Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Lopez [7] in 1995 held unconstitutional the Gun Free School Zone Act because it exceeded the power of Congress to "regulate commerce...among the several states". Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote, "We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers." For the first time in sixty years the Court ...
Among the powers specifically given to Congress in Article I Section 8, are the following: 1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. [1] Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to as "legislation" while it remains under consideration to distinguish it from other business ...
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) [a] is the common government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, comprising 50 states, five major self-governing territories, several island possessions, and the federal district (national capital) of Washington, D.C ...
[18] [19] [20] In the British constitutional system, Montesquieu discerned a separation of powers among the monarch, Parliament, and the courts of law. [21] In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend ...
I, § 1—requiring all legislative powers to be vested in a Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives—and § 7—requiring every bill passed by the House and Senate, before becoming law, to be presented to the president, and, if he disapproves, to be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House—represents the Framers ...
As a practical matter, the limitation of Congress's ability to investigate only for a proper purpose ("in aid of" its legislative powers) functions as a limit on Congress's ability to investigate the private affairs of individual citizens; matters that simply demand action by another branch of government, without implicating an issue of public ...
The U.S. Constitution achieved limited government through a separation of powers: "horizontal" separation of powers distributed power among branches of government (the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary, each of which provide a check on the powers of the other); "vertical" separation of powers divided power between the federal ...