Federalism: The Separation Of Powers In The States

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Federalism is as defined by the United States Constitution, federalism is a fundamental aspect of American government, whereby the states are not merely regional representatives of the federal government, but are granted independent powers and responsibilities. (Dictionary.com) Federalism was created because it a compromise because the Framers could not agree upon a government. Some framers wanted a central federal government and some wanted a bunch of little individual state governments. So instead of fighting until one of the groups got their way they compromised and created federalism which split the power between the states and the federal government. Federalism slowly evolved from what it was originally to what it is now. Throughout time…show more content…
Only after re-evaluating my roots and reform book did I learn what the true separation of powers was. The separation of powers is a way of dividing power amongst three branches of government; the legislative branch, the judicial branch, and the executive branch. The separation of powers made sure each branch was independent and had their own powers. (Connor, K., Sabato, L., & Yanus, A. (2014). Pg. 40) Each of the three branches of government is kept from getting to power hungry by the checks and balances system. The branches all have their own ways of keeping the other branches in check such as no one branch being in charge of one thing. The book says, “Thus, for almost every power granted to one branch, the Framers established an equal control in the other two branches.” (Connor, K., Sabato, L., & Yanus, A. (2014). Pg. 41) The way the check system works as shown by Figure 2.1 in the Roots and Reform book is The executive branch is checked by and checks the legislative and judicial branch, the legislative branch is checked by and checks the executive and judicial branch and the judicial branch is checked by and checks the executive and legislative branch. (Connor, K., Sabato, L., & Yanus, A. (2014). Pg. 40) So you see the separation of powers applies only to the federal government whereas, federalism applies to both state governments and federal government. However, even with federalism the two levels of government involved kind of keep each other in check with their power and the powers they have over each other. It is sort of like they in a way have their own checks and balance system. The federal government has more power and has power over the state government. But there is also stipulations in place that gives the state some

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