Jon Stewart Quotes

We have already given in example one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body

The veto is a President's Constitutional right, given to him by the drafters of the Constitution because they wanted it as a checkagainst irresponsible Congressional action. The veto forces Congress to take another look at legislation that has been passed. I think this is a responsible tool for a president of the United States, and I have sought to use it responsibly.

There are checks and balances and broad separation of powers under the Constitution. Each organ of the State, i.e. the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, must have respect for the others and not encroach into each other's domain.

As a member of Congress, I believe Congress must provide oversight of actions by the Executive Branch as our system of checks and balances requires.

I am not responsible to the Senate and will not submit my actions to them.

The Executive is as independent of either House of Congress as either House of Congress is independent of him, and they cannot call for the records of his actions, or the action of his officers against his consent, any more than he can call for any of the journals or records of the House or Senate.

The President may be right in how he reads the Constitution. But he also may be wrong. And if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so? And if there is no one, the President, of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretations. What then becomes of our constitutional form of government?

it would be so dangerous for the Executive in a single Person to negative a Law that the People will not accept of it.

there is often an imbalance between the prerogatives of the executive branch and the capacity of a parliament to truly exercise its regulatory powers over public spending and the budget.

Does not the President ... submit this subject to Congress for their sanction? Does he not recognize the principle ... that no treaty is binding until we pass the laws for executing it?”

I think this sets a very bad precedent, the president unilaterally on his own starting war without any consent from Congress

A system that is built on checks and balances does not do well in an ideological climate.

Certainly, the president is expected to safeguard the Constitution by vetoing unconstitutional acts of Congress. This is especially true because many laws can only be brought before the courts in a collateral way, if at all.

The Obama administration demonstrated time and again a disturbing willingness to bypass the separation of powers and disregard Congress as a Constitutional watchdog.

There is an important role for a United States senator as a check and balance on the president of the United States.

And because it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both in its making, and execution, to their own private advantage.

That's the fundamental question. Do we have a check and balance system? Do we have three equal branches or do we have one supreme branch, not just the Supreme Court? That's the fundamental question.

The American Constitution, one of the few modern political documents drawn up by men who were forced by the sternest circumstances to think out what they really had to face, instead of chopping logic in a university classroom.

I was very, very concerned about President Obama and how much executive order and how much executive power he tried to exert. But I think I want to be, and I think congress will be, a check on any executive, Republican or Democrat, that tries to grasp too much power. And really, a lot of the fault is not only presidents trying to take too much power, it's Congress giving up too much power.

I think there's always a role for Congress under every instance in every administration to conduct oversight of the executive branch.

Most Americans, who think Congress has a right to do anything for which they can get a majority vote, ignore the clearly written constitutional restraints on Congress.

I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with [the president] trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm President of the United States of America.

Congress could always stop the President if Congress thinks that what the President has done exceeds the President's authority or is just wrong for the United States.

It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.

There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship, and I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people.