The Missed Opportunity in the President’s Speech

Until the last ten minutes or so, I thought Biden’s speech was mostly a missed opportunity. Perhaps not from the perspective of partisanship, but from the perspective of what he claims to be one of the President’s function: to unify the country. For the last ten minutes, he reflected on the meaning of January 6, 2021 and discussed ways to overcome it; those last ten minutes should have extended across what would have been a shorter but more effective speech. The difficulty is, however, that those reflections came only after a speech that would have made much more sense on … Continue reading The Missed Opportunity in the President’s Speech

Conflict, Cooperation and the Separation of Powers

Three distinguished scholars of the presidency—John A. Dearborn, Desmond S. King and Stephen Skowronek—published an intriguing essay at The New York Times this morning about taming presidential power. Their case is that constitutional combat between Congress and the President favors executive power. Instead, they write, Congress should “assert its capacity to engage the president and the executive branch in ways that foster cooperation in issues of governance.” The authors note that Congressional attempts to play hardball on the separation of powers have tended to trigger backlashes: Presidents have responded by asserting executive power, and their control over the executive branch, more stridently, and the … Continue reading Conflict, Cooperation and the Separation of Powers

Abusing Grace: Constitutional Subversion in the Presidential Self-Pardon

The end of a presidency is always “the season for presidential pardons.” But, as Adam Carrington identifies in this timely essay, a presidential “self-pardon is different. It is not merely susceptible to abuse; it is an abuse by definition.” Continue reading Abusing Grace: Constitutional Subversion in the Presidential Self-Pardon