Ep. 197 Checks & balances = effective government?

Hello and welcome to episode 197 where we are getting perilously close to 200 not out. Today across the pond we go to US politics and specifically the Constitution topic where we'll pinch to zoom on checks and balances updating a way back when pod from 2019. Now the question I will pose is this. Evaluate the view that the constitutional checks and balances fail to produce effective government. Okay, let's think about the limitation placed on the question. You only need to deal with the checks explicitly contained in the Constitution. So you don't need to focus on such things as the filibuster since that's a check or a power that the Senate has given itself although you can bring it into analysis when looking at whether the checks are able to sustain a legislative program. The best thing to do is to bring in a few checks and balances for each branch of government. I'll be focusing on around six checks in this pond. I will bring in a few more but specifically I'll focus on Congress's ability to amend delay and reject presidential bills. Still the most important check and often the one that students just don't mention. I'll bring in the veto and veto override as well. Two, Congress's ability to declare war and the presidential power as commander-in-chief. Three, the Senate's confirmation power and four, the impeachment power of the House and the Senate's power to decide upon guilt. Five, the Supreme Court's power of judicial review, which while not strictly an explicit constitutional check is more or less an implied one and it allows the court to declare actions of Congress and the president null and void so it's really important and finally the power of pardon. Now I think a lot of students may take a check by check approach but that might mean you don't write about a lot of checks you might write about say impeachment in one whole chunky paragraph and you know spending a whole paragraph on impeachment which this check by check approach inevitably leads to can feel too narrow. So what is better? Well some students may well take a branch by branch approach so paragraph one would be on the checks that Congress has. Paragraph two on the president and paragraph three on the Supreme Court of the United States or what we abbreviate to SCOTUS. This is quite a neat simple approach but my fear here is that you might not answer the actual question. It could just be a list of checks that were at work and a list of checks which don't. I feel that to show really good thinking skills necessary for high AO2 you should pin your analysis of checks and balances to a specific set of criteria, a list of standards if you will with which to judge whatever the question is asking you. In this case the question is asking you about effective government. So I'm going to set three standards or criteria which judge this term effective government. One effective government as the ability to respond decisively to national and international crises so how well do these checks allow for emergency responses. Two effective government as the ability to hold public officials accountable and uphold the rule of law and three effective government as the ability to produce coherent meaningful and timely legislation that the country needs and which ensures the protection of rights. My overall direction will be that the checks and balances in the Constitution fail utterly to produce effective government. To help me prove this side of the argument I'll weave in the checks into each section across the branches and keep referring back to the criteria to the standards I've set for effective government. Let's look at standard one then. Do the checks and balances allow the government to respond decisively to national and international events. A key test of effective governance is whether the government can act swiftly and decisively in moments of crisis such as war, economic collapse or public health emergencies. In some cases checks have not obstructed effective crisis response. We see this fact when examining Congress's ability to reject amend or delay presidential bills. For example, Congress passed Biden's American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 providing rapid financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, Congress can use its power of the purse to respond to war or a misguided adventure. It influenced military strategy by threatening to defund operations in Iraq in 2007 which forced the Bush administration to change course. However, there are multiple examples where the checks have been circumvented leading to either overly centralized or unaccountable action. While Congress often gives authorization for use of military force, what we call AUMFs, Congress has not formally declared war since 1941 despite being given that power in the Constitution. Since World War II, the US has been involved in more than 20 conflicts indicating that the President often acts unilaterally in military matters if Congress is not declaring war. Presidents have been given a relatively free pass to use their commander in chief power. For instance, Biden ordered airstrikes on Houthi rebels in 2024 without congressional approval and Trump unilaterally withheld intelligence from Ukraine, both