make laws either. He issues executive orders, which have to jive with pre existing laws and, of course, be constitutional.

Or simply exist in such a way as to result in no damaged parties having standing in order to challenge it in court.

[Gelston]

The alternative to judicial review is the civil code found in Europe and Louisiana. They have no precedent and rule soley based on the laws. But I believe they are trying to add some precedent tools. (Note this is not the only difference, but its a major one.)

The President can also make laws besides executive orders which is generally coined "Administrative Law." Administrative law exists because Congress passed legislation which set up agencies under the presidents control.

There are valid arguments that this type of rule making is unconstitutional and should be stricken because all law making is supposed to come from Congress. However, this will never be overturned because it would literally unravel the entire political structure of our government. It would take something akin to a civil war for something this massive to occur.

Louisiana does, and always has, used precedence. It just uses them in a different way and it generally falls secondary the the individual Judge's interpretation of the law. However, if the law becomes interpreted the same way enough, that is just what it becomes.

The President cannot make any laws. Congress creates Agencies, not the President. The President wouldn't have the money to create an agency on his own, even if he had the power. The President appoints the heads of those agencies that fall under the Executive Branch(with Congressional approval), but not all of them do. You so called "administrative law" that derives from Agencies created (by Congress) is powers that were given to them in their creation.

Again, the President does not make ANY kind of law.

[Haldrik]

The President cannot make any laws. Congress creates Agencies, not the President. The President wouldn't have the money to create an agency on his own, even if he had the power. The President appoints the heads of those agencies that fall under the Executive Branch(with Congressional approval), but not all of them do. You so called "administrative law" that derives from Agencies created (by Congress) is powers that were given to them in their creation.

Again, the President does not make ANY kind of law.

... The president can order the head of the agency to make laws that are in line with the scope of the agency and congressional legislation. Or he can fire them. Sure sounds like making laws to me. Or, he can set the direction of the agency which forces the agency to make laws in that direction. Or he fires them. Again, sounds like making laws!

[Haldrik]

III

Presidential Oversight

Of course the tension between technocratic and political views of agency action is not new. While “expertise” may have been the hallmark of New Deal thinking about administrative action, any thought of rationalizing administration as simply the exercise of expertise--as if the necessary judgments could be reached by calculation and without the intrusion of values-- has vanished. But is agency action, then, just politics?39 And if it is, rather, necessarily an admixture--if we refuse to accept the arbitrariness of “just politics” and yet must also concede it impossible to achieve “a government of laws and not of men” strictu senso--how do we keep the law side in significant operation?

The development of aggressively centralized presidential oversight, even control, of executive agency rulemaking has given this question new prominence. A quarter century ago, as presidential oversight mechanisms were gathering momentum, the Supreme Court delivered two judgments within months of each other that may appear to look in opposite directions. In State Farm,40 it reiterated and expanded the formulae for judicial review of the exercise of executive discretion under law that it had voiced in Citizens to Preserve Overton Park Inc. v. Volpe.41 It did so in a manner commonly taken as embracing of the D.C. Circuit's development of “hard look review” in important rulemakings. And then in Chevron,42 the Court accepted the possibility that Congress would often confer effective lawmaking (interpretive) *1360 roles on agencies within the ambiguous interstices of the statues they were responsible to administer. It thus celebrated what Professor, now Justice, Breyer sharply criticized as an inappropriate limitation of the judicial role on review,43 approvingly noting the President's political influence over matters of an essentially policy-making character, that are not a proper element of judicial judgment.

I found some interesting articles if anyone is curious.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1486221

http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1539&context=facpub

https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=28+J.+Legis.+1&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=a9ee86554d8a8a18c6d0bee8e84e8c54

I have a PDF of this last one but can't upload due to size limits if anyone wants it.

[EasternBrand]

The Supreme Court's power of judicial review of constitutionality is not its "one job and one job only." It is only one part. It has appellate jurisdiction over the rest of the federal courts, which hear all kinds of cases that don't implicate judicial review of legislative or executive actions. It even has original (i.e., trial-level) jurisdiction over certain kinds of matters (states suing other states, for instance).

[Latrinsorm]

The Whiskey Rebellion is the answer to a lot of the questions people think are recent developments in our government. In this case, Washington did not ask Congress if he could ride out at the head of 10,000 armed men to crush those who protested federal taxes. Compare that to whatever laws you think Obama has made, and tell me what has changed.

[Warriorbird]

The Supreme Court's power of judicial review of constitutionality is not its "one job and one job only." It is only one part. It has appellate jurisdiction over the rest of the federal courts, which hear all kinds of cases that don't implicate judicial review of legislative or executive actions. It even has original (i.e., trial-level) jurisdiction over certain kinds of matters (states suing other states, for instance).

All sorts of useful things that their beloved Articles did not have.

[ClydeR]

Definitions are the source of most controversy in the world today. This discussion is really about the meaning of the word "law." When most people use the word "law," they mean laws passed by Congress and signed by the President, just like in the Schoolhouse Rock song. A better word for laws passed by Congress would be "statutes." Or to say it another way, laws passed by Congress are "statutory law" or "legislation."

But statutory law is not the only kind of law. When a court interprets a statute, then the court's interpretation becomes a precedent, which must be followed by all lower courts in interpreting the same law. The court's interpretation of the statute becomes part of the law. Why must courts interpret statutes at all? Because Congress writes laws that are unclear. Before the end of 2015, the Supreme Court will decide the unclear meaning of some words (http://fortune.com/2014/11/10/supreme-courts-new-obamacare-case/) written by Congress as part of Obamacare. When the court rules, its ruling will be law.

Finally, there is executive law. The President's authority to create law comes from his enumerated powers in the Constitution and, more often, from statute. Almost every major piece of modern legislation includes a few sentences allowing or directing the President or one of his cabinet members to prepare regulations providing additional details for the administration of the statute. Those regulations are law. The Obamacare statute directed the IRS to enact regulations to implement tax subsidies on the insurance exchanges, and the Obamacare case that the Supreme Court will decide before the end of next year is actually about whether or not regulations enacted by the IRS were inconsistent with the regulation-making authority granted to the IRS by statutory law (http://insurancenewsnet.com/innarticle/2014/11/10/how-aca-challenge-could-affect-insurers-a-572336.html). Courts show deference toward regulations enacted by the executive branch, including the IRS, when statutory law gives the executive branch specific authority to regulate, but not unlimited deference. That's what the Obamacare case should be about. Exciting, isn't it?

You're welcome.