Constitution Basics Pt. 2 (2020)

All right, everybody. Welcome back to Judy's podcast. I'm Mr. Judy, and today Constitution Basics Part 2. So after going through the recipe of how a government comes to be, today we're going to talk about the background of the United States Constitution. Take a look at the document with the preamble, the articles, and amendments. Quickly go over the three branches of government, the internal checks of the government, and what the Constitution has to say about slavery. So kick back, relax, and let's roll. All right, I started out on the basics of the Constitution of the document, the background, how we got to it. First off, the Constitution replaced the articles of Confederation as the official government of the United States. The Constitutional Convention took place from May 25th, 1787, September 17th, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. James Madison is often considered to be the father of the Constitution, because he is the primary author of the document itself, and from his notes in journal, this is where we have information about the Constitutional Convention. In order to overturn the articles Confederation, 9 out of 13 states were needed to vote yes in a Constitution, New Hampshire became the 9th state to do so on June 21st, 1788. That led to the first round of elections in November of 1788 with the official start of the U.S. government. Rhode Island was only one of the 13 original states not to send a delegate to the Constitution Convention, and Rhode Island was also the last state to officially ratify the Constitution, doing so on May 29th, 1790. The Constitution is split into three parts, and that will be the next three sections that I'll go over. The preamble, the articles, and the amendments to the Constitution. The first part of the Constitution is the preamble. It's not very long, it's about a paragraph, and at some point in time there's a good chance that a teacher might have had you memorize that for class. The important part of the preamble is that it states the reason for the Constitution, and declares government comes from the people. The famous first words, we the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union. The primary focus of this class is going to be both of those parts, where the people of the United States, and then what does it mean to form this more perfect union that the founders referred to. The second part of the Constitution we're going to cover is the articles. There are seven articles of the Constitution, it might help you think about the articles in terms of being chapters of a book. Article 1 deals with a legislative branch, Article 2, the executive branch, Article 3, the judicial branch, Article 4, relationships between the states, Article 5, the amending process, to the Constitution, Article 6, the National Supremacy, and then Article 7, ratification of the Constitution. There are two parts that I want to go in a little bit more real quick on. The first of the Article 1, Section 8, clause 18. This is referred to as the elastic clause. The elastic clause allows Congress to pass all laws necessary and proper to the function of the United States. Basically, as long as Congress can argue where a law could benefit with its passage, Congress has absolute authority in passing that law. The second part that I wanted to highlight is Article 6 with this National Supremacy, the idea is that if there is a difference in laws between a state law and a national law on the same subject, that the national law is supreme and will be, will override the state law. You see this at different times in American history, but most recently, with the idea of marijuana, where marijuana is still banned on a national level, but states have been allowed to implement marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use. Once you see the more and more states use it from medicinal use, it will probably become a national law. So the idea is that states are laboratories of democracy and get to try things out, but if things don't go the way intended that the national law will still prevail until a better way is shown to exist. And branding out the Constitution are the amendments. The amendments were not an original part of the Constitution, but rather something added on later. An amendment is an official change to the Constitution, which is why they were added on later. The first ten amendments are collectively known as the Bill of Rights and are the most popular source for people in the United States to cite their freedoms from the government. And in the Bill of Rights, you see as well as all amendments, you see either something being given to people or something being limited by the government. There are currently 27 amendments to the Constitution in order for an amendment to happen, one of two things must start. So first, two thirds of both houses of Congress must propose and pass the amendment through their chambers, or two thirds of all the states can call for a convention to propose the amendment. Once the amendment is then proposed, either through the congressional action or the state conventions, three quarters of all the states must then accept it for it to become law. And when you look through American history, the smaller or fewer number of states that existed, the higher chance that an amendment was going to be passed. As the United States expanded and added states, we also see less and less constitutional amendments being passed. Okay, just want to take a quick break right here before we move into the three branches and just remind you that if you need to go back, there's always a rewind button. And depending on what service you listen to, you can also listen to this podcast at different speeds. So you might want to play around and see if there's a speed that works for you. So the three branches are coming up next, executive branch, legislative branch, and then the judicial branch. Let's go. The first branch that we will cover today is the executive branch. This is the most popular look to branch. It also has the most powerful office, arguably in the entire world. This would be the executive branch. The job of the executive branches to enforce or carry out laws. Think about this as a place of business where there's upper management, middle management, and then your individual workers, upper management, trains, and make sure that middle management, each has processes that get done. And