By Wyatt Fry
Special to the Herald

The United States government is split up into three branches, Executive (President and Vice President), Legislative (Senate and House of Representatives), and Judicial branch (Supreme Court). Separation of powers is the division of equal responsibilities to each branch. Checks and Balances is the principle that all three branches have equal power and no one branch is more powerful than the other two. Checks and Balances are designed to maintain separation of powers and keep the branches in check, each branches ambition counters the other branches ambition. It is kind of like “fight fire with fire”. For example the president is the commander in chief of the U.S. Army but the Congress has the sole power to declare war. The congress can pass bills, but the President can Veto the bills congress passed. As you can see the branches keep each other in check. Checks and Balances also guarantees that all states are co-equal and no state is more powerful than another state. Montesquieu had his own version of separation of powers, called the distribution of powers. His approach was to defend a government that wasn’t centralized on a monarch. In my opinion separation of powers is a good principle to have in the U.S. government because it doesn’t let one branch take control over the others.

The above essay was a winning entry in the city of Benicia’s Law Day contest.  The theme this year was “Separation of Powers.”

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