I believe the provided answers to number 5 are in error. Extension of suffrage to resident aliens is at the discretion of state governments; it is just that no state government has allowed alien suffrage since 1926[?]. (For purposes of apportionment of U.S. representatives, the number of male citizens is the index used). They also seem to suggest that resident aliens are debarred from the military and the civil service. I think they are simply wrong about that. The federal Constitution does require that the President and members of Congress be citizens, but the qualifications for lesser offices are specified in state constitutions (which may or may not vary on this point).

The notion that separation of powers and 'checks-and-balances' prevent the undue aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of another is a commonplace in discussions of this sort but has been discredited in the last fifty years as the appellate judiciary has grown increasingly arrogant. The Congress could impeach judges and shut down particular courts by refusing to appropriate the money to run them and the executive could ignore particularly egregious judicial decrees, but this simply does not happen.