What Are Checks and Balances? How the U.S. Government Prevents Any Branch From Becoming Too Powerful

Checks and balances represented by the three branches - each represented by their own building.

TL;DR

Checks and balances are constitutional mechanisms that allow the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government to restrain one another. By dividing governmental power and preventing any single branch from exercising complete authority, the system helps support limited government, the rule of law, and the protection of liberty.

Key Takeaways

• Checks and balances give each branch of government constitutional ways to restrain the powers of the others, helping prevent the concentration of governmental authority.

• The system works alongside Separation of Powers: Separation of Powers divides authority among the branches, while checks and balances allow those branches to limit one another.

• Constitutional checks include the presidential veto, congressional impeachment and oversight powers, Senate confirmation of appointments, and judicial review.

• The purpose of checks and balances is not to make government powerless, but to make the exercise of power subject to constitutional procedures and institutional restraints.

• Federalist No. 51 provides one of the clearest explanations of the principle: government should be structured so that power is capable of restraining power, rather than relying entirely on the virtue of those who hold it.

  
  

Introduction

What are checks and balances, and why are they important to the American system of government?

Throughout history, governments have faced a recurring problem: how should governmental power be divided, and what should happen when one institution begins to accumulate too much of it?

Many Americans, especially students, often ask, “How does the United States prevent one branch of government from becoming too powerful?”

After learning more about the Constitution, they may follow up with, “And how do the three branches of government limit one another?”

Following decades of instruction and research, The American View is dedicated to helping answer these questions for our students and members.

So, what are checks and balances?

Checks and balances are a constitutional system in which the legislative, executive, and judicial branches possess powers that can limit or restrain the actions of the other branches.

The Constitution does not place all governmental authority in a single institution. Instead, it divides important powers among separate branches and gives each branch certain constitutional tools to check the others.

The purpose of checks and balances is to help prevent governmental power from becoming concentrated in the hands of one person or institution. A healthy system of checks and balances requires different institutions to participate in certain important governmental actions, creating a more deliberate and stable constitutional process.

Checks and balances are therefore closely connected to other foundational constitutional principles, including Separation of Powers, limited government, and the rule of law.

What Are Checks and Balances?

Checks and Balances Definition

Checks and balances are a system in which separate branches of government have constitutional powers that allow them to limit, restrain, or influence one another.

In the United States, the three branches of the federal government are:

• the legislative branch, which writes federal legislation;

• the executive branch, which executes and enforces laws; and

• the judicial branch, which exercises the judicial power of the United States.

Each branch has its own constitutional responsibilities. But none operates with completely unlimited authority.

• The legislative branch can pass laws, but the President can veto legislation.

• The President can appoint federal judges, but many appointments require Senate confirmation.

• Federal courts can review laws and government actions in constitutional cases, but federal judges are appointed through a constitutional process involving both the President and the Senate.

This system creates a network of institutional restraints that builds a form of constitutional interdependence on other branches for the successful operation of certain important responsibilities.

Checks and Balances in Simple Terms

In simple terms, checks and balances mean that no branch of government is supposed to have complete control over the others.

Each branch has important powers. Each branch also operates within constitutional limits.

Rather than depending entirely on government officials to voluntarily restrain themselves, the Constitution gives different institutions the ability to resist or check certain actions of the others.

This helps answer an important constitutional question:

What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?

One answer is the constitutional authority possessed by the other branches. If one branch must rely on the others to fulfill its responsibilities, then runaway powers become all the more difficult for a single branch. This is especially true when the other two branches perceive their own powers threatened by the action of a branch.

How Does the System of Checks and Balances Work?

The system works because the Constitution separates important governmental powers among different institutions while allowing those institutions to exercise certain powers over one another.

The Three Branches of Government

The legislative branch, represented by Congress, exercises the legislative powers granted by the Constitution.

The executive branch, headed by the President, exercises the executive power.

The judicial branch exercises the judicial power of the United States through the federal courts.

Each branch has a distinct constitutional role.

But the branches are not completely isolated from one another.

• The President participates in the legislative process through the veto power.

• The Senate participates in the appointment process through its power of advice and consent.

• Federal courts can decide constitutional cases involving laws passed by Congress and actions taken by executive officials.

