aksjfd's Blog

While watching the election results, my bf asked me why it was such a big deal to have a 60-40 split in the Senate. Today, I read a post saying that Democrats have had 'control' of Congress and therefore should have already enacted change. Therefore, I thought it may be a good idea to review how they system of checks and balances work.

All branches, Executive, Lesgislative and Judicial are equal. None is more powerful than the other. To keep this balance in check, the forefather gave the Judicial branch lifelong appointments. This way they couldn't be voted out for upholding the Constitution. THey coulodn't be removed from office by the Pres for upholding the Constitution. The Legislative branch has the power to make laws and over rule the President. However, to keep that power in check, they must have a TWO THIRDS MAJORITY in favor of the override of all vetos. The Executive branch has the 'final review' on all bills and shapes foreign policy, to keep that in check, the Pres. vetos can be overruled and the other branches can declare things like the Patriot Act as unconstiutional, etc.

Since our focus is the Democratically controlled Congress, let's focus on their strenghts and weaknesses. The Democrats had a majority with 51 Senators beginning in JANUARY OF 2007. Unfortunately, in just 1 year and 10 months, they have not been able to get enough Republicans on their side to make up the 16 Senator deficit they have in order to overrule the President, a Republican, when he vetos their bills. The same is true in the House. Sure, the Democrats had a majority, but not enough Republicans are in favor of change, so they did not have the votes there either.

So, you can see that the Democrats have not had the ABILITY to inflict change until 2009 when they have a much more commanding majority and a President who agrees with them (hence the 'blank check' charge by Republicans). Keep in mind, though, that the REPUBLICANS had the MAJORITY AND THE PRESIDENT FROM 2001--2006 which means they had complete control of the direction of the country. And, I'd like to know why you guys either 1. think they did such a great job or 2. why aren't you mad that your party did such a poop job?