# Constitution of the United States of America/Annotated/Introduction/Separation of Powers Under the Constitution

Online at https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/intro.7-2/ALDE_00000031/
A well-known concept derived from the text and structure of the Constitution is the doctrine of what is commonly called separation of powers. The Framers’ experience with the British monarchy informed their belief that concentrating distinct governmental powers in a single entity would subject the nation’s people to arbitrary and oppressive government action. Thus, in order to preserve individual liberty, the Framers sought to ensure that a separate and independent branch of the Federal Government would exercise each of government’s three basic functions: legislative, executive, and judicial. While the text of the Constitution does not expressly refer to the doctrine of separation of powers, the Nation’s Founding document divides governmental power among three branches by vesting the Legislative Power of the Federal Government in Congress; the Executive Power in the President; and the Judicial Power in the Supreme Court and any lower courts created by Congress.
Although the Framers of the Constitution allocated each of these core functions to a distinct branch of government, the design of the Constitution contemplates some overlap in the branches’ performance of government functions. In particular, the Framers favored an approach that seeks to maintain some independence for each branch while promoting a workable government through the interdependence and sharing of power among the branches. Moreover, to address concerns that one branch would aggrandize its power by attempting to exercise powers assigned to another branch, the Framers incorporated various checks that each branch could exercise against the actions of the other two branches to resist such encroachments. For example, the President has the power to veto legislation passed by Congress, but Congress may overrule such vetoes by a supermajority vote of both houses. And Congress has the power to impeach and remove the President, Vice President, and civil officers of the United States.
Over the course of our history, the Supreme Court has elaborated on the separation-of-powers doctrine in several cases addressing the three branches of government. At times, the Court has determined that one branch’s actions have infringed upon the core functions of another. For instance, the Court has held that Congress may not encroach upon the President’s power by exercising an effective veto power over the President’s removal of an Executive officer. Furthermore, the President may not, by issuing an executive order, usurp the lawmaking powers of Congress. The Supreme Court has also raised concerns about the judiciary encroaching on the legislative or executive spheres where a litigant asks the courts to recognize an implied cause of action, or to vindicate the rights of the public at large rather than those of a specific individual in a case properly before the court. When ruling on whether one branch has usurped the authority of another in separation-of-powers cases, the Court has sometimes adopted a formalist approach to constitutional interpretation, which closely adheres to the structural divisions in the Constitution and, at other times, has embraced a functionalist approach, which examines the core functions of each of the branches and asks whether an overlap in these functions upsets the equilibrium that the Framers sought to maintain.
As discussed in the Constitution Annotated, the Court’s decisions in separation-of-powers cases often—but not exclusively—address the relationships that the first three Articles of the Constitution establish among the branches of government. Some key constitutional provisions that have served as sources of modern separation-of-powers disputes include Article I, Section 7, which requires, among other things, that legislation passed by Congress be presented to the President for his signature or veto before it can become law; Article II’s Vesting Clause, which states that the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America; Article II’s Appointments Clause, which addresses the respective roles of the President and Congress in the appointment of federal officials; Article III’s Vesting Clause, which states that [t]he ‘judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish . . .’; and Article III, Section 2’s Case or Controversy Clause, which limits the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
In addition to the first three Articles, other provisions of the Constitution implicate the separation-of-powers doctrine. For example, the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison interpreted Article VI’s establishment of the Constitution as being superior to other federal law to forbid Congress from exercising its legislative power in a manner inconsistent with the Nation’s Founding document by enlarging the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court beyond the boundaries established in Article III. And the amendments to the Constitution also set forth some important structural features of the separation of powers. For instance, the Twelfth Amendment establishes the process for choosing the President and Vice President, specifically delineating the functions of both houses of Congress in counting and certifying the votes for President and the role of the House of Representatives in choosing a President when no candidate has attained a majority of electoral votes.