Draining executive power: a bipartisan cause for the next four years.

Principled conservatives, and liberals of good faith have never had so much in common as they do now. We're both dismayed.

Let's do this.

Let's work together. Immediately.

 

Let's deprive Donald J. Trump -- and whoever comes after him -- of the most worrying powers that the executive branch holds. Powers that by the design of our country's founders rightfully belong to Congress, the people's tribune, the seat of representative democracy in this republic.

Let's put a layer of Congressional approval between the chief executive and the nuclear codes.

Let's end the cowardly practice of writing blank-check legislation that lets the executive branch -- the Presidential administration and its agencies -- craft unilaterally most of the rules that govern Americans' daily lives.

Let's have more and more transparent Congressional oversight over matters deemed crucial for national security.

Let's stop calling checks and balances "obstruction," and accept that the President has to earn the support of enough members of Congress (remember? our representatives? our assembled voices in Washington?) to enact his policies.

Let's demand that our Congressional representatives remember that they are representatives of their whole districts, that our Senators are representatives of their whole states -- not just of the folks who belong to the same party. That their first loyalty needs to be to their constituents of either party, and not to the President even if he is of their own party. They need to protect the enumerated powers of Congress against executive overreach.

Let's do it now, while there are a lot of people in both parties who recognize the inherent danger of having an unhinged person in such a powerful position. I hope that it is clear to all that the fundamental structual problem is not this particular man's character and emotional fragility, but the fact that so much power has become concentrated in one office in the national capital.

We need to rediscover federalism, checks and balances, and the separation of powers. And what's more, now is the time to get it done.

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I hope my more liberal readers will not take it as a slight, but only as a factual observation, that (in general) progressives and the Democratic party have worked over the generations to concentrate power in the federal government and remove it from regional, state, and local oversight. Probably some powerful people have promoted this in order to consolidate their own power and influence, but most of the proponents have been well meaning -- the goal being to make sure that citizens all over the country enjoy the same rights, prosperity, safety, and freedoms.

Conversely, in general, conservatives strongly value regional and local autonomy and have worked to reduce federal programs and regulations. Probably some powerful people have promoted this in order to advance their own economic interests or preserve their in-group's place in the social hierarchy, but most of the proponents have been well meaning -- the goal being to solve problems efficiently at the local level where people understand them, preserve personal freedoms, and to keep the accumulated weight and cost of regulations from dragging the economy down.

We are in a place now where progressives -- like principled conservatives -- wish to rein in the power of the federal executive. The principled conservatives are still around. Many of them are not only opposed to the currently swollen federal executive power in general, but are actually opposed to the program of the new Republican president-elect in specific. This is a rare chance to work together to do something that could really be good for the country.

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I think that soon, after the initial shock dies down and people in the government start getting back to work, I am going to write my Congressional representative -- Keith Ellison (D-MN) -- and congratulate him on his re-election to Congress. I will propose that he and the other Democratic members of Congress, as well as any Republicans who are troubled by the overreach of executive power that we saw in the last couple of administrations and who have serious concerns about the fitness of President-Elect Trump and his authoritarian tendencies, consider what they can do immediately to drain the power from the executive branch and return it to where it belongs: with our representatives and senators.

A good place to start was suggested by my friend Ed on Facebook. HR 6179 would "prohibit the conduct of a first-use nuclear strike absent a declaration of war by Congress."

Let's start by getting the president's fingers off the nuclear button. Then we can start peeling his fingers away from everywhere they have no business digging into.

 

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