It needs to be restated that what I have referred to, as the “unitary executive camp” is not a matter of political parties although it might seem that way. Ultimately it is one way of interpreting a document that is superior to party politics and ideologies affecting the governing of the USA. That is why it is important to look beyond party affiliation and focus on how individuals with political power – whether through political office, financial means or being an influential think-tank or advisor – interpret the US Constitution.
The constitution is not a document that means the same to everyone; it is a text that needs interpretation.
While everyone elected to political office in USA swears to protect and uphold the constitution, few people ask hard questions about just WHAT it is they interpret the constitution to mean.
It is important to recognize that there are legitimate reasons to make the President and the executive branch the primary managers of foreign intelligence and relations, especially during war. Among these reasons are speed and consistency when responding to threats to the nation. In comparison with a body like the Congress - based on discussion, debate, compromising and diversity – the unitary nature of the executive branch, with its centralized leadership, can be argued as a better choice.
Washington once wrote that if Congress--this was during the American Revolution--if Congress believes that constantly changing members of their committees can monitor the business of war which requires speed and secrecy and unity of design, they deceive themselves.
The main thrust of this article, however, is not to dispute that the president should have inherent authority over certain matters. The point is that there is a need to bring to the front of public discourse and awareness that there is a battle being waged and that there are people who has planned for long to change the political and legal landscape of the USA in accordance with their theory of the intentions of the Founding Fathers and the right way to interpret the constitution.
As it stands now, it is questionable whether this presidency won’t prove to have been a major success for those willing to make the USA a nation ruled more by men than by laws.
US Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat Vermont):
” Over the past seven years, the Bush administration has aggressively sought to expand executive power in alarming ways. Public accountability has been repeatedly frustrated because so many of the administration’s actions have been cloaked in secrecy…//…It is through the press that we first learned about secret surveillance of Americans by their own government in the years after 9/11, secret renditions abroad in violation of U.S. laws, secret prisons abroad, secret decisions to fire some of the nation’s top prosecutors, and the secret destruction of interrogation tapes that may have contained evidence of torture. Having relied on an overly expansive, self-justifying view of executive power, the Bush administration now seeks secrecy for its actions. It has taken a legal doctrine that was intended to protect sensitive, national security information and seems to be using it to evade accountability for its own misdeeds”
The Congress is the branch most sensitive and receptive to the will of the people. Unlike the executive branch elections are held continuously rather than every fourth year, putting pressure on Senators and Representatives not to stray to far away from their constituency and use their constitutional responsibility to guard against abuses of power.
The Founding Fathers knew that unless political power was distributed between co-equal branches that could check and balance one another, a small group of people could grab a disproportional amount of it. By expanding the power of the executive branch, on account of the legislative, it will become so much easier to win control of a people and its’ resources as there is only one seat that matters – and only every fourth year, unless those rules change too. Whatever powers, groups or interests one fears is intent on ruling the world would certainly like that kind of opportunity.
Increasing the power of the presidency means much more than just a certain interpretation of the constitution or that the legislative branch lose power.
Ultimately it means that the American people lose power.
Testimony of the Honorable Mickey Edwards
A former member of Congress from the State of Oklahoma and The Aspen Institute.
House Judicial Committee Hearing on Presidential Signing Statements under the Bush Administration
“….there is a view of the Presidency articulated by the current
President, which considers the executive branch to be a single
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