Checks and Balances

Checks and Balances is the free switch that puts the other two branches of government, and the President's own cabinet, between a policy and its enactment. The setup screen's own line says that Congress, the courts and the federal agencies can block or weaken the President's policies, and that it forces realism. With the switch off, whatever the President writes is enacted in full, and the focus group, the economy and the rest of the month judge it as written.

The verdicts

Every policy is first classified by how it is being made (legislation, executive order, diplomatic, military, a statement or a personnel move) and by how far it departs from routine government, on a scale from mild to unconstitutional. A statement or a personnel move skips the checks entirely. Everything else goes through up to three stages, in an order that depends on the kind of policy: legislation goes to Congress, then the Court, then the cabinet; an executive order goes to the cabinet and then the Court; a diplomatic or military action goes to the cabinet and then Congress, and is not something the Court can rule on. Each stage returns a verdict of passed, modified or blocked. Whenever a stage weakens a policy, it is judged as one step less extreme by the next stage that sees it.

Congress

Legislation is voted on in both chambers against whoever currently holds the seats. It needs a majority in the House, a majority in the Senate, and, where the filibuster applies, a three-fifths supermajority to overcome it. The President's own party can lose votes to defection, more so for a more extreme or more unorthodox bill, and less so when the President is popular; a bipartisan or cross-party bill can also pick up votes from the other side. A bill that fails as written is sometimes retried in a stripped-down form before it is finally blocked. An Independent President's vote is worked out both ways, once as if each party's seats were the President's own, and the better result is used. Diplomatic and military actions are not voted on directly, but Congress can challenge one, which either constrains its funding or, for the most extreme actions, cuts it off outright; a response to an attack on the United States is never challenged. Once the President has dissolved Congress, every action passes automatically. Stakeholder favours, and the benefits available under Dirty Tricks and Expanded Congress, can improve these odds, and the filibuster's behaviour under each difficulty setting is described on the Difficulty page.

The Court

Only legislation and executive orders can be challenged in the Court. Whether a challenge is brought depends only on how extreme the policy is judged to be; who wins a challenge depends on the ideology and conviction of the sitting justices, and a bipartisan policy is harder to strike down. A policy struck down as written is sometimes retried in a narrower form; if that survives, the verdict is modified rather than blocked. A legal-cover favour makes a challenge less likely and softens its outcome. After a successful self-coup, the Court still rules, but the President can defy an adverse ruling rather than obey it, at a cost to government stability for each defiance.

The cabinet

Only cabinet members whose portfolio covers the policy's subject take part; the Treasury Secretary weighs in on a tax policy, the Attorney General on a crime policy, and so on. A member goes along with a policy that is close enough to their own beliefs, or if they are personally loyal enough to the President regardless; for the most extreme orders, only genuine loyalists will comply. If nobody involved is willing, the policy is blocked; if the willing members are outnumbered, it is modified. A vacant post can never refuse, but performs only middlingly. How much of a policy is actually carried out depends on the competence of the cabinet members involved, adjusted by the Chief of Staff and improved when the Vice President's own portfolio matches. This in turn scales how far the policy moves the economy and society under Economy Simulation and Social Engineering Mode.

After the verdicts

A blocked policy counts as nothing having been enacted, and the focus group reacts to the attempt itself. A modified policy is rewritten into a description of what actually survived, and everything downstream of that point — the focus group, the press, the economy, the social statistics and the timeline — judges this rewritten version rather than the original. The analysis screen shows a verdict card for each branch, an overall verdict, and the enacted text underneath. Under Expanded Congress, or on a governor's desk in Career Mode, legislation that is modified becomes a bill that waits on the dashboard to be signed.

With the switch on, a policy also cannot remove officials the game treats as beyond the President's reach, such as the Federal Reserve chair or a sitting justice, and cannot order an assassination. These protections fall away with the switch off, or after a successful self-coup.

Access

The switch is free, and is also offered on the career builder, where it is turned on by default even if it was off in a previous game. A governor taking office with the switch on faces a state legislature that sends bills to the desk in the same way Congress does for a President, judged against the state's own cabinet. Workshop packs can force the switch on or off.