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Federalism and the American court organization387create regulations, which are published in the Federal Register and codifiedinto the Code of Federal Regulations. Generally, regulations carry the forceof law under the “Chevron doctrine” 23 . A great deal of lawsuits turns on themeaning of a federal statute or regulation, and judicial of interpretations ofsuch meaning carry legal force under the principle of stare decisions.The federal court system is characterized by two types of courts: constitutionaland legislative. Constitutional courts are sometimes referred to as“Article III courts” because they are created under the Article III of theConstitution, which gives Congress the power to ordain and establish courtsinferior to the Supreme Court (U.S. Constitution, art. III, § 1). U.S. districtcourts, U.S. courts of appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court are examples ofconstitutional courts. Legislative courts are also created by Congress. Article Iof the Constitution empowers Congress to make all laws “for organizing,arming, and disciplining the Militia” (U.S. Constitution, art. I, § 3). Article IVempowers Congress to make rules and regulations for the U.S. territories.The judges who serve in the legislative courts don’t have lifetime appointmentsand their salaries are not protected as those of Article III judges.However, all federal judges are appointed by the president, subject to confirmationby the Senate. It should be noted that despite the fact that these andother differences between constitutional and legislative courts exists, theline is not always the clear one. Congress determines the status of federalcourts. For example, in 1956 Congress changed the status of the U.S. CustomsCourt from a legislative to a constitutional court 24 .While federal courts are generally created by the United States Congressunder the constitutional power described in Article III, many of thespecialized courts are created under the Article I. Much greater power isvested in Article III courts because these courts are much more independentof Congress and the President. If Article I courts were able to exercise thatlevel of power, the balance of power between the branches of governmentwould be threatened. Article III requires the establishment of a SupremeCourt and permits the Congress to create other federal courts and placelimitations on their jurisdiction. In theory Congress could eliminate theentire federal judiciary except for a single Supreme Court Justice 25 .Constitutional courts may be classified as either courts of general orspecialized jurisdiction. The federal courts of general jurisdiction are organizedin three tires or levels. The first tier consists of the U.S. districts courts.The United States District Court, which is located in 94 districts, is the basictrial court in the federal system. When congress first created the lower23 For more see “American Legal System”, [in:] Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia, [online], date of access 3.07.2010.24 J.V. Calvi, S. Coleman, op. cit., p. 44.25 R.R. Wheeler, op.cit., p. 8–10.