Even though I am not a student of social science, I have tried to understand the basic concept in the checks and balances vested in the constitution of the United States of America.
I understand its crafters to be students of Renaissance and the concept to be well thought out.
I liken this foundational concept to a mechanical construct of three independent branches of government that are designed to have a process that works smoothly and effectively.
This concept hit me hard yesterday for an academic exercise when I incidentally heard the current Speaker of the House of Representatives praise a decision against a nationwide injunction by a single judge.
I quickly imagined the three levers of government that were meant to have processes that function independently of one another.
I also imagined three individuals at the tips of the three levers of government: the President on the executive branch, the Speaker on one of the Chambers of the legislative branch, and a Judge Joe on the judiciary branch, all of whom are hired by taxpayers to work for them under the law.
In my understanding, the independence of each individual from one another means none of the three individuals is a subordinate of any other individual and that each individual has specific authority delegated to him by the taxpayers.
The President has a delegated independent authority to take executive actions under the law. The Speaker has a delegated independent authority to legislate law. Judge Joe has a delegated independent authority to interpret an existing law.
In my understanding, this means that under nationwide law, both the President and Judge Joe have equally independent authorities to work under the law.
The law of the land is borderless in the land. In addition, Judge Joe is the delegated authority who has the qualifications to check if the executive action by another delegated individual, the President, is legal. This comes down to the judgments of two delegated individuals about what is legal and what is not under the law of the land. One of these individuals, Judge Joe, is supposed to have the qualifications to say what is legal and what is not under the law of the land.
Judge Joe is a subordinate of the Supreme Court of the United States, which has the final say in interpreting the laws of the land. This means there is a process in place within the judiciary branch to rectify any misjudgment by Judge Joe.
This process makes the judiciary branch independent from the legislative branch or the executive branch.
If this simple academic exercise has some grain of truth, in what world of checks and balances of the United States must the Speaker of the House of Representatives be living if he fails to say the executive and judiciary levers are independent branches of government and that it is not the business of the legislative branch to meddle in the business of either the executive or judiciary branch?