America’s long history of ‘checks and balances’ is being tested by Trump like rarely before

ATLANTA AP It s what one historian calls an elaborate clunky machine one that s been fundamental to American democracy for more than two centuries The principle of checks and balances is rooted in the Constitution s design of a national executive with three distinct coequal branches President Donald Trump in his first days tested that system like rarely before signing dozens of executive orders closing or sharply reducing governing body agencies funded by Congress and denigrating judges who have issued dozens of rulings against him The framers were acutely aware of competing interests and they had great distrust of concentrated authority explained Dartmouth College professor John Carey an expert on American democracy That s where the idea came from Their road map has mostly prevented control from falling into one person s hands Carey noted But he warned that the system depends on people operating in good faith and not necessarily exercising power to the fullest extent imaginable Here s a look at checks and balances and previous tests across U S history A fight over Jefferson ignoring Adams appointments The foundational checks-and-balances fight President John Adams made last-minute appointments before he left office in His successor Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison ignored them William Marbury an Adams justice of the peace appointee inquired the Supreme Court to compel Jefferson and Madison to honor Adams decisions Chief Justice John Marshall concluded in that the commissions became legitimate with Adams signature and thus Madison acted illegally by shelving them Marshall however stopped short of ordering anything Marbury had sued under a law that made the Supreme Court the trial court in the dispute Marshall s opinion voided that law because it gave justices who almost exclusively hear appeals more power than the Constitution afforded them The split decision asserted the court s role in interpreting congressional acts - and striking them down - while also adjudicating executive branch actions Hamilton Jackson and national banks Congress and President George Washington chartered the First Bank of the United States in Federalists led by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton favored a strong central leadership and yearned a national bank that could lend the establishment money Anti-Federalists led by Jefferson and Madison required less centralized power and argued Congress had no authority to charter a bank But they did not ask the courts to step in Andrew Jackson the first populist president loathed the bank believing it to be a sop to the rich Congress voted in to extend the charter with provisions to mollify Jackson The president vetoed the measure anyway and Congress failed to muster the two-thirds majorities required by the Constitution to override him In the Philadelphia-based bank became a private state bank Lincoln and due process During the Civil War Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus a legal process that allows individuals to challenge their detention That allowed federal officers to arrest and hold people without granting due process Lincoln stated his maneuver might not be strictly legal but was a community necessity to protect the Union The Supreme Court s Roger Taney sitting as a circuit judge declared the suspension illegal but noted he did not have the power to enforce the opinion Congress ultimately sided with Lincoln through retroactive statutes And the Supreme Court in a separate episode challenging other Lincoln actions endorsed the president s argument that the office comes with inherent wartime powers not expressly allowed via the Constitution or congressional act Reconstruction Johnson vs Congress After the Civil War and Lincoln s assassination Radical Republicans in Congress required penalties on states that had seceded and on the Confederacy s leaders and combatants They also advocated Reconstruction programs that enfranchised and elevated formerly enslaved people the men at least Johnson a Tennessean was more lenient on Confederates and harsher to formerly enslaved people Congress with appropriations power established the Freedmen s Bureau to assist newly freed Black Americans Johnson with pardon power repatriated former Confederates He also limited Freedmen s Bureau authority to seize Confederates assets Spoils system vs civil organization For a century nearly all federal jobs were executive branch political appointments revolving doors after every presidential transition In Congress stepped in with the Pendleton Civil Operation Transformation Act Changes started with particular posts being filled through examinations rather than political favor Congress added to the law over generations advancing the civil facility system that Trump is now seeking to dismantle by reclassifying tens of thousands of authorities employees His aim is to turn civil servants into political appointees or other at-will workers who are more easily dismissed from their jobs Wilson s League of Nations After World War I the Treaty of Versailles called for an international body to bring countries together to discuss global affairs and prevent war President Woodrow Wilson advocated for the League of Nations The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Republican Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts brought the treaty to the Senate in with amendments to limit the League of Nation s influence Wilson opposed the caveats and the Senate fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify the treaty and join the League After World War II the U S took a lead role with Senate sponsorship in establishing the United Nations and the NATO alliance FDR and court packing Franklin D Roosevelt met the Great Depression with large federal programs and aggressive regulatory actions much of it approved by Democratic majorities in Congress A conservative Supreme Court struck down a few of the New Deal provision as beyond the scope of congressional power Roosevelt answered by proposing to expand the nine-seat court and pressuring aging justices to retire The president s critics dubbed it a court-packing scheme He disputed the charge But not even the Democratic Congress seriously entertained his idea Presidential term limits Roosevelt ignored the unwritten rule established by Washington that a president serves no more than two terms He won third and fourth terms during World War II rankling even particular of his allies Soon after his death a bipartisan coalition pushed the nd Amendment that limits presidents to being elected twice Trump has talked about seeking a third term despite this constitutional prohibition Nixon and Watergate The Washington Post and other media exposed ties between President Richard Nixon s associates and a break-in at Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel during the campaign By summer the story ballooned into congressional hearings court fights and plans for impeachment proceedings The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Nixon in his assertion that executive privilege allowed him not to turn over possible evidence of his and top aides roles in the cover-up including recordings of private Oval Office conversations Nixon resigned after a delegation of his fellow Republicans described him that Congress was poised to remove him from office Leaving Vietnam Presidents from John F Kennedy through Nixon ratcheted up U S involvement in Southeast Asia during the Cold War But Congress never declared war in Vietnam A deal under Nixon ended official American military involvement But complete U S withdrawal didn t occur until more than two years later a period during which Congress reduced funding for South Vietnam s democratic governing body Congress did not cut off all money for Saigon as various conservatives later claimed But lawmakers refused to rubber-stamp larger administration requests asserting a congressional check on the president s military and foreign strategy agenda The Affordable Care Act A Democratic-controlled Congress overhauled the nation s robustness insurance system in The Affordable Care Act in part tried to require states to expand the Medicaid operation that covers millions of children disabled people and specific low-income adults But the Supreme Court ruled in that Congress and President Barack Obama could not compel states to expand the scheme by threatening to withhold other federal money already obligated to the states under previous federal law The court on multiple occasions has upheld other portions of the law Republicans even when they have controlled the White House and Capitol Hill have been unable to repeal the act Source