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What is a Constitution?

Learn about the U.S. Constitution and its three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. Discover the powers of each branch and how they prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful. Explore the concept of federalism and the division of powers between the federal, state, and local governments.

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What is a Constitution?

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  1. What is a Constitution? • DEFINITION - • A written document that creates a government and describes how that government is to work and run. It lists the powers the government has and its responsibilities.

  2. What is the U.S. Constitution? The written document that defines, explains, and sets-up our national government. It explains what our government can and cannot do.

  3. Every government has three basic powers that all other powers flow out from – What are they? • The power to MAKE LAWS. • The power to ENFORCE THE LAWS. • The power to JUDGE THE LAW AND HOW IT HAS BEEN APPLIED TO INDIVIDUALS.

  4. Each of these powers have their own NAMES – what are their names? • The power to MAKE LAWS - LEGISLATIVE POWER • The power to ENFORCE THE LAWS – EXECUTIVE POWER • The power to JUDGE THE LAW AND HOW IT HAS BEEN APPLIED TO INDIVIDUALS – JUDICIAL POWER

  5. What do we often call a person who has control of all three of these powers? • A DICTATOR • A KING or a QUEEN

  6. Which of these two, a dictator or a king, existed every where in the world at the time our country was born in 1776? • A King!

  7. When the Founding Fathers began to write the Constitution and create our government what did they decide to do with these necessary but dangerous powers so no ONE person could get them all? • They separated them into three (3) parts! • This is called SEPARATION OF POWERS!

  8. What are these three(3) parts of government called? • BRANCHES • What are the names for each BRANCH? • Legislative Branch • Executive Branch • Judicial Branch

  9. What does each BRANCH have the power to do? • Legislative Branch • Makes the laws or legislates. • Executive Branch • This branch carries out or enforces the laws. • Judicial Branch • This branch judges the laws and how they are applied to individual citizens.

  10. What do we call the system built into the Constitution that gives each branch some ability or power to stop another branch from gaining too much power? • CHECKS and BALANCES! • This is the SYSTEM built into the Constitution that gives each BRANCH some of the power from the other two branches so that one branch might STOP another branch from gaining too much power.

  11. Can any of you think of an example of this? • How a BILL becomes a LAW. • Let’s watch … SWITCH to 2nd Power Point and watch SCHOOL HOUSE ROCK!

  12. What group makes up the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH? • The U.S. CONGRESS • What two groups make up the Congress? • U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES • U.S. SENATE • How many members, total, are in Congress? • 535 men and women

  13. How many U.S. Senators are there? • 100 • How are the 100 Senators divided up among the 50 States? • 2 per state x ….how many states? • 50. So …. 2 x 50 = 100 Senators.

  14. Out of 535 members of Congress how many are in the House of Representatives? • 535 – 100 Senators leaves…. • 435 members of the House of Representatives!

  15. How are the 435 divided up among the 50 states? It’s an odd number so it won’t divide evenly…so what is the method the Constitution uses? • Representatives in the House are divided up among the states based on the population size each state. The total number of residents in each state. • Every state must have at least 1 Representative. • The bigger a state’s population the more Representatives they get in the House of Representatives. California has 53 members!

  16. Who is the Senate majority leader? • Harry Reid (D) • Who is the Speaker of the House? • John Boehner (R)

  17. What person is the head of the EXECUTIVE BRANCH? • President Barack Obama (D) • What group heads up the JUDICIAL BRANCH? • The U.S. Supreme Court. • Who is the CHIEF JUSTICE of the Supreme Court? • John Roberts (R)

  18. Our Founding Fathers wanted citizens to have even more protection from the national government so they added the 10th Amendment which states that any POWER not in the Constitution then belongs to the STATE and LOCAL governments! • Do you know what this is called? • FEDERALISM – • The power to govern and run the country is DIVIDED between the FEDERAL (national gov’t), STATE, and LOCAL governments.

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