demonstrating that checks are often ineffective in restraining presidential power and foreign policy. Indeed, executive actions are used increasingly to guide US responses to crisis rather than congressional ones. Some may argue that crisis needs only one commander in chief rather than 535 lawmakers in both chambers of Congress, yet that means that effective government is too dependent on the views and whims of one person. Trump's off-again-on-again attitude to providing weapons to Ukraine is hardly assisting national or international security. The Senate's treaty ratification power is supposed to reign in the President when it comes to foreign affairs, yet presidents have circumvented this check by signing executive agreements that do not require a two-thirds Senate vote. These agreements are easy to enter into and even easier to leave as Trump showed by exiting the US from the World Health Organization at the start of his second term, a decision that may well store up trouble for a future pandemic. An erratic president can create a chaos of their own by using existing laws which Congress has passed and that give the president the ability to act without them. Trump's imposition of tariffs pose real short, medium and long-term risks to the US and world economy. He was given, the president was given, this ability to impose tariffs by acts of Congress. Thus, congressional checks specifically in relation to amending, rejecting or in this case passing legislation have arguably created the conditions for crisis rather than the conditions for resolving them. It is also very hard for the other branches to respond to a disinterested or isolationist president. Congress could do little to prevent the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan or Trump's failure to reign in Israel and Gaza which have led to claims of war crimes and an awful humanitarian crisis. According to Democrats, Trump's assault on federal agencies has left the US less prepared to tackle environmental and natural disasters. They point to the cuts in the National Weather Service, the government agency which provides weather forecasts in the US and how that might have limited the country's ability to adequately predict the floods and raise the alarm. Thus, we can credibly make the case that the constitutional checks specifically those afforded to Congress do not allow that body to play a sufficient role in crisis management and thus these checks or lack thereof impede effective government. Next up, let's examine the ability of these checks and balances to hold the executive to account. An effective government must be able to monitor and where necessary punish misconduct by public officials. This is a core purpose of checks and balances. Much of the heavy lifting comes from those checks to punish wrongdoing i.e. the impeachment process but it also comes from the checks to ensure the only decent upstanding citizens get to staff the government and here we have to look at the Senate's confirmation power. When it comes to removing elected officials, the House of Representatives can impeach a president for high crimes and misdemeanors which forces the accused to stand trial in the Senate which oversees that trial and decides upon removal or acquittal. The House impeached Trump twice in his first term once for putting national security at risk for holding up military aid to Ukraine in order to elicit Zelensky's help with digging up dirt on a political rival in that year Joe Biden and secondly for inciting a riot after disputing the results of the 2020 presidential election and thus hindering the peaceful transfer of power. Arguably, both these instances demonstrate that the checks and balances provide consequences for wrongdoing. We'll challenge this all in a moment. Let's also consider the Senate's confirmation power. It exists to ensure that the president can't just appoint who they like. Trump's nominee for Attorney General Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from the nomination process after it became clear that the Senate would ask some difficult questions regarding allegations of sexual misconduct. Finally, we can also see the role of the US Supreme Court by using its power of judicial review it too could hold the government accountable by nullifying executive actions. In 2025, the SCOTUS blocked the Trump administration's attempt to unilaterally end US development aid which seems reasonable given that the Congress had appropriated funds to that end. Yet, there is significant evidence that these mechanisms are increasingly politicized or ignored. For example, Trump's impeachment in 2021 for inciting a riot resulted in a majority vote for conviction in the Senate, yes, but it still fell short of the two-thirds required by the Constitution. In his earlier 2020 impeachment trial, only one Republican senator voted to convict despite strong evidence of abuse of power. Remember, impeachment in the House does not automatically result in removal as these examples show and is perhaps a limit to checks and balances. Similarly, Clinton's impeachment and the 2024 impeachment of Biden's boarder chief were perceived as politically motivated rather than a genuine attempt to hold leaders accountable for serious misconduct. In