These relationships are part of the system of checks and balances.

No Branch Has Complete Power

A system of checks and balances does not mean that each branch has equal power in every situation.

Instead, it means that the Constitution distributes different powers among different branches and gives those branches ways to influence or restrain one another.

• Congress cannot simply appoint federal judges on its own

• The President cannot simply pass legislation without Congress

• Federal courts cannot write legislation.

• No branch is supposed to exercise authority that the Constitution has assigned to another branch.

The system therefore creates institutional restraints.

Governmental action often requires the participation of more than one branch, while the actions of one branch may be subject to constitutional review by another.

Checks and Balances in the Constitution

The terms “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” do not appear in the text of the Constitution. Instead, these concepts describe principles that emerge from the powers and responsibilities the Constitution distributes among different institutions.

For instance, Article I establishes Congress and grants legislative powers. Article II establishes the executive branch and grants executive power. Article III establishes the judicial power of the United States.

Other constitutional provisions create direct relationships between the branches, helping shape the concept of Checks and Balances.

Legislative Checks

Congress possesses several important powers that can check the other branches.

For example, Congress can override a presidential veto through the constitutionally required supermajority. The House of Representatives has the power to impeach federal officers, while the Senate has the power to try impeachments and convict or acquit the accused official.

The Senate also participates in the appointment process by providing advice and consent to presidential nominations when required by the Constitution.

Executive Checks

The President's veto power is one of the most familiar examples of checks and balances.

Under Article I, Section 7, a bill passed by Congress is presented to the President. The President may approve it, but may also return it with objections.

Article I, Section 7 states, “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it.”

Congress can then reconsider the bill and may override the veto if the constitutionally required two-thirds majority is achieved in both houses.

Judicial Checks

Federal courts exercise the judicial power established by Article III.

Through the development of judicial review, federal courts may decide whether laws or government actions are consistent with the Constitution when constitutional questions properly come before them.

This provides an important check within the American constitutional system, although the judiciary itself remains subject to the constitutional structure that created it.

How Do the Branches Check and Balance Each Other?

The most practical way to understand checks and balances is to examine the constitutional relationships between the branches. In the following sections, we’ve compiled some examples of how checks and balances operate in the day-to-day affairs of the American government.

How Does the Legislative Branch Check the Executive Branch?

Typically, the legislative branch has certain powers over the actions of the President to ensure the executive branch cannot act without restraint.

Congress can check the executive branch through powers such as overriding presidential vetoes, controlling appropriations, approving many presidential appointments through the Senate, approving treaties through the Senate, and impeaching federal officials.

How Does the Executive Branch Check the Legislative Branch?

Meanwhile, the Executive Branch maintains its own set of powers that checks the Legislative Branch’s powers.

Primarily, the President can check Congress through the veto power.

A presidential veto can prevent a bill from becoming law unless Congress assembles the constitutionally required supermajority to override it. This provides an outside check on the legislative powers of Congress, making an override of the executive’s objection intentionally more difficult and limiting the consolidation of unchecked legislative power in the hands of Congress.

How Does the Legislative Branch Check the Judicial Branch?

Congress checks the judicial branch through several constitutional powers.

The Senate participates in confirming federal judges. Congress may impeach and remove federal judges through the constitutional impeachment process, and Congress also possesses constitutional authority relating to the establishment and organization of lower federal courts.

How Does the Judicial Branch Check the Legislative Branch?

Federal courts can decide constitutional cases involving laws passed by Congress.

When a court determines that a law conflicts with the Constitution in a case properly before it, the law may be held unconstitutional.

How Does the Judicial Branch Check the Executive Branch?

Federal courts can also decide constitutional cases involving actions taken by executive officials.

Courts may determine whether executive actions are consistent with the Constitution and applicable law. At times, executive actions have been upheld or struck down based on the opinion of the courts.

How Does the Executive Branch Check the Judicial Branch?

The President plays an important role in the federal judicial system through the power to nominate federal judges and justices.

Those nominations, however, are subject to the Senate's constitutional role in providing advice and consent.

This illustrates an important feature of checks and balances: the appointment of federal judges itself involves more than one branch of government.

