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[Ya-ta Boy]

The 'unitary executive' question
What do McCain and Obama think of the concept?

In answering Gwen Ifill's question about vice presidential powers at last week's debate, Joe Biden redirected attention to the still not very well known concept of the "unitary executive."

Biden charged that Dick Cheney had become "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history" because of his attempts to create a super-powerful unitary executive. Biden didn't take time to explain exactly what he meant, but it's an extremely important, poorly understood subject, and it's time to question the presidential candidates -- closely -- about it.


Plenty of presidents have worked to increase presidential power over the years, but the theory of the unitary executive, first proposed under President Reagan, has been expanded since then by every president, Democrat and Republican alike. Reagan's notion was that only a strong president would be able to dramatically limit big government. Perhaps drawing on a model for unitary corporate leadership in which the CEO also serves as chairman of the board, the so-called unitary executive promised undivided presidential control of the executive branch and its agencies, expanded unilateral powers and avowedly adversarial relations with Congress.

In the years that followed, Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society conservatives worked to provide a constitutional cover for this theory, producing thousands of pages in the 1990s claiming -- often erroneously and misleadingly -- that the framers themselves had intended this model for the office of the presidency.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-nelson11-2008oct11,0,224216.story


The author makes a good point that voters need to know more about what candidates think of this theory.

What we really need is a theory that would push Congress to be more assertive of its rights and perogatives more often, so as to redress the imbalance between the branches. I don't want to go back as far as the times when Congress was the dominant branch, but maybe 32% in that direction. The constitutional division of power is a good mechanism to limit power by dividing it into rival 'camps'. The trick is to get people in the branches that work sometimes in tandem and sometimes at loggerheads.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Secondary Topic:

Has Cheyney been a worse VeeP than Aaron Burr? While a case can be made for both, I say Burr still holds the championship of bad.

[Jandar]

Let's not forget Spiro T. Agnew.

Also remember Nixon was once a VP.

[bacasper]

if you haven't already, do watch the PBS program Cheney's Law. I think it goes a long way explaining what Biden was probably referring to.

[Jandar]

Seriously if you want to see examples of Unitary Presidency one needs not look too far in the past.

FDR was probably the most powerful President of the 20th century.

Before FDR see Abraham Lincoln, nobody stretched the powers of the presidency as far as he did.

Congress should reflect the ability of the government to plan (Legislate), the president should react (Execute) to those plans.

At times the Presidency has been in position to react when insufficient planning is in place, for instance what legislation can plan effectively for crisis such as a Civil War, WW2 or 9/11.

We find also that in those circumstance congress can act to stifle these reactions as we saw in the Nixon administration.

It behooves us to look at the successes and failures of FDR and Lincoln to grasp when and where these powers are useful, it's also necessary for us to understand the failings of the Legislature to act and plan for these risks to minimize the necessity of these reactions. Instead what we have is a congress hell bent on reeling in the executive where it should be providing necessary guidance.

[Ya-ta Boy]