these instances, the checks and balances have been misused. Furthermore, the Senate's confirmation power has become a partisan tool. The refusal to vote on Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination in 2016 contrasted with the rapid confirmation of Trump's nominee Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 shows how checks can be manipulated for partisan advantage, and this check has been simultaneously underused. Pretty much all of Trump's cabinet was easily approved by the Senate after his second term victory, including defense secretary Pete Hegseff, who had been accused of drunkenness and sexual assault, yet he was asked soft questions in his Senate confirmation hearing, including how many press-ups can you do? When acting as defense secretary, Hegseff kept his post despite the fact that information on bombing Houthi targets were inadvertently sent to a journalist. Let's turn back also to the Supreme Court's power of judicial review when it comes to accountability, the partisan appointment process has resulted in a favorable climate for Republican presidents hindering that accountability. With the Senate using its confirmation power to appoint conservative justices willing to do the bidding of Republican presidents, Trump's nominees have combined with existing conservatives on the court to give that voting block a 6-3 majority. It voted to give Trump immunity from prosecution in 2024 for any action committed as president, despite the fact that at the time he was facing 91 charges across four separate indictments and had been convicted on 34 of those at the time of the decision, the existing charges were subsequently dropped upon him winning a second term. The SCOTUS has continued to be lenient with the Trump administration in 2025. In Trump v Casa, it limited the ability of lower courts to place injunctions on presidential actions. Indeed, too much power is placed in the hands of the president when it comes to deciding upon wrongdoing, thus affecting effective government if we're judging it by accountability. In the realm of pardons, the president is virtually unchecked. Trump pardoned individuals involved in the January 6th riots and Biden issued pre-emptive pardons for his son Hunter. In both cases, the use of pardon power appears self-serving, and the absence of any effective constraint on this power undermines accountability. Thus, when measured by the ability to uphold the rule of law and ensure accountability, the US system of checks and balances frequently fails to deliver effective government. Finally, let's concern ourselves with the checks and balances and whether they facilitate or prevent effective legislation. The ability to legislate effectively is another key test of whether the constitutional checks and balances provide for effective government. In theory, checks such as the amending power of Congress, which I mentioned previously, but also the presidential veto and the veto override power of Congress should encourage, should encourage bipartisanship, deliberation and compromise conducive to decent lawmaking. Biden's infrastructure package passed with a mix of Democrat and Republican support and committed the country to long-term spending on really important things like rail upgrades, roads, bridges, the replacement of lead pipes, the modernization of the national grid, faster broadband, rollout in rural areas and many more important things besides. Meanwhile, the Inflation Reduction Act committed America to green investment, which demonstrates that landmark legislation can still succeed when there is political will. At the same time, bad bills can be rejected, Republican lawmakers stymied Trump's attempts to overturn Obamacare. The US Supreme Court also has a role to play in ensuring that laws protect the rights of citizens, another way we can judge whether legislation is effective and thus whether government is effective and thus whether the checks and balances are effective. It can use its power of judicial review to declare null and void any actions of Congress or that of the President. It did exactly that by striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, which declared marriage was solely between a man and a woman and excluded gay couples from receiving federal benefits. However, in practice, these checks often lead to deadlock, obstruction and gridlock. Let's return to Congress in divided government where one party controls the White House and another controls one or more chamber of Congress. We often see the abuse of checks and balances. The Republican Party, or GOP, as it is often called, refused to pass Biden's voting rights legislation that would have prevented states from placing barriers upon the franchise. The rejection of Biden's 2024 immigration proposals, despite him conceding to all GOP demands, reveals how partisanship often overrides substance. Republicans blocked the bill to deny Biden a political win here, not because of policy disagreement, but because they wanted this issue of immigration to remain a live issue going into the 2024 presidential election, where they thought their guy, President Trump or former President Trump at that time, would win out. This kind of behavior reflects partisan sabotage rather than democratic