In Michael Lind’s article “The Out-Of-Control Presidency”, he discusses how the institution of the presidency is quickly diminishing in terms of power and respect. He argues that “the decline of the presidency and the rise of Congress is the emerging conventional wisdom in Washington”. “The relative power of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich says more about the political abilities of those individual men during a passing moment in national life than about the relative legitimacy and effectiveness of the modern presidency and Congress” (Lind, 1995). ...
It will become evident that the presidency is still on top when the patterns of politics an personality change. In the past, the authority of the major speakers was based on their control of their parties. ...
Jimmy Carter reformed the Senior Executive Services to give the White House more control over career bureaucrats, and Ronald Reagan policized the upper levels of the executive branch to an unprecedented degree. ... He asserted a sovereign power to ignore the statutes that had been denied to the English king in the Seven Bishops case in 1688, as Charles Tiefer points out. ... Watergate and Iran-contra have involved attempts by scheming courtiers of law-breaking presidents to circumvent the older, established executive departments, and if today’s Congress has it’s way the presidency will become even more imperial. Republicans are reluctant to give the powers of the branch they control away after capturing Congress over half a century. ... The “plebiscite” theory of the presidency is shared by all presidents today, whether Republican or Democrat, and while most presidents are elected with a plurality, not a majority, every president today claims a mandate form the majority of the people. ...
Presidentialists build up the legitimacy of the presidency by exaggerating the faults of Congress and the parts of the executive branch that the White House doesn’t directly control. As James Glassman pointed out, “You can get rid of all of Congress…and you’d save exactly as much as you would save if you cut the defense budget by less than one percent”. ...
I agree with Michael Lind in his proposals for possible solutions to the problem of “The Out-Of-Control Presidency”.
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