The Department of Political Science hosted a discussion event called The Separation of Powers: From Past to Present for Constitution Day on Sept. 22. The event was held in the Fresno State Library and focused on the history of the Constitution and the evolution of its separation of powers.
“Our Constitution enshrines and guarantees a representative form of government,” said Lisa Bryant, the Political Science Department chair. “Right now, we’re in a really strong executive branch, and one thing that it does is it removes the actions of government further from the people.”
Pizza was provided by Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) for staff and attendees.
“We wanted to help out and support anyway we can,” said ASI President Camalah Saleh. “This was a really important event to teach us about the Constitution and the backbone of it.”
The event started off with a Kahoot quiz asking basic questions, such as how many amendments are in the Constitution and which city the Constitution was written in. The winner of Kahoot won a goodies basket.
The main event began after the Kahoot quiz. Bryant acted as moderator of the discussion. The panelists were political science professors Thomas Holyoke, Jeffrey Cummins, Kenneth Hansen and assistant professors Josephine Hazelton-Boyle and Naomi Bick.
Holyoke started off the discussion on the Articles of the Confederation and how its failures led to the founding of the Constitution and the separation of powers a decade later.
Cummins then gave a brief overview of the relationship of power between the separate branches of government within the past 250 years.
Cummins described the power balance between the executive branch and the legislative branch as a pendulum, with the legislative branch holding most of the power in the 19th century, and the pendulum swinging to the executive branch within the past century.
“We have a very very dominant executive branch right now,” Cummins said.
A Q&A portion then began after the main discussion. Attendees asked questions about the purpose of checks and balances in government and how they relate to modern government.
“I think it’s important to know what role each branch plays in the government,” said Jessica Maldonado, a sophomore majoring in political science. “I think a lot of people don’t understand that they have most of the power and they can make most of the change.”
The Department of Political Science will host its next event on Oct. 1. The event will focus on law schools, with representatives from 13 law schools.