Examples of Checks and Balances

The constitutional system contains numerous examples of checks and balances. Some of the most important include:

• Legislative Can override presidential vetoes Executive

• Executive Can veto legislation Legislative

• Senate Confirms many presidential appointments Executive

• Congress Can impeach federal officials Executive and Judicial

• Judicial Can decide constitutional cases involving laws Legislative

• Judicial Can decide constitutional cases involving executive actions Executive

These examples demonstrate that checks and balances are not a single constitutional power.

They are a system of relationships created by the Constitution's distribution of governmental authority.

Checks and Balances Diagram and Chart

The checks and balances diagram below illustrates the basic relationship between the three branches of government and the constitutional powers they exercise to restrain one another.

The American View's Checks and Balances diagram

The chart below provides a quick-reference summary of several major examples of checks and balances.

The American View's Checks and Balances chart

Together, the diagram and chart show that governmental authority does not simply flow in one direction. The constitutional system creates relationships in which separate institutions can exercise authority over important actions taken by the others.

Checks and Balances vs. Separation of Powers

Even though Checks and Balances and Separation of Powers are closely related constitutional principles, they are not the same thing.

Separation of Powers divides governmental authority among separate branches.

Checks and Balances give those branches constitutional powers that allow them to restrain or influence one another.

A simple way to understand the difference is this:

Separation of Powers: Divides governmental authority among branches

Checks and Balances: Allows separate branches to restrain one another

Separation of Powers creates distinct branches with different constitutional responsibilities.

Checks and balances create relationships between those branches.

For example, the Constitution separates legislative power from executive power. But the President's veto gives the executive branch a role in the legislative process.

The system therefore does more than divide government. It creates competing institutions capable of checking one another.

For a deeper explanation of how the Constitution divides governmental authority among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, see Separation of Powers: How the Constitution Divides Government.

Why Did the Founders Believe Checks and Balances Were Necessary?

The system of checks and balances developed from a fundamental concern about governmental power.

The American Founders understood that government required enough authority to perform its legitimate responsibilities. At the same time, they recognized the danger of allowing too much authority to become concentrated in one institution.

The Constitution's structure reflects an effort to address both concerns.

The Danger of Concentrated Power

A government in which all legislative, executive, and judicial power is concentrated in the same institution has few structural restraints within the government itself.

The American constitutional system instead divides those powers.

The division was intended to make the exercise of governmental authority more difficult when it exceeded constitutional boundaries.

This does not mean the branches would never disagree. In fact, disagreement between institutions is often an expected part of the system.

Each branch has its own constitutional responsibilities, powers, and institutional interests.

"Ambition Must Be Made to Counteract Ambition"

James Madison provided one of the clearest explanations of this constitutional philosophy in Federalist No. 51.

He stated, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Madison recognized that government is administered by human beings who possess interests, ambitions, and limitations. Every person has a personal reason for why they do what they do, and at times, some men are driven more by greed and consolidation of power than true service. 

The Constitution therefore could not depend entirely upon the personal virtue of government officials.

As Madison famously wrote:

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."

In other words, one man’s ambition for power, influence, or money should be used to counteract another man’s personal desires for the same things.

The system should use the natural interests of those exercising power to help restrain the exercise of power by others.

Madison explained that in the American constitutional system, governmental power was divided both between different branches and between different levels of government.

This created what he called a "double security" for the rights of the people, which is foundational to understanding checks and balances.

The Constitution establishes institutions with different constitutional powers and gives them reasons and opportunities to resist one another when they believe constitutional authority is being exceeded. This places a counteracting “ambition” that is at odds with, or at least in direct power over, another “ambition” being pursued by another branch.

Montesquieu and the Division of Governmental Power

The development of checks and balances was also influenced by earlier political thinkers, including Baron de Montesquieu.

Montesquieu's writings, specifically in The Spirit of Laws, state, “Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. Is it not strange, though true, to say that virtue itself has need of limits?

Power must be used to check power. To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power. A government may be so constituted as no man shall be compelled to do things to which the law does not oblige him, nor forced to abstain from things which the law permits.”

Montesquieu believed that liberty could only be found when authority of men was checked by the authority of other men.

His discussion on the dangers of concentrated governmental power helped shape American philosophies about the division of legislative, executive, and judicial authority.

