James M. Hohman, Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Look beyond the partisanship of the No Kings rallies, and you’ll see they’ve got an interesting point that ought to appeal to Americans across the political spectrum. Citizens shouldn’t want a monarch who gets to do whatever he wants by royal fiat. And that’s not what America has. America has a president who can exercise only the powers granted by the Constitution. Recent protesters could make a good case that executives around the country act beyond their limited authority and thus behave like monarchs.
Governors used the COVID-19 pandemic to close schools, lock down workplaces, and micromanage human interaction for months and years. No new legislation was needed; they rested on emergency powers granted to them, which seemed to have no limit. And a few were found to be unconstitutional.
Governors looked like petty monarchs when they violated their own orders. They told restaurant owners how to operate safely, based on little other than their own feelings, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom found them inconvenient for himself. So did Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Kings can extend royal privilege to their friends, something Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker did when he allowed his side’s political groups to gather without restrictions while he enforced social distancing mandates for opponents.
Nor was it just Democratic governors who abused their authority. Conservative governors stifled speech they didn’t like on college campuses, despite First Amendment protections. While governors can work with legislators to change governance in state universities and add strings to taxpayer support, they overstep when they try to stop expression. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry tried to get a professor fired for engaging in protected speech. Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer asked a college — successfully — to remove a controversial art piece from public display. Americans have rights that can’t be ignored by executives.
Article I of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, but that didn’t stop President Joe Biden from taking the national government further into debt when he said that students didn’t have to pay back their federal student loans anymore. The courts blocked some of his plans, but not all of them.
We’ll see what courts say about whether emergency authority authorizes President Donald Trump to place tariffs of any size he wishes on whomever he chooses. And whether other executive orders that blur the separation of powers required by the U.S. Constitution are acceptable.
The limits on the executive matters because the rule of law matters. There’s a natural tendency for societies to establish a class of elites who are above the law and use the powers of the state to protect their friends and punish their enemies. America is supposed to be better.
The countries that stay true to the rule of law have an advantage. They tend to develop institutions that drive growth and prosperity. It’s one of the reasons why America is a global leader in prosperity.
It’s also a reason why people ought to be wary about executives who push the limits of their authority. And of legislators who have handed executives their lawmaking authority, or judges who have deferred their interpretative authority to them. It’s not how America is supposed to work, as we learned in middle school civics.
It’s worth noticing when elected officials fall short of American ideals. It’s worth criticizing officials when they overstep their bounds. Americans will be better off when their presidents hold only the powers granted to them by the Constitution. Let’s not replace the executive with a monarch.
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James M. Hohman is the director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Governors used the COVID-19 pandemic to close schools, lock down workplaces, and micromanage human interaction for months and years. No new legislation was needed; they rested on emergency powers granted to them, which seemed to have no limit. And a few were found to be unconstitutional.
Governors looked like petty monarchs when they violated their own orders. They told restaurant owners how to operate safely, based on little other than their own feelings, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom found them inconvenient for himself. So did Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Kings can extend royal privilege to their friends, something Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker did when he allowed his side’s political groups to gather without restrictions while he enforced social distancing mandates for opponents.
Nor was it just Democratic governors who abused their authority. Conservative governors stifled speech they didn’t like on college campuses, despite First Amendment protections. While governors can work with legislators to change governance in state universities and add strings to taxpayer support, they overstep when they try to stop expression. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry tried to get a professor fired for engaging in protected speech. Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer asked a college — successfully — to remove a controversial art piece from public display. Americans have rights that can’t be ignored by executives.
Article I of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, but that didn’t stop President Joe Biden from taking the national government further into debt when he said that students didn’t have to pay back their federal student loans anymore. The courts blocked some of his plans, but not all of them.
We’ll see what courts say about whether emergency authority authorizes President Donald Trump to place tariffs of any size he wishes on whomever he chooses. And whether other executive orders that blur the separation of powers required by the U.S. Constitution are acceptable.
The limits on the executive matters because the rule of law matters. There’s a natural tendency for societies to establish a class of elites who are above the law and use the powers of the state to protect their friends and punish their enemies. America is supposed to be better.
The countries that stay true to the rule of law have an advantage. They tend to develop institutions that drive growth and prosperity. It’s one of the reasons why America is a global leader in prosperity.
It’s also a reason why people ought to be wary about executives who push the limits of their authority. And of legislators who have handed executives their lawmaking authority, or judges who have deferred their interpretative authority to them. It’s not how America is supposed to work, as we learned in middle school civics.
It’s worth noticing when elected officials fall short of American ideals. It’s worth criticizing officials when they overstep their bounds. Americans will be better off when their presidents hold only the powers granted to them by the Constitution. Let’s not replace the executive with a monarch.
—————
James M. Hohman is the director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
