Does this not then contradict the system of checks and balances and render the legislative and judicial branches unequal?
Does the U.S. Executive branch have a monopoly on enforcement mechanisms (violence)?
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Does this not then contradict the system of checks and balances and render the legislative and judicial branches unequal?
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No. Most policing is done at the state and local level.
Those are independent governments that are not beholder to the federal executive, with some narrow exceptions like interstate trade.
So there’s actually a lot of government bodies in the US with enforcement powers. Probably about 20,000 of them.
Sort of. The executive branch does have control over most enforcement: military, police, federal agencies—which means it’s the branch that wields force in practice. But the legislative controls funding and structure, and the judiciary interprets what’s lawful. In theory, that keeps power balanced. In practice, though, enforcement power can definitely skew things if not held in check.
Yes and I don’t want to see that outsourced
The Roman Republic left us with a few lessons, one of which is that if you give a general all of the swords, they can and will openly ignore both the law and those who try to quote the law at them.
With the wisdom of hindsight, the founding fathers corrected this in our constitution by giving all of the government’s guns to one commander-in-chief, and restricting the other branches of government to making and quoting laws.
Yes, pretty much so, at the Federal level.
I have long thought that the Judiciary needs some kind of operational agency, under its direct control. (I would suggest moving the U.S. Marshals Service out of the DoJ, and into the Judicial Branch for that purpose. Their duties already serve the Judiciary Branch, almost exclusively.)
Here’s a full breakdown on who has a share in violence in the US:
Policing is done mostly at the local/county level and typically answers to an elected sherriff (county) or a chief of police (town/city) that answers to the mayor. There are also state police agencies who answer to the state’s governer, and are part of the state’s executive branch. Federal police agencies (ATF, ICE, DEA, FBI, etc.) are nowhere near as large as the combined forces of local & state police forces, but they do answer to the office of the president, and are part of the federal executive branch.
On the military side, most states have a national guard force that answers to the state government and are part of the state’s executive branch. Even though such forces recieve funding, equipment, and training from the federal branches of the military, their chain of command still leads to the state governor’s office, not the joint chiefs at the pentagon or the office of the president. However, the state guard forces are not as well equipped or as numerous as the federal branches of the military, and they haven’t been since the civil war.
I should also mention that the federal branches of the military heavily rely on civilian infrastructure and the cooperation of state guard forces & state governments when operating domestically. As well as the fact that the military’s entire supply chain, from boots to aircraft carriers is almost exclusively provided by civilian defense contractors that operate domestically.
The last thing to note about the military is that the people enlisted in the military are sworn to uphold the constitution above all else. Only military leadership (officers) are sworn to the executive branch. If members of the military believe that the president, or higer military leadership is issuing orders that are unlawful, unconstitutional, or otherwise illigitimate, they have not only the authority, but an obligation to disobey such orders.
There is also the unicorporated militia, aka every legal gun owner in the united states, who could be incorporated into the state guard or federal forced by means of a draft, or simply offer significant resistance to federal or state forces independantly if it came down to it. By design, even local police forces do not have a local monopoly on violence because of the 2nd ammendment, but with external support from state & federal agencies and/or the state national guard, they could still establish one, assuming those forces are willing to cooperate. And to drive that point home, consider how much we struggle to fight organized crime that is centered around the trafficking of illegal goods & services.
Also, there are private security/defense firms, which are sometimes referred to as PMCs or “mercenaries”. These companies are sometimes hired by military or police forces to either skirt around beaurocracy & red tape, or add capabilities that those forces may lack. They are also often hired to participate in training exercises. These forces are often well armed, well organized, and well trained since they typically recruit people who have former military or police experience and can afford better equipment. They answer to a private company, the paycheck that comes from it, and any open contracts they might have with the government. However, private security firms are not likely to have powerful force multipliers like tanks, fighter jets, and heavy artillery in their inventory. Not every private security firm is military adjacent either. The most common private security firms run on premise security for malls, hospitals, banks, and other buisnesses using individuals who are appropriately equipped and trained for those roles.
Tl;dr what keeps the federal executive branch “in check” when it comes to violence is the potential opposition from state forces (i.e. another civil war), mutiny and dessertion within the military itself, the potential collapse of the military’s supply chain & logistical infrastructure, and/or an armed insurrection from the civilian populace that is only pacified by the executive branch’s percieved legitimacy, which is dependant on free & fair elections, complying with the laws passed by the legislative branch, and adhering to the US constitution as interpreted by the supreme court.
Congress has their own marshals who are not part of the executive branch, but they only handle the actual Congress building and grounds. I think the Supreme Court might have something similar for their building but I’m not sure.
At a Federal level, yes, but most law enforcement is handled at the local and state level, in which each state decides their methods for doing so.
What’s to stop a President from using loyalists to completely usurp a government?
Yes this is by design. Legislative: makes laws Judicial: Interprets the laws Executive: Implements the laws. This is the system of checks and balances. The founding fathers never envisioned a felon as president who wouldn’t care about the law and just not do their sworn duty and a congress who would stand by and let them. Hence why people say this is a constitutional crisis: currently no branch of the government is doing it’s job.
No.
Your choices are impeachment or Coup d’état.
Congress can declare war