then it is up to that middle management to go to their individual departments and employees and make sure things are being carried out in the proper manner with accordance with what the upper management wants. So this is a job of the executive branch. Make sure that the laws are enforced and carried out through the land to protect everybody from threats both domestic and foreign, as the constitution says. So this branch is comprised of the president of the United States, the vice president of the United States, the cabinet of the president, the white house staff, and the executive office of the president. The current president is Joseph Biden, and the current vice president is Kamala Harris. We have now had 59 elections in our country's history, and Mr. Biden is now the 46th president of the United States. I mentioned the cabinet. So the cabinet refers to specialized departments that are directly answerable to the president, and the president can make policy for these departments and whatever these departments are over. There are currently 15 departments in the cabinet. Some are pretty broad with the idea of like the department state, which primarily focuses on Americans and relationships abroad with other countries to a little bit more specific departments like Department of the Interior, which deals with all things inside the United States veteran affairs deals with people who have once upon a time served in the military, and now are veterans. If you want to become president, you have to be at least 35 years old, a natural born citizen, and also this is the only office elected office in the United States in which you must be born in the United States to hold. And you have to have a continual residency in the United States for 14 years and not commit any high crimes against the state. A president can serve two consecutive terms that was in each term is four years. In a constitutional amendment, also limited the number of terms, it was traditionally done as two terms. However, after President Franklin Roosevelt served four elected terms, or was elected four times passed away as four term, the constitution was then amended to just be two terms per president. The second branch of the government that I want to cover in this podcast today is the legislative branch. Its job is to make laws. Now, the constitution was comprised to create these three branches, and it was also the desire of the founding fathers to make Congress, or the legislative branch, the most powerful branch. In this, we have the two houses of Congress, the House of Representatives, and across the hall, the Senate. So if you want to become a representative, you, well, let's get to the requirements layer of representatives, serve two year terms, they can serve unlimited terms, and it is based on the population of a state. So currently, about every 710 to 712,000 people a state has, it will get one representative. This, of course, is also tied to the census that occurs every 10 years. In 1929, Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act, permanently setting the number of representatives in Congress of 435. So again, we have 435 members of Congress split among the 50 states. Every state is guaranteed at least one representative in Congress, regardless of population. Utah currently has 4 representatives in the Northern area. That is represented by Blake Moore. He is fairly newly elected. He is replacing longtime politician, Rob Bishop, District 2, which is primarily Davis County, Western Utah, and Southern Utah, including St. George's represented by Chris Stewart. District 3, which is mostly Eastern Utah, and South Eastern Utah, is represented by John Curtis, and District 4, which is the newly created District, largely in the middle of the state, where most of the growth has happened on the south end of the Salt Lake Valley and into Utah County, is represented by Clarence, Burgess, Rowlands, and he is newly elected, replacing Ben the Caltims. The speaker of the House of Representatives is the leader of the House of Representatives, and is also seen as the leader of the majority party in the House of Representatives. This person primarily dictates what policy is going to be passed through the House of Representatives, coordinates party votes on any given issue, and is really just the face of what is going to happen as far as law is over the next couple of years. The current speaker of the House represents this Nancy Pelosi, and if the President and Vice President should die or become incapacitated or unable to perform her duties, the speaker of the House of Representatives would then become the new President. In order to become a representative, you must be at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for seven years, living a state in an area in which you represent, and not come any high crimes against the state. On the other side are the Senators. Senators serve six-year terms, and just like representatives, also can serve unlimited terms. Every state is guaranteed to Senators, making a hundred total, and is led by the Vice President. Most Vice Presidents in American history have been former Senators. When the Vice President is not available to lead the Senate, the Senate is then led by the President Pro Tempor, and the current President Pro Tempor is Patrick Leighie of Vermont, and also a fun fact about him and just to check to see if you're so paying attention. Patrick Leighie is also starred in, I believe, four Batman movies. He's just a big superhero fan. The current Utah Senators are Mitt Romney and Mike Lee. In order to become a Senator, you must be at least 30 years old. A U.S. citizen for nine years, living a state that you represent, and can not commit any high crimes against the state. On my representatives, Senators do not represent a specific geographic area in a state. They represent the state as a whole, and so they don't have to live anywhere specific besides actually in the state. The third and final branch of the United States government is the judicial branch. Its job is to interpret the laws and actions of the other two branches. The Supreme Court and all other federal courts make up the judicial branch. As far as federal courts go, there are 94 district courts in the United States. Also, there are a host of specialty courts, including things like bankruptcy court, tax court, court for veteran affairs. So you have these 94 district courts and especially courts. Then