Today’s Presidents
When looking at today’s American President, one might be confused as to how after years of resenting the British Monarchy, the Founding Fathers created a government dominated by a single president. The President has seemingly unlimited power through the combination of the Presidential veto and executive orders that can only be overturned by Congress by passing a law subject to the Presidential veto. Yet, today we see the President require vaccinations for federal employees, enter, exit, and re-enter significant international agreements like the Paris Climate Accords, start endless wars without a formal declaration, and control immigration by funding border walls or reinstating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Presidents have become so powerful that Obama, Trump, and Biden have all been able to overturn the work of the previous administration and kickstart their agenda within days of taking office without input from Congress. Obama even infamously stated that he had a “pen and a phone” for when he needed to pass his legislation. So how did we get here and was this inevitable?
How Did We Get Here?
When reading the Constitution, it becomes clear that the founding fathers did not explicitly grant the President the vast powers we see today, but rather tailored a system that allowed the executive branch to proclaim such power. Rather than state that “all powers herein granted shall be vested,” as was done in Article 1 when attributing powers to Congress, Article 2 is distinct in its lack of clarity, stating that “the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”. This slight difference of the omission of “herein granted” in Article 2 has led to a distinction between enumerated powers (those granted by the constitution) and implied powers (those assumed by the executive branch).
The President that we see today has been built upon decades of expansion in implied powers, with those within the executive branch citing the vesting clause as a source of legitimacy. However, this is not always the case, as implied powers are taken, not granted. What determines the extent of the executive’s implied powers is eventually the President themselves.
The Presidents’ Perspectives:
Throughout American history, Presidents have tended to identify with one of three theories regarding their views on Presidential powers: constitutional, stewardship, or prerogative. In brief, the constitutional theory is the most minimalistic, limiting their powers to those explicitly enumerated or implied by the constitution and/or congress, stewardship theory states that the president can do anything not explicitly forbidden by law or the Constitution, and prerogative theory is the most expansive, holding that on top of the powers previously stated presidents can do things that are explicitly forbidden in the Constitution when in the national interest.
To understand today’s presidency, we must also understand the role that precedent plays. A century’s worth of presidents may follow the constitutional theory and limit their role, however, as soon as an ambitious president comes into office, the powers of the president can be expanded for years to come without being scaled back. However, the decision to expand presidential powers must also be understood in the political and historical context of the time.
For example, when faced with the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt greatly expanded the powers of the executive branch with his New Deal proposals and concept of “positive state”, which created several new agencies and programs to help the American people. In such a crisis, ambitious promises must be met by ambitious leaders that are willing to do what they must to guide the country to progress, like FDR. However, as Schlesinger argues in “The Imperial Presidency” such national emergencies can be abused by Presidents to expand the power of the President into unconstitutional territory and make them virtually uncontrollable.
From FDR onwards, the role of the President has never been the same. Crises such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11, the Great Recession, and even COVID-19 have seen the powers of the President reach new heights to achieve rapid results. Thus, rather than being an equal partner alongside Congress in the legislative process, we now see the President as the focal point of the government.
Where to Now?
When assessing the future of the Presidency, it must be understood that the executive branch has not seized this power on its own. Congress has allowed the president to claim whichever powers they deem necessary in the past century due to the astounding number of national crises. Congress has the ability to reign in the powers of the executive branch by passing laws, however, it has been neither willing nor successful in doing so in recent years. This then begs the question: why did Congress allow the President to be so powerful in the first place? The most obvious answer to this question is the rise of partisanship. With Congressional votes routinely splitting along party lines, the most powerful members of the party are the ones both expected and enabled to move legislation forward, and there is no greater power in either party than the President.
However, there is one other hope to reign in the Presidency, the public. It has become increasingly clear, however, that the public is not an obstacle to the expansion of the presidency, but rather a driving force. The rise of the internet and social media has had a significant impact on educating the general public about the government and the Presidency. Yet, instead of calling for the contraction of the Presidency, we see the public applying further pressure on the executive branch to take decisive action, with or without Congress. These expectations may be rooted in the belief that the power of the President is directly related to the power and prestige of the nation or in disgust with the gridlock of the increasingly polarized two-party system as argued by William Marshall.
Regardless of the reasons why neither Congress nor the public is willing to limit the powers of the President, the expansion of the President’s role seems to become more inevitable by the day. With each administration facing more frequent crises than ever, Schlesinger’s “Imperial Presidency” begins to cement itself even further. As global crises such as climate change, pandemics, and recessions continue to become more frequent and devastating, future presidents will have every opportunity available to expand their powers.
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