What should a president be?

One idea that I discussed in a club that I’m a part of is whether presidents are too powerful, or too weak. I think this can be a bit of a challenge since presidential power can be a bit amorphous, and talking through it, it seems like there’s a couple distinct issues in play.

One issue that I think comes up a lot is the executive and its relationship to the administrative state. Insofar as a president can effectively control the various agencies, and fire people who oppose his (not her yet) agenda. In this way, I think the president is weak. How is the office not neutered if you can’t remove those hostile to your goals from underneath you?

This creates an interesting and toxic dynamic where the main thing a president can do is rule via executive fiat, or executive order. This creates a situation where there’s little reason to compromise when push comes to shove, and because legislature doesn’t want to take tough votes, they empower agencies to do the administrating and effective legislation.

It’s not entirely clear how to get out of this mess- banning the executive order would in effect make it very hard for a president to achieve any of its administration’s goals. Furthermore, since we continue to vote for presidents who successively increase their power, and expect presidents to solve problems, we are the problem we wish to combat.

Another area where a president is weak is with regards to having to get appointments in his branch through a senate or house. Why? What does this do? Or, why can’t a president use a line item veto or pocket veto to remove objectionable parts of legislation from omnibus bills?

But, it also begs the question of weak compared to whom. Federal judges can create injunctions against any legislation they find objectionable until something is appealed to the supreme court. If they are given this power, is the president’s power so bad?

I think the areas where the president is strong are surrounding immunity for actions in office, and the ability to use ‘prosecutorial discretion’ in deciding which laws to faithfully enforce. If a president wanted to overturn an election for instance, there’d be very few grounds on which to convict a president for using his power, unless the president literally voiced his plans like a cartoon villain.

However, it’s also the case that supreme court justices and congresspeople are immune from criminal prosecution. So, why should the president not have similar protections? And, the presidential administration is going to be more controversial than supreme court or legislative votes. With norms eroding, I can imagine prosecuting former political enemies to be an easier thing to do.