ABSTRACT
A distinctive institutional feature of the U.S. government is its strict separation of powers into clearly divided executive, legislative, and judicial branches. This separation of powers is in many ways the cornerstone of the U.S. Constitutional edifi ce, and according to the founders, democracy is virtually impossible without such a separation of powers. As James Madison wrote in Federalist 47, “The accumulation of powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary … may justly be pronounced the very defi nition of tyranny.”
