This can be exemplified as each branch having 3 "pieces" of power. This means that at any given time, the political system will have a sum of 9 pieces of power. When a branch oversteps their constitutional boundaries, the pieces of powers shift. An example of this would be when the president utilizes an executive order. President Obama has been criticized for abusing this power quite frequently, most recently concerning immigration. When Obama enacted the immigration executive order, he theoretically took a "piece" of power from the legislative branch and added to the growth of his own political influence, thus resulting in an imbalance of power. While this may seem to be effective policy making on the part of the president, it undermines the purpose of the legislative branch. This is where the judicial branch comes into play. The founders, with their aversion to tyranny as a large influencing factor, intended for the judicial branch to act as the balancing agent within the American political system. The Constitution invests "the judicial power of the United States" into the Supreme Court to allow judges to freely and justly apply the law to necessary incidents. The Legislative and Executive branches consistently struggle for power while the Judicial branch effectively carries out its Constitutional duty. .
The argument may be made that the Judicial branch has actually overstepped its bounds thorough the establishment of judicial review through the landmark case of Marbury vs. Madison. The basic summary of the ruling amounts to the declaration of the Constitution as the "superior, paramount law." The Supreme Court ruled that when laws conflict with the Constitution, they are no longer legitimate. It also declared the job of justices of the Supreme Court to interpret laws and determine when they conflict with the Constitution. The court interpreted the Constitution as giving the judicial branch the power to strike down laws passed by the legislative branch, resulting in judicial review.