Branches of US Government
Branches of the U.S. government
Learn about the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. government.
The Constitution of the United States divides the federal government into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. This ensures that no individual or group will have too much power.
EXECUTIVE
The executive branch’s key roles include:
- President - The president is the head of state, leader of the federal government, and Commander in Chief of the United States armed forces.
- Vice president - The vice president supports the president. If the president is unable to serve, the vice president becomes president. The vice president also presides over the U.S. Senate and breaks ties in Senate votes.
- The Cabinet - Cabinet members serve as advisors to the president. They include the vice president, heads of executive departments, and other high-ranking government officials. Cabinet members are nominated by the president and must be approved by the Senate.
The executive branch also includes executive departments, independent agencies, and other boards, commissions, and committees.
LEGISLATIVE
This branch is made up of Congress (the Senate and House of Representatives) and special agencies and offices that provide support services to Congress.
The legislative branch’s roles include:
- Drafting proposed laws
- Confirming or rejecting presidential nominations for heads of federal agencies, federal judges, and the Supreme Court
- Having the authority to declare war
JUDICIAL
The judicial branch includes the Supreme Court and other federal courts.
It evaluates laws by:
- Interpreting the meaning of laws
- Applying laws to individual cases
- Deciding if laws violate the Constitution
How each branch of government provides checks and balances
The ability of each branch to respond to the actions of the other branches is the system of checks and balances.
Each branch of government can change acts of the other branches:
- The president can veto legislation created by Congress. He or she also nominates heads of federal agencies and high court appointees.
- Congress confirms or rejects the president's nominees. It can also remove the president from office in exceptional circumstances.
- The Justices of the Supreme Court, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, can overturn unconstitutional laws.
From: USA.gov
Refresher on 3 Branches of US Government
3 Branches of US Government
The Constitution
The Constitution of the United States established America’s national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens.
It was signed on September 17, 1787, by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Under America’s first governing document, the Articles of Confederation, the national government was weak and states operated like independent countries. At the 1787 convention, delegates devised a plan for a stronger federal government with three branches—executive, legislative and judicial—along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power.
Bill of Rights from Netflix's We The People
Bill of Rights
from the Bill of Rights Institute
The Bill of Rights is the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. It spells out Americans' rights in relation to their government. It guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual—like freedom of speech, press, and religion.
Books
-
Can Schools Save Democracy? : civic education and the common good
by
How can education protect and strengthen democracy? In an era when democracy is at critical risk, is it reasonable to expect the education system--already buckling under the ordeal of a global pandemic--to solve the converging problems of inequality, climate change, and erosion of trust in government and science? Will more civics instruction help? In Can Schools Save Democracy?Michael J. Feuer offers a new approach to addressing these questions with a strategy for improving the process and substance of civic education. Although schooling alone cannot save democracy, it must play a part. Feuer introduces a framework for educator preparation that emphasizes collective action, experiential learning, and partnerships between schools and their complex constituencies. His proposed reform aims to equip teachers with an appreciation of the paradoxes of pluralism--in particular, the tensions between individual choice and social outcomes. And he offers practical suggestions for how to bring those concepts to life so that students in and out of the classroom acquire the skills, knowledge, and dispositions for enlightened democratic leadership. Adopting a definition of public education that celebrates the engagement between schools and their environments, Feuer argues for reinforced partnerships within the education system and between educators and their diverse constituents. He anticipates new collaborations between education faculty and their colleagues in the behavioral, social, and physical sciences and humanities; stronger links between schools and their complex outside environments; and improved mechanisms for global cooperation. Can Schools Save Democracy?includes lively examples of how theoretical principles can inform familiar problems and offers a hopeful path for progress toward a stronger democracy.
Call Number: ebookISBN: 9781421447780Publication Date: 2023 -
Transformative civic education in democratic societies
by
Call Number: ebookISBN: 1609177347Publication Date: 2023 -
Becoming Active Citizens : Practices to Engage Students in Civic Education Across the Curriculum
by
Call Number: ebookISBN: 9781952812941Publication Date: 2022 -
Living Democracy
by
At Auburn University, in Alabama, students may take part in a summer-long embedded community experience called "Living Democracy." This project has its roots in higher education's long history of civic engagement, but it takes a different perspective than traditional service learning programs. Rather than pose the question, "What does your community need?" the project organizers asked, "What could a student learn about democratic civic engagement while living in your community for ten weeks over the summer?" In Living Democracy: Communities as Classrooms, Students as Citizens, authors Mark Wilson, Director of Civic Learning Initiatives in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn, and Nan Fairley, Associate Professor of Journalism, describe the inception of the Living Democracy program and the work of students and community members who have made, and continue to make, the Living Democracy journey with them. Chapter One provides context for higher education. Chapter Two summarizes the project, including the opportunities and expectations of students as they participate. Chapter Three looks at the importance of relationships, both harmonious and contentious. Chapter Four illustrates the real-world challenges citizens face, and the ways in which students have an opportunity to experience the tension of tough decisions. Chapter Five discusses what students report as the benefits of the living-learning experience in communities. In concluding the book, an alumna of the program reflects on her experience in Living Democracy: "Life in real time makes one of the best classrooms. Sending young, eager college students to poke around in a community allows for self-reflection on the part of communities. This allows for conversation and collaboration in new and creative ways. Students, in turn, learn the power (and messiness) of community residents working together as they build projects with others."