there's 13 appellate courts, which means if there is a ruling at a district court and it is not agreed upon by one party, specifically the losing party, the party can then appeal its case and ask for one of these 13 appellate courts to re-hear the case and reconsider the ruling. Appellate courts are not bound to re-hear any case and most cases are denied. In these 94 district courts, the specialty courts and appellate courts generally three judges sit on the bench and make those decisions. As far as the Supreme Court goes, there are nine justices and in order to become a justice or a judge in any federal court, you must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. You serve for a life that means until death or until you retire and the Supreme Court is the final authority on all legal matters because there is no higher legal authority in the United States. So once the Supreme Court makes a ruling, that is final. The Supreme Court is led by the Chief Justice. Our current Chief Justice is John Roberts. Alright, we're almost done. We just had the internal checks of the government and with the Constitution says about slavery. Just wanted to encourage you to take a quick break, stretch, grab something to drink, do whatever you need to do so we can finish this one out strong. Alright, let's talk about the internal checks of the government. How do we ensure that the government does not gain too much power or abuse its power? The first internal check I want to mention is the separation of powers. The separation of powers is what we just covered, the three branches. The intent was that each branch of government is designed to be essentially its own form of many government and that each branch can then specialize and become an expert in those matters and really just stick to what the Constitution has said that is supposed to do. And a lot of times that we've had questions about, you know, can a Supreme Court ruling become law or a can of president make an executive agreement with another country without it being a treaty? This is where we start to get into the separation of powers and the fact that not all things in a Constitution are clear. In fact, the founders left a number of things very vague and kind of the whole idea of like kick the rock down the road and let somebody else figure it out later. So again, separation of powers, we have a branch, we have these three branches and at each branch is over one specific big area of government. The second internal check is the balance of power. The whole idea of this is that if one branch was to overreach and abuse its power that it has been given, that there is a way for one or two of the other branches to then balance it out and bring that other branch in. And so this would look like with the executive branch, it can check the other two branches in the following ways. The president can nominate justices for the Supreme Court or for any courts and force the court orders can recommend legislation of Congress and veto congressional bills. Congress can then check the other two branches by creating more courts, deciding the number of judges on those courts, redistricting the areas in which the courts cover, impeach judges, impeach the president, override the presidential vetoes. And then the judicial branch primarily relies on court cases and its interpretation to declare laws of Congress, unconstitutional, or declare presidential acts unconstitutional, but also in stating what it means to do so or why it was unconstitutional. And so again, the whole idea is that each branch has a responsibility that stays within that responsibility. That if it doesn't, there's ways to make sure that it does by the other two branches and their functions to then check that branch. Here we go, home stretch. What does a constitution say about slavery? This is by far and away the most unsavory part to have to talk about in this lecture, but it is also important to know that the United States Constitution does talk about slavery and the ways in which it does. Slavery was one of the most contested issues at the convention and actually threatened to tear the constitution apart and have it not come into existence largely because slavery was about power. You see, the South had grown fairly richer than in North, based off of its agriculture and raw material production, which in turn was the work of slaves. And the North did not necessarily favor slavery. It existed in parts of the North, but the northern states primarily look to get rid of slavery for a variety of reasons. So the economic issue of slavery, how can we balance out the wealth of the North and the South a little bit? How can we make it a fair system? The constitution said that slaves could be imported to the United States until the end of the year 1807 and starting in the year of 1808. Slaves were no longer allowed to be brought from the outside into the United States. The idea was that slavery would eventually just go away on its own and then we won't have to deal with the idea of slavery anymore and this appeased the South. And the South is able to agree to it. However, we also know that a number of illegal slave markets remained and that slaves were continually imported into the United States despite the fact that the constitution had outlawed it. The other part of the constitution was slavery that I want to highlight is the one that you probably know, the representational issue. Again, the number of representatives per state is based on the population of the state. If states were allowed to count the slave population, the South would hold a vast amount of representational and voting power over the North. Now, obviously, the Southern states fought for this, the Northern states rebuffed it and in a compromise that we call the three fifths compromise, it was stated that states could count 60% of its slave population towards the final census. And then with that, the South continually held more power. However, as the United States expanded, more and more of these new states, either outright ban slavery or had other functions to prevent what slavery was doing and ways to get rid of it. So as the United States expanded, slavery eventually does start to die off which directly led to the Civil War. So, here we are. We're done. Thank you so much for spending the time with me. I appreciate it. Peace, love, and hugs, and if you have any questions, you know where to get at me. Talk to you later.