separation of powers

[sep-uh-rey-shuhn uhv pou-erz]

noun

1. the principle or system of vesting in separate branches the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of a government.

separation of powers

1. A fundamental principle of the United States government, whereby powers and responsibilities are divided among the legislative branch, executive branch, and judicial branch. The officials of each branch are selected by different procedures and serve different terms of office; each branch may choose to block action of the other branches through the system of checks and balances. The framers of the Constitution designed this system to ensure that no one branch would accumulate too much power and that issues of public policy and welfare would be given comprehensive consideration before any action was taken.

Example Sentences

I never could have imagined I would be the attorney general of California, working with my incredible colleagues, a total of 23 Democratic attorneys general, fighting to defend the bedrock principles of our nation, our Constitution, the separation of powers, checks and balances, congressional authority, state sovereignty, rights, and freedoms, or that I’d be fighting to protect those things against the federal government, a federal government that would be weaponizing the government to try to undermine all those things.

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The fact that it would be state AGs exercising state sovereignty, reminding the federal administration of separation of powers, checks and balances, acting as the constitutional authority holding the federal administration in check, wasn’t necessarily what I planned on, but it’s the brilliance of the design of our American democracy that there are checks and balances all over the Constitution and they can be ignited and used at the appropriate time.

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But they also played out at the highest level of questions about separation of powers and delegation.

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This is a separation of powers case, and it deserves to be taken very seriously precisely because of that.

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Solicitor General John Sauer, in his brief to the Supreme Court, said McConnell’s order “makes a mockery of the separation of powers.”

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