Call Number: ebookISBN: 9781945577239Publication Date: 2017 -
What Kind of Citizen? : educating our children for the common good
by
How can schools teach the skills required for a strong democracy to flourish? What Kind of Citizen? asks readers to imagine the kind of society they would like to live in--and then shows the ways in which schools can be used to make that vision a reality. Westheimer draws on groundbreaking research on school programs and policies to sharply critique the current direction of school reform. He points to the many varied and powerful ways to teach children and young adults to engage critically, to think about social issues, and to participate in authentic debate that acknowledges that intelligent adults can have different opinions. But today's teachers are being forced to abandon these practices in favor of test-preparation in only a very narrow set of academic subjects. How did this happen? What can we do to set schools back on the right track? How can we realign school goals with what research shows parents, children, and teachers actually care about? How can we save our schools from today's myopic interpretation of what constitutes an education? Westheimer answers these questions and makes a powerful call for schools to become more engaging, more democratic, and more educative. Book Features: A comprehensive look at why schools should be at the forefront of public engagement and how educators and policymakers can make that happen. Accessible and engaging discussions based on consultations with hundreds of school teachers and civic leaders. Empirical research from one of the most influential frameworks for citizenship and democratic education, "Three Kinds of Citizens," that emerged from collaboration between the author and Dr. Joseph Kahne.
Call Number: LC1091 .W39 2015ISBN: 9780807756355Publication Date: 2015
How a Bill Becomes a Law
Project 2025 | School House Rock Style
Electoral College
An electoral college is a set of electors who are selected to elect a candidate to particular offices. Often these represent different organizations, political parties or entities, with each organization, political party or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way. The United States has been the only democracy in the 21st century that still uses an electoral college to select its executive president.
(Wikipedia contributors. "Electoral college." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Jun. 2024. Web. 5 Aug. 2024.)
-
What is the Electoral College?Information on the Electoral College from the National Archives.
-
-
Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America
by
Call Number: ebookISBN: 9780300180879Publication Date: 2011 -
Crisis at the Polls: an electoral reform handbook
by
Call Number: ebookISBN: 0313351260Publication Date: 2008
15 Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870.
In the final years of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed, Congress repeatedly debated the rights of the millions of black freedmen. By 1869, amendments had been passed to abolish slavery and provide citizenship and equal protection under the laws, but the election of Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency in 1868 convinced a majority of Republicans that protecting the franchise of black male voters was important for the party's future.
Wikipedia contributors. "Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 5 Jun. 2024. Web. 24 Jul. 2024.
-
Fighting Chance: the struggle over woman suffrage and Black suffrage in Reconstruction America
by
Call Number: ebookISBN: 9780199773183Publication Date: 2011
-
15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American HistoryPrimary document on the 15th Amendment from the collection of the Library of Congress.
Crum, Travis. "The Unabridged Fifteenth Amendment." Yale Law Journal, vol. 133, no. 4, Feb. 2024, pp. 1039+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A787597742/AONE?u=mca_main&sid=ebsco&xid=834c1f4b. Accessed 24 July 2024.
19 Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to vote. Ratified August 18th 1920. (Wikipedia contributors. "Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 23 Jun. 2024. Web. 5 Aug. 2024.)
Wu, Michelle M., et al. "Searching for Equality: The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond: A conversation between United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge M. Margaret McKeown." Georgetown Law Journal, vol. 108, no. SE, June 2020, p. 5+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link-gale-com.ezproxymca.flo.org/apps/doc/A630831510/AONE?u=mca_main&sid=AONE&xid=37657a53. Accessed 31 Aug. 2020.
-
19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American HistoryPrimary documents on the Women's Suffrage Movement from the collection of the Library of Congress.
-
Votes for Women: a portrait of persistence
by
A richly illustrated history of women's suffrage in the United States that highlights underrecognized activists Marking the centenary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Votes for Women is the first richly illustrated book to reveal the history and complexity of the national suffrage movement. For nearly a hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, countless American women fought for the right to vote. While some of the leading figures of the suffrage movement have received deserved appreciation, the crusade for women's enfranchisement involved many individuals, each with a unique story to be told. Weaving together a diverse collection of portraits and other visual materials--including photographs, drawings, paintings, prints, textiles, and mixed media--along with biographical narratives and trenchant essays, this comprehensive book presents fresh perspectives on the history of the movement. Bringing attention to underrecognized individuals and groups, the leading historians featured here look at how suffragists used portraiture to promote gender equality and other feminist ideals, and how photographic portraits in particular proved to be a crucial element of women's activism and recruitment. The contributors also explore the reasons why certain events and leaders of the suffrage movement have been remembered over others, the obstacles that black women faced when organizing with white suffragists and the subsequent founding of black women's suffrage groups, the foundations of the violent antisuffrage movement, and the ways suffragists held up American women physicians who served in France during World War I as exemplary citizens, deserving the right to vote. With nearly 200 color illustrations, Votes for Women offers a more complete picture of American women's suffrage, one that sheds new light on the movement's relevance for our own time. Published in association with the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
Call Number: KF4895 .L46 2019ISBN: 9780691191171Publication Date: 2019
