3 ms·

But unitary-executive is an aggressive interpretation of the words "the executive Power shall be vested." It's certainly plausible to say that "executive Power"

But unitary-executive is an aggressive interpretation of the words "the executive Power shall be vested." It's certainly plausible to say that "executive Power" means "such powers as are given by Article II or otherwise granted by the Congress." That could plausibly mean that Congress can cabin the executive power or even subject it to compulsory delegation to agencies, as long as the president has ultimate supervisory power — which could itself be subject to limitations, e.g., no firing without cause or without approval from Congress. (EDIT: That was why President Andrew Johnson was impeached [but not convicted], for violating the Tenure of Office Act, enacted by a Reconstruction-era Congress to protect a Cabinet officer; a later Congress repealed that statute, and the Supreme Court subsequently held that a similar statute was invalid, but Congress could use its Article III power to deprive the courts of jurisdiction to overrule such a statute.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure_of_Office_Act_(1867) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure_of_Office_Act_(1867)

rayiner 3y ago
It’s not aggressive. It’s the most straightforward interpretation of the words actually on the page. The problem is that post-New Deal liberals are in love with the idea of a neutral bureaucracy. To them governance by expert technocrats is an indispensable aspect of what they view as modernity. If you weren’t expressly trying to reach that result, there would be no reason to read anything more into Article II than what it says.
- dctoedt 3y ago
  > It’s the most straightforward interpretation of the words actually on the page. That sounds like, everything not expressly allowed is forbidden; Ninth and Tenth Amendments notwithstanding, that doesn't seem like an ideal way to apply rules written more than 200 years ago for a population that was two orders of magnitude smaller than today, with a concomitant increase in the number of commercial- and noncommercial interactions.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    But those amendments are not notwithstanding; they are, in fact, still part of the Constitution, despite there being ample opportunity to amend the Constitution to say otherwise over those intervening centuries.
    - dctoedt 3y ago
      > ... ample opportunity to amend the Constitution to say otherwise over those intervening centuries. That's true — but realistically it's well-nigh impossible to get the requisite 2/3 of the House and Senate and 3/4 of the states' legislatures to agree on just about anything. Moreover, recent events have shown that soi-disant conservatives and MAGA adherents hold very different views than centrist- and center-left Democrats about how the country (and the world) should be governed; ditto their respective counterparts in other countries. So pragmatically, if we want to keep a functioning United States going as a unified country in a technologically-globalized 21st century, it seems appropriate to not take a cramped view of federal governing authority. Some in the U.S. have argued for splitting the country into Red- and Blue Nations. That seems like just kicking the can down the road: It's not implausible that in the future, a Putin- or Orbán-like strongman figure would climb to power in Red Nation, proclaiming that Red Nation should militarily conquer Blue Nation to restore the (re-)United States to its former glory so that it could resume pursuing the Manifest Destiny that God (supposedly) intended all along.
      - philwelch 3y ago
        The Constitution has been amended 27 times, most recently in 1992. And there’s no need to divide the United States into two; the United States is already divided into fifty states, each of which can have its own laws. And in my view, it has consistently been the Democrats who are hellbent on imposing their preferred laws on the red states, just as they’re the ones who consistently advocate ignoring the constitution, packing the Supreme Court, and creating and strengthening an unelected, extra-constitutional fourth branch of government that saves them the need to actually win elections and convince the American people to go along with their ideology. The Republicans haven’t been great about this either but at least they’ve taken some steps towards restoring the constitutional republic.

rayiner 3y ago

It’s not aggressive. It’s the most straightforward interpretation of the words actually on the page. The problem is that post-New Deal liberals are in love with the idea of a neutral bureaucracy. To them governance by expert technocrats is an indispensable aspect of what they view as modernity. If you weren’t expressly trying to reach that result, there would be no reason to read anything more into Article II than what it says.

dctoedt 3y ago
> It’s the most straightforward interpretation of the words actually on the page. That sounds like, everything not expressly allowed is forbidden; Ninth and Tenth Amendments notwithstanding, that doesn't seem like an ideal way to apply rules written more than 200 years ago for a population that was two orders of magnitude smaller than today, with a concomitant increase in the number of commercial- and noncommercial interactions.
- philwelch 3y ago
  But those amendments are not notwithstanding; they are, in fact, still part of the Constitution, despite there being ample opportunity to amend the Constitution to say otherwise over those intervening centuries.
  - dctoedt 3y ago
    > ... ample opportunity to amend the Constitution to say otherwise over those intervening centuries. That's true — but realistically it's well-nigh impossible to get the requisite 2/3 of the House and Senate and 3/4 of the states' legislatures to agree on just about anything. Moreover, recent events have shown that soi-disant conservatives and MAGA adherents hold very different views than centrist- and center-left Democrats about how the country (and the world) should be governed; ditto their respective counterparts in other countries. So pragmatically, if we want to keep a functioning United States going as a unified country in a technologically-globalized 21st century, it seems appropriate to not take a cramped view of federal governing authority. Some in the U.S. have argued for splitting the country into Red- and Blue Nations. That seems like just kicking the can down the road: It's not implausible that in the future, a Putin- or Orbán-like strongman figure would climb to power in Red Nation, proclaiming that Red Nation should militarily conquer Blue Nation to restore the (re-)United States to its former glory so that it could resume pursuing the Manifest Destiny that God (supposedly) intended all along.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      The Constitution has been amended 27 times, most recently in 1992. And there’s no need to divide the United States into two; the United States is already divided into fifty states, each of which can have its own laws. And in my view, it has consistently been the Democrats who are hellbent on imposing their preferred laws on the red states, just as they’re the ones who consistently advocate ignoring the constitution, packing the Supreme Court, and creating and strengthening an unelected, extra-constitutional fourth branch of government that saves them the need to actually win elections and convince the American people to go along with their ideology. The Republicans haven’t been great about this either but at least they’ve taken some steps towards restoring the constitutional republic.