Here’s the good news: According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the percentage of Americans who can name the three branches of the federal government was up in 2021 to 56% compared with just 33% in 2006.
Here’s the bad news: The number of Americans who can name the three branches of government in 2021 was — you guessed it, just 56% — slightly over half of “We the People.”
In America, it is we the people who cede the authority to be governed to the government. Yet almost half of us lack a basic understanding of the structure of the government we cede our power to.
That structure is based upon the foundational principle of separation of powers — the idea that the power to govern should be distributed over three branches — the legislative charged with making the laws, the executive charged with enforcing the law and the judicial charged with interpreting and applying the law. By distributing the power to govern and ensuring that each branch operates independently, we ensure that no one branch amasses a corruptive level of power.
But in today’s world, concepts of separation of powers and the proper role of each branch of government seem esoteric and usually take a back seat to the daily news cycle. Lines have begun to blur. And we seem dangerously close to losing our collective understanding of the proper role of each branch in our grand experiment in democracy.
As evidence, in the 2021 Annenberg survey, respondents were asked who has the ultimate responsibility to determine whether an action taken by the president is constitutional. Barely over half (51%) correctly identified the U.S. Supreme Court.
This lack of a collective understanding of the roles of the three branches of government creates confusion among the public and tension among our leaders.
That tension is real and affects the lives of ordinary people. Take, for example, the tension in 2020 between Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the Legislature over whether the governor or the Legislature should properly take the lead in defining and implementing public health measures during the pandemic. That was a struggle over separation of powers and the proper role of the executive and legislative branches. Similar struggles play out nationally over issues like who has the right to live and work in the United States, who has the right to vote and who has the right to own and carry a firearm.
On the state level, there have been recent efforts in several states to give state legislatures the right to make the rules that govern how cases are conducted in state courts. These efforts would give the legislative branch the right to make the rules that govern how the judicial branch operates.
Opponents of these measures have voiced many reasons why such proposals are troublesome. The most significant is that they would concentrate too much power in a single branch of government by allowing a legislature not only to write the laws, but also control how the laws are interpreted and applied. If you don’t see the harm in that, think back to your grade school days when the server in your four-square game claimed the authority to make the rules and subsequently disqualified all his opponents by interpreting their moves as violations of his rules, or just changed the rules.
As participants in the judicial system, lawyers appreciate the danger in the fact that only about half of Americans can name the three branches of government. They see firsthand how a strong and independent judiciary is necessary to check and balance the executive and legislative branches to achieve justice.
Through the Arkansas Bar Association, lawyers have and will continue to promote civics education at the grade school level and to take steps to turn back efforts to concentrate power in one branch.
The Arkansas Bar Association is a voluntary association of almost 5,000 lawyers from across the state. Its mission is to support attorneys; advance the practice of law; advocate for the legal profession; foster professionalism, civility and integrity; and protect the rule of law.
As an association, we know that civics education matters. It’s only when the greatest part of “We the People” can name the three branches of our government that we can have confidence that the foundational principles of separation of powers and a strong and independent judiciary will lead us closer to our goal — justice for all.
Civics education matters.
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