Bush Imperial Presidency Mocks Coequal Branches Principle
Joel S. Hirschhorn
February 13, 2006
With President George W. Bush marketing democracy worldwide, it is appropriate to consider whether there is validity to a central tenet of American democracy, namely that the three core branches of government are coequal.
So many people, especially American politicians, keep repeating this mantra. The ugly truth, however, is that they are not accepting reality. Bush?s imperial presidency has made it increasingly evident that he believes the Executive Branch is paramount. He shows particular disdain for Congress.
More people should cringe every time they hear someone, usually a politician, say that America has three coequal branches of government. Last September Senator John W. Warner, for example, said: ?Within the basic foundation of our Constitution lies the bedrock principle that our government is composed of three different, yet coequal, branches ? the Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary.? Last month, Senator Ken Salazar said: ?The Framers made rules that require that power must be shared. They created a system with three coequal branches. They then distributed the powers of government among and within the three branches. They created a system with explicit and implicit limits for the powers of each branch.? These recent statements define the status quo thinking about a profoundly important aspect of American government. Isn?t it about time to rethink and openly discuss the validity of this premise? Especially at a time when the Executive is historically and arrogantly powerful, the Congress is correspondingly weak, and the Judiciary is politicized.
Think about this word: coequal. Take it literally and make it real. America?s constitutional checks and balances do not automatically grant equality to the three branches. Maybe the Founders really did think in terms of a Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary that were to be coequal through constitutional checks and balances. Times have changed. Today, who in their right mind thinks that in terms of ability to actually impact reality through their actions that the three branches are coequal? It seems to me that we ultimately sovereign citizens should reconsider how to ensure that the three branches are, indeed, what they are supposed to be: coequal. If this is not done explicitly, then implicitly we the people are condoning a system that has degraded over time, making the three branches singularly unequal.
To have power in some theoretical, legal sense is not the same as having real-world power that requires money and ultimately physical force through police, soldiers or other government agents. How can the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, actually enforce its decisions, if the Executive branch decides not to implement a decision, or if Congress enacts a low to counter a decision or removes the funding necessary for longer-term implementation of a decision?
With the Bush II administration we see again and again the claim of executive privilege. And exactly who has the power to say ?No? and force the Executive to promptly provide the information and documents that the Congress wants? What actual power does Congress have to force the Executive to deliver the goods? Would Congress ever use it own police to physically go into the White House to obtain what was wanted? Even if the Judiciary backs Congress, does the Supreme Court have its police to get for Congress what it wants? Are we to trust the impeachment process as a remedy when Congress is so beholding to the president?
A truly independent and powerful Congress, which we have not seen in a long time, could withhold funding from the Executive and the Judiciary. If so, in what way could the Executive and Judiciary obtain the funds needed to exercise their power? Imagine a third-party person becoming president. Could such a president really stand up to a Congress under the control of the Republicans or Democrats?
If some group conducted a national poll, would it show that most Americans believe that the three branches are coequal? I doubt it.
In a 2004 article in the Georgetown Journal of International Law, Christopher A. Whytock noted that: ?There is no sovereign that sits above the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of the United States government and, therefore, no central enforcer of the constitutional rules that govern their relationships with each other.? Exactly the point. We, the sovereign people, have no way to rectify specific inequality among the three branches. Voting does not provide a realistic solution, certainly not with gerrymandered districts and a winner-take-all system of delivering state votes for the Electoral College.
In 2002, Barry Grey said ?Bush has arrogated to himself and his administration unprecedented powers, relegating the other branches to the status of little more than a rubber stamp.? It has only gotten worse, as Jennifer Van Bergen noted on rawstory.com: ?The Bush administration has been using an extreme version of an obscure doctrine called the Unitary Executive Theory to justify executive actions that far exceed past presidents' power? The doctrine assumes, in its extreme form, nearly absolute deference to the Executive branch from Congress and the Judiciary. According to Dr. Christopher Kelley, a professor in the Department of Political Sciences at Miami University, as of April 2005, President Bush had used the doctrine 95 times when signing legislation into law, issuing an executive order, or responding to a congressional resolution. The President announced in these signings that he would construe provisions in a manner consistent with his ?constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch.? While the President clearly has the authority to supervise the executive branch, it is unclear how far he might construe this authority under the unitary executive theory. ?Unitarians believe the President can do what he likes and non-Unitarians believe there are boundaries and limits to executive power.?
Are we to just have ?faith? that in some magical and reliable way the three branches will themselves voluntarily do whatever is necessary to honor the principle of coequal branches? That is asking too much of patriotism and of politicians. When all Americans can see a federal government under the sway of the rich and powerful, and when it is clear that we have more of a corrupt, self-serving plutocracy than a representative democracy, why should Americans have such faith? Why should people worldwide take American democracy seriously? When an American president can deceive the Congress and the public and take us into a preemptive war costing thousands of American lives and what is now estimated to cost $2 trillion, isn?t it about time to reexamine this fiction of coequal branches of the United States government? I think it is, and I think many millions of discontented Americans would also, if only they were not so intentionally distracted from government and politics by America?s advertising-driven and debt-supported consumer economy.
