Civic Accountability · Who Has Authority?
Authority to Act
Implements Civic Clarity's own "Who Has Authority?" module (see its adopted navigation on Understand Government) as a standalone factual explainer: nine real, sourced examples showing who actually holds the constitutional or institutional power to act on a given question, what they can do alone, and what other body has to act too. See the full methodology.
What this is not. This is not a policy-advocacy tool — it never scores, ranks,
or recommends any policy outcome, and it never assigns blame for what a specific branch or level
of government doesn't actually control (the same discipline the Promise Ledger's own
authority_map field enforces). Every example below is a real, historical instance
of the pattern in operation, sourced to an official constitutional text, statute, or court
opinion — never a hypothetical.
Nine real examples, one per pattern
Executive unilateral action, executive action requiring Congress, Congress legislating, Senate confirmation, delegated executive-agency rulemaking, courts reviewing legality, state authority, local authority, and Federal Reserve independence.