Under the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, as modified by the 12th Amendment (ratified in 1804), provides for the election of the President and Vice President through the Electoral College rather than by popular vote.
The Constitution uses the Electoral College as the method for choosing the President and Vice President. This means citizens don't elect the President instead, electors chosen by each state cast the votes.
When Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly in early 2016, then-President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland the next month to succeed Scalia. Garland was the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Within hours of Scalia’s death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had made it clear that no nominee would be considered by the Senate until the next President took office.
After Justice Scalia’s death, President Obama used his constitutional power to nominate a replacement in Merrick Garland.
President of the United States” for approval or disapproval. If the President disapproves a bill, he has to veto it so it can be “returned” to the two houses so they can have the opportunity to override the veto by a two-thirds vote. The Court said the Constitution requires the return of the entire bill, not individual items of “new direct spending” that the Line Item Veto Act allowed.
This explains the Presentment Clause, the President can only approve or reject an entire bill. If he vetoes it, Congress can still check his power by overriding the veto.
Those concerns today are expressed in the form of complaints about gross inefficiency and erosion of states’ rights and individual liberties. The seriousness with which the U.S. Supreme Court 5 approaches the balance of powers was brought into sharp focus in 1998 when the Court struck down the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 as unconstitutiona
People today still argue that the federal government is too slow and powerful, and that it weakens state governments and citizens’ freedoms.