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Republicans And Democrats

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. It is often referred to as the Grand Old Party or the GOP. Founded in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, the Republican Party quickly surpassed the Whig Party as the principal opposition to the Democratic Party. It first came to power in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency and presided over the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Today, the party supports a conservative platform (from an American political perspective), with further foundations in supply-side fiscal policies and social conservatism.
The Republican Party is currently the second largest party with 55 million registered voters as of 2004, encompassing roughly one-third of the electorate.[1] The current U.S. President, George W. Bush, is the 19th Republican to hold that office. Republicans currently fill a minority of seats in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, hold a minority of state governorships, and control a minority of state legislatures.
Separation of powers and balance of powers
The Republican Party believes that making law is the province of the legislature and that judges, especially the Supreme Court, should not "legislate from the bench." Most Republicans point to Roe v. Wade as a case of judicial activism, where the court overturned most laws restricting abortion on the basis of a right to privacy inferred from the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Some Republicans have actively sought to block judges whom they see as being activist judges and they have sought the appointment of judges who claim to practice judicial restraint. Other Republicans, though, argue that it is the right of judges to extend the interpretation of the Constitution and judge actions by the legislative or executive branches as legal or unconstitutional on...