Because of the toxicity of the two-party system, many outstanding citizens will not even consider entering the political arena. The environment has changed so dramatically from the days of the founders that ordinary citizens are out of place in Washington, and professional politicians rule the day. This is not the vision of Article 2, and it’s time “we the people” rise above the political infighting and choose sensible executives based on their qualifications, not the letters after their names.
THE PRESIDENT’S QUALIFICATIONS, SUCCESSORS, AND SALARY
Because of the level of wisdom needed to successfully occupy the office of president of the United States of America, the age and experience qualifications for the job are stricter than those for other positions in the federal government. The Constitution requires that the president be a natural-born citizen, be at least thirty-five years old, and have been a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years.
The presidency is an extremely stressful job that requires the ability to multitask and remain calm in the face of disaster. Thus it makes sense to elect a person of maturity. The president also must have no divided loyalties—thus the citizenship requirement. Though many immigrants have strong loyalty to America, it would be an unmitigated disaster to elect someone president who was not a natural-born citizen and who did not really have the best interests of the United States at heart. And, of course, the White House occupant should have lived in the United States long enough to be familiar with its culture and values.
In the event of the death or disability of the president, the vice president steps into the office, followed by the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate. Until 1947, the Constitution mandated that the vice president be followed by the secretary of state and then various other cabinet members. An amendment changed that in order to better honor the will of the people. Cabinet members are not elected officials and therefore should not be the first people to take the helm of the country if a disaster removes both the president and the vice president.
In keeping with the goal of honoring the will of the people, the Constitution states that the president’s salary cannot be changed during his term. If Congress could adjust the president’s salary, the legislative branch would have too much power over the executive branch, because politicians could manipulate the president’s salary as a bribe or punishment.
PRESIDENTIAL POWERS
Once in office, the president has an impressive array of powers, from controlling the military to entering into treaties. A strong president will make the most of these powers—and a wise president will know how to use them to serve the people and keep the peace. During the civil rights struggle of the sixties, the president was able to move military forces into the areas of conflict to prevent bloodshed. The same was true during the Detroit riots in 1967 and multiple other civil disturbances throughout the United States over the years.
As the commander in chief of the military, the president has the power to move equipment and command military forces. The president is not a member of the military, because civilian rule of the military is very important to freedom. Instead, the president is to lead and respect the troops as a civilian leader. No president has the power to start a war without the approval of Congress, though the Constitution does give the president the power to respond quickly to threats and to temporarily declare martial law and suspend rights like freedom of the press and habeas corpus if there is an urgent threat. For instance, both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman were able to make quick decisions during World War II that made a huge difference. If President Roosevelt had been forced to wait for Congress to pass measures allowing the United States to honor Winston Churchill’s request for aid, the war might have ended badly. If President Truman had been required to seek congressional approval for deployment of the Tuskegee airmen or for the use of atomic weapons, an endless debate might have ensued and the entire civil rights movement and the end of the war might have been delayed. The founders were wise to allow the executive branch to efficiently exercise this kind of power in emergencies. Fortunately, the times when this has been required have been rare.
Another power of the president is the power of pardon, which allows the president to waive sentences when people are wrongly convicted or when there are mitigating circumstances. The president is forbidden to grant pardons only in cases of impeachment, as that might involve a conflict of interest and would negate the legislative branch’s power of impeachment. When used wisely, the power to pardon serves mercy and justice. However, voters should carefully track pardons granted by the president, because the power can be abused.
The Constitution also grants the president the power to make treaties and other agreements with foreign powers. Although the president approves and gets credit for these treaties, legions of hardworking public servants laboring under the direction of the secretary of state actually hammer out the agreements. Because the treaties often have significant implications for the economy or safety of the United States, they must be approved by two thirds of the Senate before they are activated. There are a host of foreign agreements that do not reach the level of importance of an international treaty, and these can be activated with only the signature of the president and do not require congressional approval.
The president is also allowed to nominate individuals to occupy important governmental positions. For example, the president appoints Supreme Court justices, federal judges, cabinet officers, the federal communications commissioner, high military officials, and the directors of the National Institutes of Health, Federal Reserve Board, Interstate Commerce Commission, and Atomic Energy Commission.
