Government Explained Using High School Biology

With the 2024 election only weeks away, I find myself revisiting basic governmental concepts as I decipher policy positions among candidates and run thought experiments using their ideas. Fundamental to the United States' ability to function are the powers, checks, and balances established by its founders between the 3 branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial.

For all the science minded folks like myself who paid more attention in biology class than in civics, let me explain how each branch functions using a language you're more familiar with, cellular biology. The government and how it works can get very complicated very quickly, so today we're just sticking to the basics.

Legislative Branch = DNA

Let's start with the legislative branch, which many consider the most important. As laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution, the longest and most detailed of the 7 articles, the core function of the legislative branch is to create laws. It's also responsible for declaring war, regulating commerce, and controlling US taxing and spending. The legislative branch is made up of a bicameral (2 chambers) Congress which is composed of the House of Representatives (the lower chamber) and the Senate (the upper chamber).

The House of Representatives is made up of members elected every 2 years by citizens residing in the district they represent. Representatives must be at least 25 years old, have been a citizen for at least 7 years, and must live in the state they represent. The number of Representatives from each state depends on the state's population with larger populations having more Representatives. For example, California has 52 Representatives while North Dakota only has 1.

The House has specific powers including the power to impeach presidents and decide presidential elections if no candidate wins a majority of the Electoral College. Additionally, all bills related to raising revenue (taxes) must start in the House before going to the Senate which is often referred to as "the power of the purse".

The Senate is made up of members elected every 6 years by citizens residing in the state they represent. Senators must be at least 30 years old, have been a citizen for at least 9 years, and must live in the state they represent. Unlike the House, there are only 2 Senators per state meaning there are 100 total. This is in contrast to the House which currently has 435 members. Per the 17th Amendment, Senators are elected by the people of their state, just like Representatives. This was not originally the case as Senators used to be chosen by state legislatures.

The Senate also has specific powers including the power to hold impeachment trials (including presidential impeachment trials), ratify treaties, and what's called "confirmation power" which means they must approve certain governmental appointments. These include thousands of positions including Cabinet members and federal judges. Note, the Vice President normally presides over the Senate, but during presidential impeachment trials this role is taken over by the Chief Justice due to an obvious conflict of interest.

The legislative branch is able to check the powers of the other branches in a number of ways. Starting with the executive branch, as stated earlier the House can impeach a President and the Senate can then remove the President from office with a 2/3 vote. The Senate also has the power of "advice and consent" and can reject Presidential appointments of judges and officials. Congress can also investigate executive activities and officers, override presidential vetoes with a 2/3 vote in both chambers, and refuse to appropriate funds for executive programs. As for the judicial branch, congress can impeach justices just like it can presidents, reject judicial nominees, change the federal court system by manipulating the number of federal courts, determine the jurisdiction of federal courts, and override Supreme Court decisions not related to the Constitution. Lastly, Congress can also propose amendments to the Constitution. As you can see, the legislative branch is extremely powerful.

You can think of the legislative branch as the DNA of a cell. It creates the laws of the cell and everything in the cytoplasm, writes the rules organelles must follow, determines how the cell will interact with other cells (including whether to kill them), determines how the cell treats foreign invaders and how the cellular infrastructure is to be designed, and it ultimately contains the information which forms the backbone of cellular functionality.

Judicial Branch = mRNA & Ribosomes

Article 3 of the Constitution, which is actually quite short, describes the judicial power of the United States and the Supreme Court. Put simply, the role of the judiciary is to interpret the law and explain what it means. So when you hear that the Supreme Court has found a law to be "unconstitutional", it means that the judiciary's interpretation of the Constitution was violated. Consequently, Supreme Court rulings can change over time and previous rulings can be overturned depending on the interpretation of the Court at that time.

The Supreme Court is made up of 1 Chief Justice and 8 Associate Justices. All 9 Justices are appointed by the President of the United States and must be confirmed by the Senate. Remember, though this is considered "congressional approval", the House has no role in approving justices.

Unlike members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices do not have any age or citizenship requirements, and they don't have any term limits. This means that Justices often hold their positions for life.

According to the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, the Supreme Court "hears cases that challenge the constitution, interprets legislation, protects civil rights, deals with disputes between states, and presides over cases that involve treaties."

