Executive Power & Checks and Balances
Presidents defying courts, firing independent officials, and pressuring the Fed, examined against separation of powers and religious teachings on rulers above the law.
11 questions
- Presidential Emergency Powers and OverreachThe Founders built separation of powers into the Constitution specifically to prevent any one person from accumulating unchecked authority.
- How Religions Say to Treat Political OpponentsEvery major religion commands treating opponents with dignity — even enemies. The Constitution was built on the assumption that political opponents are…
- When the Executive Branch Defies Court OrdersEvery religious tradition holds that rulers are subject to law, not above it. The Constitution makes the judiciary the final interpreter of what the law…
- Threats to Annex Greenland by ForceThe Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the power to go to war. International law prohibits threatening or seizing another nation's territory.
- Pressuring the Federal Reserve ChairReligious traditions teach that honest weights and measures are foundational to a just community — and warn against those who would manipulate them for…
- Presidential Dell Stock and a $9.7B Pentagon ContractA president who buys a stock, publicly tells crowds to buy the same stock, presides over an administration that awards the company a $9.7 billion contract…
- Overturning Humphrey's Executor: Firing Independent Agency HeadsHumphrey's Executor was one of the load-bearing walls of the modern administrative state — the case that let Congress design agencies (the Fed, the FTC, the…
- Firing 21 Generals in 15 MonthsReligious traditions warn with extraordinary unanimity about rulers who surround themselves with people who tell them only what they want to hear.
- Biden v. Nebraska: $430 Billion in Student Loan CancellationDebt relief is not a partisan value — every major religious tradition treats structural relief from crushing debt as a moral good, and many of the borrowers…
- Iran-Contra and the Boland AmendmentIran-Contra was the clearest modern test of the principle the site treats in nearly every executive-power question: Congress decides what the federal…
- Advice and Consent: Loyalty Questions at Confirmation HearingsHamilton named the purpose of Senate confirmation in Federalist No. 76 : a check against appointments made from "personal attachment." That is the exact…