Of course, the president does not personally know all of the best candidates for these kinds of positions. To make sure good candidates are chosen, teams of researchers evaluate candidates and then make recommendations to the president. Due to their importance, all of these positions must be approved by a majority vote in the Senate. If a critical position requiring congressional approval becomes vacant while Congress is in recess, the president is permitted to make an interim appointment to fill the position until such time as Congress is able to reassemble and approve or reject the appointment.
Appointments don’t always go unopposed. In the early 1990s President George H. W. Bush nominated Judge Clarence Thomas to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Many members of Congress were opposed to the nomination because Thomas was a conservative and was black. Many members of the progressive political class have difficulty accepting the concept of a black conservative. People who are truly objective and fair realize that anyone has a right to formulate his or her political ideas regardless of racial identity. I hope that at some point in the near future, we as a nation can get beyond this foolishness. After what the Washington Post called one of the most contentious and public confirmation hearings in American history,1 Thomas was confirmed, but many deep wounds were opened, with implications lasting even until today.
The Constitution also refers to inferior officers who can be appointed by the president or his designees without congressional approval. Congress has vested in the president the power to put in place people with whom he or she feels comfortable working in order to accomplish important goals and objectives. Many of these appointees will also hire their own staffs, who will also technically be considered part of the executive branch.
The vast majority of these government jobs are “civil service” jobs and are available to any American citizen capable of passing the requisite examination for the job. Usually those with the highest scores are awarded the jobs. This is a vast improvement over the old “spoils systems,” in which government jobs were rewards for political supporters.
Unfortunately, the number of civil-service jobs, in both the executive and the legislative and judicial branches, has grown out of control. The federal budget represents a significant portion of the gross domestic product, partly because of ov
ersized staffs and partly because of redundancy and waste. Some years ago I was involved as an expert witness in a government case, and I was told that I could charge whatever amount of money I wanted to charge. I have encountered others with similar accounts of what they were told, and it was quite distressing to me to realize that people were playing fast and loose with hard-earned taxpayer dollars. This is not a Democratic or Republican problem; rather it is an American problem that needs to be addressed soon, before we further compromise the future of our nation.
Some will argue that the livelihoods of so many Americans depend on government jobs that it would be cruel to cut back on government positions. It is true that many of these jobholders have done nothing wrong, and we must use compassion in dealing with their careers. That said, a change must happen. The logical solution is to reduce government size by attrition. Thousands of government employees retire every year, and we would be wise not to replace them. Critical positions that are vacated could be filled by shifting people from other positions in the government who had the requisite skills. If this were done for a few years, substantial reductions in government payroll could be accomplished without firing innocent people. The president would still have powers of appointment, but the number of unnecessary positions would be reduced.
With all of the powers of the office, the president of the United States is the most powerful person in the world. Bearing in mind the danger of being corrupted by such power, a wise president will organize a carefully selected group of advisers, called the cabinet, referred to in section 2 of Article 2 as the group of “the principal Officer[s] of each of the executive Departments.” Currently the cabinet consists of the secretary of state, secretary of the treasury, secretary of defense, attorney general, secretary of the interior, secretary of agriculture, secretary of commerce, secretary of labor, secretary of health and human services, secretary of housing and urban development, secretary of transportation, secretary of energy, secretary of education, secretary of veterans affairs, and secretary of homeland security. There are also several other cabinet-level positions, including White House chief of staff, director of the Office of Management and Budget, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, trade representative, ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and administrator of the Small Business Administration.
The book of Proverbs states that “in the multitude of counselors is safety,” and the founders were wise to suggest a group of advisers. Power wielded alone is dangerous, and a wise chief executive will listen to people who agree with him, as well as those who have other opinions, in order to make the wisest possible choice.
PRESIDENTIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Under section 3 of Article 2, the president is responsible for communicating to the nation, making sure that crises are addressed, and seeing that the law of the land is executed. The president has quite a bit of leeway in how these duties are carried out, but the duties are not optional.
Each year the president reports to Congress on the “State of the Union” and suggests policy measures that he thinks might improve the nation’s welfare. This annual address is important for more than political reasons. The president acts as the end of a funnel of information gathered from the hundreds of thousands of federal employees throughout the world. These employees are involved in national defense, business and industry, finance, education, social services, science, and a host of other fields. The State of the Union address gives the president the opportunity to impart to Congress the important information he has gleaned, along with suggestions for the advancement of the country.
