Running for President of the United States is a little bit like living under a microscope for two years. You are asked by a steel worker about your position on import tariffs, by a couple with a child on the way about school vouchers, and by a local employer about immigration. You are asked, every day, about dozens of policies – both existing and proposed – and are expected to answer every question. In such a climate it is hard to imagine that any important question might go unasked, or that any question of national significance might go unanswered.
But while we may know a great deal about the candidates’ plans to curb climate change and their proposals to reform health care, we know remarkably little about their views on our constitutional system of checks and balances and the relative powers of the President, Congress and the courts. Almost nobody asks if a candidate would support unchecked presidential authority to order spying on Americans, or if he or she plans to ignore congressional mandates. Almost nobody asks about a candidate’s concern for our nation’s founding document.
When George W. Bush became president, few of us anticipated the assaults on the rule of law that our country has faced. Few anticipated that presidential signing statements, NSA warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention and torture of so-called enemy combatants, and the failure to cooperate with Congress would dominate the news. In each of these matters, and others like them, the Bush administration has overstepped its authority, ignoring the Constitution, the role of Congress and the courts as separate and independent branches of the federal government, and disregarding limits on the executive branch established by our system of checks and balances.
Fortunately, at least two members of the fourth estate have asked the 2008 presidential candidates their views about these matters. In the December 16, 2007, issue of CQ Weekly, David Nather examined each candidate’s experience with and treatment of executive power. And on December 22, 2007, Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage asked the then-twelve major candidates their views about presidential authority.
Savage, winner of last year’s Pulitzer Prize, as well as the Constitution Project’s Award for Constitutional Commentary, explained it this way: “In 2000, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were not asked about presidential power, and they volunteered nothing about their attitude toward the issue to voters. Yet once in office, they immediately began seeking out ways to concentrate more unchecked power in the White House - not just for themselves, but also for their successors.”
It is tempting to believe that the repeated assaults on the rule of law will end on January 20, 2009, that our Constitution can withstand mistreatment by any president, no matter what his or her political affiliation. Tempting, but naive. The current administration has worked for seven years to increase presidential power at the expense of the other two branches of government. Its principal justification – the need to keep the country “safe” – is one that will appeal to any president. At the end of his book, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency, Charlie Savage writes: “The accretion of presidential power, history has shown, often acts as a one-way ratchet: It can be increased far more easily than it can be reduced.” New presidents may conclude there is no need to eliminate the powers their predecessors accrued because they will simply exercise better judgment in using them.
Nine of the candidates offered revealing answers to Savage’s questions, and they are well worth reading. They give voters considerable insight into their views about our system of checks and balances and their readiness to cede some power to restore the constitutional balance. Ultimately, the willingness to answer at all proved notable: three leading candidates (Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson) refused to answer any of the questions.
Restoring the rule of law in America and the proper functioning of our system of checks and balances will require a proactive effort on the part of the next president and, by proxy, the American people. While the prominent political issues (the Iraq war, immigration, education, etc.) are indeed important, how the next president interprets his or her powers under the Constitution will dramatically affect whether and how they address all other issues, and whether and how our rights are protected.