So one way to conceptualize the executive on this model is that it operates under the general constraint that it can only take coercive action as authorized by law, i.e. by the legislature
Replies
What about when the executive is authorized by the Constitution itself to take coercive or effective action, as with Lincoln marshalling the army before Congress could assemble or Bush grounding commercial traffic and ordering emergency shootdowns in the hours after the first 9/11 attacks?
sep 1, 2025, 12:40 am • 1 0 • view
I think you would have to say that in those extraordinary, emergency circumstances, the president is exercising powers not strictly executive. Essentially acting on behalf of the Undivided Sovereignty so as to prevent the destruction of the polity
sep 1, 2025, 12:42 am • 3 0 • view
Quite fair! I didn't mean that as a gotcha question, I think it's a genuinely good and thoughtful theory of the role of the executive and was curious to explore it a little.
sep 1, 2025, 12:50 am • 3 0 • view
Oh yeah I hadn't taken it as a gotcha
sep 1, 2025, 12:50 am • 1 0 • view
My kingdom for a strong legislature.
sep 1, 2025, 12:39 am • 6 0 • view
Seriously lol
sep 1, 2025, 12:40 am • 1 0 • view
Newt Gingrich’s destruction of the Congress was truly devastating.
sep 1, 2025, 12:39 am • 3 0 • view
I hat3 Gingrich but I think we under-emphasize Hastert. He was a disaster way before we knew he was a child-predator.
sep 1, 2025, 12:42 am • 2 0 • view
Yeah he doesn't get half the respect he deserves in the "whose fault is it that things are Like This now?" rankings
sep 1, 2025, 12:41 am • 3 0 • view
By the legislature independently that is? Like the legislature makes a law and then hands it to the executive and says “here, execute this,” not “here, can this be law pretty please?”
sep 1, 2025, 12:39 am • 3 0 • view
Like, you can't prosecute dudes for crimes until the legislature writes some criminal laws
sep 1, 2025, 12:39 am • 4 0 • view
Oh definitely, I just mean specifically the place that the person exercising executive power in our system has in the legislative process, like to tell the legislature “lol no thanks that’s not a law.”
sep 1, 2025, 12:43 am • 4 0 • view
Oh, yeah, the veto is the president partaking of the legislative power, there's no way around that. This is why Montesquieuians hate vetoes
sep 1, 2025, 12:44 am • 5 0 • view
So this might be a dumb question but how much of the danger of seizure of executive power comes irreducibly from vesting it all under one guy, including the people acting on the power of the purse, people tasked with investigating the executive, etc?
sep 1, 2025, 12:48 am • 3 0 • view
🤷♂️
sep 1, 2025, 12:49 am • 1 0 • view
Definitely not a dumb question lol
sep 1, 2025, 12:49 am • 3 0 • view
IN THEORY the way it works is that there are other people who are able to play a constraining role If those checks break down? Ha ha whoops
sep 1, 2025, 12:49 am • 4 0 • view
But on some level that's a difference of degree, not of kind? Like, if the President has corrupted the literal Congress and the Supreme Court, are we to think that a notionally independent Treasury would've made the difference?
sep 1, 2025, 12:50 am • 4 0 • view
Yeah, I mean all of the balancing of institutions in the world ain’t gonna work if the same partisans capture them all. Guess we’re working at forestalling the ability to do that?
sep 1, 2025, 12:56 am • 4 0 • view
Yeah I’m just like wondering if a system needs to build in that power of the purse means Congress directly appoints an independent person from the executive who manages the treasury. Or like DoJ is actually walled off from other branches somehow.
sep 1, 2025, 12:50 am • 5 0 • view