Update: Obama And Presidential Powers

Several visitors have taken the time to comment on our post yesterday regarding Obama’s use of executive power.

First off, thanks for commenting! We appreciate your voices very much.

Second, a point of clarification: We cited Dean Esmay’s post Obama employing the “Unitary Executive” theory. Esmay, we believe, was exaggerating for effect. At least, we hope he was, and we should have made that clear. We hope Obama will not take up Bush’s faith in this noxious doctrine. But once power has been vested in an office, or a person, it’s very difficult to get it back. A dangerous precedent has been set. And we believe there is something noteworthy about a new president using executive orders to undo the last president’s executive orders. Yes, it may be standard operating procedure these days, as one commenter pointed out, but does that make it right? There is nothing in the Constitution giving the president the power to make laws with the stroke of a pen.

(We’re not even talking about the hundreds of so-called national security “directives” that we don’t even know about - like the one we wrote on from 2004 that granted our armed forces permission to break international law.)

Of course, executive orders aren’t supposed to be new laws. It’s technically Congress’s job to write laws. But can anyone reasonably argue that executive orders haven’t been thoroughly abused for decades now? Let’s not forget that we can thank an executive order for the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II. That order, and so many more since then, sure looked and felt like lawmaking by the executive branch. (If something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc.) This skews the separation of powers heavily towards the executive branch, which we believe is extremely dangerous.

Worst of all, Congress has almost no power to overturn an order. They can vote it down, but the president can veto that vote. That means two-thirds of Congress, enough to overturn a veto, must oppose an order if the legislative branch wants any say at all. And with Washington’s epidemic of blind, lockstep partisanship (see Harry Reid’s comment in yesterday’s post), you can pretty much forget about members of the president’s party opposing him, no matter how egregious the order.

And if you’re hoping for the judicial branch to step in and restrain the president. Don’t hold your breath. The courts have only struck down two orders in our entire history.

Finally, as for Obama’s use of this power, all we were saying - modestly - was that for someone selling himself as a change agent, his apparent eagerness to wield presidential power seems like more of the same. One of the things that needs changing the most in Washington these days - aside from the blind, lockstep partisanship, the blatant influence peddling of lobbying and the legalized bribery of large campaign donations– is the dominance of the executive branch. Here’s to hoping the President Obama understands this and works to restore the proper checks and balances.