Week Five: Excessive Executive Power
This current Our American Values series focuses on four perennial threats that surface whenever American Democracy is most at risk: 1) Political polarization, 2) Conflict over who belongs as a member of the political community, 3) High and growing economic inequality, and 4) Excessive executive power.
This week, we will consider that fourth threat to American democracy — excessive Presidential Power. In a Presidents Day 2019 segment from PBS News Hour, Judy Woodruff talks to Andrew Rudalevige, professor of government at Bowdoin College and author of The New Imperial Presidency: Renewing Presidential Power after Watergate, and Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University. Though prompted by a specific use of the National Emergencies Act, the segment is a very approachable treatment of broader questions of Presidential Power and its impact on American democracy. The segment runs for nine minutes.
“It’s bad when Congress gives power away thoughtlessly. Congress has its own authority under the Constitution. It should use it.”