It also prevents a majority from easily taking away the rights of minorities. And it prevents those in office from holding on to power by increasing their terms in office. A document that is so difficult to amend can become obsolete over time, if it is too detailed and inflexible.
For the most part, however, the Constitution is written in terms general or abstract enough to retain a core set of values yet be amenable to changing interpretations as called for by the times. The Structure of the Federal Government. Legislative Branch. Article I of the Constitution vests the legislative power of the Untied States in a bicameral Congress.
The Congress is composed of the House of Representatives, the members of which are elected for two-year terms and represent districts of equal numbers of people, and the Senate which is composed of two senators from each state who serve for six-years terms.
Senators were originally chosen by the state legislature, but are now directly elected. The composition of the House and Senate represented a compromise between the larger states, which wanted a legislature based on population and the smaller states, which wanted equal representation for each state.
A majority of both houses must pass all bills, and if the President vetoes a bill, a two-thirds majority of both houses is required for the bill to become law. The powers of Congress are listed in Article I, Section 8, and Congress may not exercise any not power listed there.
But those powers encompass many areas, including taxing and spending, coining and borrowing money, controlling interstate and foreign commerce, maintaining an army and navy, and declaring war.
Congress also has broad authority to delegate many of its powers to the President and to administrative agencies. Executive Branch. The power of the executive branch is vested in the President. The President is elected for a four-year term, not by direct election but by the electoral college.
Under this system, each state has a number of members of the electoral college equal to the number of members of the House and Senate. The candidate who receives the largest number of votes in a state gets all the electoral votes of that state. The candidate with a majority of the electoral college becomes the President. If no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, the winner is chosen by the House of Representatives. To be eligible to be President one must be thirty-five years old and a natural born citizen of the United States.
Under the Twenty-second Amendment, no person may serve as President more than twice. The powers explicitly granted to the President in Article II are quite important, but limited in number. The President is the Commander in Chief of the Army. He also has the power to grant pardons and reprieves and has the power, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, and to appoint federal judges, ambassadors, and other public Officers of the United States.
The power to conduct foreign affairs has been held to be inherent in the office, but the Supreme Court has been less willing to extend inherent powers in the domestic area. The President is subject to control by Congress in several ways. The reason why the constitution provides that both houses of Congress must agree to the proposal amendment is that the Constitution provides that an Amendment be passed by both Houses of Congress to maintain a system of checks and balances.
One method—the one used for every amendment so far—is that Congress proposes an amendment to the states; the states must then decide whether to ratify the amendment. But in order for Congress to propose an amendment, two-thirds of each House of Congress must vote for it. Article V of the Constitution provides two ways to propose amendments to the document. Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress, through a joint resolution passed by a two-thirds vote, or by a convention called by Congress in response to applications from two-thirds of the state legislatures.
Terms in this set 4 Two methods of ratifying amendments are a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate and two-thirds of the states petition, or appeal to, Congress to call a convention. How did the Founders hope to prevent any one branch of government from gaining too much power? Under the principle of separation of powers, each branch has its own responsibilities. When the OFR verifies that it has received the required number of authenticated ratification documents, it drafts a formal proclamation for the Archivist to certify that the amendment is valid and has become part of the Constitution.
This certification is published in the Federal Register and U. Statutes at Large and serves as official notice to the Congress and to the Nation that the amendment process has been completed. In a few instances, States have sent official documents to NARA to record the rejection of an amendment or the rescission of a prior ratification.
The Archivist does not make any substantive determinations as to the validity of State ratification actions, but it has been established that the Archivist's certification of the facial legal sufficiency of ratification documents is final and conclusive.
In recent history, the signing of the certification has become a ceremonial function attended by various dignitaries, which may include the President. President Johnson signed the certifications for the 24th and 25th Amendments as a witness, and President Nixon similarly witnessed the certification of the 26th Amendment along with three young scholars. On May 18, , the Archivist performed the duties of the certifying official for the first time to recognize the ratification of the 27th Amendment, and the Director of the Federal Register signed the certification as a witness.
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