The first year of President Donald Trump's second term has been rife with examples of the president doing something previously believed to be illegal until it was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Now, two legal experts are arguing that the next Democratic president should take advantage of the new vastly expanded presidential powers sanctioned by the nation's highest court.
In a Friday article for Slate, legal journalists Mark Joseph Stern and Dahlia Lithwick laid out how the next Democrat to be elected president of the United States should govern in their first 24 hours, under the new legal boundaries SCOTUS granted the White House under the Trump administration. Stern argued that because SCOTUS has blessed the "unitary executive" theory that all powers delegated to the executive branch and federal agencies can be unilaterally exercised by the president, the next president — he named Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as a stand-in example — should take after Trump's example and "wield those powers aggressively."
"How does that cash out? First, let’s remember that the Supreme Court has now effectively granted the president authority to impound federal funds duly appropriated by Congress and to abolish federal agencies established and funded by Congress," Stern wrote. "I think that is terrible and anti-constitutional. But thanks to the Supreme Court, that is now the law. So let’s talk about what President AOC can do with those powers in 2029."
"On Day 1, she needs to impound ICE’s budget. She needs to refuse to spend the billions of dollars that Congress has appropriated to the agency and fire tens of thousands of immigration agents immediately, starting with those who committed acts of violence and discrimination — which, by that point, may be almost all of them," he continued. "Close as many immigrant detention facilities as possible and free the detainees."
Stern then argued that a Democratic president could then repurpose ICE's budget as a reparations fund for families of immigrants who were improperly deported or denied due process, release the names of all agents who broke the law and prosecute every lawbreaking agent for crimes who wasn't preemptively pardoned by Trump. He reminded readers that all of this would be "100 percent legal under the precedent established by Trump and the Supreme Court."
"Take these powers and use them to undo Trump’s legacy and really flood the zone," he added. "Blitz the country with these executive orders on Day 1 and dare anybody to stop you."
Lithwick agreed with Stern's points, and noted that while many Americans would like to see a return to "norms" that were violated during the Trump administration, Democrats constraining their own powers to adhere to norms after a norm-breaking Republican presidency would only cement the idea that Republicans are free to violate norms whenever they're in power. Stern agreed, and asserted that the only way norms can be restored is if Democrats demonstrate to Republicans what happens under a Democratic administration when they bulldoze all institutional guardrails.
"It can only work if Democrats give Republicans a taste of their own medicine and remind them why the norms were there in the first place," he said.
Click here to read Lithwick and Stern's full conversation.