deliberation. Conversely, United Government will undermine Congress's ability to use its scrutiny checks of amending and delaying legislation. The passage of the Patriot Act in just 28 days after 9/11, with minimal scrutiny, demonstrates how checks can sometimes be swept aside in times of panic, leading to poorly drafted and controversial laws. Hasty legislation leads to a bad economy. Also, Congress has the power of the purse. Yes, it improves the president's budget. Yet this check has been abused, too, and has resulted in government shutdowns when one has not been agreed upon. The 35-day government shutdown between December 2018 and January 2019 led to a downgrading of US debt, which makes it more expensive for the country to borrow as rating agencies cast doubt on America's ability to pay back its loans. A similar shutdown was only narrowly avoided in 2024, but these appear to be perennial crises. When finance bills are passed, the opposite criticism is sometimes levied. Critics argued that Biden's American Rescue Plan stoked inflation due to insufficient debate and oversight passed as it was in the United Government. Similarly, Trump's so-called Big Butaville Bill passed in June 2025 and passed with only GOP support. Only came about due to threats that were made by the administration to primary waving Republicans. That is to say, if you don't support this bill, we will put a candidate up against you when you run for re-election. There are real concerns about the impact this bill will have for public health with cuts to Medicaid and also for the budget deficit with its unfunded tax cuts. It also suggests that lawmakers are often bullied into supporting presidential laws, which are not right for the country, but also its smacks of corruption, where lawmakers are unwilling to perform their constitutional checks if special interests make it worth their while not to do so. Senator Lisa Murkowski threw in the towel, despite saying that she didn't like the Big Butaville Bill. After that bill, magically included funding for the fishing industry in her home state of Alaska, a special interest, by the way, that was happy to help Lisa Murkowski with her campaign costs in 2024. I also want to consider the use of judicial review here, because in 2025, SCOTUS has allowed the sidelining of Congress by upholding the ability of presidents to act alone. In July 2025, it allowed it to proceed with plans to gut the education department and to continue with its deportation plans, hence the legislative process in the US, while designed to be cautious and balanced with these checks and balances often either grinds to a halt or produces suboptimal outcomes that concentrate power, which undermines the concept of effective lawmaking, and by extension, the entire purpose of checks and balances, which was to share power, not to centralize it. The mechanisms for the veto and veto override often prove this point. Since 1789, more than 2,500 bills have been vetoed by the president, safe in the knowledge that a veto override from Congress is just too difficult, since it requires two-thirds majorities in both chambers in order for the override to be successful, hence why less than 5% of vetoes have been overridden, including none of Bidens and only one of Trumps in his first term. Overall, while the system of checks and balances in the US was designed to protect democracy and prevent tyranny, its current operation hinders these sorts of things, therefore hinders effective government. It fails to ensure accountability, allows presidential overreach and undermines coherent lawmaking through hyperpartisanship. While there are isolated instances where the system performs well, such as in moments of crisis response or blocking poor legislation, these are the exception rather than the rule. Therefore, the view that checks and balances fail to produce effective government is a convincing one. United government results in underuse of the checks and balances that I have mentioned here. Divided government leads to gotcha politics. Meanwhile, the partisan SCOTUS is failing to provide adequate accountability of the Executive Branch and is failing to assist Congress in this endeavour as well. A few more tips to end with, peeps. You don't need to mention every check, but don't just focus on impeachment for sure, unless you want to stay in level three or below, which you don't. Recent examples are best. While providing examples, don't just tell stories, mention the check first and also, after you've given the example, explain how this links back to the question that you're trying to answer. United and divided government need a mention really, focusing on the factors that affect effective government will allow you to win AO2 marks for thoughtful analysis. Have a clear direction throughout. Those who sit on the fence get splinters. Righto, that's it for now then, peeps. If you found this pod useful, then have a think about subscribing to plus, plus, plus. You're all accessed past to the full back catalogue of A level politics shows for just £1.99 a month. Yes, less than a price of a cuppa. You can enjoy every show and every transcript of every pod ever recorded. Cancel any time, deets in the show notes. Until the next time though, peeps. Ta-da.