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Presidential Power: Unchecked & Unbalanced

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There has been a flurry of books about what Charlie Savage in Takeover - which is one of them - has termed the 'return of the imperial presidency'. Now while most of the books in particular seem to blame the Bush-Cheney administration for the usurpation of executive powers, Crenson and Ginsberg provide a much needed historical and structural analysis of the phenomenon, going back to the beginnings of the Republic. Crenson and Ginsberg convincingly argue that one of the more structural causes of the rise of presidential power is the weakening of the American party system. In the old days parties had a much stronger grip on the selection of presidential candidates. Nowadays, due to the primary system, campaigns are all about personalities who do not merely want to serve their country but aspire nothing less than change history. So if you want to go beyond the last eight years and the post 9/11 analysis of the rise of executive power, this is your best pick.

This book was great, I had to read it for my AP government class and write a 4 page paper on it.. I got an A+!!

The author is right: presidential power IS unchecked and unbalanced. According to the Constitution, the executive branch was supposed to enforce, not make, the laws; but because the executive branch controls numerous federal "alphabet soup" agencies such as the NIH and the EPA, it can make legislation indirectly without much oversight from Congress, since these agencies have considerable authority in numerous areas. Presidents can start wars; Congress was supposed to have this power. A further indication of unbalanced executive power is the so-called signing statements, which the last few presidents (both Democratic and Republican ones) have begun using more often. When signing a law, the president makes a statement saying, in effect, how the president interprets or understands the law and how it might be enforced -- this puts a spin on a law. This is a recent practice which has been criticized by the American Bar Association as "unconstitutional". Under the theory of the "unitary executive", the executive branch is seeking to consolidate control over a vast rule-making bureaucracy. The Congress, in contrast, is muddled, ridden with partisanship, stuffed with incumbents who have engineered ways to keep getting elected; over 90% of congresspersons seeking re-election are elected because of (1) access to cash (2) gerrymandering (3) free mailings known as "franking privileges". The Congress has trouble reining in the executive branch since it must win consensus from diverse groups. So, the only real check on the executive branch appears to be the courts, although as professor Adam Tomkins points out in his book "Our Republican Constitution" (our=Britain's), the judicial branch is poorly suited as a counterweight to executive authority, since it must wait for court decisions to bubble up from lower courts before it can make rulings (and it's limited by what court cases do, in fact, come under its jurisdiction.) The risk is that a serious terrorism incident may push a vastly powerful executive branch to seize even more powers under the excuse of protecting the public. Tocqueville warned about the concentration of power back in the 1830s in his masterwork "Democracy in America".

An excellent book.

Thomas W. Sulcer
author of "The Second Constitution of the United States"
(free on web -- google title above + sulcer)