'Joe Biden May Be Uniquely Positioned To Fascist-Proof The Presidency'

[appalachiablue]

'Joe Biden may be uniquely positioned to fascist-proof the presidency.' By Joshua Holland, 8/10/20, Alternet. -Excerpts:

Joe Biden is not the kind of candidate one would expect to be a transformational president if he’s elected in November. But there’s one area where he would be uniquely positioned to be just that, and it’s a vitally important one.

Biden has reportedly told aides that if he wins, he would serve a single term and not seek re-election in 2024, when he would be 81. According to Politico, Biden sees himself as a caretaker president who would help transition the country away from the catastrophic Trump years, and his party to a younger generation of leaders. As such, Biden may be willing to cede some of the institutional powers that have accrued to the executive branch for the past 150 years back to Congress–or to more independent institutions–in a way that a typically ambitious president would not.
And a Democratic Congress, having just lived through a presidency that’s been unprecedented in its contempt for its co-equal branches of government–spinning any congressional oversight as “harassment” and relentlessly obstructing it at every turn–may have an unusually strong appetite for proofing the presidency against any similarly authoritarian figures who may control the White House in the future.

The Framers of the Constitution, having revolted against a distant monarchy, were wary of executive power, and sought to limit it through the separation of powers, by giving Congress the power to impeach and creating relatively short presidential terms. But since at least the middle of the 19th Century, presidents of both parties have capitalized on various crises–and America’s changing role in global affairs–to claim ever-more power for the executive. And according to The Harvard Law Bulletin, many of the constraints that have tempered executive authority in the past were matters of custom rather than Constitutional law.



The remarkably brief section of the Constitution that lays out the powers and responsibilities of the president, Article II, leaves wide swaths of open space in which presidents can flexibly interpret their powers. (Perhaps not surprisingly, presidents typically do so in their own favor.) Often, a president’s power is prescribed not explicitly by Article II, but by the norms created over the course of two centuries of history. At the tail end of the second Bush presidency, UNC legal scholar William Marshall wrote that as a result of the steady increase in executive power, “the system of checks and balances that the Framers envisioned now lacks effective checks and is no longer in balance.” He argued that “the implications of this are serious. The Framers designed a system of separation of powers to combat government excess and abuse and to curb incompetence. They also believed that, in the absence of an effective separation-of-powers structure, such ills would inevitably follow.” Trump has certainly proven those fears were justified over the past 4 years.

The problem, Marshall adds, is that “power once taken is not easily surrendered.” That has created a “ratchet effect,” with presidents closely guarding powers seized by their predecessors even if they hadn’t grabbed new ones themselves. But with sufficient outside pressure, a one-term, “transitional” president might be unusually willing to sign legislation that would help fascist-proof the presidency even if those measures ultimately constrained their own administration.
...We have very good reason to fear a future president with Trump’s authoritarian instincts but more discipline and smarter messaging. If Democrats win control of the White House and the Senate, and liberals and progressives take executive branch reform seriously enough to push for it, Joe Biden may be just the guy to fascist-proof the American presidency.

Read The Full Article,
https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/joe-biden-may-be-uniquely-positioned-to-fascist-proof-the-presidency/

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. The only way to "fascist-proof" the presidency is to prosecute the crimes of the Trump admin

Congress must pass, and Biden must sign, a law reactivating the Independent Prosecutor law, and appoint an aggressive prosecutor with a widely defined mission and free reign to investigate and prosecute the crimes and corruption of the Trump administration.

In addition, congress must pass, and Biden must sign, legislation limiting the powers of the Executive branch. The DOJ memo against indicting a sitting president must be overridden by a law that allows for the indictment of a president by DOJ, perhaps even allowing US attorneys to operate independently from the AG in this matter. Federal Statutes of Limitation Must be allowed to be suspended/extended if presidential prosecution (following an indictment) is suspended for the duration of the president’s term.

Congress must reign in the abuse of Executive Privilege, forcing members of any administration to assert privilege in person, or face stiff penalties (Including suspension of pay and benefits) for defying any congressional subpoenas.

Furthermore, Congress must legislate tighter restrictions on the use of acting appointees, with very short (60-90 days max) terms for acting appointees, after which the highest ranking career employee (who can’t be hired/fired by the president) will serve as acting director/secretary until A Congressionally approved leader can be put in place.

Of course, the dissolution of DHS and ICE, and the prohibition of deployment of federal agents, officers and contractors for local law enforcement activities must be legislated.

These are the bare minimum steps that must be taken to “fascist-proof” the presidency; anything short of this should be considered failure, and fascism will continue to breathe down the neck of democracy.

[Baked Potato]

2. The defying subpoenas and acting directors is a big one with me.

Good points and recommendations, I hope to see action on all of them.