The American system did not simply copy a European model, but the Founders were familiar with political and philosophical arguments concerning the division of power and the importance of preventing excessive concentration.

Those ideas were adapted within the American constitutional framework.

How Checks and Balances Can Help Protect Liberty

Checks and balances can help protect liberty by creating structural barriers against concentrated governmental power.

When important powers are divided among separate institutions, no single branch is supposed to possess complete authority over the entire government.

This does not eliminate the possibility of governmental abuse or constitutional conflict.

It does, however, create additional opportunities for governmental actions to be questioned, resisted, reviewed, or restrained.

The system therefore reflects a central constitutional concern:

How can a government be strong enough to govern without becoming powerful enough to escape constitutional limits?

What Is the Purpose of Checks and Balances?

The purpose of checks and balances is to help prevent the concentration of governmental power and to ensure that the exercise of governmental authority remains subject to constitutional limits.

Without checks and balances, a branch of government could exercise power with little effective restraint from the other branches, creating an imbalance of power within the constitutional system.

For instance, if legislation were no longer entrusted to Congress but were instead placed solely in the hands of the President, laws could become edicts issued without the consent of the governed through their chosen representatives. Rather than passing through the legislative process established by the Constitution, law could become a matter of presidential decree.

The American system of government protects against such imbalances of power by distributing important governmental authority among separate institutions.

The system does this by:

• dividing important powers among separate institutions;

• requiring multiple branches to participate in certain governmental actions;

• allowing branches to restrain or review the actions of others; and

• creating structural barriers against the unchecked concentration of authority.

Checks and balances do not make government powerless. Instead, they make the exercise of certain powers dependent upon constitutional procedures and institutional relationships.

This is why the system can sometimes produce disagreement, delay, and conflict. Those characteristics may be frustrating when government action is desired quickly, but the constitutional system was not designed solely to make governmental action easy.

Instead, the American system was designed to enable government to act while making sudden concentrations of power more difficult. By requiring different institutions to participate in important decisions, the system can help create a more deliberate and stable constitutional process—one better able to withstand temporary public passions and the ambitions of those who exercise governmental power.

Why Do Checks and Balances Matter?

Checks and balances matter because constitutional government depends upon more than good intentions.

Government officials may exercise power responsibly, but a constitutional system cannot rely entirely upon the assumption that those who possess power will always restrain themselves. This is one reason the Framers created structural restraints within the constitutional system.

Checks and balances place different powers in different institutions and provide those institutions with constitutional ways to respond when another branch exceeds, or threatens to exceed, its authority.

This matters because governmental power is less easily concentrated when no single branch can simply exercise every important power for itself. The system creates a form of constitutional interdependence in which certain significant actions require the participation, approval, or cooperation of more than one institution.

Checks and balances are therefore closely connected to the broader idea of the rule of law. Governmental power is supposed to operate within a constitutional and legal framework rather than according to the will of a single officeholder or institution.

The principle is also closely connected to limited government. If governmental authority is divided and constitutionally defined, no branch is supposed to possess unlimited power.

Checks and balances work alongside other constitutional principles.

Separation of Powers divides governmental authority among separate branches.

Federalism divides governmental authority between different levels of government.

The rule of law requires that governmental power itself remain subject to law.

Together, these principles form part of a broader constitutional structure designed to limit governmental power, prevent its unchecked concentration, and help preserve the constitutional liberties of the people.

Conclusion: Understanding Checks and Balances

Checks and balances are a constitutional system in which separate branches of government possess powers that allow them to restrain or influence one another.

The legislative, executive, and judicial branches have different constitutional responsibilities, but they also interact through powers such as the presidential veto, congressional oversight and impeachment, Senate confirmation, and judicial review.

The purpose of the system is not to prevent government from functioning.

It is to help ensure that governmental power does not become concentrated in a single branch or institution without constitutional restraint.

Checks and balances therefore work alongside Separation of Powers, Federalism, and other constitutional principles to support limited constitutional government.

Understanding what checks and balances are requires looking beyond a list of presidential vetoes and judicial decisions.

The larger purpose is found in the constitutional design itself:

Governmental power is divided so that power can help restrain power.

That principle remains one of the defining features of the American constitutional system.