by Matthew Bransgrove | Jul 20, 2015 | Checks & Balances
The Abscam scandal—a sting in which FBI agents posed as Middle Eastern businessmen seeking corrupt favors from lawmakers—resulted in the criminal conviction of seven congressmen. This was a case of the bureaucracy, without direction from the executive branch,...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Jul 20, 2015 | Checks & Balances
The power of the executive to veto legislation is an important check on legislative power. The spectacle of one elected official countermanding a great body of elected officials may seem unbalanced, but it is a purely negative power, and little harm can come from laws...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Jul 20, 2015 | Checks & Balances
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistracy, there can be then no liberty … Again, there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers. Were it joined...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Jul 20, 2015 | Checks & Balances
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done. —James Madison. Letter to Thomas Jefferson, New York, October 17, 1788. A well devised constitution will recognize that every official has a natural tendency to exceed and abuse his...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Jul 17, 2015 | The Rule of Law
The expression ‘rule of law’ is regularly appropriated by those pushing socialist agendas. They do this for two reasons: firstly, to claim legitimacy for concepts averse to freedom, and secondly, to weaken the concept of the rule of law itself by rendering it...
