One of the most effective features of the American form of government is the system of checks and balances. By distributing power among the executive, legislative and judicial branches, it pits the branches against one another in a continual competition for power. When one branch overreaches, another checks it by asserting its own power, restoring balance.
At the state level, however, power is increasingly concentrated in what are known as “trifectas,” in which one political party holds three key power centers: the governorship and the upper and lower chambers of the legislature. Trifectas leave minority party interests underrepresented.
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