Mr. Trump and his Republican allies claim his “executive power” means he can do whatever he wants. To put it simply, that’s nuts.
The Constitution’s Article II vests “The executive Power” in the President. They interpret the word “executive” as all encompassing. In fact, it meant and means only “to carry out.” It came with the constitutional obligation, also in Article II, to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Nothing empowers him to ignore, override or decide whether or not to faithfully execute the laws.
Article I addressed the King’s powers and clause by clause took that power away from the President and gave it, not to a monarch or executive, but to the representatives of the people in Congress. Yes, we get frustrated because the Constitutional Convention deliberately made sure that different parts of our Republic were all represented in Congress where their voices and votes mattered – the North, South, East and West, the large and small states, farm and industrial country, rich and poor states, we all have a role in Congress. The Constitution was designed to protect all of us, not to give one group of us the power to obliterate another.
Does it matter if a president disobeys the Constitution, laws and courts?
First, we didn’t elect Trump to do that or choose to give him such power. He doesn’t have anything like a majority to change or ignore the Constitution.
Indeed, some who voted for him held their noses, knowing Trump is a liar but thought he might improve things anyway. Most won’t repeat.
Second, ignoring the law gives one man power to be judge, prosecutor and jury in his own cause. We don’t allow anyone that much power.
Third, in countries where chief executives have that much power they can and often do take anything from anyone – land, property, your sons and daughters. It’s true around the globe where executives aren’t limited by a Constitution like ours – many in former southern hemisphere colonies. People are seized and disposed of as dictators demand, often never to be seen again. In Argentina the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo tried to recover whatever remained of their children, los desaparecidos. But official involvement in Enforced Disappearance has been a worldwide problem. Without law and courts there is rarely any effective nonviolent response. In that world everyone is at risk with no one to appeal to.
Here the Trump Administration disassembles agencies created by Congress to protect us. In violation of laws designed to give us a reliable, competent, and impartial public service, he fires public servants doing their best. He threatens America’s economic stability, freezing as much as $3 trillion in domestic spending designed to put people back to work in states where jobs had been lost. Some people will come out ahead but it won’t be you and me.
It's indicative that Trump tried to prevent a person seized and held in federal detention from trying to call his attorney. A court opened the telephone lines for a constitutionally protected right to counsel. That’s what dictators do, prevent anyone from objecting to executive decisions, make it impossible for them to fight back, to make their case to the public, the courts, their representatives – so we’re at the executive’s whim. Don’t like regulation? Think unlimited and uncontrolled power would be better?
Presidential disregard for law has disastrous consequences including defeating our ability to vote dictators out when they misbehave? That’s what dictatorships are like. The world’s few remaining monarchies have been limited by constitutional government. Autocracies almost always degenerate into kleptocracies, dens of thieves. The result is disaster mediated by violence, the only way left to depose a rascal.
Can we stop him before he destroys our country?
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.