Question

1. Describe the concept of the Separation of Powers. Be sure to discuss both the horizontal and vertical separation. If a conflict exists between a federal law and a state law, which will prevail and why?

2. Name and describe three ways a dispute may be resolved before a verdict.

Arbitration, negotiation, or mediation.                                           

3. Mike and Carol are next door neighbors and both live in Georgia. Mike puts in a small dam in his back yard. The dam causes Carol’s land to flood. Carol sues Mike in Federal District Court for $50,000 saying that Mike has violated the laws and regulations of the Federal Dams Act. Assuming such an act exists, will Carol’s suit be able to stay in Federal Court? Why or why not?

4. Ben, an American Citizen, who was born in Canada, goes to get his driver’s license. The DDS does not allow him to apply for a license telling him that Georgia has a law barring people born in Canada from having a driver’s license. Ben sues, claiming that law violates his equal protection rights. What test will the court apply? What must Georgia show to survive the challenge? Will that Georgia law likely survive Ben’s challenge?

Answer 1

1. Separation of power is basically referred to as representing the governance of any state where the state is being divided into parts horizontally or vertically into branches that exercise their own powers and responsibilities. This helps to avoid any disputes or conflict between branches related to exercising their powers.

In the American Federal system, there are two separation of power - horizontal separation and vertical separation.

In horizontal separation, power is divided between three branches horizontally - Legislative branch, Executive branch, Judicial branch.

Here the powers are distributed accordingly and all the branches have their own roles and responsibilities and powers to exercise. These horizontal branches are in power within all the vertical separations. That is every vertical separation of power has these three horizontal separation and all these three branches are at the same level.

While in vertical separation, power is divided between basically four vertical layers - federal or national, state, country and local or municipal.

Here these vertical layers have their own powers to exercise and responsibilities but they all are not at the same level as the horizontal separation. The one which is the most powerful is the federal or national. And after that comes the state followed by the country and then local level.

So, as discussed above we saw that in vertical separation, the one which has more power is the federal level and then comes the state level. But all have their roles and duties defined. If in case there is a conflict between the federal law and the state law, such situation is called as supremacy clause which contains the doctrine of preemption, according to which the federal law will prevail and win the confoict it argument.

This is because federal has more power than the state level. Even if the state permits regarding any decision and the federal puts a stop on that decision, it cannot be carried forward. So therefore, federal is in high power when compared to the state level. Thus federal law prevails over state law if there is a condition of dispute between the two.