Importantly, the Supreme Court has the power of "Judicial Review", which means it determines the constitutionality of legislation created by Congress and Executive Acts enacted by the executive branch. Also, as described earlier, the Chief Justice presides over presidential impeachment trials. Compared to the legislative branch, the judicial branch has less power and fewer ways to check the powers of other branches.

You can think of the judicial branch as the mRNA and ribosomes of a cell. It's the job of mRNA to interpret the information in DNA so that ribosomes can successfully translate that information into amino acids. In essence, mRNA and ribosomes interpret DNA and determine what it means, just like the Supreme Court and the Constitution.

Executive Branch = Mitochondria & Proteins

Last but not least, the executive branch, which is described in Article 2 of the Constitution. Many people think of the President of the United States as the sole representative of the executive branch, but in reality the branch is made up of many people including the Vice President, President's advisors, the Cabinet, and various other departments and agencies including the CIA and EPA. The President is considered the head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces; you can think of him as the CEO of the executive branch. The president and his Cabinet are ultimately responsible for the implementation and enforcement of laws written by Congress.

In order to become President, you have to be at least 35 years old, be a natural-born citizen of the United States, and have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years. Per the 22nd Amendment, the President can only serve a maximum of two four-year terms, either consecutively or non-consecutively. For instance, Grover Cleveland is considered both the 22nd and 24th President of the United States due to serving non-consecutive terms. Former President Donald Trump is trying to do something similar in 2024 by becoming the 45th and 47th President.

Before the 22nd Amendment, there were no limitations on how many terms a President could serve. In fact, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was elected President 4 times. Tragically, he died from a cerebral hemorrhage while serving his 4th term, ultimately leading to his Vice President, Harry Truman, being responsible for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan at the conclusion of World War II.

The Vice President has the same requirements as President, and the VP is elected along with the President by the Electoral College. Before the 12th Amendment was passed in 1804, whoever came in second place for President was simply made into the VP. For instance, this is how Aaron Burr became VP during Thomas Jefferson's first term. Interestingly, Burr's election for VP was the result of one of the special powers granted to the House of Representatives. Technically Burr and Jefferson tied with 73 electoral votes each, but the House of Representatives picked Jefferson for President. This was largely due to the House being controlled by Federalists at the time and thus heavily influenced by Alexander Hamilton. Infamously, Burr would later kill Hamilton in a duel.

You can split Presidential powers into "formal" and "informal" powers. We'll just cover formal powers, or expressed powers, in this post, and those are powers that come from the Constitution. The President has many including military power as Commander-in-Chief and judicial power through appointments, though these are subject to Senate approval. He is also considered the chief diplomat which gives him immense foreign policy power including the ability to make treaties, appoint US ambassadors, and receive foreign ambassadors. The power to receive foreign ambassadors more or less gives the President the power to recognize, or not recognize, new nation states and governments. The Constitution also mandates that Presidents occasionally inform Congress on the state of the Union which is now done through an annual state of the Union address.

What about power checks? The President can veto laws passed by Congress and even call Congress into special session, however, he cannot make them pass new laws. Additionally, the Vice President has the power to break voting ties in the Senate, though this rarely occurs. As described in the sections above, the President can nominate Supreme Court Justices and federal court judges, and he can even pardon those found guilty by the courts, another power check on the judicial branch. For example, President Gerald Ford infamously pardoned his predecessor Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal which had originally resulted in 69 indictments and 48 convictions.

The executive branch is analogous to the mitochondria. Yes... the famous "powerhouse of the cell". The mitochondria is ultimately responsible for facilitating all of the cellular functions needed to keep the cell alive by providing the energy required to carry out biochemical reactions. Additionally, the executive branch is analogous to regulator proteins which bind to DNA and control gene expression. The executive branch is responsible for implementing and enforcing laws written by Congress, similar to how regulator proteins use gene expression to facilitate the ways of working in the cell which were originally set by the DNA itself. Proteins, just like federal agencies and departments, are everywhere and influence everything that happens in the cell, even if other cellular structures aren't aware of their influence.

I hope you enjoyed this short US government lesson! If you enjoy this type of content, please let me know in the comments and I'll be sure to explore other areas of government through a scientific lens.

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