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of ?Sprawl Kills ? How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money,? and the forthcoming ?Delusional Democracy ? Fixing the Republic Without
So many people, especially American politicians, keep repeating this mantra. The ugly truth, however, is that they are not accepting reality. Bush?s imperial presidency has made it increasingly evident that he believes the Executive Branch is paramount. He shows particular disdain for Congress.
More people should cringe every time they hear someone, usually a politician, say that America has three coequal branches of government. Last September Senator John W. Warner, for example, said: ?Within the basic foundation of our Constitution lies the bedrock principle that our government is composed of three different, yet coequal, branches ? the Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary.? Last month, Senator Ken Salazar said: ?The Framers made rules that require that power must be shared. They created a system with three coequal branches. They then distributed the powers of government among and within the three branches. They created a system with explicit and implicit limits for the powers of each branch.? These recent statements define the status quo thinking about a profoundly important aspect of American government. Isn?t it about time to rethink and openly discuss the validity of this premise? Especially at a time when the Executive is historically and arrogantly powerful, the Congress is correspondingly weak, and the Judiciary is politicized.
Think about this word: coequal. Take it literally and make it real. America?s constitutional checks and balances do not automatically grant equality to the three branches. Maybe the Founders really did think in terms of a Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary that were to be coequal through constitutional checks and balances. Times have changed. Today, who in their right mind thinks that in terms of ability to actually impact reality through their actions that the three branches are coequal? It seems to me that we ultimately sovereign citizens should reconsider how to ensure that the three branches are, indeed, what they are supposed to be: coequal. If this is not done explicitly, then implicitly we the people are condoning a system that has degraded over time, making the three branches singularly unequal.
To have power in some theoretical, legal sense is not the same as having real-world power that requires money and ultimately physical force through police, soldiers or other government agents. How can the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, actually enforce its decisions, if the Executive branch decides not to implement a decision, or if Congress enacts a low to counter a decision or removes the funding necessary for longer-term implementation of a decision?
With the Bush II administration we see again and again the claim of executive privilege. And exactly who has the power to say ?No? and force the Executive to promptly provide the information and documents that the Congress wants? What actual power does Congress have to force the Executive to deliver the goods? Would Congress ever use it own police to physically go into the White House to obtain what was wanted? Even if the Judiciary backs Congress, does the Supreme Court have its police to get for Congress what it wants? Are we to trust the impeachment process as a remedy when Congress is so beholding to the president?
A truly independent and powerful Congress, which we have not seen in a long time, could withhold funding from the Executive and the Judiciary. If so, in what way could the Executive and Judiciary obtain the funds needed to exercise their power? Imagine a third-party person becoming president. Could such a president really stand up to a Congress under the control of the Republicans or Democrats?
If some group conducted a national poll, would it show that most Americans believe that the three branches are coequal? I doubt it.
In a 2004 article in the Georgetown Journal of International Law, Christopher A. Whytock noted that: ?There is no sovereign that sits above the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of the United States government and, therefore, no central enforcer of the constitutional rules that govern their relationships with each other.? Exactly the point. We, the sovereign people, have no way to rectify specific inequality among the three branches. Voting does not provide a realistic solution, certainly not with gerrymandered districts and a winner-take-all system of delivering state votes for the Electoral College.
In 2002, Barry Grey said ?Bush has arrogated to himself and his administration unprecedented powers, relegating the other branches to the status of little more than a rubber stamp.? It has only gotten worse, as Jennifer Van Bergen noted on rawstory.com: ?The Bush administration has been using an extreme version of an obscure doctrine called the Unitary Executive Theory to justify executive actions that far exceed past presidents' power? The doctrine assumes, in its extreme form, nearly absolute deference to the Executive branch from Congress and the Judiciary. According to Dr. Christopher Kelley, a professor in the Department of Political Sciences at Miami University, as of April 2005, President Bush had used the doctrine 95 times when signing legislation into law, issuing an executive order, or responding to a congressional resolution. The President announced in these signings that he would construe provisions in a manner consistent with his ?constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch.? While the President clearly has the authority to supervise the executive branch, it is unclear how far he might construe this authority under the unitary executive theory. ?Unitarians believe the President can do what he likes and non-Unitarians believe there are boundaries and limits to executive power.?
Are we to just have ?faith? that in some magical and reliable way the three branches will themselves voluntarily do whatever is necessary to honor the principle of coequal branches? That is asking too much of patriotism and of politicians. When all Americans can see a federal government under the sway of the rich and powerful, and when it is clear that we have more of a corrupt, self-serving plutocracy than a representative democracy, why should Americans have such faith? Why should people worldwide take American democracy seriously? When an American president can deceive the Congress and the public and take us into a preemptive war costing thousands of American lives and what is now estimated to cost $2 trillion, isn?t it about time to reexamine this fiction of coequal branches of the United States government? I think it is, and I think many millions of discontented Americans would also, if only they were not so intentionally distracted from government and politics by America?s advertising-driven and debt-supported consumer economy.
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of ?Sprawl Kills ? How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money,? and the forthcoming ?Delusional Democracy ? Fixing the Republic Without
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