Levels of Government

Independent regulatory commissions exercise all three powers of government one being the legislative branch. The powers of the legislative branch consist of enforcing laws passed by congress and establish policies. The legislative branch also has the power to confirm federal appointments and to impeach federal officials. A lot of times the legislative branch raises money and decides how that money is spent. Some monies are used to help government officials with their campaigns.

The powers of the non legislative branch consist of amending the constitution to work with today’s laws and government but some amendments did not make it to the full process like the budget amendment and the school prayer amendment. The constitution gave the non legislative branch the power to impeach officials such as the president, like when they decided to impeach President Clinton even though he won by acquittal by the senate and still got to stay in the White House and finish his term. They have the right to remove any official from their duties for treason, bribery, and other high crimes. They give advice and consent to the executive branch appointees, when the president wants to appoint federal judges and major officials he then seeks the “OK” from the non legislative branch. Throughout time congress has conducted investigations such as the most recent one with Toyota recalls. Because of all the issues with imported vehicles this gives the right for the non legislative branch to conduct these investigations because there are so many people in America who own these cars.

Lobbyists are people who engage in the business of persuading a legislator to pass laws that are favorable and to defeat those that are not in their interest or that do not intere...

... middle of paper ...

...f these groups date back to the nineteenth century but most were started in the past four decades such as the single-issue groups and political action committees.

I think that the framers of the constitution thought that the lobbyists would be a help to congress by keeping the people informed of the happenings of the political issues and helping people form opinions of those issues. I doubt that they would have thought that some of these lobbyists would ever try to persuade congressmen to pass laws that were not realistic and help elect members into congress that were not meant to be there in the first place.

Works Cited
1.) Volkomer. (2009). American Government 12th edition: Longmen

2.) Political Parties and Interest Groups, 12th edition, pg 109-113. Retrieved March 1, 2010

3.) CTUO live chat #5 recorded 2/28/2010. American Government. Retrieved March 1,2010