Bruce Ackerman: Obama, Warren and The Imperial Presidency
[Mr. Ackerman is a professor at Yale and the author of "The Decline and Fall of the American Republic," forthcoming from Harvard University Press.]
President Obama's appointment of Elizabeth Warren late last week is another milestone down the path toward an imperial presidency. During America's first 150 years, Ms. Warren's appointment as a special adviser to the White House would have been unthinkable. Today, it's par for the course.
Only in 1939 did Franklin Roosevelt win the right to appoint six "special assistants." To gain congressional approval, he pledged that his assistants would act strictly as advisers. Thus they did not require Senate confirmation.
Since Roosevelt's initiative, presidents of both parties have consistently expanded the size and power of the White House establishment. There are now more than 500 super-loyalists intervening in the affairs of Cabinet departments. But until now, presidents have maintained the legal fiction that they were merely advisers without decision-making powers....
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President Obama's appointment of Elizabeth Warren late last week is another milestone down the path toward an imperial presidency. During America's first 150 years, Ms. Warren's appointment as a special adviser to the White House would have been unthinkable. Today, it's par for the course.
Only in 1939 did Franklin Roosevelt win the right to appoint six "special assistants." To gain congressional approval, he pledged that his assistants would act strictly as advisers. Thus they did not require Senate confirmation.
Since Roosevelt's initiative, presidents of both parties have consistently expanded the size and power of the White House establishment. There are now more than 500 super-loyalists intervening in the affairs of Cabinet departments. But until now, presidents have maintained the legal fiction that they were merely advisers without decision-making powers....