Skip to main content

What is one weakness of the legislative branch?

When our plan of government was established under the Constitution, three branches of government were created. Each branch had a different job to do, and each branch could control the other branches. One weakness of the legislative branch is that it has had a hard time getting back some of the power that belongs to the legislative branch.


There is a very good example of this weakness in recent U.S. History. In 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution basically gave President Johnson the power to do whatever was necessary to be successful in the Vietnam War. This gave the President some powers regarding the use of our military that are normally reserved for Congress. Congress tried to regain some of this power by passing the War Powers Act of 1973. The law limits the ability of the President to commit our troops abroad without getting approval from Congress. However, several presidents have ignored this law because there is no penalty for breaking it. For example, President Reagan sent troops to Lebanon, and President Clinton sent troops to Kosovo. The courts won’t get involved because they view this more as a political issue than as a legal issue.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more