The president also has the ability to call special sessions of Congress in order to accomplish important business of the nation. For instance, special sessions were called by President Madison during the War of 1812, by President Lincoln to deal with the secession of the Southern states, and by President Roosevelt to reveal the first hundred days of the New Deal.
Section 3 of Article 2 of the Constitution specifically states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Notice that it does not say that he should take care that the laws with which he agrees be faithfully executed. The president and the rest of the executive branch cannot pick and choose the laws they wish to enforce while ignoring others. To do so is to renege upon their responsibilities to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.
If the president doesn’t carry out the required tasks faithfully, he or she can be impeached. If the president or any other members of the executive branch are found guilty of engaging in activities that are counterproductive to the well-being of America, they should be quickly removed from office before they inflict more damage. America’s leaders should be examples of integrity and high moral standards. When their behavior evokes shame rather than pride and becomes something that we don’t want to discuss in front of the children at the kitchen table, we should consider impeachment.
The founders of our nation understood that decency was a large part of good government. John Adams went so far as to state that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”2 What he was really saying is that we can maintain our freedom only when a certain degree of common decency and respect for one’s fellow man is present. If we have no values and principles upon which we can generally agree, it becomes every man for himself, and unity becomes a distant dream. Certainly the president should be the foremost example of that kind of integrity.
THE PRESIDENCY TODAY
Today our nation is in such shambles that it appears that almost anyone could do a better job of execution than the current leaders. The principal problem appears to be a lack of congruency between the president and the people. His goal seems to be a utopian society managed by the government, rather than the free, self-governing society that the founders left us. Americans want to be free, and the president’s approval ratings indicate that “we the People” do not agree with his goals. I pray that the next president will have a set of values that matches those of the majority of Americans. I pray that he will use his power to encourage the “can-do” attitude that characterized America’s rapid ascent to the pinnacle of the world.
CHAPTER 11
ARTICLE 3, THE JUDICIAL BRANCH
“The Lord demands accurate scales and balances; he sets the standards for fairness.”
Proverbs 16:11
From 1983 to 1984 I was the senior registrar in neurosurgery at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital of the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre in Perth, Western Australia. One evening that year my wife and I were driving down a long hill. At the base of that hill was a speed trap where the police ticketed just about everyone who picked up speed coming down the hill.
To say that the car we were driving was not capable of speeding would be a drastic understatement. It was a very economical four-cylinder model that was little more than a skateboard with a motor. Nevertheless, an officer stopped us and issued a speeding citation. I protested, stating that my car was not capable of the speed he accused us of, but to no avail. The officer suggested that I meet him in court, which I did.
I was quite sorry that I had gone to court when I witnessed how brutal the judge was. Most of the defendants had lawyers, and I was there by myself, regretting my decision. When it came time for me to approach the bench and explain my situation, I informed the judge that the police had been using radar equipment that operated on the Doppler effect. This meant that the signal could be substantially degraded by angulation such as we encountered on the hill. After further explanations, the judge simply said, “Case dismissed.” I felt vindicated and happy with the Australian judicial system that particular day.
When the American judicial system works well, the judges also listen to reason. As Article 3 makes clear, the duty of the judicial branch is to interpret the laws that are created by the le
gislative branch and enforced by the executive branch of government. Its job is to protect the people from overly aggressive executive and legislative branches of government that might from time to time forget that they are in fact the servants of the people rather than the rulers of the people.
The Supreme Court of the United States sits at the pinnacle of the federal judicial system and is responsible for the interpretation of laws. If Congress passes a law that violates the Constitution, the Supreme Court can strike it down. If there’s a question as to how exactly a law applies to a particular situation, the Court rules on that too.
Congress has the right to establish other federal courts that are less powerful than the Supreme Court but still have important duties. Most legal cases are handled in these “inferior” courts, which are any courts whose decisions can be appealed to a higher court. That includes all state courts and all federal courts besides the U.S. Supreme Court.
In order to make sure that judicial officials are not easily intimidated, the Constitution protects their salaries and in many cases gives them lifetime appointments. Unfortunately, this shielding can damage as well as preserve America’s freedoms. Some judges are so protected from the public’s reactions to their judgments that they’ve lost sight of the will of the people. There have been several instances where voters through a ballot referendum chose one thing, only to have judges come along, decide that the voters had no idea what they were talking about, and overturn the will of the voters.
A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties Page 12
