Ending the Era of the Imperial Presidency

[Frodo]

Do you support restricting the power of the President back to where it was before Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in the era of the 'imperial presidency'? Even if the president belongs to the same political party as you?

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Sure. Coolidge did just fine without it.

[anthonyjg]

Yes, though I would set the bar further back than FDR. Even before FDR's time in office, the president had a growing amount of power that I'm not comfortable with. Polk fought the Mexican War from the White House, bullying Congress into support, and Jackson's veto message of the recharter bill showed that he was motivated by distrust of the bank, not out of doubting its constitutionality.

Of course, as Averroës pointed out, this requires changes to Congress, most notably non-geographic proportional representation. So long as the President is seen as the only national representative of all people, then the imperial presidency can't be stopped.

[OSR stands with Israel]

These are some reforms I would propose

1. All War Powers given to the Executive Branch in the past 16 years by congress is transferred back to congress
2. All powers on dealing with Immigration is transferred back to congress.
3. All treaties must be ratified by the senate, none of this fast track BS
4. Executive Orders may ONLY apply on how to enforce the laws, and deal with regulatory power inside the different departments. It may not apply to changing a law or selectively enforcing the law.

Examples of what would be permissible executive orders

1. Auditing a department headed by a cabinet member
2. Setting up an e verify system to make sure illegal immigrants dont get hired (I believe the 1986 immigration act makes its illegal for employers to hire illegal immigrants).
3. Cutting of support or relationships to foreign governments


Examples of what would not be permissible

1. Declaring war or sending troops to another country without a congressional declaration of war  
2. Trump Travel Ban
3. Obama's and Bush signing statements

[dead0man]

1. Declaring war or sending troops to another country without a congressional declaration of war

Some authority needs to be able to allow military action faster than a Congressional vote can happen.

(I'm not sure if them's the right string of words, but I think you get what I'm saying)




indy/3rd party-yes

[IceAgeComing]

What does "non-geographic proportional representation" even mean though?  I don't know if you're advocated for US-wide list PR or something and if you are I'd want to stress that would be a bad idea for a country like the US: its way, way too big and diverse for that sort of system.  Plus also a list with 535+ names on it would necessitate closed list PR which would heavily empower party elites and : if there's someone who's not very popular then you can just insist on keeping him number 4 on the list and guarantees that he'll always be around; or if someone does something to piss off the party leadership then you'll conveniently see them put in the 436th place on the list for the next election; meaning that you'd need like 75% of the vote to get them back.  Plus there'd be no real way of running meaningful primary elections under this sort of system.

If you wanted to make Congress more proportional you still need to retain a level of local representation; its far, far too important for the American system.  The two systems that come to mind are MMP or STV; both would require a larger congress and probably either merging states together (for the former for list regions; for the latter to get the 4-5 seats you need for proportionality) unless you were to have a small malapportionment in favour of the smaller states to prevent that.  For the former I'd also have some kind of open list (either a fully open list in regional areas maybe with a few national balancing seats to ensure proportionality or a national list with the best placed losing candidates getting allocated seats) just to avoid the situation where parties could give someone unpopular a high place on the list to guarantee election, or punish people by moving them down the list.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Maybe he means entrenching demographic politics even further: the African American women get a list, the White men with Bachelor degrees get a list, the hipster Christians get a list ...

[IceAgeComing]

Ah I see, copying the electoral system of Rhodesia!  Well its a bold idea; but not one that I could really see myself supporting...

[SteveRogers]

Congress already has all the tools that it needs to reign in the power of the presidency. It doesn't matter how many new checks you put on the power of the executive branch. They won't work if the other branches of government refuse to utilize them.

[Kingpoleon]

This is a major cause of polarization.

[Frodo]

Congress already has all the tools that it needs to reign in the power of the presidency. It doesn't matter how many new checks you put on the power of the executive branch. They won't work if the other branches of government refuse to utilize them.

You're probably right:

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And that comes from someone who was in on the action.

The only way this situation can be rectified is if constituents demand their congressmen and senators of both parties do their jobs and fulfill their constitutional roles instead of ceding those responsibilities to the President, even if that President belongs to the same political party as the majority party.  

This should not be a partisan issue.  

[President Johnson]

No, we need a president like FDR or LBJ again, who is decisive and gets things done.

[Del Tachi]

These things naturally ebb and flow.  The Presidency was relatively weak from the Gilded Age through the Great Depression, FDR greatly expanded the reach of the Executive Branch, Congress reasserted its dominance in the wake of Watergate, and the Presidency has once again usurped the Congress since 9/11 and the beginning of the War on Terror.

A disastrous, scandal-plagued presidency (*ahem) would go a long way in weakening the relative power of the office.

[Kingpoleon]

No, we need a president like FDR or LBJ again, who is decisive and gets things done.

IIRC, that is why you would have voted Ford 1976/Carter 1980! Two very decisive men.

[Green Line]

Yes, get rid of the Presidency all together.