CLASS NOTES: Article I: The Legislative Branch (Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases)

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Notes on video lecture:

Article I: The Legislative Branch

Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases

Professor Kermit Roosevelt, III, University of Pennsylvania

Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on November 6, 2014 (go to class or lectures)

Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

conflict, fail, congress, check, back, person, both, specific, minded, president, fix, party, complies, branches, people, three, corruption, stop, rid, legislatures, peers, separation, head, interstate, lead, worried, state, interest, polarization, weight, constitutional, loyalty, foreign, idea

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even though the president is often thought of as the of the nation, the president doesn't come first in the Constitution

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it is that is described in Article I

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it's probably an over-simplification to call the president the leader

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each branch is supposed to in some ways or circumstances

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what is congress

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the Senate

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represents the states

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2 senators from each state

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chosen by legislatures, originally

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the House of Representatives

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represents the

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number determined by population

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chosen by population

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as far as making laws, the two houses function in the same way

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a bill has to get a through houses

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the senate can filibuster

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this can be ended by three-fifths majority vote

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this is not in the constitution and so the senate could get of it any time it wanted

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what kinds of bills

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a state legislature can pass anything it feels is a good

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but congress has only the powers set out in the constitution

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basically on issues that couldn't be left to the states

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commerce

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affairs

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once bill passes both houses it goes to the

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if he signs it, it becomes law

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if not, it goes

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two-thirds can override it

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courts will decide whether the law to the constitution or not

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separation of powers protects you from in the government

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generally a law needs the participation and approval of all branches

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congress enacts law

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executive enforces law

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judicial agrees that law is

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a jury (your ) can also be brought in to determine guilt

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what were the drafters about?

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concentrating power in the hands of one branch of government or of one , someone like King George

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what device did they use to protect us from it?

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of powers

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how has that worked out over the years?

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two things that have made the separation of powers work differently than how the framers anticipated

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1. 17th amendment: took election of senators away from the and gave it to the people of the states

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people-elected senators generally care less about the states per se than state-elected senators

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today in congress, more is given to the people than to the states

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2. the system:

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a system of government where elected officials belong to, and commonly vote with, a like- political bloc

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the idea behind the separation of government is that the different of government will see each other as rivals

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congress will feel a sense of to congress

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the president will feel a sense of loyalty to the office of the presidency

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the framers didn't think about political parties, which eventually with separation of powers

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a congress controlled by the same party as the president is much less likely to or balance that president

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a congress controlled by the opposite party has an in going out of its way to make the president in order to win the next presidency

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the party system tends to give us too much or too little checking and balancing

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how can we this?

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this is a problem that comes from political , from thinking of politics as if it were a team sport rather than a shared attempt to promote the common good

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so one thing we can do, probably the only thing we can do, is to thinking of politics in this way

Ideas and Concepts:

Via tonight's Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases class, two ways the separation of powers now works differently than how the Framers anticipated:

"The Framers of the Constitution set up the three sections of government in order for them to keep checks and balances on each other in specific ways. Two changes since then have impacted how these checks and balances work:

The first change was the 17th Amendment which took the election of senators away from the legislatures and gave it to the people of the states. People-elected senators generally don't care as much about the states interests per se as state-elected senators would. Today in congress, more weight is given to the people than to the states than what the Framers envisioned.

The second change is the political party system, a system of government where elected officials belong to, and commonly vote with, a like-minded political bloc. The Framers' idea behind the separation of government was that the different branches of government will see each other as rivals, e.g. congress will feel a sense of loyalty to congress, and the president will feel a sense of loyalty to the office of the presidency. However, in a government which is influenced by a political party system, a congress controlled by the same political party as the president is less likely to check or balance that president, and a congress controlled by the opposite party has an interest in going out of its way to make the president fail in order to win the next presidency. In this way, the political party system tends to give us too much or too little checking and balancing. How can we fix this? This is a problem that comes from political polarization, from thinking of politics as if it were a team sport rather than a shared attempt to promote the common good. So one thing we can do, probably the only thing we can do, is to stop thinking of politics in this way."